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. 15 team on our list:
The 1990 Tigers (10-2, 5-2 ACC, Final ranking No. 12)
On January 21, 1990, an angry crowd gathered outside the President’s Box at Clemson Memorial Stadium as the university was set to name Ken Hatfield as its next head coach.
In the four days since Danny Ford stepped down, which were due to several issues—most notably another NCAA investigation into recruiting practices—fans, alumni and even players expressed their displeasures for his departure.
Hatfield, however, handled the situation with class and poise. After Frank Howard talked to the angry mob in hopes of calming them down, he came in and asked Hatfield if he would come out and say a few words. He was happy to. With his wife Sandy, Hatfield, a man of strong Christian values and faith, walked through the crowd until he was in the middle of them all.
“I’m glad you are here,” he told the group. “That shows people at Clemson really care. It shows interest, enthusiasm and your concern for this purpose. I’m not going to ask you or force you to accept me right away. I have to prove myself.”
While the new Clemson coach seemed to be calming down the fans, he had a different problem inside the locker room. Four days earlier, Ford called a team meeting that caught all the players off guard.
“Everyone was like, ‘Why are we having a team meeting,’” linebacker Levon Kirkland said. “‘What’s up? What’s going on?’ You could feel that something was wrong.”
Ford gathered the team and told them he and the university reached an impasse they could not get around. The end result was his resignation which he first made public in that team meeting.
“You could have heard a pin drop,” Kirkland recalled. “You could see that some guys took it better than others, but collectively, we were very upset.”
They were so upset the team marched over to President’s Max Lennon house and threatened to boycott the 1990 football season if Ford was not reinstated.
“I think you have to understand that we were a team that just came off a big victory against West Virginia in the Gator Bowl and I think everybody’s feelings coming back that year was that we had an opportunity to go all the way and bid for a national championship,” said Kirkland. “Now, we were young men. You have to realize that we weren’t fully matured. When you have someone that everybody looked up to, that was tough.
“The coaches’ and players’ relationships seemed to really mesh at the time. The players seemed to really enjoy the coaches and the coaches seemed to have really enjoyed the players. We worked hard and it seemed like it was a great understanding. To break it up was tough. There was not a whole lot we could really, really do, but we thought, being a team … We thought we could maybe sway the decision.”
But eventually the players on the team, especially leaders like Kirkland, middle guard Rob Bodine and quarterback DeChane Cameron took ownership and brought an understanding to the team that Ford wasn’t coming back and they had to rally behind their new head coach.
They called for a players’ only meeting to discuss their futures and how they were going to handle things from here on out.
“I was one of those guys who said, ‘Hey let’s give this guy a chance. I want to continue to play. I think I have a future at it. I’m not willing to throw that away.’ Plus, I come from a family that’s a humble family. We just didn’t have the money to try and do that,” said Kirkland, who is now a linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals. “I didn’t want to do all that changing. I think a lot of guys realized that, too. We just did not want throw this away. Coach Hatfield was a good coach. He was a very good man and we had to give it a try.”
In 1990, the Tigers went on to win 10 games—the fourth straight season in which they accomplished that feat—but they lost at Virginia for the first time ever in Week 2 and then lost a heartbreaker to eventual National Champion Georgia Tech, 21-19, in Atlanta in Week 7.
The two losses cost Clemson a shot at an ACC title, but the Tigers finished the year with five straight wins, including a 30-0 shutout of Illinois in the 1991 Hall of Fame Bowl.
With everything they went through, they’ll go down as one of the greatest teams in Clemson history not to win a championship. The defense that season led the country in total yards allowed at just 219.2 per game. They were second in the country against the run (70.9 yards per game) and second in scoring defense (9.1 points per game.)
The defense also scored five times and forced 34 turnovers. They registered 43 sacks, and seven of the 11 Clemson players to earn All-ACC honors that year came from the defensive side of the ball, including Kirkland, a second-team All-American.
Though it struggled early in the season, the offense got things rolling by mid-season and finished the year with one of the nation’s best rushing attacks at 246.3 yards per game. Running back Ronald Williams was second in the ACC with 941 yards and eight touchdowns. He was named the ACC Rookie of the Year and to the All-ACC First Team. Offensive tackle Stacy Long and guard Jeb Flesch were also named to the All-ACC team, along with kicker/punter Chris Gardocki, who led the ACC in field goals and in punting.
After shutting out Long Beach State, 59-0, to start the year, the Tigers lost to Virginia for the first time. Clemson had one the first 29 meetings in the series, still the longest winning streak by one school over another to start a series.
Following the loss to Virginia, the Tigers won their next four games over Maryland, App State, Duke and Georgia. Clemson’s 34-3 win over the Bulldogs was their third straight in the long-standing series, and the longest since they won seven straight from 1900-’06.
Despite the loss to Virginia, the Tigers were still in the running for an ACC Championship when they traveled to Atlanta on October 13, 1990 to face undefeated and 18th-ranked Georgia Tech. Clemson rushed for over 300 yards in the game, but Gardocki’s 60-yard field goal on the last play of the game fell a few yards short as Tech hung on for a 21-19 win at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Though the Tigers chances for winning and ACC Championship were gone, it did not slow them down. Dexter Davis’ fumble return against NC State the next week got the Tigers rolling again as they closed the regular season with wins over the Wolfpack, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Maryland and South Carolina.
In the Hall of Fame Bowl in Tampa, Florida, Clemson steamrolled the Illini. The 30-0 win was the Tigers’ largest margin of victory in a bowl game at the time. Clemson’s last four opponents scored a combined 24 points.
The win over No. 16 Illinois elevated Clemson to No. 9 in the Final Associated Press Poll as Hatfield became the first coach in ACC history to take his team to a top 10 ranking in his first year as its head coach.
—Above photo of former Clemson head coach Ken Hatfield during the 1990 football season (courtesy Clemson Athletic Communications)
TCI’s Clemson preseason magazine is now available. Order your copy of Unfinished Business – An Insider Look at Clemson’s 2016 season today.
