By McGranahan.

By Ed McGranahan

With the Clemson-Carolina game only nine days away, we will take a look back at some of the memorable plays, characters, moments and years that helped shape the nation’s second longest continuous rivalry from the Clemson perspective.

Clemson 28, South Carolina 14 (October 20, 1955)

The Atlantic Coast Conference was a newborn when Charlie Bussey enrolled at Clemson, though the rivalry with South Carolina was more than 50 years old.

In four games against South Carolina, including the one between freshmen in 1953, Bussey, who these days helps Clemson with the Letterwinners Association, won three as a quarterback and safety. His favorite as a player was in 1955, a 28-14 Clemson win on Oct. 20 with several layers of intrigue.

All the games those days were played in Columbia during the week of the State Fair. Clemson-Carolina was Big Thursday. Public schools recessed and the capitol city was packed. South Carolina had won five of the six previous games and tied in 1950, marring an otherwise perfect Clemson season.

Typically the days leading up to the game included hijinks and an occasional barb, though nothing as thunderous as the riot of 1902.

“The pranks and the jawing back and forth was more with the fans than it was the players. It was not to the extent that it is today,” Bussey said. “Most of the players had been friends in high school.

“It was a good-natured rivalry. There was nothing classified as acrimony.”

Before the game his senior year Bussey remembers receiving word that a caravan of Carolina students intended to “invade” Clemson. They were stopped outside of town, and one of the invaders was captured and brought to Bussey’s room, his head freshly shaved. His “punishment” was to attend class at Clemson for the day before he was set free.

Bussey, now 78, said he figures the kid returned to Columbia as a hero after telling his tale as a “prisoner.”

Besides playing in a new conference, Clemson faced a couple of major changes Bussey’s first two years. Coach Frank Howard had decided to drop the single-wing offense for the T formation (or full-house backfield) in 1953 as teams looked for more efficient methods of generating a punishing run game.

Passing was fraught with failure in the minds of many coaches including Howard, who at the time embraced the belief that only three things could happen to a pass “and two of them were bad.”

Also, in 1954 college football officially returned to the “iron man” game after 13 years of unlimited substitution.

Clemson was still in its infancy in the T, and nobody in those days ran it better than Oklahoma, which was midstream in its record 47-game win streak. Oklahoma led the nation in scoring, total offense and run offense and shutout five opponents that season.

Bussey recalled watching the Sooners beat Texas on television before Clemson’s game Oct. 8 at Rice University in Houston. They noted a play in which the quarterback would take the snap, turn and fake to the first of two crossing halfbacks who would dive over tackle with the intention of drawing the defense in his direction. The quarterback would then hand the ball to the other halfback over the opposite tackle.

Howard loved the play and believed that in Joel Wells he had the guy who could emulate Oklahoma halfback Tommy McDonald.

Since substitutions were limited between plays, Howard prepared two units then rotated them ever few series to keep them fresh. Bussey had been the alternate quarterback, but an injury to Don King at Rice thrust him into the starting role.

After the Rice game, Clemson had 11 days to rehearse the new play before playing its archrival on Big Thursday. Bussey said they scrimmaged for three hours every day, full contact. The reward each year was that Howard gave them a holiday Friday through Sunday.

His instructions were to hold the play until they were within 30 yards of the end zone, though Clemson thought it would be prudent to stake itself to an early lead and try to make Carolina play uphill.

Passing was rare in those days. Clemson threw 115 passes in 10 games in 1955. Bussey joked, “Tajh Boyd throws more in a week of practice than I did all season.”

Yet in Clemson’s second possession, Bussey passed to Willie Smith for a touchdown. On the next possession, Clemson faced third-and-long just inside Carolina territory. Bussey decided to turn Wells loose. From the 49, Wells ripped off 46 yards on the counter to the doorstep of the end zone.

Joe Pagliei put the finishing touches on the drive to make it 14-0.

Howard had also come up with a defensive twist to contain the Carolina run. Wells was brought down near the line to string out the Gamecocks’ power sweep. Wells, who rushed for 116 yards, scored a touchdown to make it 21-0 in the second half.

The Gamecocks rallied with touchdowns by Carroll McClain and Eddie Field, but Clemson covered an onside kick and scored the exclamation points in a 28-14 victory.

Bussey would score the game’s only touchdown the following year in a 7-0 win in which Clemson did not attempt a pass. And though he would go on to lead Clemson to its first ACC championship, where the Tigers played Colorado in the Orange Bowl, the 1955 South Carolina game remains his favorite game at Clemson because of the history of the play, which became a staple of Howard’s offenses for several years.