The Georgia-Clemson season opener is one of the most anticipated games of the 2021 season. And College GameDay will be on hand for the Week 1 contest, as ESPN announced it will be in Charlotte on Sept. 4.

Georgia is no stranger to College GameDay, with the popular pregame show setting up at two games featuring the Bulldogs in 2020. College GameDay was in Athens, Ga., for the Georgia-Auburn game and then in Tuscaloosa, Ala., for the Alabama-Georgia contest. The Bulldogs beat Auburn before falling to Alabama 41-24.

Clemson played in four games that were featured on College GameDay last season, with the Tigers going 3-1 in those contests.

Georgia and Clemson will meet for the first time since 2014 on Sept. 4 and both teams should be ranked in the top-10 in the country when they take the field.

This will be the first time Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney meet as head coaches.

Smart spoke on Tuesday about his own excitement for the opener.

“For me, to play in a market like Charlotte where we recruit, a market like Atlanta, where we’re going to play next year, if we’re not playing there, somebody else is,” Smart said. “So we want to take advantage of it and go play. I know you don’t believe this, but it’s not just about the wins and losses. It’s really about the opportunity because people want to play in those games.”

It will also pit two Southern California quarterbacks against each other in Georgia’s JT Daniels and Clemson’s DJ Uiagalelei. Both have some starting experience, with Daniels starting the final four games of the 2020 season. Uiagalelei started two games while filling in for Trevor Lawrence.

“Obviously, it’s a huge game. It’s Clemson-Georgia, it’s two really good teams,” Daniels said when speaking to reporters on Tuesday. “But I think the biggest thing for us as a team, as much as we get hyped for it, because it’s Georgia-Clemson, it’s a Week 1 game. You can win Week 1, you can beat Clemson by 100 and have a terrible season, you could lose to Clemson by 100 and have a great rest of the season.”

Smart

The Georgia-Clemson game is set for a 7:30 p.m. ET kick and the game will air on ABC. Georgia won 45-21 when the two teams met in 2014.

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