Re: Hill Watch...53 days!!!

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53 years ago. 1969: "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has

Jul 14, 2022, 8:27 AM

landed.” The United States put the first two men on the moon earlier in the year, but that success did not carry over to the Clemson football program, in what was to be Coach Frank Howard's 30th and final year. We were outscored by the opposition 250-178.

ACC Champion for 1969 was (Oh, the Shame of it All) the South Carolina Gamecocks of Pepsodent Paul Dietzel, with a 6-0-0 conference, and 7-4-0 overall record. Once again, there were no ranked ACC football teams at season's end. Three Clemson players made 1st team All ACC: Ray Yauger; Charlie Waters; and Ivan Southerland.

National Champions for 1969 were the 11-0 Texas Longhorns of Coach Darrell Royal. Texas got by No.9 Notre Dame 21-17 in the Cotton Bowl. Penn State probably didn't care for the vote, as they too were undefeated at 11-0, and beat No.6 Missouri 10-3 in the Orange Bowl. But, the Pronghorns got the vote in the AP and the UPI. (A bizarre side note: This Texas team was the last “all white” team to win a National Championship. Racial Integration was happening across the country, and Texas must have been one of the last holdouts.)

As I was looking up this stuff, I came across some information that could have really made it suck to be in the Big 10 OR the Pac-8 at the time. Prior to 1975, those conferences allowed only ONE Bowl team from each conference, and that was to the Rose Bowl. No matter how good you were, if you didn't make the Rose Bowl, you sat at home for Bowl Season. And, doubly sucky for the Big 10, prior to 1972, you could not go to the Rose Bowl in consecutive years, even if you won the conference both times. Strange stuff indeed.

But, on the alternate end of college football from National Championships, Clemson only played two ranked teams during the season, and did not score a single point against either of them. But first, we opened the season on the road at Virginia, taking a close 21-14 win. At this point in history, we still had NEVER lost to Virginia.

Next up, the first of those ranked teams, the Georgia Bulldogs. We finally got them into Memorial Stadium, but it turns out we did not want them there, as they whitewashed us 30-0.

That was followed up by that rarest of gems for the Tigers, a road win in our personal House of Horrors, Grant Field. We came away with a 21-10 win over the Jackets this time. Next up was the 2nd of those two ranked teams we spoke of earlier, the No.20 Auburn Tigers. At Cliff Hare Stadium, they roasted us, 51-0. Right about now, the ACC was living up to its reputation as the “White Meat League”.

Next up, three straight home games. Clemson prevailed over Wake Forest 28-14, lost to Alabama convincingly, 38-13, and put a shutout of our own on Maryland, 40-0. The Tigers would be Road Warriors the rest of the way, with nothing but three consecutive season ending losses to show for their efforts. Duke, a 34-27 winner, North Carolina won 32-15, and most depressingly, we were the final feather in the Cooterville Cap, as their 27-13 win allowed South Carolina to wrap up their only ever conference championship. For 52 years and counting, that trophy has had no Championship company. Clemson now leads the series 38-26-3 all time.

At Virginia W 21–14 (Scott Stadium, 19,000 fans)
No. 7 Georgia L 0-30 (Memorial Stadium, 43,000 fans)
At Georgia Tech W 21-10 (Grant Field, 50,224 fans)
At No. 20 Auburn L 0-51 (Cliff Hare Stadium, 38,000 fans)
Wake Forest W 28-14 (Memorial Stadium, 31,000 fans)
Alabama L 13-38 (Memorial Stadium, 43,000 fans)
Maryland w 40-0 (Memorial Stadium, no attendance figures)
At Duke L 27-34 (Wallace Wade Stadium, 22,000 fans)
At North Carolina L 15-32 (Kenan Memorial Stadium, no attendance figures)
At South Carolina L 13-27 (Carolina Stadium, 42,921 fans) (Clemson leads series 38-26-3)

I put the attendance figures in for each game that posted them, just so you could get an idea of who was interested in growing football via expanding stadiums, and who obviously was not. Easy to see that at least some of the ACC schools were falling way behind on stadium expansion.

As previously noted, this was Coach Frank Howard's 30th, and last season coaching the Tigers. His overall record at Clemson was 165–118–12, which was Top 15 All Time at the time of his retirement.

His Tigers won 2 Southern Conference Championships, 6 ACC Championships, as well as a Gator Bowl, an Orange Bowl, and a Bluebonnet Bowl. We also participated in the 1952 Gator Bowl, the 1957 Orange Bowl, and the 1959 Sugar Bowl, where we narrowly lost to the National Champion LSU Tigers 7-0. After Coach Howard's retirement, it would be nearly a decade before Clemson made it to another postseason bowl.

During his stay at Clemson, Frank Howard also oversaw the Athletic Department, ticket sales, and was an assistant coach for the baseball team. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the South Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and the Clemson Ring of Honor. The playing surface at Clemson's Memorial Stadium is named after him.

Although he retired as Coach after the 1969 season, he maintained an office, and ties with the program until his death in January 1996. His wife Anna Tribble Howard followed him shortly after, in May 1996. They are interred in the small cemetery just above Memorial Stadium, where they still keep watch over their beloved Tigers today.

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Several songs mentioned 1969, but my favorite is Hotel California by the Eagles:

So I called up the captain
Please bring me my wine
He said we haven't had that spirit here since 1969
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Of course we were all glued to our 19 inch black and white TVs in July when Neil Armstrong took one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind. And there must have been somebody in here that was at Woodstock in August on a dairy farm in New York smokin a doobie and listening to Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Santana, the Who, etc. On a side note, Xerox introduced the laser printer in 1969.

The top songs of 1969 were Sugar, Sugar by the Archies, Aquarius/ Let the Sunshine In by the Fifth Dimension, I Can't Get Next to You by The Temptations, Honky Tonk Women by The Rolling Stones, and a good TigerNet song - Everyday People by Sly and The Family Stone.

Hill Watch...53 days!!!