Extra Points: Tiger Tales

It began on a rainy Monday morning in late October 1897, with some 200 Carolina students gathered around the original athletic field just to the east of the Old Well to watch the Tar Heel football team square off against Clemson College. The Tar Heels dominated from start to finish, playing at times as the student newspaper reported "with remarkable ginger."

It was 28-0 Tar Heels late in the game. "In the last few minutes Clemson's tricky ball chasers played snappy ball but in vain, and with the ball on their 35 yard line, time was called that they might catch the train," the Tar Heel newspaper reported.

Despite that inauspicious beginning, the Tigers have won roughly two out of every three encounters against the Tar Heels, the rivalry beginning in earnest in 1953 when Clemson and Carolina became charter members of the newly formed Atlantic Coast Conference.

But there have certainly been some highlights for the Tar Heels venturing into the foothills of northwest South Carolina.

They dominated Coach Frank Howard's team 28-0 in 1964, with halfback Ken Willard leading the rushing attack and being greeted by Howard in the dressing room afterward with a kiss on the cheek. "Boy, I'm glad we don't have to play you anymore," Howard said.

A defense led by Lawrence Taylor and Steve Streater thwarted a last-minute Clemson surge in 1980, securing a 24-19 Tar Heel victory as prelude to winning to the ACC championship. "These are our rings, no one's taking our rings," Streater screamed in the faces of his teammates before the Tar Heels stopped the Tigers on fourth down at the 10 yard line with under a minute to play.

Mack Brown's one victory at Clemson during his first tenure at Carolina came in 1997 with QB Chris Keldorf hitting L.C. Stevens with three long strikes and Dré Bly picking off a pass in the back of the end zone with less than a minute to play, wrapping up a 17-10 win. Bly cradled the ball and dropped to one knee, his teammates jubilant around him and fans in the west end zone stands deathly silent. "I just wanted to let it sit there for a while," Bly said.

The Tar Heels brought an edge to Clemson in October 2001, defensive tackle Ryan Sims saying, "We were tired of people scheduling us for homecoming." Julius Peppers stunned the masses in the second quarter when he shed two blockers, batted a pass and intercepted it while falling to his knees to set up a touchdown and help the Tar Heels seize control of the game in a 38-3 landslide.

Ken Willard … Lawrence Taylor … Dré Bly … Julius Peppers. Heady company indeed.

Could Drake Maye be the next Tar Heel luminary to venture into the orange crush of Death Valley and spring a victory? We'll find out Saturday at 3:30 p.m., with more than 80,000 spectators flocking to Memorial Stadium and likely more than a million television viewers tuned in on national television as Carolina faces a Tiger team that has won two straight games in a rare middling season (6-4 overall, 3-4 ACC) for Coach Dabo Swinney.

"I love road games against big crowds," Brown says. "They're the biggest challenges you have. Clemson's 96-9 at home under Dabo. Not many have won there. No one will think we can win. We're rarely the underdog. It's kind of fun."

The storylines are clear cut.

For the Tigers, has the turnover worm turned? Clemson had a 9-3 turnover deficit in losses to Duke, Florida State, Miami and N.C. State. The last two weeks in wins over Notre Dame and Georgia Tech, the Tigers have gifted the opponent just three possessions and stolen seven themselves. Last Saturday, they pounded by 21 points the very Yellow Jacket team that popped the Tar Heels three weeks ago.

"It's the old Clemson again," Brown says. "They're playing like a playoff team. They're running the ball, protecting well. They dominated a Georgia Tech team that beat us. I was watching them Saturday and said, 'Uh oh, the boys are back. They woke up.'"

For the Tar Heels, the challenge is to marry the prolific offense that Maye orchestrates so well—Carolina is No. 3 nationally in total offense with 521 yards a game—with a defense that can stand strong for four quarters. The Tar Heels have been stung in their last two ACC games by allowing Georgia Tech and Duke to each score touchdowns on three consecutive fourth-quarter possessions. That finish against the Blue Devils last Saturday in Kenan Stadium soured what had been a solid performance for three quarters—Duke with only 142 yards entering the final 15 minutes.

"Our defense is not finishing the game like we need to, and we've got to figure out why," Brown says. "Against Duke, we stopped the run a large majority of the game but gave up two long ones, and we can't do that. We held them to 5-of-15 on third downs, but they were 4-of-4 on fourth downs and 4-of-4 on red zone touchdowns."

Both teams have tall orders on defense—Carolina bottling up Tiger QB Cade Klubnick, who passed for 279 yards against the Tar Heels in the ACC title game last December, and Clemson having to corral Maye, who added to his Ripley Believe It Or Not slideshow against Duke by somersaulting, dishing and dashing and improvising at the last millisecond for 342 yards passing and accounting for three touchdowns (two rushing, one passing).

"I don't think I've seen Drake any better," Brown said. "He made some wild plays. It was fun to watch."

"I have a lot of respect for Drake Maye," Swinney said. "I'll be glad when he's gone. I'm going to declare him for himself. We're going to declare him. He's a great one."

In Kenan Stadium in 2019 it was Sam Howell vs. Trevor Lawrence. The Tigers, top-ranked and coming off a 2018 national title, escaped Chapel Hill by a whisker. Saturday it's Maye vs. Klubnick, the Tigers trying to prove they're back and the Tar Heels targeting a November trifecta of bouncing Duke, Clemson and N.C. State on successive Saturdays.

It's serious stuff indeed and not quite so quaint as it was 126 years ago. And there's certainly no rush to catch a train.

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) is in his 34th season writing about Tar Heel football under the "Extra Points" banner. Look for his columns throughout the season. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

Players Mentioned

Drake Maye

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