It’s a steamy August night, and one side of Bank of America stadium’s orange, and the other side’s red.

Georgia’s coming off another year of not winning a National Championship, and Clemson’s just celebrated another one, beating Ohio State in a firecracker of a game.

Now they get together to start the 2021 College Football season. It’s the game that everyone’s been talking about since the National Championship ended in January.

Some might say that the powers-that-be in the SEC should have gotten this game earlier, by giving a ton of money to Clemson to move to the SEC East, and forgetting about Missouri altogether. Still, it didn’t happen, and the rest is history.

Anyway, the present. Both sets of fans, not particularly reeling from losing out on their home openers against Wyoming and San Jose State respectively, are very excited. They’ll been partying here since Thursday. They’ve all paid well over $100 to be at the game, and some have dropped a hell of a lot more than that. As usual, the students are getting screwed for the amount of tickets. The powers-that-be for this game ‘generously’ gave 3,000 tickets for each student section, and those who have tickets are asked to play $50 for them (But hey, they are still important, right?).

But regardless, this one’s going to be special.

We wince a little that this one’s not a home-and-home. We would love to see 2021 in Athens and 2020 in the ‘Other’ Death Valley, but the millionaires came to these two programs’ door, and they welcomed it with open arms.

With Clemson, it’s a game that they can barely afford to lose bearing in mind the continuing weakness of the ACC, while Georgia can actually afford to lose it, bearing in mind the SEC is still absolutely loaded.

They look out onto the green fields at giants of the game. Clemson’s ghosts are for the world to see. Trevor Lawrence has packed off to the San Diego Chargers, and the team’s also said goodbye to Travis Etienne, Amari Rodgers and Justyn Ross. Georgia has said goodbye to a couple of players, but they are perhaps more stacked than their Northern neighbors this time, as Clemson counts the cost of years of great-great teams, and Georgia continues to pile up their embarrassment of riches.

Georgia’s starting redshirt senior Stetson Bennett, and since Zamir White decided to stay, he’s got a Heisman hopeful in his backfield, and isn’t missing the fact that Zach Evans is playing his second year at evil rivals, Florida. Bennett will throw the ball to top receiver Dominick Blaylock to test Clemson’s secondary. Bennett will have problems trying to deal with Clemson’s battle-tested defensive line, which are all looking like future NFL first rounders, like the guys who beat the crap out of Alabama in 2019.

For Clemson, DJ Uiagalelei’s starting his first full season. He’s got a cannon to challenge Georgia’s young secondary. He tore it up doing clean-up last year, but after the transfer of Taisun Phommachanh to LSU, he’s got the starting job. Lyn-J Dixon and Darien Reacher both decided to come back for one more season. They had gotten some glory sitting behind Etienne last season, but will test Georgia’s front. DJ’s top target will be Joseph Negata, who was one of the top wide receivers last year and could cause havoc in the secondary.

It’s going to be a cracker.

PREDICTION: Georgia 31, Clemson 20.

LSU has hired former St Louis Rams head coach Scott Linehan to be its new passing game coordinator.

Linehan will replace Joe Brady, who put together a stunningly brilliant offense, won the SEC and then the National Championship in convincing fashion. Brady is now the offensive coordinator at the Carolina Panthers, where he will work for former Baylor head coach Matt Rhule.

Linehan is hardly the young mind that Brady was. He’s had a 30-year career both at NFL and college level

Linehan started in 1989 with Idaho before moving onto Washington and Louisville, before he landed a NFL job as OC for the Minnesota Vikings and the Miami Dolphins, before becoming the head coach of the St Louis Rams between 2006 and 2008. He then went back to being the Detroit Lions OC, before coming to JerryWorld to be the Dallas Cowboys’ passing game coordinator 2014 and then offensive coordinator between 2015 and January 2019.

What will be slightly worrisome to LSU fans is that Linehan’s adjustment back into college football, where the hours are worse, and most of them are taken not only coaching but sucking up to 16 year-old high school stars in an effort to get them to play big-time SEC Football. He hasn’t done that in 19 years. Then there’s also the fact that Linehan hasn’t had a job in the SEC before, which has certainly irked some in the past.

That’s not to say that Linehan hasn’t worked with SEC products in the passing game, though, having spent time with Dak Prescott (Mississippi State) and before that Matt Stafford (Georgia). Both of them will bring the pedigree that QB recruits will see.

The biggest thing that Linehan will be replacing Joe Burrow. Myles Brennan will be the frontrunner for the job, although dual-threat QB Peter Parrish, who arrived in 2019, as well as four-star Max Johnson from Georgia and 3-star Louisiana resident TJ Finley who came along in the 2020 class are also in the hunt.

Linehan will bring a small battery of excellent receivers back, with J’Marr Chase and Terrace Marshall Jr leading the way.

He will work with current OC Steve Ensminger. The news comes hot on the heels of LSU’s hiring of Samford OC/quarterbacks coach Russ Callaway as an analyst, Tyler Tettleton, who held the job of former quality control on offensive with the Cleveland Brown on the offensive side. Tettleton was also a grad assistant under Lincoln Riley before getting a scout job with the New York Jets and then Cleveland the year after.

If recruiting had a National Championship, Georgia will be in the Top 4 year in, year out.

For the 2020 class, Georgia would have topped the lot.

After taking in 4 5-star recruits and 15 four-star recruits – including 6-5, 298lb OT Broderick Jones – who may well start now Cade Mays has transferred to Tennessee – and 6-4, 305lb OC Sedrick Van Pray – today, UGA cemented its ranking at the top.

The Bulldogs’ class was highlighted the best corner in the nation – Kelee Ringo – deciding to head for Athens. He was fourth on 24-7’s composite player ranking.

Last year UGA had the country’s No.2 recruiting class, and in 2018 the Bulldogs locked in the No.1 class. In 2017 they were No.3.

While recruiting rankings in itself are utterly meaningless, they are an interesting way to look at a head coach’s success a few years down the line.

Although Kirby Smart has constantly been ‘in the Top 4’ for recruiting, the Bulldogs have made it one National Championship Game, won 1 SEC title, and won three SEC East titles. In 2019 they were destroyed by LSU in the SEC Championship Game, and they lost in heartbreaking circumstances to Alabama the year before.

Away from that, the SEC destroyed all-comers in the Top 10 of the recruiting rankings. Alabama was in second, Clemson third, LSU fourth and Texas A&M fifth.

Interestingly, Alabama had a bit of a kick in the footballs today when Alabama commit Jayson Jones decided to go to Oregon – coached by former Saban disciple Mario Cristobal – rather than Tuscaloosa, CB Ennis Rakestraw (who went to Missouri, prompting the best reaction for a commitment from Missouri HC Eli Drinkwitz in the history of man), and DL McKinnley Jackson, who opted for Texas A&M instead.

Auburn, Florida, Texas and Tennessee were also in the Top 10.

Although Florida took two massive hits, with the No.2 safety in the nation Avantae Williams, deciding on Miami rather than Gainseville, and four-star running back Jahmyr Gibbs opting to stay with Georgia Tech instead of going to the Gators, Dan Mullen still had a major D-Line pick-up with four-star DE four-star defensive end Princely Umanmielen deciding to play in the SEC instead of Baylor.

Auburn got Juco DT Marquis Burks, while Tennessee grabbed four-star WR Malachi Wideman, taking advantage of the horror show that is Florida State football at the moment. The Vols beat out Florida for athlete Dee Beckwith.

Elsewhere in the SEC….

• South Carolina got five-star DL Jordan Burch as well as the nation’s No.1 JUCO running back in ZaQuandre White (he also looked at Tennessee and Arkansas).
• Kentucky got four-star RB Michael Drennan II.
• Arkansas grabbed four-star QB Malik Hornsby, who could immediately start in the Sam Pittman era, bearing in mind how awful the Razorbacks were. Pittman also got 3-star OL Jalen St John (over Missouri), four-star OG Marcus Henderson (over Missouri and Ole Miss)
• Ole Miss got two O-Line recruits – three-star Brady Ward (over Arkansas and Oklahoma, amongst others), and OT Cedric Melton (over Texas Tech and Houston).
• Mississippi State got three-star WR Rufus Harvey, a small-but-useful signing start to the Mike Leach era.