ATLANTA — Carson Beck threw for 278 yards, including a pair of touchdowns, and No. 1 Georgia opened another season of enormous expectations by stifling 14th-ranked Clemson 34-3 on Saturday.

Leading only 6-0 at halftime, Georgia finally got its offense rolling in the third quarter with a pair of 75-yard touchdown drives, capped by Colbie Young’s 7-yard reception and Nate Frazier’s 1-yard run. Beck tacked on a 40-yard TD pass to London Humphreys that sent the Clemson side of Mercedes-Benz Stadium heading for the exits.

The Bulldogs won impressively without their top two running backs. Trevor Etienne, a transfer from Florida, didn’t play while apparently serving a suspension stemming from an offseason arrest. Roderick Robinson was sidelined after undergoing toe surgery. After a sluggish start, Georgia finished with 169 yards on the ground, averaging 6.3 yards per carry.

Clemson was held to 188 yards and Nolan Hauser’s 26-yard field goal.

“To me, it feels like a playoff game,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “It’s a great way to try to assess where you are as a team. No longer do you have to win every game (because of the expanded playoff). But you do want to be playing your best at the end of the year. One of the ways to do that is to get quality wins.”

With a chance to re-establish themselves as one of the nation’s top programs, the Tigers showed they still have a lot of work to do coming off a four-loss season in 2023. The offense was thoroughly outmanned by the Bulldogs. Georgia perennially has one of the top defenses in the nation, but Clemson looked downright feeble with the ball in its hands.

“It’s a long season ahead,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “I do think we’ve got the right people in the room. But when you play a team like Georgia, you can get exposed. ... We got our butts kicked.”

Starks pick

All-American Malaki Starks showed why he’s regarded as one of the nation’s top defensive backs, leaping high and twisting his body to make a stellar interception in the fourth quarter.

“I do think the play he made today is one of the best defensive plays I’ve ever seen,” Smart said. “How he could go find that ball and get it is pretty special.”

Starks’ teammates were equally impressed.

“That was insane,” Jalon Walker said. “Just an incredible catch.”

Freshman star

Frazier had an impressive start to his college career.

The freshman finished with 83 yards on 11 carries, standing out with a cutback that led to a 40-yard run.

“I get on him all the time because he’s out of control,” Smart said. “He cuts back sometime in practice and I tell him, ‘You cut back like that in a game and they’re gonna light you up.’ But when he cut back today and ran all the way across the field, I told him it was OK.”

The transfer game

Georgia’s passing game got a boost from a pair of transfers.

Young, who moved to the Bulldogs from Miami, scored the first touchdown of the season.

Humphreys had two catches for 63 yards after playing last season at Vanderbilt.

Smart prefers to build his team around high school recruits, but he acknowledges the transfer portal is an important element in finishing off the roster.

That stands in stark contrast to Clemson, where Swinney has been criticized for failing to take advantage of the portal.

“We’re very selective in the transfer department,” Smart said. “But we needed some wideouts because we lost a lot of wideouts.”