Not all of my ideas are original, and certainly the following is not a novel thought:
Clemson and Georgia need to play every year.
In football.
Period.
The thought occurred to me while reading the news that teams' scheduled meetings in 2013 and 2014 will be the season-openers in Death Valley and Sanford Stadium, respectively.
I'm already excited about those games, and I'd bet a number of you are as well. I'd also assume a bunch of folks out there are like me in deeming it an abject shame that a full decade will have passed between meetings of these two old rivals.
My understanding, based on explanations from former Georgia AD Vince Dooley years ago, is that Georgia's neutral-site game with Florida mucks things up and makes it difficult to schedule a regular home-and-home with Clemson. Georgia needs the revenue from a seventh home game, and playing Clemson regularly would mean the loss of that revenue every other year.
But the logic doesn't make sense to me in view of Georgia's non-conference games in recent years. Off the top of my head, the Bulldogs have engaged in home-and-home arrangements with Arizona State, Colorado and Oklahoma State.
Since the teams' last meeting in 2003, Clemson has managed home-and-home dates with Texas A&M and Auburn.
A 12-game regular season is what allowed the Canines and Felines to meet in 2002 and 2003, resuming the rivalry for the first time since 1995.
The 2006 season brought the resumption of the 12-game schedule, and the idea was to cultivate more attractive cross-sectional and inter-conference matchups.
Clemson-Georgia is precisely the sort of matchup that should be enabled by this setup. And it should happen every single year.
Tell me what rivalry in college football was better from 1977 to 1991, when the two teams battled to a 6-6-1 draw.
Nine of those 13 meetings were decided by a touchdown or less. Five of them were decided by three points or less.
Georgia won on a 60-yard field goal in 1984. Clemson won on last-second field goals in 1986 and 1987.
Over a four-season stretch from 1980 to 1983, Georgia lost two regular-season games with one tie. Clemson was responsible for one of the losses (1981) and the tie (1983).
In 1978, 1981, 1982 and 1983, Clemson's aggregate record was 41-3-2. Two of the three losses, and one of the two ties, were against the Doggies.
The pinnacle of the rivalry was 1980-83. Georgia won the national title in 1980, Clemson won it in 1981, and the two teams hooked up for the 1982 season opener in titanic matchup in Athens (Georgia won, 13-7).
In that era, a number of Clemson players considered Georgia a bigger rival than South Carolina. That gives you an idea of how big it was.
Clearly, both programs are a long way from the aforementioned dominance and glory; they're both still shell-shocked over 6-7 seasons in 2010, and neither of these proud programs should ever have losing records.
But they're still separated by just 78.3 miles of asphalt, and there's really no excuse for them not to trade trips on that asphalt on a yearly basis.
It might not be an easy thing to work out, but it can happen if they really want it to happen.
Get it done.
LW
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