As he stood up in front of the locker room before the Tigers journeyed on to the field at Sanford Stadium on September 20, 1986, Ford pounded his right fist into his left palm over and over again as he spoke to his players. ‘If you hit them on every play, there will be a play in the fourth quarter when you will see they will quit.’ Lo and behold, he was right. "...they did not want to get hit anymore. And we made plays” Clemson wide receiver Keith Jennings said.
Clemson did make plays. With the game tied at 28, Georgia was driving for the go-ahead score late in the fourth quarter when on an option keeper from the Clemson 15, Jackson was stripped of the football and bandit end John Johnson recovered it on the Tigers’ nine-yard line. With the defense finally making stops, it was the offense’s turn to make some plays; and those plays came from running back Terrance Flagler and quarterback Rodney Williams.
On second-and-11 from his own 35 with just over a minute to play, Flagler took a deep hand-off from Williams and bounced outside where wide receivers Ray Williams and Ricardo Hooper held their blocks long enough to allow Flagler to get around the left corner for 16 yards. On the next play, Williams kept the ball around left end and rumbled to the Georgia 35, then to the 29, setting up David Treadwell for a possible game-winning kick with 4 seconds to play. The rest, as they say, is history. Take us home, Jim Phillips: