Georgia and Clemson Broke Up Before the First Date

GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Wednesday, September 23, 2026

The home-and-home set for 2029 and 2032 is off before anybody bought a ticket, while a wounded Oklahoma limps toward Athens.

ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk

Georgia and Clemson have called off a football series that did not exist yet, which is a modern accomplishment if ever there was one. On3 reported the schools mutually canceled their home-and-home set for 2029 and 2032, with athletic directors Josh Brooks and Graham Neff both putting their names to it. Think about that. It takes one signature to schedule a football game and two to make certain one never happens. Georgia and Clemson managed to break up before the first date, and filed the paperwork to prove it.

The reasons are the usual suspects. The SEC is moving to a nine-game conference schedule, the College Football Playoff is expected to expand again, and somewhere in that arithmetic four Saturdays of Georgia-Clemson stopped adding up. Brooks hinted back in May the games might move to neutral sites instead, which is athletic-director for a dome, a sponsor, and a bigger check. I understand the math. I'd only note that the games nobody cancels are the ones played in somebody's actual stadium, on somebody's actual grass, with somebody's actual student section hollering.

It takes one signature to schedule a football game and two to make certain one never happens.

The team actually coming to Athens has problems more immediate than 2029. Oklahoma arrives Saturday having fallen clean out of the AP Top 25 — the preseason No. 10 Sooners have scored 24 points total across their last two games against Michigan and New Mexico. Worse, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that star defensive tackle David Stone hurt a knee, and his status for Saturday is uncertain. That's a hard lick for the defense that has carried a 2-1 team this far, mostly by itself.

Kirby Smart, for his part, is not piling on. Asked Monday about Oklahoma's offensive struggles, he told reporters it isn't his job to evaluate and criticize, which is what a man says when he has already found the film that worries him. That film is John Mateer's legs. Smart said the quarterback's athleticism pops out at you, that he's hard to tackle, that he breaks tackles running inside and outside. When a coach declines to discuss your weaknesses and volunteers your strengths, he has been studying you rather closely.

Elsewhere, the league spent the weekend eating its own. Kentucky walked into College Station a 17-point underdog and beat Texas A&M 31 to 21, and Mike Elko admitted afterward the Wildcats were simply the more physical team. Lane Kiffin took LSU back to Oxford and lost to his old outfit, 32 to 24, with Ole Miss sealing it on a fourth-down interception. Every one of those losses clears a little more brush from Georgia's road, which is the polite way of saying the Bulldogs are the last house on the block still standing.

Back home, they'll stripe Sanford Stadium in red and black for Saturday's 3:30 kickoff, only the second meeting ever between Georgia and Oklahoma. The No. 2 Bulldogs are 3-0, averaging 59.3 points a game and allowing 13.3, and even center Drew Bobo is feeling whole — Sports Illustrated reports he'll snap without the black club on his injured left hand for the first time all season. A team so healthy its center is shedding accessories. That is about as good as late September gets around here.

The Notebook

• MIRACLE ON A BOTCHED SAFETY: Vanderbilt 35, NC State 31. The Wolfpack tried to take an intentional safety with six seconds left, fumbled it instead, and the Commodores fell on the ball for the winning touchdown. You cannot write it any better, so nobody did.
• MEANWHILE IN BOULDER: Northwestern 41, Colorado 7, with four Buffalo turnovers. So much for the early-season momentum.
• THE SLATE: Notre Dame at the Boilermaker Welders, Saturday at 2, the Irish favored by 27 and a half — the desk calls it a lock. The honest game is the Webfoot Ducks at the Trojan Horsemen, Ducks by 3, a coin flip either way.

Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.

Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.