If there is a God in Heaven, the 2021 college football season will be somewhat close to normal. Whatever normal is in this abnormal world today.

Perhaps the most anticipated game of the year will be the Sept. 4 season-opener for the SEC’s Georgia Bulldogs and ACC’s Clemson Tigers, the Duke’s Mayo Classic at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

With conference realignment on steroids, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney recently joked that Georgia will soon join the ACC. (Or is it now the Alliance?)

What will happen for the first time in years on Sept. 4 is a one-game renewal of an annual rivalry between two schools only 75 miles apart. Georgia fans once loathed Clemson fans as much as they loathe Florida fans. Ugly orange is one thing the two teams have in common that Georgia fans loathe. No one looks good in orange.

This of course calls for rivalry recollections from the Greatest Humorist and Most Rabid Georgia Bulldog and College Football Fan America Ever Produced, the Late, Great Lewis Grizzard.

In pseudo-chronological order:

When Grizzard was a 1967 UGA undergraduate working at the upstart Athens Daily News, he penned a column poking fun at Clemson legend Frank Howard’s thick Southern accent. Howard threatened to sue Lewis and the Daily News until he concluded neither the writer nor the young newspaper had any assets to seize that he wanted.

I find no record of what Lewis wrote about this or record of it anywhere. Yet I was a UGA undergrad in 1977 when Clemson beat Georgia 7-6 in Athens. It was the first time Clemson beat Georgia in Athens in 63 years. Clemson students got arrested for spray painting stenciled orange tiger paws on Athens buildings after the game.

From my vague recollection, a Clarke County judge said something to the effect of, “Our Bulldogs beat your Tigers at your place last year 41-0 and did not damage Clemson property. As penance, you can come back to Athens on weekends while wearing orange jumpsuits to scrub off your tiger paws for all the world to see.”

On Sept. 24, 1977, Grizzard wrote a column that put Clemson’s Esso Club on the map. Lewis once went there pregame and had so much fun he skipped going into the stadium. Frank Howard’s son Jimmy taught Grizzard how to chew tobacco on one side of his mouth while drinking beer on the other side.

Esso Club owner Punk Bodiford said Lewis declared the Esso Club to be the greatest bar Lewis had ever visited in his life. Truth be told, Lewis said that about a lot of bars. Lewis’ greatest bar he ever visited was likely the bar he was in at the moment.

Yet Lewis must have written about the Esso Club from some prior year’s visit. The 7-6 Clemson victory over Georgia in Athens was played on Sept. 17, 1977. Perhaps Lewis diverted to avoid writing about the painful loss.

Lewis said Auburn was nothing more than Clemson without the lake. By contrast, Clemson must be nothing more than Auburn with a lake.

Georgia farmers once staged an Atlanta tractorcade protest at the Capitol. Lewis commented that he had not seen that many tractors since Clemson last played in Athens. Lewis probably apologized to many of his Moreland childhood farmer friends for that one.

If he ever had one, Lewis would have named his son “Kevin” after Kevin Butler’s 1984 60-yard game-winning field goal vs. Clemson in Athens.

Lewis said in stand-up routines, “Clemson boys recently discovered a new use for sheep. Wool.” When it took the audience a moment to grasp that, Lewis said, “I’m trying to go as slow as I can.”

“In 1994, a pessimistic former Clemson football player had no job prospects, so someone told him to become a paratrooper. He went to train at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was instructed to pull the left ripcord first. If that failed the right ripcord would never fail. When he landed a truck would take him back to Fort Benning.”

“The pessimistic Clemson guy jumped but both ripcords failed. He hollered:

“Great. When I land, I bet there will not even be a truck, and I will have to hike back to the base.”

Unrelated to Lewis, but a priceless story he would love: Decorated undersized Clemson center and Grizzard fan Tommy Sharpe of Albany, Georgia, always wanted to play football at UGA but knew he stood no chance to make the team. He walked on at Clemson and became a 3-year starter. Tommy always threw up before games due to nerves. In 2003 on the first snap of the game in Clemson vs. Georgia, he hurled on the football. QB Charlie Whitehurst fumbled for good reason. After Clemson punted, Sharpe went to the sideline and vomited on coach Tommy Bowden’s shoes. UGA won on the road 30-0.

Lewis might say, “Tommy, that’s even better than if you had starred at Georgia. The Dawgs need more opposing players who will puke on their footballs and head coaches.”

Author Peter Stoddard with former Clemson center Tommy Sharpe at a January 2021 Rotary Club meeting in Albany, Ga.

Lewis might say:

“2021 could finally be the year our Dawgs end the 1980-1981 National Championship drought. Catfish and I will do everything we can from up here in Heaven to make that happen.”

“God will help, too.”

“We all know God is a Georgia BullDawg.”