By Will Vandervort / Photo Courtesy Clemson University.
Here is the first key if 12th-ranked Georgia wants to knock off No. 16 Clemson on Aug. 30th in Athens, Ga. Make sure the bus driver does not drop off the Tigers near Georgia’s traditional “Dawg Walk.”
The “Dawg Walk” is a tradition that features the Georgia football players walking through a gathering of fans and the Redcoat Band near the Tate Student Center as they enter Sanford Stadium.
When Clemson opened up the 2012 football season in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic against Auburn, Dabo Swinney was certain the Chick-fil-A officials dropped his team off at the wrong spot because there were no Clemson fans to be seen.
It might have been “Tiger Walk” but it appeared to be Auburn’s “Tiger Walk.”
“It was the doggone darndest thing I had ever seen,” Swinney recalled. “I was worried about my guys then.”
Swinney did not repeat the words and gestures being sent his way as they walked through the entire convention center just a couple of hours before that evening’s kickoff in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.
“It was like fan day. I remember walking in the door and I’m thinking it is going to be all the Clemson fans but boy, I had to cover Kath’s ears and hide my boys,” Swinney joked. “I was sitting there going, ‘They have screwed it up. They have dropped us off at the wrong place.’
“For the first ten minutes of the walk, it was all Auburn. It was not real nice.”
Eventually it flipped and Swinney and the Tigers started seeing that friendly Tiger Paw on some faces, shirts and hats.
“The back half (of the line) was Clemson,” he said. “That is just part of it and to be honest with you that helped our guys get a little bit more focused out of the gate coming into that situation.”
It did get Clemson going as it took a 3-0 lead early on thanks to a Chandler Catanzaro 24-yard field that completed a 13-play, 83-yard drive. Clemson led 13-10 at halftime and then scored the game’s last 10 points in the fourth quarter for a 26-19 victory over Auburn.
It will be a little different this year, regardless of where the Tigers are dropped off, “Between the Hedges” in Athens. Though there will be some wearing Tiger Paws on their hats and clothes, the majority of the 93,000 fans at Sanford Stadium will be supporting the Bulldogs.
It will mark the first time since 2002 Clemson has opened a football season with a true road game. Coincidently, that game was also at Georgia as Clemson missed a last-second field goal that could have forced overtime.
“It is different when you go to a place that is one hundred percent against you or ninety-eight percent or whatever,” Swinney said. “But our guys and I say this again – this is a veteran team and they have been in all kinds of situations. That’s what you have to rely on, but at the end of the day it is not about any of that. If it is about that you are going to lose.
“If it is about the crowd and all of that, then you get beat and you are not ever going to win if you go on the road. It has to be about your preparation, your execution and doing things that you do to win.”
Clemson is 9-11-2 all-time in true road openers and has not won one since David Treadwell kicked a 46-yard field with no time on the clock to beat Virginia Tech, 20-17, in 1985. Ironically, the last time Clemson beat Georgia in Athens was a year later as Treadwell nailed a 49-yard field goal as time expired.
Though Treadwell will not be on the Clemson team this year when the Tigers make the 70-mile hike to Athens, Swinney says he might try to get him on the Clemson sidelines at least.
“We might fly that ole’ boy back from Denver and bring him in. He nailed two-game winners against them,” Swinney said with a smile. “Man! Let’s call Treadwell and see if he can come and hang on the sidelines with us or something.”
Treadwell beat Georgia in 1987, too, with a 21-yard field goal with two seconds left on the clock.