The Clemson Insider went back and ranked Clemson’s 25 best teams of all-time.
What classifies a certain team as one of the best? Of course winning a championship—national or conference—will be the first qualification. The other qualifications are overall record, national ranking and where they fell in the conference standings.
We continue our rankings with the No. 4 team on our list:
The 1978 Tigers (11-1, 6-0 ACC, ACC Champions, ranked No. 6)
Most times in life it takes failure in order to reach great success. Expectations entering the 1978 season were at their highest at any point in the previous 20 years. The Tigers were coming off an 8-3-1campaign in 1977 in which they went to their first bowl game in 18 years and finished the year ranked 19th in the final Associated Press top 20 poll.
Clemson began the 1978 season looking as if it was going to exceed its lofty expectations. The ACC’s preseason favorite rolled over The Citadel in the season-opener as eight different Tigers scored in a 58-3 victory.
The eighth-ranked Tigers expected to do the same thing in Week 2 as they rolled down the road to Athens, Georgia to play unranked Georgia. The Bulldogs were still smarting from the 1977 matchup when Clemson knocked down a two-point conversion on the last play to sneak out of Athens with a 7-6 win.
But the Clemson players were feeling good and felt this was their year to shine. Georgia quickly brought them to earth. The Bulldogs forced six Clemson turnovers and kept the Tigers out of the end zone, while limiting the strong running game to 156 yards.
The defense held its own, limiting Georgia to two first half field goals, but the Bulldogs opened the second half with an 80-yard drive, capped with a 13-yard Jeff Pyburn touchdown pass to flanker Carmon Prince. Georgia had seized control of the game.
The Tigers were stunned. Just three hours earlier they were boasting about being unbeatable and being the best in the country. Now they were 1-1 and were trying to figure out what went wrong.
“We learned our lesson quick,” linebacker Bubba Brown said. “After the Citadel game we were on top of the world, and when we went to Athens as the favorite, I think we were beginning to believe all the stuff people were saying about how good we were.
“The Georgia game brought us back down to earth. We learned that even though we had talent, we had to work for everything we got.”
This was when arguably the best Clemson team ever assembled was born. A look to the final NCAA statistics from that season tells the rest of the story.
The Tigers of 1978 finished fifth in the nation in scoring offense at 32 points per game, and fifth in the nation in scoring defense, allowing just 10.5 points per game. Clemson was fourth in the nation in total offense at 436.7 yards per game, and 15th in total defense, allowing 254 yards a game. The Tigers were sixth in the nation in rushing, averaging nearly 300 yards per game and fifth in turnover margin. The passing game, led by quarterback Steve Fuller, completed 54 percent of its passes and threw just five interceptions.
Even the special teams were among the best as the Tigers finished second in the nation in punt returns, and Clemson Hall of Fame inductee Obed Ariri was 12th in the nation in scoring.
A look at the future NFL stars on that 1978 team gives more evidence that this was the most talented team in Clemson history. No less than six players (Jerry Butler, Fuller, Jim Stuckey, Jeff Bryant, Perry Tuttle and Terry Kinard) were first-round NFL draft choices. Seventeen players on the team were drafted and 18 played in the NFL. Eleven of the 18 played at least five years in the NFL.
The players on Clemson’s starting offense that year played a combined 61 years in the NFL. Just look at the offensive line alone. Jeff Bostic, the center, played 14 years in the league. His brother, Joe Bostic, was a starting guard who started nine years in the league and was an All-American in 1978. Steve Kenney, a starting tackle, played for the Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions for seven years.
Fuller played 10 years in the league, while his favorite targets, Butler and Dwight Clark, both were All-Pros and played nine years in the league. That does not even include second-team wide receiver Perry Tuttle, who was a first-round draft pick and All-American in 1981.
After the Georgia game, Clemson got on a roll, and carried an 8-1 record to Maryland in Week 10. The Terrapins had been doing the same as two top 12 teams met in College Park for the championship of the ACC on November 18, 1978.
It was a game of big play after big play. At one juncture there were three consecutive scores from at least 60 yards out. Maryland scored on a blocked punt that was recovered in the end zone by Mike Carney. On the next possession, Jerry Butler got loose in the secondary and sped 87 yards for a score.
Maryland countered with a 98-yard touchdown run by Steve Atkins, still the longest run in ACC history. But, Clemson got off the mat when Fuller hit Clark over the middle and the future NFL Player of the Year raced 67 yards for a touchdown.
With the game tied in the fourth quarter, Clemson’s winning 70-yard drive was capped with a five-yard run by Brown. Maryland then drove to the Tiger seven, but on third down, Clemson’s Brown, Bubba, stopped Maryland’s Dean Richards for a loss and the Terps settled for a field goal with 1:56 left.
Chuck Rose recovered the ensuing onside kick and when Fuller guided the Tigers to a pair of first downs, the game ended with a 28-24 victory, an ACC title and a bid to the Gator Bowl to meet Ohio State.
As the seventh-ranked Tigers began preparing to play No. 20 Ohio State in the Gator Bowl Classic, the headlines in the local newspapers started to change daily. Florida had fired head coach Doug Dickey and was searching for a new coach to lead the Gators’ program.
Pell, who first came to Clemson as an assistant head coach to Parker in 1976, was an ideal candidate. Pell had taken a Clemson program that had a lot of talent and taught them how to become champions. At first, he dismissed rumors he was talking to Florida, and then he was being named its next head coach.
Upon leaving to accept the Florida job, Pell recommended that his assistant head coach, Danny Ford, become Clemson’s new head coach. Within 24 hours, Clemson’s Board of Trustees agreed and approved the former Alabama tight end as their next head coach.
Ford quickly went to work preparing for the Gator Bowl. His first game as head coach wasn’t an easy one, either.
He was coaching against future Hall of Fame coach Woody Hayes. His Buckeye program was one of the more respected and biggest programs in the country.
The 1978 Gator Bowl was a landmark game in Clemson and college football history. Clemson won a narrow decision, 17-15, its first win ever against a Big Ten team.
Freshman Cliff Austin, who had started the season on the junior varsity squad, scored what proved to be the winning touchdown. Four years later he scored the first touchdown in Clemson’s National Championship victory over Nebraska.
Ohio State scored late and went for the tie, but Jim Stuckey broke through the line and stopped freshman quarterback Art Schlichter short of pay dirt. Ohio State had one more chance in the final minutes.
The Buckeyes drove to the Clemson 40. But, on a second-down play, Charlie Bauman intercepted a Schlichter pass, the only interception of the second-team middle guard’s career. He was run out of bounds at midfield on the Ohio State side of the field.
When Bauman stood up, he was hit in the throat by Hayes. A fight ensued and when it was sorted out by the officials, Clemson was given possession of the ball and Ohio State was charged with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty.
Clemson ran out the clock to gain the victory. The next day Hayes was fired by Ohio State and never coached again.
The bizarre ending might have taken some of the attention away from Clemson’s victory, but the Tigers finished the year ranked sixth in the final Associated Press Poll thanks to an 11-1 record, the highest in Clemson history at the time.