CHARLOTTE, N.C. —At one point during his stellar effort on Saturday night, Nakobe Dean turned to freshman linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson and got a little emotional.
“It was crazy. It felt good to have everybody back. It felt great,” Dean said. “I missed this. I missed this atmosphere, I missed this feeling. I was basically telling (him) how grateful he was because he didn’t have to play in a stadium that was empty.”
Saturday’s game was the first time the Bulldogs played in front of a capacity crowd since January of 2020. So to return to a full stadium against the No. 3 team in the country only added to the excitement Georgia fans were willing to display for their team.
The No. 5 Bulldogs rode the emotion to a 10-3 win over Clemson. It seemed close to a 50-50 split inside Bank of America Stadium on Saturday between Georgia fans and Clemson fans, but the Bulldog faithful made their presence felt.
By the fourth quarter, it really started to feel a little like Sanford Stadium. Georgia fans once again took out their cell phones and lit up the stadium to start the fourth quarter, as has become tradition at any Georgia night game.
The Who’s Baba O’Riley was played just after Clemson scored its first points of the game, giving the Bulldogs a little more juice heading into the final minutes of the game.
Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs even got to celebrate with fans at the end of the game. Smart jumped up on the metal Georgia bench to revel in the massive win for Georgia.
“I was nervous about that jump,” Smart said. “If I slip, this will be on every camera in America and will be on Not-Top-10. I felt like our fans didn’t get the attention they needed.”
Related: Kirby Smart: 10-3 win over Clemson ‘electric,’ but offense must improve
Smart provided some more thoughts on the matchup and how it felt like how a matchup between top-5 teams should feel.
The fact that it was the first full-stadium game for the Bulldogs in so a long time only added to the electricity that was in the Charlotte air on Saturday night.
“I thought the atmosphere was incredible,” Smart said. “It reminded me of a playoff or conference championship-type atmosphere. It was special.”
The win for Georgia was the first over a program that had won a national championship since the advent of the College Football Playoff. The defensive effort gave Georgia fans plenty of reasons to be excited, as Clemson was held to its lowest scoring output of the Dabo Swinney era.
Related: How the Georgia football pass rush ‘frustrated and confused’ Clemson’s offense
But the offense likely left many Georgia fans unsatisfied. The passing offense, in particular, was far from ideal. JT Daniels threw for only 135 yards and an interception. It was the first time since becoming the team’s starter that Daniels hadn’t thrown a touchdown.
Daniels knows the Georgia offense must get better if it is going to play in another electric atmosphere like the one Georgia participated in on Saturday.
But he’s also not taking the events of Saturday for granted.
“Do I have a half and half feeling? Hell no. We just beat Clemson,” Daniels said. “I’m happy.”
Now, the Bulldogs will get ready to head back to a packed Sanford Stadium and take on UAB this coming Saturday.
And it should once again be a great atmosphere for Georgia to feed off of.
