By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort.
DeShawn Williams knows he is going to be seeing a lot of red Saturday afternoon at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga., he just hopes it is in the form of all the red jerseys and shirts 12th-ranked Georgia and its raucous fans will be wearing instead of the red color of blood.
Clemson’s senior defensive tackle remembers how physical last year’s game in Death Valley was and he expects Saturday’s 5:30 p.m. tussle on ESPN to be the same.
“It was very physical,” Williams said. “They play that style of SEC ball where they will try and pound you into submission.”
The Bulldogs pounded 16th-ranked Clemson last year to the tune of 222 yards on the ground and 545 yards overall, but in the end the Tigers’ defense found a way to get enough stops.
“Every play was a battle,” Williams said.
The biggest battle this time around is the same one as last year. Can Clemson slow down Georgia’s powerful running game? Though it appears on paper Clemson lost that battle last year, when looking more in depth, the defense actually won it for the most part.
Of course injuries helped a little bit, too. First Georgia’s best receiver Malcolm Mitchell went down with a torn ACL he suffered while celebrating Todd Gurley’s 75-yard touchdown in the first quarter. That took away Georgia’s best deep-threat.
Later on Gurley, who had a career-high 154 yards and two touchdowns in Clemson’s 38-35 win, was banged up, limiting his number of touches, again hurting the effectiveness of Georgia’s offense.
After Gurley and Mitchell went out of the game, the Tigers held Georgia to 90 total yards on the next eight possessions and seven of those were of the three-and-out variety.
With no deep threat and the running game not nearly effective, Clemson’s defense—led by All-American Vic Beasley—teed off on quarterback Aaron Murray. The Tigers sacked Murray four times, with Beasley getting two of those.
“We went into a period where we kind of got into a rhythm,” Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. “I know when you are not in rhythm they will kind of go up and down the field on you.”
Georgia head coach Mark Richt announced earlier this week that Mitchell along with fellow wide receiver Justin Scott-Wesley will not play against the Tigers. Mitchell is recovering from arthroscopic surgery he had on July 31 for the same knee he injured against Clemson. Scott-Wesley is serving a one-game suspension for a marijuana arrest earlier this year.
With Mitchell and Scott-Wesley—the Bulldogs two best receivers—out of the game, it figures to limit Georgia’s downfield passing game once again. Starters Chris Conley and Michael Bennett—the two receivers with the most experience on the roster—are not exactly ones that strike fear in opposing defensive backs minds.
“Sometimes you don’t have to have blinding speed to go deep, and sometimes it’s just a matter of getting off the jam and getting the guy cut off,” Richt said. “Not many guys just run away from people, but you know we have a good history of placing the ball where our guys can catch it.”
Most of the history in the last four years came from quarterback Aaron Murray, who is now in the NFL. Richt will be relying on Hutson Mason to place the ball where it is supposed to be on Saturday. Mason started the last two-and-a-half games last year after Murray went down with an injury that ended his season.
“We feel like Hutson is more than a capable quarterback and they will have the entire offense installed just like we are doing here,” Clemson defensive tackle Grady Jarrett said. “We don’t expect very much a drop off, but we know to beat Georgia, we have to stop the running game at the end of the day because that is their bread and butter.
“So that is the goal. Stop the run and clog up those holes.”
The good news for Mason is that Georgia has a healthy Gurley once again as well Keith Marshall, who is coming back from an ACL injury at Tennessee that prematurely ended his 2013 season as well.
“They have a really good running attack with two really good capable backs,” Jarrett said. “Gurley had a very productive game against us last year with a couple of big runs. That’s going to be the key. We have to limit those big runs.
“It is all going to come down to winning at the point of attack. It’s going to be our defensive line against their offensive line. We just have to win in the trenches to have a chance to win the game.”
In others words, the Tigers have to be more physical, again, against one of the more physical teams in the country.