Menu

1981 Super Bowl

Populist Uprising: The 1981 49ers & 1981 Clemson Tigers

, , , , ,

This is part of a series of sports history articles celebrating the best in 1981 sports. This piece asks the question of which geographic fan base had the best year in ’81
The SportsNotebook’s year-by-year study of the modern era (1976-Present) has focused on the best place to live as a sports fan in any calendar year. 1981 challenges that that paradigm.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
Start reading today. 


While California teams won the World Series (Dodgers) and Super Bowl (49ers), SoCal and NoCal are worlds apart. Indiana won the NCAA Tournament while Clemson’s Orange Bowl win gave them the national championship in football. The New York Islanders and Boston Celtics won titles in their sports.
With titles all splintered out, was there any common theme? Yes, there was. The championships by both San Francisco and Clemson marked landmark wins in the football landscape, for two different reasons.
Both were the first step in significant shifts in the power structure of the NFL and college football. The 49ers won an NFC Championship Game with the Dallas Cowboys that represented two ships crossing in the night, as the Dallas dynasty of Tom Landry began to fade and the San Francisco rise under BIl Walsh began.
Clemson’s national title was much farther reaching. 1981 was a year of change in college football, as traditional powers, from Notre Dame to Alabama, slipped back and new teams—including Iowa—began to step and take their place in the new order. No team took their place with greater authority than Danny Ford’s Clemson Tigers, who rolled to an unbeaten season and a national title.
TheSportsNotebook looks back on the 49ers and Clemson and their respective rides to glory.
Read more about the 1981 San Francisco 49ers
Read more about the 1981 Clemson Tigers

logosnb

SportsNotebook Featured Products

View Our Complete Catalog

Shop our Catalog

The Sports Notebook Newsletter

TheSportsNotebook.com is home to an extensive archive of sports history articles along with blog posts on contemporary sports.

Shop Our Digital Catalog

History of the Final Four

NCAA Basketball

NCAA Basketball

Super Bowl Past

NFL

NFL

History of the Final Four

NCAA Basketball

NCAA Basketball

Super Bowl Past

NFL

NFL

History of the Final Four

NCAA Basketball

NCAA Basketball

Super Bowl Past

NFL

NFL

SportsNoteBook Articles

1971 World Series: A Fall Classic Fit For Prime-Time

The 1971 World Series was the first time the Fall Classic played even a single game at night. The Series as a whole was one worthy of prime-time. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles staged an epic seven-game battle that was decided by a single run. The Pirates prevailed in a World Series that saw […]

1971 NLCS: The Pirates Muscle Past The Giants

The Pittsburgh Pirates were a team with unfinished business, having reached the 1970 NLCS before being swept out of the then best-of-five round in three straight. The San Francisco Giants were making their first appearance in a League Championship Series round that was in just its third year of existence. When the Pirates and Giants […]

1971 Los Angeles Dodgers: A September Drive Comes Up Short

The Dodger franchise, long the most consistent in the National League, had experienced boom times after moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. Previously known for winning pennants, but experiencing World Series frustration (save one glorious moment in 1955), the Dodgers rattled off World Series championships in 1959, 1963 and 1965. They won another […]

How The 1971 San Francisco Giants Won The NL West

The move west had been good for the Giants franchise. After two losing seasons ended their tenure in New York, the team began playing winning baseball as soon as they arrived in San Francisco in 1958. They consistently contended over the next decade-plus and won a National League pennant in 1962. The 1971 San Francisco […]

How The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates Won The NL East

The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates were coming off a season where they won a division title and reached the National League Championship Series. In this ’71 season, the Pirates were even better—they again reached the postseason. This time, they won the NLCS. And at World Series time, the great Roberto Clemente secured his baseball legacy in […]

1971 ALCS: A Third Straight Sweep For The Orioles

The League Championship Series round was only in its third year of existence in 1971, but the Baltimore Orioles were already old hands at it. The Birds had swept what was then a best-of-five series the previous two years and won the World Series in 1970. The Oakland A’s were the newcomers. The difference in […]

1971 Cincinnati Reds: An Unexpected Step Back

The 1971 Cincinnati Reds came into the season with high hopes. A core group of young players had won a breakthrough pennant in 1970. From the perspective of history we know that this core group would do great things throughout the coming decade. But 1971 proved to be a year where nothing really clicked. The […]

1971 Oakland A’s: A Breakthrough AL West Title

Success had been a long time coming for the A’s. The franchise’s last pennant had been forty years earlier, in 1931, when they resided in Philadelphia and Connie Mack was the manager. An interim period spent in Kansas City was marked by losing. A subsequent move to Oakland though, saw improvement. The A’s had played […]