Clemson has held Georgia Tech’s offense in check in recent years. Here’s how

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney declined to acknowledge that the Tigers have shut down Georgia Tech’s triple option offense in recent years when asked about it during his weekly press conference Tuesday, but it’s hard to argue with the results.

Georgia Tech has played 39 football games since the start of 2015 and has been held to 230 yards of total offense or less four times. Three of those four times came against Clemson.

Clemson-Georgia Tech will be at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC.

While Clemson has better talent than most of the teams Georgia Tech faces, Tigers defensive coordinator Brent Venables explained that it takes more than talent to stop the Yellow Jackets.

“I think it’s execution. I think our players have done a good job of understanding the plan and executing. It’s not like we’re not playing disciplined football,” Venables said. “If we’re not doing the little things right then (Paul Johnson will) expose you. It’s not like you’re overcoming a bunch of mistakes because you’ve got superior athletes. They make a lot of superior athletic teams look like fools and they have for a long time. It’s being very detailed and precise, physical, violent, disruptive and all of those things.”

Clemson has held Georgia Tech to its fewest total yards of the season in three of the past four years, holding the Yellow Jackets to a season-low 353 yards in 2014, 230 yards in 2015 and 124 yards in 2016.

The only year in the past four that the Tigers didn’t hold Georgia Tech to a season-low number of yards came in 2017 when Georgia held the Yellow Jackets to 226 yards, compared to 230 by Clemson.

The Tigers have held Georgia Tech to an average of 174 yards less than their season average over the past four seasons.

Swinney said that preparing for Georgia Tech’s offense throughout the year has helped the Tigers be successful.

“I learned real quick that if we’re going to have a chance, we’re gonna have to make this a part of what we do around here. And so we do,” Swinney said. “We get ready for all of our opponents every year, but they’re very unique, and so some of your base things don’t really apply. You’ve kinda gotta forget everything from a defensive standpoint.

“So yeah, we started a long time ago. Let’s have a Georgia Tech period in the spring. Have a Georgia Tech period during fall camp. Just enough to kind of teach the principles that we need and some of the fundamentals that you have to play with to have a chance. We certainly have gotten better over the years for sure.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2018 at 1:49 PM.