Ten years? Homer Jordan asked.
No, try 40.
"Ten years ago, you said? Yeah, about 10 years ago," Jordan said, denying for a moment how much time has gone by before letting out a high-pitched belly laugh.
It's hard for the former Clemson quarterback to believe he was a junior in college 40 years ago and helped the school earn its and the state of South Carolina's first-ever football national championship. Back then, many people nationally knew little to nothing about Clemson. And in some respects, that 1981 Clemson football team helped put the Upstate town and college on the proverbial map.
"Despite the No. 1 ranking, Clemson doesn't get a lot of respect," sportscaster Don Criqui said before the 1982 Orange Bowl on the NBC broadcast. "Their All-American linebacker Jeff Davis says he's tired of people asking him: What's Clemson? Where's Clemson at? Is that North Carolina?
"We all know it's in South Carolina and football people certainly know who Clemson is."
Four decades and two more national championships later, more than just "football people" know about Clemson. The players and coaches who helped lay the foundation to make that 1981 championship happen will be honored during Saturday's homecoming game against Boston College at Memorial Stadium.
And more than just the final game or the championship itself, the members of that 1981 team remember the relationships and bonds that were forged along the way.
"They were an overachieving bunch that came out of nowhere and became the best football team in history in 1981," said Danny Ford, who was only in his third full year as the Tigers' head coach that season. "Nobody thought nothing of them and they believed in themselves."
Setting the scene for 1981
Homer Jordan would much rather change topics than discuss Clemson's 1980 season. The Tigers went 6-5 and didn't play in a bowl game for the second time in a span of five seasons.
They did, however, end the season with a 27-6 win over South Carolina, which got the group talking.
"It seemed like the whole team was just committed to being better than what we were, and it was a better team than 6-5," said Jordan, who was Clemson's sophomore quarterback that season.
Those conversations on how to get the team turned around extended to the coaching staff as well.
Ford was only 30 when he took over as Clemson's head coach after the first 11 games of the 1978 campaign. It was rare back then to lead a program at such a young age.
Sometimes his tactics and demeanor didn't always sit well with his players. Ford's temperament fluctuated so much that it seemed nothing the Tigers did was good enough, players recalled. So they talked to him about it — and Ford, then 33, was receptive to the feedback and said that conversation helped him be more stable in his leadership style.
"If you don't have the communication open to them and they don't like to play for you, it doesn't matter how many Xs and Os you think you know," he added. "You're not going to be very successful without having the kids behind you."
Ford got a lot of things right in his 12-year coaching tenure with Clemson and his player relations philosophy is one of them. While former Clemson defensive end Bill Smith wasn't at the meeting players had with Ford about his demeanor, he appreciated how much the head Tiger valued the team's thoughts and opinions.
"People use the terminology 'player coaches' and that's truly what coach Ford was," said Smith, who's now a board of trustees member for Clemson and a founder and CEO of Red Rock Developments. "They worked us extremely hard but they also cared about us, and that came across in how they coached us and how they prepared us. It takes everybody being on the same sheet of music, so to speak, and on the same page in order for any organization to succeed and that's what we were able to do that year."
Started from the bottom
Clemson began the 1981 season unranked and relatively unknown.
The Tigers never set out to make history, just be better than they were the year before. The process started with Wofford, which was dealt a 45-10 loss at the Tigers' hands.
In Week 2, Clemson picked up Tulane because Villanova had dropped its football program. In a closer contest, the Tigers notched the 13-5 victory. Then came No. 4 Georgia, the defending national champion. The Tigers recorded the 13-3 win, which allowed them to enter The Associated Press Top 25 at No. 14 when playing at Kentucky the next week.
By Week 6 — a 38-10 win over Duke — the Tigers had matched their win total from the year prior and were a Top 10 team.
Being undefeated was exciting, but it wasn't until Clemson picked up a road win over North Carolina on Nov. 7, 1981 that Smith realized this team was different. The Tigers were ranked second and the Tar Heels were the No. 8 team in the country.
"Going to Chapel Hill and coming away with a (10-8) win, then we started looking around and saying, 'You know, this thing could turn out to be pretty good if we continue to take care of business,' " Smith said. "So to me, that was a defining moment along with the Georgia game saying, 'Hey, we just beat the defending national champs.' Gave us a lot of confidence but we had to keep plugging along."
With one game left in the regular season, Clemson and Pitt were the only unbeatens left. Penn State robbed the Panthers of the perfect season, however, by beating the squad 48-14. Clemson, on the other hand, took down the Gamecocks 24-6.
"During the struggles of the year before and just staying together, working hard in the offseason, all that plays a part," Jordan said of the Tigers' perfect regular-season record. "We were good friends and all hung out and it carried over into the locker room. It carried over on the field, into the game. We just played for one another."
The way everything came together manifested in an 11-0 season, setting the stage for Clemson's first-ever meeting with No. 4 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
Orange magic in the Orange Bowl
One doesn't have to be well-traveled to know there's a climate difference between Nebraska, South Carolina and Florida, especially in the winter.
That's why Clemson strength trainer George Dostal came up with the idea to go to Florida early. Two weeks before the 1982 Orange Bowl, the Tigers went to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a small retirement community about 250 miles north of Miami. Dostal figured it would help the team get adjusted to the sunny, warmer climate. He set up a weight room near the pool of the team hotel.
"It was nothing to do, so you couldn't get in trouble," Smith said. "(Dostal) had a plan for us and it worked. They took us down there and worked us really hard, but we were well-prepared and well-conditioned to go up against Nebraska, and I think that was a big difference in the outcome of the game."
Having a little luck never hurt, either. Clemson fans at that time believed playing in the Orange Bowl was a sign, considering it's also the Tigers' primary color. The sea of orange was put on display during the NBC broadcast the evening of New Year's Day in 1982, and maybe it did help.
Clemson's defense had been the strength of the team, giving up more than 10 points to only two opponents in Wake Forest (24) and South Carolina (13). So when Nebraska got the ball first, it was no surprise that three-year starting defensive lineman William Devane forced a fumble and recovered it to get the Tigers' offense on the field.
Clemson led 12-7 at halftime then scored 10 points in the third quarter to power the victory with Jordan leading the way.
Homer Jordan was Clemson's second-ever Black starting quarterback. Willie Jordan — no relation — started a few games in 1975. Homer also became the second Black starting signal caller to win a Division I national championship after Minnesota QB Sandy Stephens (1960).
By the time Clemson had capped off a perfect season, the only color that mattered was Jordan's jersey. He was named the Orange Bowl MVP and earned every part of it.
Clemson defeated Nebraska 22-15. Jordan (11-of-22, 134 yards) threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Perry Tuttle, running back Cliff Austin scored from two yards out and Clemson kicker Donald Igwebuike had three field goals.
Ford made sure to let everyone know how he felt about his team being a four-point underdog to the Cornhuskers.
"Las Vegas went broke yesterday," Ford said in an article published in The State newspaper on Jan. 3, 1982. "We don't have to prove anything to all you folks, just to ourselves and our program."
Delayed celebration
Homer Jordan literally gave everything he had.
The adrenaline on the field was going so much he didn't notice, but the Georgia native was dehydrated.
"You're raising your hands, enjoying and this kind of stuff and then went into the locker room, I think, and that's when it hit me," Jordan recalled. "We celebrated for a minute on the field and we ran to the locker room and then, bam. Something happened."
He remembers not feeling well and telling Fred Hoover, the Tigers' athletic trainer, who figured out Jordan was dehydrated. While Smith and the rest of the team met with with friends and family in the lobby of the team hotel, Jordan was in his room getting an IV. To this day, he said he never fully celebrated the victory.
"I think they need to do it all over again so I can celebrate," he said with a hearty laugh.
It was a different era for how champions were crowned. While the Orange Bowl was widely regarded as the national championship game, Clemson had to wait until Sunday, two days later, for the final AP rankings and the formality of being officially recognized as No. 1 and national champs.
The on-campus celebration also was a little muted when compared with the parades and gatherings that took place in the days after Clemson's 2016 and 2018 championship wins.
Being that the 1981 championship game took place over Christmas break, the school waited until a men's basketball game against Duke on Jan. 23, 1982 to hold a special event for the football team. Before the game, Tigers football players signed autographs and met fans on the Littlejohn Coliseum concourse. During halftime, trophies were brought out and the football team was acknowledged.
As exciting as those moments were, it took some time before what the Tigers had accomplished really sunk in.
"The older we've gotten, the more we appreciate what we did accomplish because there's a handful of schools out there that have won one national championship much less three now for Clemson," said Smith, whose son, Cannon, was on Clemson's championship-winning teams in 2016 and 2018. "It's very hard to accomplish."
More than a game
Homer Jordan and Bill Smith still keep up with one another and many of their teammates and coaches all these years later.
There's no talk of the national championship game itself — "at least not the crew I'm with," Jordan said. But, the relationships have lasted throughout the years with plenty of other off-the-field stories to tell. Smith and Ford remembered some of the tales while others Ford was hearing for the first time. He couldn't divulge any of them, though.
"Every one of them would have something. 'Coach, you don't remember this but we did this or we did that,' and I'd say, 'Yeah, you wouldn't have been here if I'd known that,' " said Ford, now 73. "You don't forget they're 18- to 24- or 23-, 22-year-old guys, so what they did back then, they probably don't want their families to know some of the things they did."
Every spring, a few of the former offensive linemen come to Ford's farm in the small down of Central, South Carolina to talk and hang out. He's gone on fishing trips with and received Father's Day calls from former players as well.
When Jordan's wife, Deborah, died in February 2016, he said half the team was at the funeral. Most recently, Jordan, who lives in his hometown of Athens, Georgia, came back to town for Clemson's home opener against S.C. State on Sept. 11 and saw Davis. He tried to get a hold of former 1981 teammate Reggie Pleasant, who serves as a life coach for Clemson and also works for FCA, but the two got lost in the crowd.
More than a game, those relationships are what each individual took away from their time at Clemson.
"We can go years and years and not see each other and if one of our brothers needs help or whatever, all they've got to do is pick up the phone and call," Smith said. "It's really fulfilling to know that we had each other's back there and we've got each other's back now."
As the former football players gather Saturday for the 40th anniversary of Clemson's first-ever national title, it'll be like old times. There's never any awkwardness between the brothers and history makers.
And best of all, no more answering questions about where Clemson is.
"I think we showed people that if you put your mind to something ... just because we're a small college town and university doesn't mean we can't compete with the biggest and the best and we've done that as an institution, as a university both athletically and academically," Smith said. "I think to me, we showed a lot of people that just because we're small, little Clemson, we can compete with the best of them."
