Hill Watch...55 days!!!

76er®

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55 years ago, 1967 was another ACC Championship year for

Jul 12, 2022, 8:38 AM

the Clemson football Tigers, in Coach Frank Howard's 28th season at the helm. This time, the ACC winning Tigers were undefeated in conference play at 6-0-0. But, attesting to the lack of strength of the ACC versus other leagues, we did not win a single out of conference game. The resulting 6-4 record meant that once again, the ACC Champion was not ranked in 1967.

The AP (Associated Press) Poll was the more popular of the two major polls of the time, with the UPI (United Press International) “Coaches” Poll being the other. The only ranked ACC team at seasons end was NC State, which squeaked in at No. 17 in the UPI following a 14-7 win over Georgia in the Liberty Bowl. Yes, you read right. No bowl for the ACC Champs, but the Wolfpack got invited to the Liberty Bowl. In fairness, they had a fine 8-2-0 regular season record, which became 9-2-0 with the bowl victory.

National Champions for the 1967 season (At least according to the two major polls, AP and UPI) were the 10-1 USC Trojans of Coach John MacKay. They defeated No.4 Indiana in the Rose Bowl by a score of 14-3, before a crowd of 102,946 fans. The Trojans had a running back by the name of O.J. Simpson, who would become famous, and then infamous. The Trojans had to count themselves extremely lucky to be named National Champs, as they had their lone loss of the season in the next to last game of the regular season, in what had to be considered a HUGE upset, 3-0 to unranked Oregon State on the road in Corvallis. They barely recovered the next week, to edge arch-rival UCLA 21-20 and head into the Rose Bowl on a high. The pollsters had dropped them only to No.4 after their lone loss, and immediately bumped them back up to No.1 when they beat the Bruins the next week.

But, back to the lowly ACC. True to form of the last several seasons, Clemson was not an offensive juggernaut. Consequently, we had to rely on our defense to pull us through, or at least make us competitive, in most games.

The season opened at home with a relatively comfortable 23-6 win over Wake Forest. But then, a trip to play Georgia “Between the Hedges” resulted in a close 24-17 loss. This was followed by our 6th consecutive trip to Grant Field, where Georgia Tech took us down again, 10-0.

Still on the road, we faced Auburn on the Plains in Alabama, losing a high scoring affair 43-21. Then, it was home to the Valley in consecutive home games, both low scoring. The Tigers mustered just enough offense to edge Duke 13-7 in the first one. But, the offensive woes cost us the next game, a 13-10 slugfest against Alabama. (A future SEC matchup?)

Clemson finished the season with four straight conference wins, besting North Carolina, Maryland, and then No.10 ranked NC State. The pollsters evidently had no respect for Clemson, as the Wuffies close 14-6 loss to us in the Valley blew them all the way out of the rankings.

Clemson did manage to muster 23 points in the season finale at the Chicken Coop (Carolina Stadium) in Columbia. It was more than enough, as we took down the birds 23-12. Clemson leads the series 38-24-3.

Wake Forest W 23–6
No. 5 Georgia L 17–24
At Georgia Tech L 0–10
At Auburn L 21–43
At Duke W 13–7
Alabama L 10–13
At North Carolina W 17–0
Maryland W 28–7
No. 10 NC State W 14–6
At South Carolina W 23–12 (Clemson leads series 38-24-3.)

It was becoming fairly evident by this point in time who was, and who was not, a "football school". Those who were had stadium expansion projects seemingly ongoing, and those who weren't were content to play in antiquated small stadiums before sparse crowds. That was most of the ACC, outside of Clemson, South Carolina, and perhaps Maryland at the time.

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Couldn't find any mentions of 1967 in song lyrics, but 1967 was voted by multiple organizations in the years since as the best year in pop music with the Beatles, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, and others going strong and cranking out hits.

1967 was also the year Ron Kovic started his second tour of duty in Vietnam during which he was wounded and became a paraplegic and a peace activist. His 1976 autobiography Born on the Fourth of July was made into a film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Tom Cruise as Kovic.

And Texas Instruments introduced the first handheld calculator in 1967. It was about 6 inches long, 4 inches wide, and about an inch thick (no phallic jokes please) and cost about $150, a lot of dough then.

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

55 years ago, 1967 was another ACC Championship year for

Re: 55 years ago, 1967

Re: 55 years ago, 1967 was another ACC Championship year for

Great story, Jedi. My posts keep getting longer and longer,

Re: Great story, Jedi. My posts keep getting longer and longer,

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

Thx O.J. AND 76er!

Re: Hill Watch...55 days!!!

Keep the updates rolling!

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