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Clemson football history

1978 Clemson Football: The Tigers Get Back On The Map

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Clemson football had been in a funk for about a decade. The great Frank Howard had built the program to greatness in the mid-20th century, but the end of his career in the 1960s was marked by a slow decline. Two successors tried to achieve a restoration, but more mediocrity followed. Then Charley Pell arrived and in 1977 the Tigers got back on the map with an 8-2-1 season and Gator Bowl bid. 

1978 Clemson football built on that success, winning the school’s first ACC championship in eleven years, finishing in the Top 10 and setting the stage for even bigger wins in the years to come.

The Last Golden Age - Lou Holtz Notre Dame Years

Clemson was loaded with talent offensively. Steve Fuller, a future quarterback for Mike Ditka’s Chicago Bears won the ACC MVP award in 1978. Fuller’s 54% completion rate was good by the standards of the late 1970s. He generated 8.1 yards-per-attempt and was a threat with his legs, running for 649 yards. 

Lester Brown led the way for a potent running attack, going over the 1,000-yard threshold. Marvin Sims was a good change of pace in the backfield, adding 658 yards. Both Brown and Sims went for five yards a pop. 

The receivers were even better. Dwight Clark, a future mainstay of the great San Francisco 49ers teams of the 1980s, was on one side. And he wasn’t even the best wideout. Jerry Butler was Fuller’s top target, catching 58 passes for over 900 yards. Butler was chosen fifth overall in the NFL draft the following spring. 

Need more? Joe Bostic, a future member of the great Washington Redskins’ offensive lines under Joe Gibbs, was at guard. There was a solid linebacker corps of Bubba Brown, Randy Scott and Jon Brooks. Steve Ryan and Rex Varn were ballhawks in the secondary, picking off four passes each. Clemson finished sixth in the nation in both scoring offense and scoring defense. 

The strong 1977 campaign earned Clemson a preseason ranking at #18, but the Tigers were out of the polls by the time they played their first game on September 16, a 58-0 beatdown of the Citadel. 

A visit to Georgia was next, a battle between two teams headed for good seasons, but currently unnoticed by the pollsters. When Clemson was shut out 12-0, it seemed to validate that the Tiger program was not ready for prime-time. 

The schedule softened up in the weeks ahead and Clemson got back on their feet with easy wins over Villanova and Virginia Tech (then an independent). They opened up ACC play with easy wins over Virginia and Duke, both conference cellar-dwellers. By the end of the four-game win streak, Clemson was back in the polls at #20. 

In late October came a visit to N.C. State. The Wolfpack had one of the country’s top running backs in Ted Brown and were one of three viable contenders for the conference championship, along with Clemson and Maryland. The Tiger defense did a number on the Pack, while the offense pounded out over 200 yards rushing. Clemson’s 33-10 win moved them to #16. 

There were still two games to play before a November 18 visit to Maryland. The first one against lowly Wake was easy enough, a 51-6 win. But a home game with mediocre North Carolina nearly spoiled the Tiger season. 

The Clemson offense was flat and trailed 9-6 early in the fourth quarter. Fuller got things going with a 24-yard pass to Butler. Brown ripped off a 21-yard run. Brown then finished off the 80-yard drive with a one-yard plunge to get a 13-9 lead. The Tar Heels came driving back in the final two minutes, but Bubba Brown sealed the win with an interception at the Tiger 29. They had survived. 

Now it was showdown time. Clemson was ranked #12, Maryland was at #11. Both were undefeated in conference play and both had just one loss overall. Even though the ACC was not seen as a top-tier conference, this game had national attention. 

It was worthy of the stakes. Maryland blocked a punt in the first half and took a 14-7 lead into intermission. Then the big plays erupted. 

Fuller hit Butler on an 87-yard touchdown strike to tie the game in the third quarter. Maryland got a big play of their own, a 98-yard run from Steve Atkins. Clemson pulled back even when Clark caught a 62-yard touchdown pass. It was 21-all. 

Each team had one more good drive in them. The difference is that Clemson finished theirs, with a five-yard touchdown run from Brown while the Terps settled for a field goal. The Tigers hung on 28-24. They were rewarded with another Gator Bowl invite and moved into the Top 10. Clemson closed the year with a 41-23 win over mediocre South Carolina.

By the time the Gator Bowl arrived, Clemson had a new coach. Pell’s success got him the opening at Florida and Danny Ford was promoted from within. They were also ranked #7 and hoping to validate their season with a big win in a bowl game that was just one step below the majors. 

Ohio State was the opponent. It had not been a vintage year for the Buckeyes, who ended up 8-3 under the legendary head coach Woody Hayes. They were ranked #20. But the game was still a terrific opportunity for Clemson, playing a marquee opponent on a Friday night and ABC having the great Keith Jackson on hand to call the game. 

The Buckeyes controlled the first quarter but only produced three points. The Tigers got their offense going in the second quarter and went ahead 7-3. They took a 10-9 lead into the locker room. Late in the third quarter, Clemson extended the lead to 17-9. 

Ohio State rallied. They scored a touchdown with eight minutes left, but Clemson was able to stop the two-point conversion and keep a 17-15 lead. Late in the game, they had the ball at the Buckeye 40 and faced a third down. Fuller ran the option. He tried to force a pitch when none was there. The ball came loose and Ohio State recovered. 

That fumble set in motion the historic chain of events that has defined this game. Ohio State moved just outside the Clemson 20-yard line and was certainly in position to win the game with a field goal. But kicking games weren’t as reliable then as they are now, so the Buckeyes’ decision to keep throwing the football was not surprising. 

Clemson nose tackle Charlie Baum sniffed out a screen, dropped into coverage and made an interception. He ran out of bounds at the Ohio State sideline. An enraged Hayes hauled off and punched Baum. It’s understandable that the punch, which led to Hayes’ dismissal in the days after the game is what lives on in memory. 

But it shouldn’t be forgotten what a good football game this was or what the win meant to the Clemson program. They were on the map. This was the first of six bowl wins for Ford and he won five ACC championships in his own right. And just three years later, in 1981, Clemson shocked the college football world by winning the national championship. 

The 1981 Clemson Tigers Overturn The College Football Establishment

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The Clemson football program was solid and successful in 1981, the best in the ACC at the time and just three years earlier had rolled to a 10-1 season. The 1981 Clemson Tigers had a great dual threat quarterback in Homer Jordan, who would go on to win all-ACC honors and a linebacker named Jeff Davis who was so dominant that he was named ACC MVP.

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A tough defensive front four’s most prominent name was William “The Refrigerator” Perry, but he was still just a freshman. Cornerback Terry Kinard was an All-American and a future starter on a Super Bowl champ in the NFL (NY Giants, 1986). But the ACC was considered a midmajor at the time, even more disrespected nationally then it is today and Clemson opened the season unranked.

Clemson opened the season with a pair of easy wins over Wofford and Tulane and got ready to host defending national champion Georgia, with its powerful sophomore running back Herschel Walker. By day’s end, Walker had been shut down and an aggressive Tiger defense forced nine turnovers in a 13-3 win. The victory got Clemson into the polls at #19.

Five more wins over relatively non-descript competition kept them moving up the rankings by attrition. They won at Kentucky and Duke, and took home games with Virginia, N.C. State and Wake Forest. The latter came on the final day of October and saw head coach Danny Ford’s offense hang 82 points on the board. When it all was over, Clemson was #2 in the country, trailing only a Pitt team led by Dan Marino.

The Tigers would still need help—in this day, there was not only no national championship game, but no bowl where two uncommitted teams could match up, unless they wanted to forgo a January 1 payday. Most aggravating to Clemson had to be the presence of Georgia sitting at third in the polls, likely to get a crack at Pitt in the Sugar Bowl and be in position to vault over a team they had lost to. But, as the cliché goes, there was still all of November to play and with big games against #9 North Carolina and in-state rival South Carolina, Ford’s team could ill-afford to be looking ahead.

Clemson went to Chapel Hill for their battle with North Carolina and it was every bit the war they expected. The Tigers were able to stop an early Tar Hell drive and hold them to a field goal. Clemson got a TD of their own, and even though they gave up a safety thanks to a botched point, they got a tough 10-8 win. The following week they beat Maryland, a team led by future Cincinnati Bengals quarterback and CBS commentator Boomer Esiason, 21-7.

The Tigers sealed their unbeaten season with a 29-13 win over South Carolina. Clemson fell behind early in this one, trailing 7-6, but they scored off a blocked punt and led 15-13 by the half. Jordan and his mates opened it up after halftime producing two touchdown drives. They would be Orange Bowl-bound for a date with #4 Nebraska on New Year’s Day.

One week later they got a huge break—Pitt, after jumping out to a 14-0 lead on rival Penn State, suddenly imploded and lost by an astonishing 48-14 score. Clemson would go to Miami ranked #1 in the country.

The establishment of college football figured Nebraska would handle the imposters from the ACC, the Tigers win over Georgia notwithstanding. The Bulldogs would still play Pitt in the Sugar Bowl, but now they needed help from Nebraska to win another title. Another SEC team in Alabama was #3 and lined up to play Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

On New Year’s afternoon, Alabama let a 10-0 lead get away in the fourth quarter and lost to Texas. The Sugar Bowl was going simultaneous to the Orange in prime-time and Marino gunned down Georgia with a touchdown pass in the final moments to win 24-20. That game finished ahead of the one in Miami, so it was down to Clemson-Nebraska for the national title.

The Tigers took an early 3-0 lead, but the Cornhuskers figured out a way to capitalize on Clemson’s aggressive defense and beat Kinard with a halfback option pass to make it 7-3. But Nebraska was having turnover problems and lost three fumbles. A field goal pulled Clemson to within a point and then they cashed in a turnover for a touchdown that left the game 12-7 after a failed two-point conversion.

The short-sighted decision to go for two looked like a bigger deal with another Tiger field goal stretched the lead to 15-7—still within one score, and if the game ended tied, there was no overtime and while Clemson was the only unbeaten team left, there was no telling how many voters expected to see them win this game to validate their entire conference.

Clemson’s offense stepped up in the third quarter with a clock-chewing 75-yard drive and took a 22-7 lead. Nebraska came back with a touchdown run by a future San Francisco 49er running back in Roger Craig, and converted a two-pointer to make it 22-15. The Huskers then put Clemson in 3rd-and-23 and looked poised to get the ball back. Jordan then made the play of his life, scrambling for a first down. Clemson ran out the clock and they were national champs.

The national title for an upstart from the ACC was one part of a broader-based change in college football. The traditional powers were falling. Notre Dame and USC fell off the map and would stay that way for several years. Alabama was only a year away from doing the same. SMU had stepped up and won the old Southwest Conference over Texas and Arkansas, and only probation kept them from a Cotton Bowl date with the Crimson Tide. And the Michigan-Ohio State monopoly on the Big Ten crown was broken, when not only did Iowa win the Rose Bowl bid, but it was a head-to-head game with Wisconsin that settled the trip to Pasadena.

Times were starting to change in college football and nowhere was that more visible than in Clemson’s unlikely national title.

The Road To The 1978 Gator Bowl: Ohio State & Clemson

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The 1978 Gator Bowl is most remembered for being the final game for Ohio State’s legendary head coach Woody Hayes, ending in unfortunate circumstances. It was also a big breakout game for Clemson. Here’s a look back on the paths both the Buckeyes and Tigers took to Jacksonville for what proved to be an unexpected historic night on December 29, 1978.

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OHIO STATE

Hayes had been the Ohio State coach since 1951, winning national titles and 1954 and 1968, and in recent years having gone to six straight major bowl games, including the Rose Bowl each year from 1972-75. The 1978 edition would not be one of his vintage teams.

Art Schlicter was a freshman quarterback and did a lot of good things—his 50% completion rate was third in the Big Ten and his 7.1 yards-per-pass was second in the conference. But his TD/INT ratio was also 4/21—even allowing for the much weaker passing numbers of this era, that’s still downright awful.

Schlicter had a bright future—over his final three seasons he would be in the top six of the Heisman Trophy voting each year and eventually become a #4 overall NFL draft pick before a gambling problem ruined his career. But there were growing pains his freshman season in Columbus.

Nor did Ohio State have a powerhouse running back—four different backs shared duty and Schlicter also ran for nearly 600 yards. The offensive line wasn’t stacked. Nor was there elite talent at wide receiver. To make room for Schlicter, Hayes moved Rod Gerald to wideout. Gerald had quarterbacked the two previous Buckeye teams to major bowl games and the positon switch foreshadowed what Braxton Miller would do 36 years later.

Tom Cousineau was an All-American at linebacker, and it wasn’t as though every program in America had All-Americans stacked everywhere in the lineup. But by Ohio State standards, especially under Hayes, having Cousineau as the only player even getting All-American mention was thin.

The Buckeyes opened the season ranked #7 in the country, but a home game with Penn State to start the year quickly exposed the flaws. The Nittany Lions were on their way to an undefeated regular season and they hung a 19-0 shutout on Ohio State.

A 27-10 win at mediocre Minnesota followed, but a narrow 34-28 win over a poor Baylor team and then a 35-35 tie to subpar SMU—both in Columbus no less—were bad signs as the remainder of the Big Ten schedule loomed.

Ohio State traveled to Purdue, who had a good team that would compete for the conference title deep into the season and the Boilermakers beat the Buckeyes 27-16. Ohio State tumbled from the land of the ranked teams.

The Big Ten wasn’t exactly renowned for its depth in this time period—in fact, having anyone other than Ohio State or Michigan be competitive constituted a stacked year. The Buckeyes had a soft schedule ahead. They crushed terrible teams in Iowa and Northwestern to at least get some momentum pick.

A visit to Wisconsin to start November would provide a modest test—the Badgers would finish the season with a winning record. Schlicter got Ohio State off to a fast start. He took an option run 46 yards, setting up an early touchdown. The Buckeyes went on to score a touchdown off a blocked punt, another with a kickoff return and still another via the Pick-6. They won the game 49-14 and when it was followed with a 45-7 win over Illinois, Ohio State crawled back into the rankings at #19.

The Buckeyes went to Indiana, then coached by Lee Corso. The Hoosiers weren’t very good, but they gave Ohio State a tough battle before OSU pulled out a 21-18 win. No one in Bloomington would have guessed that it was the final victory for Woody Hayes.

And in spite of not looking impressive, Ohio State was in a familiar position—playing Michigan with a chance to go to the Rose Bowl. The two rivals were in a three-way tie with Michigan State for the conference lead, but the Spartans were on NCAA probation. Purdue, having lost to Michigan, had also suffered a tie to Wisconsin, which proved to be the break the Buckeyes needed to control their own destiny at home against the Wolverines.

It was an opportunity Hayes’ team couldn’t take advantage of. Michigan was ranked sixth in the country and a significantly better team. It showed in a 14-3 win over Ohio State. The Buckeyes settled for the Gator Bowl bid, where they arrive ranked #20.

CLEMSON

Charley Pell took over the Clemson program prior to the 1977 season when hard times had settled on Death Valley. The Tigers had losing seasons in eight of the previous nine years. Pell promptly turned them into a 8-2-1 team and got a Gator Bowl bid. They were trounced in that game by Pitt and came into ’78 ranked #18 and hungry to get a bigger breakthrough.

This was an extremely talented team at the skill positions. Steve Fuller was the quarterback, one who would start for the Chicago Bears off and on during the early years of the Mike Ditka era and lead the ’84 Bears to the NFC Championship Game. In 1978, Fuller was at or near the top of the ACC in the key passing categories, ran for 649 yards and was named ACC MVP.

Fuller had two great targets, both of whom would be successful in the NFL themselves. Jerry Butler was the prime target, catching 58 passes—sixth in the nation—for over 900 yards. Butler went on to play for some good Buffalo Bills teams and make a Pro Bowl. The other receiver was Dwight Clark, who went on to make one of the most famous catches in NFL history as a member of the 1981 San Francisco 49ers.

Lester Brown didn’t make a name for himself in the NFL, but he was a very good college running back. Brown ran for over 1,000 yards and got All-American mention. Marvin Sims was a change-of-pace back who rolled up nearly 700 yards himself.

Clemson crushed the Citadel to start the season and though they lost at Georgia, the 12-0 defeat to a team that would finish second in the SEC was a further sign that the Tigers were coming. Clemson followed it up with easy wins over Villanova, Virginia Tech, Virginia and Duke, by a combined 127-29.

The Tigers, having fallen from the polls after the Georgia game, were now back to #20. A road trip to N.C. State, a bowl-bound team was important in the ACC race and Clemson hung a 33-10 beatdown on the Wolfpack. Then the Tigers crushed Wake Forest 51-10.

A home win over mediocre North Carolina didn’t come easy, 13-9, but it moved Clemson to #12 and set up a big battle with 11th-ranked Maryland. The ACC title and a spot in the Top 10 hung in the balance. It was a showdown between the league’s two best quarterbacks, as the Terps’ Tim O’Hare ran neck-and-neck with Fuller in the major statistical categories.

The game proved to be everything it was billed to be. Big plays dominated. Maryland got a 98-yard touchdown run from Steve Atkins. Fuller responded by hitting Butler on an 87-yard touchdown pass, and hooking up with Clark from 62 yards. Clemson clung to a 28-24 lead when Maryland drove across midfield. The Tiger defense held and they were ACC champs.

Clemson closed the regular season with its traditional rivalry gram against South Carolina, then a mediocre independent and won 41-23. The Tigers were ranked #7 and were ready to validate that national ranking against a traditional power in the Gator Bowl.

Then turmoil came to Death Valley. Pell accepted the head coaching job at Florida, then a lowly SEC team who had never won anything. Pell was willing to coach Clemson in the Gator Bowl, but the administration refused. They wanted a coach would be focused solely on the opportunity presented by playing Ohio State. Assistant coach Danny Ford was elevated.

THE 1978 GATOR BOWL

Ohio State may have had the reputation, but Clemson made its talent advantage show. They controlled the line of scrimmage. But Schlicter showed his growth and did not make mistakes. The Buckeyes were still in striking distance, down 17-9 in the fourth quarter. Schlicter led a drive that he capped off with a touchdown run with eight minutes left. Clemson made the stop on the two-point conversion and kept a 17-15 lead.

Fuller and the offense could not control the ball though, Ohio State got it back and began another drive. They reached the Clemson 24-yard line and faced third down, though the chance of a winning field goal was very much alive. It looked the Tigers might have to wait for that breakthrough victory at a time when the ACC was seen as a midmajor conference.

Schlicter dropped back to pass and looked over the middle. He then threw his 21st and final interception of the year, woefully underthrowing the ball and having it picked off by defensive tackle Charlie Baumann.

Baumann was tackled out of bounds on the Ohio State sidelines. As he got up, Hayes hauled off and punched him. By morning, the replays were being shown over and over. There are reports that Hayes, a diabetic, was not on his proper medication. The head coach refused to acknowledge what he’d done. Bo Schembecler, a close friend of Hayes in spite of their rivalry, traveled to see his mentor and recalled that Hayes was honestly convinced he hadn’t done what everyone in the country had plainly seen.

Perhaps more than anything, that suggests that the old coach needed to go. It was terrible that it had to happen this way, but there was no other choice for the Ohio State administration. Hayes was fired.

While the fall of a legend is clearly the historical legacy of the game, we shouldn’t overlook what it meant for Clemson. Ford became the permanent head coach and by 1981, the Tigers were upstarts no more—the year they won the national championship.

The Road To The 1982 Orange Bowl: Clemson & Nebraska

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The 1982 Orange Bowl saw the completion of Clemson’s Cinderella journey for a national championship and Nebraska finally get some separation from Oklahoma. Here’s a look back on the journey Clemson and Nebraska took through the 1981 college football season before finally meeting on New Year’s Night in Miami.

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Danny Ford had become head coach of a Clemson program that was on the rise under Charley Pell, before the latter took the job at Florida. But the first two years under Ford saw some regression, as he went 8-3 and then 6-5. The Tigers were not on anyone’s radar when the 1981 college football season began, unranked in the national polls.

Ford had a talented and versatile quarterback in Homer Jordan, who completed a decent percentage of his passes (54.6), got big plays (8.3 yards-per-attempt) and was also an effective runner (in the top 10 among ACC rushers). Jordan had a terrific target in All-American receiver Perry Tuttle, who led the conference in both catches and yards.

The running game was balanced, with Cliff Austin and Chuck McSwain leading the way and joining Jordan in carrying the load. But the real stars of this team were on defense.

Terry Kinard was an All-American defensive back and a real playmaker, and Kinard wasn’t even the best player on the D. That honor belonged to linebacker Jeff Davis, whose dominance was so thorough that he not only made All-American, but he won the ACC’s MVP award—this in a league where Jordan would have been a solid choice and Maryland had a quarterback of some note named Boomer Esiason.

The Tigers warmed up by blasting Wofford, but an unimpressive win at Tulane did nothing to get them in the polls. It was their September 19 home game against defending national champion Georgia that changed the equation.

It was a defensive battle and both teams had problems taking care of the ball, with a combined nine turnovers. But Jordan found Tuttle in the corner of the end zone for the game’s only touchdown and Clemson won 13-3. They were ranked #14 when the next polls came out.

Clemson beat poor teams in Kentucky and Virginia, 21-3 and 27-0 respectively. Then they went to Duke and blasted a respectable Blue Devils’ team 38-10. In a year where chaos was breaking out at the top of the polls, the room was there for the Tigers to be movin’ on up.

They were now #4 and two more soft opponents were ahead. Clemson beat N.C. State 17-7. To date, all the scores look typical for a team that relies on its defense. That’s what makes the home game with Wake Forest on October 31 jump out even more drastically than it otherwise would—Clemson won 82-24, matching its offensive output of the previous three weeks.

The Tigers were ranked second in the nation, but a road trip to North Carolina was next. The Tar Heels were also in the Top 10 and like Clemson, angling for a prestigious January 1 bowl slot. UNC had an excellent running back in Kelvin Bryant, who went on to the NFL where he could do everything on a football field except stay healthy. The Clemson defense delivered another big-time performance in a 10-8 win.

Another impressive shutdown of an offensive star was next, as Clemson beat Esiason’s Maryland by a 21-7 count. The Tigers closed with a 29-13 win over mediocre South Carolina. One week later, they watched as Pitt fell to Penn State. Suddenly, the team that still had a hard time getting respect was ranked #1 and playing in the Orange Bowl for a national championship.

Tom Osborne became the head coach of Nebraska in 1973 at a time when the program had two recent national championships (1970-71). Osborne continued to win at a high level, but not only were national titles not forthcoming, but he couldn’t get past Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma in the old Big Eight Conference.

The only year Osborne had beat Switzer was 1978, and even that year they still shared the conference title and were forced into a rematch at the Orange Bowl…which Oklahoma won. The Cornhuskers were ranked #6 and anxious to finally get over the hump that was the Sooners.

It was all about line play at Nebraska and that started with center Dave Rimington, who won the Outland Trophy. On defense, Jimmy Williams was an All-American at end, while Rodney Lewis was the same in the secondary.

Nebraska didn’t throw the ball match, with Turner Gill and Mark Mauer splitting duty. And when you have running backs like Roger Craig and Mike Rozier, why bother? Craig, a future NFL star with the San Francisco 49ers, rolled up over 1,000 yards and his 12 catches in this ultra-conservative offense were a foreshadowing of the versatility he would show playing with Joe Montana.

Rozier ran for 943 yards and the sophomore got rolling on the college career that would lead him to a Heisman Trophy two years later.

The Cornhuskers had a difficult non-conference schedule with Florida State—fresh off back-to-back Orange Bowl appearances—and Penn State. What Nebraska hadn’t counted on was that the season opener at Iowa would also prove to be tough. The previously dormant Hawkeye program came to life this year with a run to the Rose Bowl and they upset Nebraska 10-7.

Osborne’s team bounced back with a 34-14 blasting of Florida State at home, but they next week, the Huskers let Penn State come into their house and control the fourth quarter. Nebraska lost 30-24 and fell out of the national rankings.

A 17-3 win over Auburn and consecutive blowouts of bad Big Eight teams in Colorado and Kansas State got Nebraska back up to #15. The Big Eight was shaping up to be a balanced race, with Oklahoma also having relative struggles and it heightened the importance of Nebraska’s October 24 visit to 19th-ranked Missouri.

The game was scoreless was 2:36 left and it looked like the Cornhuskers were headed for a third blemish on their record. They got the ball on their own 36-yard line, when Gill began to showcase the arm that would be such a weapon for this team in the coming two years. He hit Irving Fryar and Todd Brown on key passes that got the ball to the 3-yard line. Phil Bates blasted it over for the winning touchdown.

Gill’s arm, combined with Nebraska’s 222-85 edge in rush yardage gave them a 6-0 win. In spite of the early losses, the Cornhuskers were still unbeaten in league play. And while OU struggled to a 6-4-1 season, Nebraska rolled past Kansas, Oklahoma State and Iowa State to wrap up the outright conference championship and automatic Orange Bowl spot.

There was still the matter of beating Oklahoma on the football field and with Nebraska now #5 in the polls, they were back in the national championship discussion when they visited Norman for the regular season finale. When the Sooners scored on the first drive, there had to be at least some “here we go again” laments going through Husker Nation.

But this time, Nebraska took over the football game. They ran for 314 yards. Mauer was in at quarterback for this one and he went 11/16 for 148 yards. Rozier and Craig both cleared the 100-yard mark. Nebraska’s power-I formation attack trumped Oklahoma’s wishbone option, and the Cornhuskers won 37-14. They concluded the regular season ranked #4.

By the time the Orange Bowl kicked off, everyone knew third-ranked Alabama had lost. Georgia was ranked #2 in playing in the Sugar Bowl at the same time. It turns out, the Bulldogs would also lose.

There’s nothing saying for sure that Nebraska would have vaulted to #1 with a win—Texas was also in the discussion—and the Cornhuskers’ two defeats would surely have come under greater scrutiny. But a championship was definitely in play for both teams, not just Clemson.

Nebraska seemed to have control of the line of the scrimmage in the early going, but two drives inside the 30-yard line ended with lost fumbles. Meanwhile, Clemson put it on the ground three times for the game, but recovered each one. The breaks were going Clemson’s way, and eventually the flow of play did too.

It was a 75-yard drive in the third quarter that was the decisive blow. Jordan found Tuttle near the pylon for the touchdown pass that finished the drive and put Clemson in control. They held on to win 22-15 and college football’s chaotic season had ended with a Cinderella national champion.