Thursday September 21, 2006

Two Requests and the Little Memories from the Big Year

Be There Early and Be Loud
This Saturday should be a special day in Clemson at and around Death Valley so please allow me to make a couple of requests:

1. Get to Clemson early. I remember the 2001 game against UNC, which was also a noon game, and it was the worst pre-game traffic I have ever seen. Noon games can present a problem because of the natural bottlenecks that can occur when many try to arrive at the same time. Another reason to get in the stadium early is the pre-game celebration of the 1981 national title team.

2. Be Loud. This team went on the road and played two close, hard-fought games in hostile environments. Both games went down to the last play of the game and both were extremely emotional. This team played its heart out in both of those games. They need your support and deserve a big game atmosphere in Death Valley Saturday. I don’t care if you are a student or a senior citizen. I don’t care if you had a big party the night before and are hung over. I don’t care. This team needs this stadium to have the big game atmosphere that was here for the FSU and Miami games last season. This is a big game in the chase for a potential ACC title run.

Too Emotional?
There is a school of thought among some coaches that teams should not rely on emotion too much. Bill Walsh won several Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers and he never wanted his teams to be very emotional. Walsh said executing and technique win football games not emotion.

One downside of depending on emotion of a big home game is the letdown the next week or on the road. Virginia Tech got into that mode a few years ago where they played sky high at home but were not a good road team. This week Louisville goes on the road for the first time after an emotional win over Miami at home. It will be interesting to see how they react. West Virginia is another team that plays with a lot of fire early in the game especially at home.

I guess it would be nice not to rely on emotion but as long as the Tigers have Howard’s Rock and The Hill it will be difficult for some fans to feel the same way during home games. I agree with Walsh when it comes to execution but that takes talent and some teams don’t enough talent to win on talent alone. Football is an emotional game and college football has as much energy as any sport I know. I am pretty sure Bill Walsh has never touched The Rock or scampered down The Hill.

1981 Celebration
This Saturday Clemson will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1981 National Championship. The team will be honored before the game against UNC. Fittingly, it was a great win at Chapel Hill that year that helped the Tigers to the national title.

November 7, 1981 saw the first ever battle in the ACC between two top ten teams as the second ranked Tigers beat the eighth-ranked Tar Heels 10-8. Newspaper headlines the next day claimed the “Tigers 10-8cious!” I remember that was the same day Pacific beat USC in Columbia 28-23.

Clemson scored the game’s only touchdown on a Jeff McCall run that ended an 81-yard drive. The second half was a defensive struggle but UNC was pinned inside its two-yard line late after a beautiful Dale Hatcher punt. The Tar Heels drove to about midfield before the biggest play of the game. The Heels tried a swing pass that was clearly thrown backwards and Clemson defensive lineman Jeff Bryant recovered the fumble. The Tigers went on to the two-point win and an eventual national title.

As a 13-year old I was lucky enough to go to eight of the 12 games that season. My dad went to 10 if I remember correctly. I remember little things about that season that maybe you had forgotten like the 10-8cious headlines or the Pacific win over the archrival the same day.

Here are a few other little things I remember from that season:

I remember the season getting off to a slow start with a 3-3 first quarter against Wofford before a 45-10 win.

I remember Hatcher hitting the scoreboard at the Super Dome during warm ups before the Tulane game. A close 13-5 win was highlighted by five Clemson defensive backs had interceptions and the defense forced seven turnovers. It was the first time Clemson ever played indoors.

I remember the nine turnovers Georgia had against the Tigers the following week. Clemson battered and bruised Herschel walker and Buck Belue in a 13-3 win over the Dawgs. A great catch by Perry Tuttle was again the only touchdown of the game as the Tigers entered the poll at number 14 after the win.

I remember the following week Clemson trailed Kentucky 3-0 at the half but rallied for 21 second half points for a big road win. The win moved Clemson into the top ten for the fourth time in 21 years.

Three weeks later, I remember, the Tigers moved to their highest ranking ever at the time after a 17-7 win over NC State. It was so fun to watch the other teams ahead of Clemson fall each week and speculate how high the Tigers would rise. The PA announcer would announce a score of a high-ranked team and it seemed almost everyone that had a chance to lose did so every week. I could not wait to see the paper on Monday or Tuesday each week to see the latest rankings.

I remember being there for all 82 points against Wake Forest including Craig Crawford’s only Clemson touchdown.

I remember Rod McSwain’s blocked punt against USC and his brother Chuck McSwain going off for 151 yards against the Gamecocks. My dad and I stood on the ramps at William-Brice during the whole game because we did not have a ticket. Instead, my dad handed the lady at the gate a crisp $100 bill and she let us in. I remember Clemson students bringing in bags and bags of oranges and throwing them on the field after Clemson touchdowns. USC had Astroturf back then and the oranges would roll for thirty yards when the hit the hard turf. It would take security several minutes to cleanup the hundreds of orange off of the field after each Clemson score (In the same stadium I later found out that Zero Bars don’t roll as far but are easier to sneak in the gates).

Two of the best memories from that season came between the final play of the USC game and the opening kick off of the Orange Bowl. The first was when Pittsburgh and Penn State played the week after Clemson ended its perfect regular season. Penn State upset top-ranked Pittsburgh that day and we all knew Clemson would be number-one in the next poll. My dad went up to Clemson that weekend for the annual IPTAY basketball tournament and brought back self designed number-one Clemson t-shirts from Mr. Knickerbockers that weekend.

The other memory that I had that season that you might not recall was the pre-game of the Orange Bowl when Clemson cheerleaders turned over the large Clemson flag they led the team into the stadium with and on the other side they reveled in big white writing “#1”. I know people that say to this day that was the single biggest hair-raising moment in their days of following the Tigers.

I remember knowing Clemson had won the national title after the Orange Bowl win but I also remember thinking that this was something Clemson might do a few more times in my lifetime. I was 13 and had no idea how difficult it was to win one of these things.

We all remember the major parts of the 1981 team but I still remember those little things just as clear. On Saturday, 25 years later, we get to celebrate a great team and share a lot of those memories once again.

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