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 conclude our rankings with the No. 1 team on our list:
The 1981 Tigers (12-0, 6-0 ACC, National Champions, ACC Champions, ranked No. 1)
Thanks to its victory over 14th-ranked South Carolina, Clemson finished the 1980 season with a 6-5 record. It was not a mark really to brag too much about, but to hear the players coming back from the 1981 season tell it, they felt as if they won the national championship.
“What Willie (Underwood) did, and that game, motivated us the entire off-season,” said running back Cliff Austin. “We were changing. That spring, we were changing from being a loser to a winner. We were fueled by our upset win over South Carolina to end the season and it just kept going.”
Underwood, a senior, played the game of his life against the Gamecocks that afternoon, grabbing two interceptions, including one for a 37-yard touchdown in keying the Tigers’ 27-6 victory in Death Valley. The two interceptions were the first of his career at Clemson. In all, Underwood played in 47 games as a Tiger and his performance that afternoon inspired his teammates that were returning in 1981.
“We came out of that spring a better football team. Our confidence level was high,” Austin said. “That was the roughest spring, but the best spring that I went through during my time at Clemson.”
When the Tigers got back to Clemson that summer, the tough times continued in camp as they prepped for the upcoming season. The offense was led by a potent rushing attack that featured Austin, Jeff McCall, Kevin Mack and McSwain. Then there was All-ACC quarterback Homer Jordan and All-American wide receiver Perry Tuttle that gave the Tigers just enough of a passing threat to keep defenses honest.
The defense was led by All-American linebacker Jeff Davis, defensive tackles Jeff Bryant, William Devane and Dan Benish and All-American safety Terry Kinard. Clemson also had a freshman phenom at nose guard named William “The Refrigerator” Perry, who dominated opposing centers with his raw and dynamic athletic ability.
Safety Terry Kinard was an All-American in 1981, and led led a defense that was one of the best in the country.
Overall, the Tigers finished second nationally in scoring defense, seventh in rushing defense, seventh in turnover margin and eighth in total defense. Clemson led the ACC in total defense, rushing defense, scoring defense and interceptions.
In a 13-3 victory over No. 4 Georgia in Week 3, they forced nine turnovers, still a Clemson record for one game.
“I can remember when we played that if the offense lost the ball we would go tell them that we are going to get the ball back,” said Davis, who led the Tigers in tackles in 1981. “I can remember that most of the time, that is exactly what happened.”
Overall, Clemson only allowed three teams to score more than 10 points in 1981—Wake Forest, South Carolina and Nebraska—and it went 18 quarters without giving up a touchdown during one stretch.
“We didn’t want people to score on us, and we wanted to physically dominate people,” Davis said. “In a sick way, that was our joy. Yeah, we may not have beaten everybody by 21 points, but your body and your mental state of mind said we beat you by 21 points.
“That’s the kind of football we played. We had no reason for how great we were playing.”
All-ACC quarterback Homer Jordan completed 11 of 22 passes and had 180 yards total offense in leading the Tigers, while Davis, the Defensive MVP, had 14 tackles.
But that reason was head coach Danny Ford. Just 33-years old at the time, Ford became the youngest coach in college football history to win a national championship, which still holds true today.
Ford was a fiery coach who coached off his players’ emotions. A player’s coach, Ford knew what buttons to push to motivate individuals and his team.
“He was a tough guy,” Davis said. “He was very well respected. He had fire in him, and we fed off of that. He basically took what Charlie Pell started and took it to the next level.
“When we played for him it was hard for us to look ahead. It was hard for us to think too highly of ourselves because he had a way of pulling us back down.”
Davis recalls if it wasn’t for Ford and his staff keeping them grounded, especially after the 13-3 win over Georgia, things might have been different in 1981.
“The coaching staff did a good job of keeping us focused, keeping our goals out there and understanding that some great things can happen if we keep on playing the way we had been playing,” he said. “I think that’s why we won the national championship because we never really bought into the hype.
“We never bought into how great we were. It was more important for us to prove how great we were game in and game out.”
With every passing week, critics from around the country predicted this would be the week the Cinderella story from the small Upstate South Carolina town would end. But each week the Tigers found a way to win. When the offense finally got things going in the second half of their 21-3 victory over Kentucky, Clemson became a runaway train that ran over anything in its path.
“It was about the business at hand,” Davis said. “That is what our team focused on. It was the business at hand.”
After the win over Kentucky, the Tigers steamrolled over Virginia, 27-0, and then scored 31 points in the second and third quarters in a 38-10 win at Duke.
The offense then rushed for 304 yards in a 17-7 victory against N.C. State, before the record-setting 82-24 afternoon against Wake Forest on Halloween.
Clemson linebacker Jeff Davis was an All-American in 1981 as he led the Tigers in tackles on the way to a perfect 12-0 season.
But the game that told the team, the coaching staff and the national media that 1981 was the year of the Clemson Tigers, was their 10-8 win in Week 10 at North Carolina. On that afternoon, the Tigers won a hard fought, tough and physical football game, against a North Carolina team that finished the year 10-2 and ranked in the Associate Press Top 10.
“We knew we played some great football and we knew we played a tough brand of football,” Davis said. “We had been tested and tried. We hand been in the tough football games. We had been in the 10-8 games. If I had to say there was one game when we started thinking about the national championship, I would say it was that game.”
Clemson went on to wrap up the ACC Championship – its first goal – the following week with a 21-7 win over Maryland. It was just the Tigers second victory in 10 years against the Terps and the first since a 28-24 victory in 1978, which wrapped up the ACC title that year as well.
The following week against rival South Carolina, Clemson closed a perfect regular season for the first time since 1948 with a 29-13 victory in Columbia, bringing everything full circle and setting the stage for the greatest moment in Clemson football history.
“That (1980) season balanced our attitude even though we had success early. There was no reason for us to get the big head,” Davis said. “There was still a lot of work to be done and we were fortunate to be in the position we were in.”
The Tigers moved into the No. 1 spot a week after they concluded the regular season. Penn State beat Dan Marino and previously undefeated and No. 1 Pittsburgh, 42-14, that week, propelling Clemson to the No. 1 position as it headed to Miami to play Nebraska in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.
The 1982 Orange Bowl was Clemson’s first Orange Bowl appearance in 25 years. Jordan, the game’s Most Valuable Offensive Player, completed 11 of 22 passes and had 180 yards total offense in leading the Tigers, while Davis, the Defensive MVP, had 14 tackles. Bill Smith, now on the Clemson Board of Trustees and whose son Cannon plays for the Tigers, had a career high 10 tackles to lead the linemen.
Clemson began the 1981 season un-ranked and unproven, but when it was all said and done, the Tigers were the only undefeated and untied team in the country. They may not have looked perfect at times, but their 12-0 record said otherwise.
“They were a terrific group and they set out to accomplish one goal, and that was to be perfect,” Ford said.