By Hale McGranahan.

The recruiting rivalry between Clemson and Georgia wasn’t cooked up in the last half decade by Dabo Swinney and Mark Richt.

The Tigers and Dawgs have been battling for years over some of the best players from Florida, Georiga and the Carolinas.

“I think we’re similar programs in a lot of ways, but I think just location, where we are,” Swinney said, “We’re closer to Georgia, but it would take me five hours to get to Myrtle Beach. I can be at my home in Alabama in less than five hours.”

Clemson and Athens are just 100 miles apart.

“I just think the location, with however many people in Atlanta just two hours from here, Georgia is a state that we recruit like it’s instate,” Swinney said.

When it comes to football talent, the Peach State has it in droves.

“We try to recruit very, very hard in that area. We’ve had a lot of success with Georgia kids that come here, so it’s just a natural thing that we’re going to spend a lot of time recruiting against Georgia,” Swinney said. “We are going to spend a lot of time recruiting kids from Georgia. There are so many in that state.”

So it’s no wonder Clemson goes head-to-head for recruits with Georgia more often than it does with South Carolina.

Plus, Athens and Clemson have a similar rural, college town kind of feel, while Columbia is much more urban.

“I think we’re similar in a lot of ways, as far as the type of campuses that we have and things like that whereas everybody thinks we recruit heavily head-to-head against South Carolina, we really don’t, not a whole lot,” Swinney said. “Every now and then you’ll have a kid in this state that is truly undecided, but not often.

“Most of the time — first of all, we don’t have that many in this state, but most of the time the kid’s either Clemson or South Carolina. If he wants to stay in state, it’s pretty obvious. Then, you have such differences in the campuses. We’re very different.

“Most of the time, if the kid really likes Clemson he’s probably not going to like Columbia. If he really likes Columbia, he’s probably not going to like Clemson. We don’t really recruit against them that much.”

The similarities between Clemson and Georgia don’t stop there. Among the others are the head coaches at each of the schools.

On the surface, Swinney and Richt appear to share many of the same values, religious beliefs and outlook on how a head coach is to run a nationally relevant program.

“That’s for other people to judge,” Swinney said. “I think they’ve got a good staff. I think coach Richt does a great job, but I think it’s just a natural recruiting rivalry. I think it’s always probably been that way, not just now.

“When coach (Danny) Ford was here, I imagine they recruited pretty hard against Georgia. I would think.”

Indeed. According to Clemson sports information director Tim Bourret, Clemson’s 1981 National Championship team had 22 players from the state of Georgia on its roster.

This thing runs deep, dates back much further than the lives of guys like Tony Steward, Charone Peake, Todd Gurley and Jay Rome. And it’s not stopping anytime soon.