By Ed McGranahan.

A riff required triage attention during Clemson’s game at Georgia, the kind if not addressed swiftly that can eat a team from inside out.

“I think defensively we got a little pouty the other night,” Dabo Swinney said Tuesday.  “They were worried about what the offense was
doing.”

Enough issues surfaced in Georgia’s 45-21 win that everybody shared blame for Clemson’s meltdown in the fourth quarter when the Bulldogs turned a close game into a rout with three touchdowns in the final 11 minutes.

Offensive coordinator Chad Morris counted 31 missed assignments after Clemson’s 50th snap. Defensive coordinator Brent Venables identified 13 missed tackles in Georgia’s final 15 plays. And that didn’t include the missed field goal, three dropped passes and Georgia’s 100-yard kickoff return in the first half.

Few – including the coaches – could be absolved, but Swinney, Venables and the team leadership apparently worked quickly to cauterize a potentially bigger wound.

“I believe it’s being addressed as we speak,” said senior tackle Grady Jarrett, one of the most respected of all Clemson players. “And I highly doubt we’ll have an effort problem again. It’s inexcusable.”

The home opener this week with South Carolina State should offer a modest opportunity for absolution, though the staff should address the potential for looking ahead to the Sept. 20 game at Florida State.  Clemson, now 23rd in the AP poll, won last season’s game 52-13 and has a 28-0 record against Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools..

“They better get dialed in or they’re going to get beat this week,” Swinney said, assuring, “That’s not remotely in our minds.”

Clemson trailed 24-21 entering the fourth quarter, Georgia had hung only 17 on the defense and the Tigers had mounted a representative run game.

“I was excited,” Venables said. “It was a three-point game on the road in a tough, hostile environment. It felt like you had every opportunity to win the game based on how (it) was going.

“Come the fourth quarter this was going to be about will, about toughness.”

Poor field position had dogged Clemson from the outset. A drive right before halftime put Clemson in range for a field goal. There’s no
calculating the cost in momentum when Ammon Lakip missed a 35-yarder, “a big kick” Swinney said because it would be Clemson’s final chance to score.

“When it’s our turn we have to perform no matter what the offense is doing,” Jarrett said. “That’s what we’ve got to get past.
“As long as we’re keeping points off the board we give them a better chance to get going,” he said. “That’s on us.”

After starting drives at the 23, 7, 20 and 8 to open the half, Clemson flipped the field with a 60-yard punt to the Georgia 18 with 12:56 to play. Georgia needed six plays to cover the 82 yards with Todd Gurley running 38 on second down and the final 18 for a 31-21 lead with 10:26 to play.

Still it was reasonable to think Clemson could retrieve momentum, yet the final three possessions all began inside the 20 and ended after three plays and a punt.

“It wasn’t frustration with the offense that led to our break down at the end of the game,” Jarrett said. “Our issues and the offense’s issues are totally separate.

“As a football player no one should ever question your effort.”

Venables said he exhausted the two-deep and then some to keep the relatively rested players on the field. End Corey Crawford and corner Garry Peters rejoin them this week after serving suspensions for violating team rules, which should make them more useful in Tallahassee.

“We have the right guys,” Venables said. “I have no reservation about our guys, their character (and) their toughness. “Hopefully we’ve learned a lesson from it.

Swinney agreed.

“I think we have great talent and really good people that care on our defense,” he said. “I expect us to drastically improve and learn from what happened the other night.”

Venables after the game was disgusted but softened to “humbling.”

“We lost the game. We failed,” he said. “There’s a lot of blame to go around.”

And as much as it pains him, “Sometimes you’ve got to give the other team some credit. I hate to do it.”