Hill Watch...47 days!!!

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47 years ago, 1975: The Viet Nam War ends, at least as far

Jul 20, 2022, 8:18 AM

as active American involvement. A lame "Peace with Honor" Declaration probably didn't ring true with those who barely made it out of Saigon on those last frenzied helicopter flights.

“JAWS” becomes the first “blockbuster” movie. Sony introduces the Betamax Video Cassette Recorder. Bill Gates and Paul Allen create a company called Microsoft. The late night TV program “Saturday Night Live” airs for the first time.

With apologies to Tommy West, I personally consider this 1975 season, our 3rd under Coach Red Parker, to be the lowest point in modern Clemson football history. We only won two ACC games, and one of them was on the road. It was a really dismal season to sit through in the Valley. We won NO OOC games, and our 2-9 record got us 5th place in the ACC, which should give you some idea how bad the conference was.

ACC Champions, and our only conference ranked team, was No.13 Maryland, 5-0-0, 9-2-1. They did uphold ACC prestige a little, defeating No.13 Florida 13-0 in the Gator Bowl. Maryland had exactly ONE player taken in the NFL draft, Rich Jennings, a running back who was taken in the ELEVENTH Round by Da Raidas.

At least the two major polls agreed on a National Champion in 1975. It was to be Barry Switzer's 11-1 Oklahoma Sooners. Their lone loss was in their 9th game of the season, a terrible 23-3 HOME loss to KANSAS. They also barely survived against No.18 Missouri the next week, winning 28-27. But, they ended their regular season in style, blowing out No.2 Nebraska 35-10 in Norman. They then took down No.5 Michigan in the Orange Bowl by a score of 14-6. The Sooners were the beneficiary of some good bowl luck, as they were ranked No.3 going into bowl season. Both No.1 Ohio State and No.2 Texas A&M lost their bowl games. Ohio State fell 23-10 to No.11 UCLA in the Rose Bowl, and Texas A&M was blanked 20-0 by unranked USC in the Liberty Bowl.

Meanwhile, in the ACC, things started bad for Clemson, and stayed bad pretty much throughout the season. I will only mention a few of the debacles, you can read the rest for yourselves.

We lost our season opener to Tulane, in Death Valley, by a close score of 17-13. In restrospect, that was one of the highlights of the year. In the 2nd game of the season, we got to see just how far the gap between the ACC and the Big Boys had gotten. No.14 Alabama torched us 56-0 in the newly renamed Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Game 3 was one of two road trips I made that year. I remember the game at Grant “House of Horrors” Field for one play. Georgia Tech's player fumbled the football forward on about our 10 yard line, and kept kicking it along the ground until it got to the end zone, where he suddenly was miraculously able to fall on it, for the winning touchdown, final score 33-28 Bees.

I remember the Wake Forest game. I believe it was Homecoming. What it WAS for sure, was a rainy, dismal day, and we had to kick a last minute field goal to squeak by Weak Florist 16-14. Our only home win of the year. Loss after loss followed, until, somehow, in Chapel Hill, we won an offensive shootout over the Tarheels 38-35, for our second and LAST win of the year.

The home season ended as it had begun, with a close loss, this time to Maryland, 22-20.

And, lastly, as I have recounted from time to time, my 2nd road trip of 1975 was to Cooterville. Sitting in the end zone as part of the record crowd of 57,197 fans, with the noonday sun beating down on the artificial rug the Roach had at the time was ridiculous. You could not see yard lines or sidelines, the whole field just looked white. You had to watch the Zebras to get any sense of what was going on. But, what for SURE was going on, is that nobody ever ran the VEER offense any better than South Carolina QB Jeff Grantz did that day.

Even so, with the score 20-7 and time running out in the first half, the Tigers drove into field goal range. We thought we had gotten out of bounds with time left on the clock to kick a field goal that would have made it 20-10, and perhaps provide a momentum shift going into the locker room. But, the zebras conferred, and said time had run out. No momentum shift, and I think Jeff Grantz ended up with 165 yards rushing, the 2nd half was just more of the 1st, and Chickens slaughtered Tigers that day, 56-20. The Gamecocks actually scored on every offensive possession they had, including going for, and getting, a touchdown pass on 4th down on their last possession, while already leading 49-20 with time running out. When Coach Red Parker accused Coach Jim Carlen of running up the score, Carlen cheekily replied that he thought kicking a field goal would have been more insulting. Elephants will forget stuff before I ever forget that game. Clemson leads the series 41-29-3. All results below.

Tulane L 13–17
At No. 14 Alabama L 0–56
At Georgia Tech L 28–33
At Georgia L 7–35
Wake Forest W 16–14
At Duke L 21–25
NC State L 7–45
Florida State L 7–43
At North Carolina W 38–35
Maryland L 20–22
At South Carolina L 20–56 (Clemson leads series 41-29-3.)

While Clemson's season ended dismally in Williams-Brice Stadium, the Gamecocks parlayed that win into a 7-4 record, and a Tangerine Bowl invitation. They were soundly beaten by Miami of Ohio in the bowl game, 20-7. Clemson would use the humiliation of 1975 as fuel for every South Carolina game going forward.