By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The number 2 and number 3 college football teams played each other on Saturday, a showcase game for the SEC and a contest with huge implications for the National Championship scene coming up in just a couple of months.

But there was another kind of showcase for the number 1 college football team in the nation.

The Clemson Tigers hung 73 points on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday, and while Tech was never going to be able to put up much of a fight, they managed a meager 7 points, losing by 66 to the number 1 ranked team in the country.

That score might give you pause and reasonably so: you aren’t the only person wondering if Clemson ran up the score on a lesser team just to show off and build up stats; but the things that they pretty clearly weren’t.

It wasn’t as though the Tigers left their first-string players in the game while the scored touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after…well, you get the point.

No, it was Clemson’s second-string scoring on Tech’s first-string; the Tigers were showcasing nearly their entire team as the game progressed – getting experience to the inexperienced.

In fact, primary backup quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei didn’t even see any snaps after Trevor Lawrence was subbed out of the game. Coach Dabo Sweeney went with their third-string QB instead (Uiagalelei had some shoulder soreness, but still).

So, while the cries of running up the score are understandable given the 66-point score differential, the truth of the matter is that Clemson – the whole squad – was just that much better than the Yellow Jackets – they were on the same field by they were barely playing the same game.

The offensive, the defense, the special teams; the Tigers’ depth chart was in play and dominating. Third stringers were thriving up and down the gridiron. Tech simply wasn’t on Clemson’s level.

Circling back to Lawrence; the young QB obviously had an incredible game. His 404 yards and 5 first-half touchdown passes were career bests, the 52 points he led the Tigers to in the first two quarters was a new school record.

Irrelevant footnote: Lawrence’s first-quarter interception was his first since last October, breaking a streak of 366 completed passes without one.

That’s a fun fact in and of itself, but it’s representative of the level of excellence at which Lawrence has been playing football in 2020.

During the first five games of the season (in which the Tigers have unsurprisingly gone 5-0), Lawrence has completed over 70% of his passes along with 1,544 yards, 15 touchdowns, and 4 rushing touchdowns and remember that he just threw his first interception of the season in a 73-7 victory against a fellow ACC team.

For a young man who has already announced that he’ll be entering the draft after this season, he is rising the hell out of his own stock and it’s always been pretty high (Clemson is 30-1 in games that Lawrence starts).

Perhaps the craziest part of this drumming of Georgia Tech is the fact that half of this article has been devoted to the massive accomplishments of a quarterback who left the game after the first drive of the second half. That’s how impressive he and the rest of the team were on Saturday.

So, while Alabama and Georgia can battle it out until the cows come home Clemson made a statement to them – you’re only playing for second best.