By Hale McGranahan.

ATLANTA – The defense held up its end of the bargain.

In Saturday’s 28-6 loss at Bobby Dodd Field, Clemson limited Georgia Tech to a season-low 353 yards of total offense. The Tiger defense, which entered Saturday’s game as the No. 1 unit in the country, also kept the Yellow Jackets rushing attack out of the end zone, something that hasn’t happened since BYU came to town in 2012.

“Obviously, we weren’t good enough today as a team to win,” defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. “Georgia Tech played well and they executed when they had to.”

The lone touchdown scored by Georgia Tech’s offense, a 5-yard pass from Justin Thomas to DeAndre Smelter, was the result of a busted coverage.

“Jayron (Kearse) is out there all by himself and that’s not on Jayron,” Venables said.

Thomas’ third-down touchdown pass setup by his 65-yard run, the first play of the second half.

“They out-executed us on that drive. It wasn’t anything that we didn’t do necessarily, except for the touchdown throw,” Venables said. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance on that, but they did a good job of execution, getting hats and targeting, taking good angles.”

Of Georgia Tech’s five trips to the red zone, three ended with field goals and another finished with a turnover.

“To hold them on fourth-down and things like that, to give them field goals,” DeShawn Williams said, “That just speaks a lot about our defense and we’ve matured a lot more.”

Grady Jarrett, who was second among Clemson defenders with seven tackles, was disappointed with the performance by the entire team.

“We didn’t get what we needed done, as a team, today,” he said. “We can’t worry about it now. We’ve got to finish strong and get good postseason play, but these next two games are going to be crucial.

“We still have an opportunity to be the winningest senior class in Clemson history with two wins in these next two weeks, so we’ve still got a lot ahead of us. We’ve got to put this one behind and keep working.”