Clemson radio voice Don Munson calls Georgia graduation rates ‘an embarrassment’

Tempers are flaring already ahead of a big Week 1 college football clash between the Georgia Bulldogs and Clemson Tigers. In an interview previewing the matchup on SiriusXM’s Full Ride with Rick Neuheisel and Chris Childers, Clemson radio voice Don Munson turned his attention to the academics at Georgia and called the program’s graduation rate an “embarrassment.”

While discussing how college football approaches athletes’ lives off the field, Munson took a major shot at Georgia for falling short in that department.

“Their graduation rate was at 41 percent,” Munson said. “And I will keep on saying this, that’s an embarrassment. That’s an embarrassment to folks at Athens, that’s an embarrassment to the university, that’s an embarrassment to the program. They need to do better than that.”

The two campuses are less than 100 miles apart and played just about every year from 1964 through 1987, but Georgia clearly has pulled away as the superior program in recent years, winning national championships in 2021 and 2022.

So while this feels a little desperate from Clemson, it’s not a lie.

Clemson (and many ACC schools) often talk up their academics, and the disparity between the Tigers’ 99 percent graduation rate versus Georgia’s sub-50 percent mark has been a talking point all summer in the lead-up to this game.

Munson is also an official member of Clemson’s athletic department in addition to calling games, so it’s not a surprise he would use this talking point as part of his analysis of the game.

Munson may have a point about the treatment of athletes and how a university sets them up to succeed after they come to campus, but that probably won’t be on the minds of many players or fans in Week 1 in Athens.

[Larry Williams on X]