CLEMSON — It has been a minute since Clemson last played at the infamous Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta.

And yes, I meant to write “infamous.”

Bobby Dodd is infamous because college football’s oldest on-campus stadium has not been too nice to Clemson through the years.

In fact, the Tigers are just 12-38-1 all-time at Bobby Dodd, which was first called Grant Field from 1913-’87.

Bobby Dodd coached the Yellow Jackets from 1945-’66, while posting a 165-64-8 record in his 22 years. He won a national championship and two SEC titles before the school left the SEC in 1964.

Dodd’s record against Clemson was an impressive 8-1, as Georgia Tech was a powerhouse in college football in those days.

Besides having his name on a national landmark, the Bobby Dodd Trophy, which is awarded to the National Coach of the Year each season, is also named in his honor.

But like I wrote, Bobby Dodd Stadium has not been too kind to Clemson through the years. The greatest example of this came from 2005-2014, when the Tigers lost five straight to the Yellow Jackets in the strangest of ways possible.

You can make an argument that Clemson was the better team in all five of those meetings, but as fate would have it, none of that mattered.

The Tigers found different ways to lose all five games, as weird things happened. Despite outplaying the Yellow Jackets, the Tigers settled for three field goals and lost by one point (10-9) in 2005.

In 2007, Clemson kicker Mark Buchholz missed four field goals and the Tigers had a punt blocked in a 13-3 loss. Two years later, Clemson rallied from a 24-0 deficit to tie that game and had the ball with a chance to win the game late when a questionable holding call on guard Thomas Austin negated a long pass to wide receiver Jacoby Ford.

Prior to that game, Austin had never been called for holding, and he was only called for one more the rest of his career, which also came against Georgia Tech later that season in the ACC Championship Game, and that too was a questionable call.

In 2011, Georgia Tech snapped Clemson’s 8-game winning streak in a dominant performance that saw Clemson running back Andre Ellington get hurt. In 2014, quarterback Deshaun Watson tore his ACL in the first half, and then the Yellow Jackets returned two interceptions off backup Cole Stoudt in another dominating win.

Even when the Tigers finally broke the streak in 2016, weird stuff happened.

Before the game, my boss (Robert MacRae) and I, plus several other members of the media, got on the elevator to head to the press box when the elevator suddenly stopped. We sat there for a few minutes before it finally went back down and stopped before we got completely to the floor. We opened the doors and were able to climb out of the elevator.

Needless to say we took the stairs after that incident.

Clemson won the game 26-7, but it was another strange game. A Georgia Tech defensive back intercepted a Watson pass in the end zone, but on the way out, fumbled the ball, which Tech recovered in the end zone for a Clemson safety.

The last time the Tigers played at Bobby Dodd Stadium was in 2020, the COVID season. Trevor Lawrence and the Tigers lit the Yellow Jackets up for a 73-7 victory. Lawrence, who is from the Atlanta area, ripped the Yellow Jackets for a 49-21 win in 2018, which subsequently was the last time most of the Clemson media saw a game at Bobby Dodd. So, it has been a minute for us too.

By the way, prior to Tech’s five straight home wins in the series from 2005-’14, Clemson won the 2001 and 2003 meetings there by scoring 47 points in a crazy overtime win in ’01 and then 39 points in a blowout victory in ’03, a game in which Clemson wore its purple jersey over white pants for the first time since the 1992 Citrus Bowl.

What does Bobby Dodd have in store for us this Saturday? Whatever it is, odds are, it will be something crazy.