Miami Traditions

December 3, 2015 By Leave a Comment

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Courtesy of User B

You look out over the field and see players adorned in orange and green with a U on the side of their helmets. On the sideline dances some odd looking bird-like figure. We must be at a Disney Show, right? Not exactly, we’re at a Miami football game.   Let’s take a look at some of the traditions of the University of Miami– the origins of the school colors, the nickname, the U, and the mascot.

Orange, green, and white represent the official school colors. The colors were selected in 1926 to symbolize the Florida orange tree. The orange represents the color of the fruit, the green symbolizes the leaves, and the white represents the blossoms.

As for the origin of the Hurricane nickname, a couple of stories exist. The first story involves the 1927 football team. The players voted for the nickname because they were hoping to sweep away the opposition like the hurricane of 1926 did to the city of Miami. The second story details a conversation between Miami News columnist Jack Bell and Porter Norris of the 1926 team. Bell asked Norris what he thought of University officials and local dignitaries wanting to name the team after some local plant or animal. Norris replied that the team would not stand for such a thing and countered with the name Hurricanes because one had postponed the opening game for the season.

Miami designer Bill Bodenheimer designed the original U logo in 1973. It served as the basis for such slogans as “U gotta believe” and “U is great.” The current U, as seen on the helmets, is actually the meteorological sign for a hurricane.

The bird-like costumed figure on the sidelines is an ibis named Sebastian. The ibis is the last sign of wildlife to take shelter before a hurricane and the first to reappear after the storm.

That’s a little history behind the Miami traditions.  Go ‘Canes!

 

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Clemson Traditions

November 20, 2015 By Leave a Comment

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Death Valley, Orange Tiger Paws, and Howard’s Rock. No doubt about it…we’re on the campus of Clemson University. In another installment of college traditions, we’ll explore the origins of the Tiger nickname, Death Valley, and Howard’s Rock.

Clemson fielded its first football team in 1896. Coach Walter Merritt Riggs brought the Tiger nickname and purple and orange colors from his alma mater Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, now known as Auburn University. Riggs began the Clemson program with old equipment from Auburn. The nickname and colors stuck and the first Tiger mascot began entertaining fans in 1954 when a student dressed in a costume tiger suit began parading around the sidelines and mocking the opposition and referees while sitting in a lawn chair in the end zone.

The Tiger mascot began a tradition in 1978 that takes place all around the nation today. After each score at a football game, the mascot performed push ups equal to the total points Clemson had scored during the game. The game record is 465 push ups completed in a 1981 contest against Wake Forest. During a particularly explosive day for the Clemson offense, the mascot wearing a 45 pound Tiger costume can lose 10 to 12 pounds a game!

Clemson Memorial Stadium became known as Death Valley in 1948 after the football coach from Presbyterian College told sports writers that his team had to go play Clemson in Death Valley where his teams rarely scored. The name took off in the 1950s when Clemson coach Frank Howard repeatedly referred to the stadium as Death Valley.

In the early 1960s, Howard received a rock from Death Valley, California from a Clemson alumnus. Howard used it as a doorstop until 1966 when a Clemson employee placed the rock on a pedestal at the top of the east end zone hill that the team ran down to get to the field. The players ran by the rock for the first time on September 24, 1966 before beating Virginia, but the tradition of players rubbing the rock before each game began on September 23, 1967 before a victory against Wake Forest. Howard realized the motivational aspect of the rock and told his players that if they gave 110 percent they could receive the privilege of rubbing the rock. Now, every Tiger player rubs the rock on his way down the hill before thousands of screaming Clemson fans.

The rock receives special attention the 24 hours before the South Carolina game. ROTC cadets stand guard over it and maintain a steady drum cadence that can be heard across campus. Just goes to show that you can never trust your arch rivals!

From the Death Valley mystique, to Howard’ s Rock, to the Tiger mascot, Clemson boasts several timeless traditions that help make college football the exciting sport that it is.  Go Tigers!

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Notre Dame Nickname

November 18, 2015 By 37 Comments

Hesburgh_Library

Knute Rockne, the leprechaun, and Touchdown Jesus can only be associated with one school–the University of Notre Dame.  The school has won over 850 football games and has 13 national championships.  They are known as the Fighting Irish.  Before that name took hold, the school was known as the Catholics then the Ramblers.  No one knows for sure how the Fighting Irish nickname came to be, but several stories do exist.

The first story involves the Northwestern game in Evanston, Illinois in 1899.  At the end of halftime, Northwestern fans began to chant–“Kill the Fighting Irish, kill the Fighting Irish,” and purportedly, Notre Dame officials deemed the moniker appropriate.

The next story involves halftime of the Michigan game in 1909.  Many of the Notre Dame players had Irish surnames such as Kelly, Duffy, and Ryan.  With Notre Dame trailing, one of the players reportedly yelled to his teammates, “What’s the matter with you guys?  You’re all Irish and you’re not fighting worth a lick.”  Notre Dame came back to win the game and reporters who overhead the remarks wrote that the Fighting Irish were victorious.

And finally, the Notre Dame Scholastic in a 1929 edition wrote:

The term Fighting Irish has been applied to Notre Dame teams for years… at the time the title the Fighting Irish held no glory or prestige…the years passed swiftly and the school began to take a place in the sports world…Fighting Irish took on a new meaning…the team has become our heritage…so truly does it represent us that we are unwilling to part with it.

No one knows the true story, so take your pick.  What is certain is that the Fighting Irish is one of the most recognizable names in college sports.  So cheer, cheer for Ole Notre Dame!

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War Eagle

November 11, 2015 By Leave a Comment

 

Courtesy J. Glover-Atlanta, GA

Over 80,000 people gather at Jordan-Hare Stadium every Auburn University home football game to experience Southeastern Conference (SEC) football in one of the nation’s great on-campus venues. About 15-20 minutes before kickoff, the marching band plays the fight song on the field and the electricity and energy in the stands rises. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a live eagle begins to glide around the inside of the stadium, slowly descending until landing near midfield. As the Auburn football team readies to enter the field, the Auburn faithful by the thousands regale the area with one of the more famous chants in college football, “War Eagle.” Besides yelling the chant at athletic events, fans may employ the chant as a form of endearment, a greeting, or salutation among other Auburn fans. The chant and the eagle mascot have been Auburn traditions for years and the following hopes to enlighten those unfamiliar with the stories behind the traditions.

Outside the Auburn fan base, very few people know the origin of the chant.  The true Auburn fan will offer you four possible stories.

One involves a veteran of the Civil War watching Auburn’s first football game in 1892 with his pet eagle found on a battlefield during the war.  According to witnesses, the eagle broke free of the veteran and began circling the playing field at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park as Auburn drove for the winning score against Georgia.  As the Auburn fans watched their team drive down the field with the eagle circling above, they began to yell “War Eagle.”  At the end of the Auburn victory, the eagle crashed to the ground and died.

A second story comes from Auburn’s 1914 game against the Carlisle Indians.  The Indians’ best player was named Bald Eagle.  Auburn ran play after play right at him in hopes of wearing him down.  Without huddling, the Auburn quarterback yelled Bald Eagle to start each play.  Auburn fans thought the quarterback was yelling War Eagle and began shouting the name before every play.  When an Auburn player scored the winning touchdown, he supposedly yelled War Eagle and the cry became a tradition.

Story number three comes from a pep rally before a game in 1913.  A cheerleader yelled out that for Auburn to win the game “they would have to go out there and fight, because this means war.” At that very moment an eagle emblem fell off of a student’s hat.  Asked what it was, the student replied “It’s a War Eagle.”

The final story has its links to the Saxon Warriors.  When buzzards circled the battlefield after a Saxon victory, the warriors yelled “War Eagles” as their victory cry.

The live eagle mascot is called War Eagle. The eagle, real or contrived, from the 1892 Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn)-Georgia game receives credit as War Eagle I. According to legend, during the Battle of The Wilderness in Virginia, a former AMCA student from Alabama was the sole Confederate survivor. As he struggled to cross the battlefield, he happened upon a young, wounded eagle. The soldier gathered the young bird and nursed him back to health. The young man eventually joined the Auburn faculty and brought the eagle with him. The eagle became a well-known figure on the Auburn campus. In1892, the eagle and the old soldier attended Auburn’s first football game against Georgia. The eagle broke away from the man, flew around the field, and crashed to his death upon the Auburn victory. Whether the legend is true is open to debate, but it does make for a great story.

War Eagle II came to Auburn in 1930. A golden eagle became entangled in some vines while hunting its prey on a farm southwest of Auburn. As the story goes, the farmer sold the eagle to some people for $10 and it ended up in the care of two Auburn cheerleaders. The cheerleaders put the bird in a wire cage and took it to Columbus, GA for the South Carolina game. Auburn had not won a Southern Conference game in four years but vanquished the Gamecocks that day, 25-7. The student body concluded the eagle brought victory that day and should remain a part of Auburn tradition. The eagle remained in a cage on campus attended to by the cheerleaders. No one knows for certain the rest of War Eagle II’s story.

The next eagle in the War Eagle line, War Eagle III, arrived on campus in 1960. A Talladega County farmer found the bird caught between two rows of cotton, gave it to authorities, who then gave it to the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. The Alpha Phi Omega fraternity built a cage for the eagle and began a run of about 40 years as caretaker of the eagle mascots. Unfortunately, War Eagle III escaped his leash during the Tennessee game in Birmingham in 1964 and was found shot to death in a wooded area near Birmingham.

The Birmingham Downtown Action Committee located another golden eagle at the zoo in Jackson, MS and presented it to Auburn in October 1964. War Eagle IV lived on campus in a large aviary. The aviary, the second largest single-bird cage in the country, stood until razed in 2003. A new tradition began when War Eagle IV received the nickname of “Tiger.” The 22-year old golden eagle served Auburn for 16 years before dying of natural causes.

War Eagle V came from Wyoming in 1981 under the stewardship of the United States government under the stipulations of the Endangered Species Act and was on loan to the Auburn University Veterinary School. The bird also took the nickname of “Tiger.” Tiger served for five years before dying from a ruptured spleen at the age of eight.

War Eagle VI came to Auburn on loan under the same government arrangement as War Eagle V. During the 2000 season, War Eagle VI became the first of the line to perform the pre-game ritual around the inside of Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Southeastern Raptor Rehabilitation Center in Auburn took over care of War Eagle VI and all other eagles beginning in 2000. War Eagle VI gained international fame when the golden eagle flew around Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, UT as part of the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. The school retired the eagle on November 11, 2006, and she lived to be 34 years old before dying in 2014.

The current eagle mascot, War Eagle VII, came to Auburn six months after birth at the Montgomery Zoo in 1999. The golden eagle immediately took over for War Eagle VI and currently shares the traditional pre-game flight with two more eagles, another golden eagle and a bald eagle.

War Eagle embodies two of the great Auburn traditions. The chant and the eagle have not only captured the hearts and souls of the Auburn faithful but have earned the honor of two of the most famous and recognizable traditions in college athletics.

 

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Spurrier Rankles UGA

October 26, 2015 By Leave a Comment

 

 

Courtesy Zeng8r

Courtesy Zeng8r

In Tales from College Football’s Sidelines, Herschel Nissenson tells a story about Steve Spurrier’s only trip to Athens to play the University of Georgia while head coach of the University of Florida. The Gator Bowl, now EverBank Field, was being renovated in 1994-1995, and the two schools agreed to play a home-and-home series on their respective campuses. Florida won the 1994 contest in Gainesville, 52-14, and the 1995 game came to Athens.

Florida had the ball at the Georgia 8-yard line in the waning minutes with a 45-17 lead. Spurrier sent in the field goal unit. Before the kick, Spurrier received a phone call from someone in the press box. The caller informed Spurrier that no team had ever scored 50 points on Georgia in Sanford Stadium.

Spurrier called time out, decided on a play, and sent the offense back on the field. Quarterback Eric Kresser tossed a touchdown pass to receiver Travis McGriff to give Florida the points needed to exceed the 50 mark.

After the play, Spurrier called back to the person in the press box and declared, “Have now.”

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Tennessee Traditions

October 21, 2015 By Leave a Comment

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Courtesy of TN66/CC-BY-SA-3.0

When you hear the words “University of Tennessee football,” what comes to mind?  Maybe an image of an orange-clad team with a “T” on the side of the helmet that plays in a big stadium with the song “Rocky Top” seemingly played every five minutes.  But how many of you know how the school decided on orange as their main color, or the nickname “Volunteers” or the Rocky Top song?

Charles Moore, a member of the 1891 football team, thought the colors of orange and white would be suitable.  These were the colors of the American daisy that grew in abundance on the Tennessee campus.  The student body voted to approve the  nomination of the colors at a later date.  Interestingly, the first orange jerseys were not worn until the 1922 season.

The school gets its nickname from the state motto. Tennessee acquired the name “Volunteer State” during the War of 1812 after General Andrew Jackson led a group of about 1500 volunteers to fight against the British at the Battle of New Orleans.  Several decades later Tennessee sent 30 thousand volunteers to Texas to aid in its fight against Mexico.  So the Volunteers seemed an appropriate nickname for the school.  At all athletic events, UT’s color guard wears 1840s dragoon uniforms similar to those worn during the fight against Mexico.

The song “Rocky Top” was first played at halftime of the 1972 Tennessee-Alabama football game as part of a country music show.  The Tennessee faithful immediately embraced the song and the UT band made it part of its game music repertoire soon after.

The University of Tennessee has a proud athletic tradition.   The school’s “Volunteer” nickname, orange uniforms, and classic song give the school instant recognition among college sports enthusiasts.

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The Florida Gator

October 16, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Gators1907Gator bait. Gator bait. Gator bait. Make no doubt about it, when you’re talking Gators and college football, you’re talking about the University of Florida. Here’s a quick look at how the gator moniker became associated with the school.

Florida opened in 1905 and began playing football in 1906. It was around that time that the alligator became the symbol and nickname of the school.  Gainesville native Austin Miller enrolled at the University of Virginia law school in 1908.  Austin’s father, Phillip, visited him in Charlottesville and decided to order some pennants and banners for sale in his Gainesville store.  The two visited a company that manufactured pennants.  When the company representative asked the Millers what the symbol for the University of Florida was, they realized the school had none.  Austin told the company rep that he believed the symbol was the alligator.  Austin quickly thought of the alligator because it was native to the state and as far as he knew, no other school had an alligator as its symbol.  The company rep designed an alligator for the pennants and banners based on a picture Austin provided from the University of Virginia library.

Phillip brought the pennants and banners back to his Gainesville store. The pennants and banners portrayed an alligator in different poses.  Some only portrayed an alligator head.

One banner was blue with an orange alligator in the middle.  This banner became the first official symbol of the school and the gator name took its home in Gainesville.

Albert, the first live alligator, appeared on campus in 1957.  Several Alberts have served since.  A costumed gator, also called Albert, began roaming the Gator sidelines in 1970.  Albert’s friend, Alberta, joined him in 1986.

You may be thinking that a better story surely exists for the origin of the Gator nickname–like maybe a gator eating a horse  or something on the very site of Florida Field years before the first football game–but you would be mistaken.  At any rate…Go Gators!

 

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Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints Rivalry

October 15, 2015 By Leave a Comment

 

Atlanta_Falcons_white_wordmark

206px-New_Orleans_Saints.svgThe National Football League (NFL) has its share of rivalries, including Dallas-Washington, Chicago-Green Bay, and Cleveland-Pittsburgh.   Yet arguably the one with the most vitriol between fan bases is the Atlanta-New Orleans rivalry.  At these games, fans have yelled obscenities at the opposing fans, fought opposing fans, and even attempted to urinate on opposing fans. Before looking at some series statistics and a review of some of the games in this blood feud, an explanation of why the rivalry exists is warranted.

The franchises came into the NFL one year apart, Atlanta in 1966 and New Orleans in 1967. Both cities reside in the Deep South and are about seven hours driving time from one another. The teams have played each other twice a year since 1970, except in the strike-shortened 1982 and 1987 seasons. Both have competed in the same divisions in the National Football Conference since 1970. Geographic proximity, twice-a-year contests, and direct competition for division titles and playoff berths tend to produce rivalries.

Atlanta leads the series 49-43, but New Orleans has won 13 out of the last 17 games. The Falcons are 24-21 against the Saints in Atlanta and 25-22, including a playoff game in 1991, in New Orleans and San Antonio (one game in 2005 because of Hurricane Katrina). New Orleans’ longest winning streak is six in the series while Atlanta’s is 10. Both teams have won five division championships, one conference championship, and have appeared in one Super Bowl. New Orleans has one NFL Championship by virtue of its 2010 Super Bowl (XLIV) win over the Indianapolis Colts.

The rivalry has produced some memorable games. In 1970 the two teams were placed in the same division for the first time and the start of two-games-against-the-other every season commenced. The series began to create some bad blood between the two division brothers in 1973 when the Falcons administered the worst Saints defeat in their history with a 62-7 drubbing at the old Tulane Stadium.

Both games in 1978 came down to the wire. With Atlanta trailing New Orleans in the Superdome with 19 seconds left, Falcons quarterback Steve Bartkowski threw a Hail Mary pass towards the end zone that was tipped by Atlanta receiver Wallace Francis into the hands of teammate Alfred Jackson for a 20-17 Atlanta victory. Two weeks later in Atlanta, the Falcons, down 17-13 at their own 28-yard line with 53 seconds to go, witnessed Bartkowski drive the team down the field and into the end zone with only five seconds left for another 20-17 victory.

In the only postseason encounter between the franchises, Atlanta defeated New Orleans in the Superdome 27-20 in the Wild Card playoff round. Falcons quarterback Chris Miller hit receiver Michael Haynes for the go-ahead 61-yard touchdown with just under three minutes left in the game.

New Orleans re-opened the Superdome on September 25, 2006 against Atlanta after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Before a delirious crowd and a national television audience, the Saints dominated the Falcons, 23-3. In the first quarter, New Orleans safety Steve Gleason blocked a punt that teammate Curtis Deloatch recovered in the end zone for a touchdown. Atlanta could produce very little offensively the rest of the game. The contest became the highest-rated program in the history of ESPN. In July 2012, a statue of the Gleason punt block was erected outside the Superdome. Entitled “Rebirth,” the statue represents the resilience of the New Orleans people after the destruction rendered by Hurricane Katrina.

During the Saints’ Super Bowl season of 2009, the teams met again on Monday Night Football in the Superdome. After the first quarter, Atlanta led 14-7, but the Saints scored 21 second-quarter points to take command. Behind quarterback Matt Ryan, the Falcons rallied but saw their hopes dashed by a late fourth quarter Ryan interception at the New Orleans five-yard line. The Saints held on for a 35-27 victory.

During the 2012 season, the Saints came to Atlanta three weeks after giving the Falcons their first loss of the season, 31-27, in New Orleans. As the Saints players, coaches, and staff prepared to leave the airport in a charter bus, airport workers threw eggs at the bus. Possibly inspired by the actions of the soon-to-be unemployed workers, the Falcons intercepted Saints quarterback Drew Brees five times on the way to a 23-13 win.

Brees and the Saints gained a measure of revenge during a Thursday night nationally-televised encounter with the Falcons in the Georgia Dome in 2013. Brees threw a 44-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jimmy Graham and a one yarder to back up tight end Benjamin Watson for a 17-13 Saints victory. Brees surpassed Warren Moon for fifth place on the all-time career passing list after throwing for 278 yards against the Falcons.

No matter the records, games between the Falcons and Saints bring out the best in both teams and the worst in the two fan bases. For the “Who Dat?” Nation and the “Rise Up!” throng, no victory is sweeter than the one against their bitter rivals.

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LSU Traditions

October 13, 2015 By 1 Comment

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Louisiana State University (LSU) has a proud football tradition.  LSU fans routinely sell out Tiger stadium and wear something purple and gold while cheering on their beloved Tigers.  The following stories explain how the school adopted its nickname and colors.

The university began using the Tiger nickname during the 1896 football season. However, the origin of the name came from the Civil War. During the battle of Shenandoah, soldiers from New Orleans and Donaldsonville distinguished themselves through their tenacious fighting. Contemporaries referred to these men as the fighting Louisiana Tigers. The players on the 1896 team believed the Tiger name an appropriate moniker and the proud tradition lives on today.

Royal purple and Old Gold mark LSU’s official colors. One story goes that in the spring of 1893 the baseball team wore these colors for the first time during the game with Tulane and the colors stuck. Another story comes from November of the same year. The football team wanted something to adorn their gray uniforms for their first ever football game. Coach and chemistry professor Dr. Charles Coates and a few players went to Reymond’s Store in Baton Rouge. The store was stocking ribbon for Mardi Gras–purple, gold, and green. None of the green had arrived yet, so Coates and quarterback Ruffin Pleasant bought all of the purple and gold ribbons for the team to wear on their uniforms and the color tradition took root.

The LSU Tigers play before nearly 500,000 home fans a year. Most if not all wear something in Royal purple and Old Gold. The tradition lives on in Baton Rouge. Geaux Tigers!

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Clemson-Georgia Tech Gridiron Memories

October 8, 2015 By Leave a Comment

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The Clemson University Tigers and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Tech) Yellow Jackets have played 79 football games against the other, the first taking place in 1898. Tech leads the series 50-27-2. For some undocumented reason, the schools played 29 games in Atlanta from 1902 through 1973, and after one game in Clemson in 1974, the series returned to Atlanta the next three years. The series ended briefly after 1977 but resumed in 1983 when both schools competed as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Tech and Clemson have met every year since then with each winning 16 games. The two schools actually met in the ACC Championship game in 2009 but the National Collegiate Athletic Association vacated Tech’s victory and ACC title after it found Tech used an ineligible player during the last three games of the season. The Tech-Clemson rivalry ranks as one of the South’s oldest and has produced some poignant memories.

In 1902, for example, Clemson coach, John Heisman, played a ruse on the Tech program worthy of a Broadway production. The day before the game between the two schools, Heisman sent a group of Clemson students by train to Atlanta with the instructions to pose as football players and conspicuously party the night away. The day of the game, members of the Tech program received word of the actions of the fake Clemson players and assumed they would be in no shape to compete on the gridiron. Unbeknownst to Tech, Heisman had his real players stay at a hotel in nearby Lula, Georgia. Much to the surprise and chagrin of the Tech team, the well-rested Clemson boys routed the Yellow Jackets, 44-5.

After the 1903 Clemson team routed Tech 73-0, the largest margin of victory for either team, Tech lured Heisman to Atlanta with a 25 percent pay raise. Heisman coached on the Flats for 16 years, overseeing 102 wins, three undefeated seasons, the 1917 national championship, and the beginning of Tech’s 15-game winning streak over the Tigers.

In 1977, Tech officials announced the series would end after the game that year. According to an SB Nation article, Clemson faithful bemoaned the thought of not staying in and enjoying Atlanta, at least every other year. Clemson booster George Bennett concocted a plan that he hoped would convince Tech and Atlanta officials that a game with the Tigers in Atlanta would be an economic boost for the city. For the 1977 game, Bennett encouraged Clemson supporters to pay all of their expenses in Atlanta with two-dollar bills stamped with tiger paws. While the plan did nothing to change the minds of Tech or Atlanta officials, it did spur a road/bowl tradition—the Two Dollar Tiger Bill.

After Tech joined the ACC in 1983, Clemson won four out of the first seven games. The 1990 game marked only the third time in series history that both schools were ranked in the polls (1959 and 1984 were the previous encounters), Clemson 15th and Tech 18th. Tech led 14-3 at halftime on two touchdown passes from Tech quarterback Shawn Jones but the Tigers repeatedly moved the ball in the second half only to settle for field goals. With the score 14-12, Tech’s Kevin Tisdel returned a kickoff 87 yards to set up a T.J. Edwards touchdown run to make the score 21-12. Clemson took the ensuing kickoff and drove all the way to the Tech one-yard line before the Tech defense held on fourth down. After a Tech fumble on the Tech 41-yard line, Clemson scored on a DeChane Cameron 3-yard run with 3:27 left in the game to make the score 21-19. After Tech punted, Clemson had one last chance, but All-American kicker Chris Gardocki missed a 60-yard field goal at the end of the game. Tech’s win that day proved pivotal as the Jackets would become the United Press International’s national champions at season’s end.

Six games from 1996-2001were all decided by three points, Tech won four of those. Clemson came to Atlanta in 2001 ranked 25th to face off against the 9th ranked Yellow Jackets. Both offenses marched up and down the field but Tech had no answer for Clemson quarterback Woody Dantzler. With 15 seconds before halftime, Dantzler scored on a 38-yard run that became known in Clemson annals as the “Hail Mary Run.” Regulation ended tied at 41, and after a Tech field goal in overtime, Dantzler worked his magic again by scoring from the Tech 11-yard line on third-and-six for a 47-44 Tiger victory.

Clemson’s last victory in Atlanta came in 2003 when Coach Tommy Bowden led the Tigers to a rout of the Chan Gailey-coached Yellow Jackets, 39-3. Clemson quarterback Charlie Whitehurst passed for 298 yards and three touchdowns. The rout marked Clemson’s largest victory over Tech subsequent to the Heisman-led 73-0 pasting in 1903.

Since 2003, Tech has won eight out of the twelve games, including the 2009 ACC Championship contest. In the 2014 game at Grant Field, Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson and the Tigers’ offense left the game with a first-quarter knee injury. The Tech defense returned two interceptions for touchdowns, held the Tigers to 190 yards of total offense, and the Yellow Jackets cruised to a 28-6 win.

One of the South’s oldest rivalries will add another chapter this Saturday in Death Valley. The oddsmakers favor Clemson by more than a touchdown but don’t be surprised if the outcome of the contest comes down to a final bit of trickery. John Heisman would not have it any other way.

 

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