The 1980 Clemson Tigers football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

Clemson University Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enro ...

in the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC) during the

1980 NCAA Division I-A football season The 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season saw a university from the state of Georgia take its first national title since 1942. Nine days following the bowl games to close the 1979 season, tragedy struck when new LSU coach Bo Rein died when the ...

. In its third season under head coach

Danny Ford Danny Lee Ford (born April 2, 1948) is a former American football player and coach. He played college football at the University of Alabama from 1967 to 1969. He served as the head football coach at Clemson University from 1978 to 1989 and at th ...

, the team compiled a 6–5 record (2–4 against conference opponents), tied for fourth place in the ACC, and was outscored by a total of 222 to 217. The team won the 100th ACC game in Clemson history on November 1 and played its home games at Memorial Stadium in

Clemson, South Carolina Clemson () is a city in Pickens and Anderson counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. Clemson is home to Clemson University; in 2015, ''the Princeton Review'' cited the town of Clemson as ranking #1 in the United States for " town-and-gown" ...

. Lee Nanney and Willie Underwood were the team captains. The team's statistical leaders included quarterback

Homer Jordan Homer Jordan (born March 21, 1960) is a former American football quarterback. He was the starting quarterback for the Clemson Tigers football, Clemson Tigers 1981 Clemson Tigers football team, 1981 National Championship team. He was also a member ...

with 1,311 passing yards, Chuck McSwain with 544 rushing yards, Perry Tuttle with 915 receiving yards, and placekicker Obed Ariri with 87 points scored (23 field goals, 18 extra points).

Schedule

Roster

References

{{Clemson Tigers football navbox Clemson Clemson Tigers football seasons

Clemson Tigers football The Clemson Tigers are the American football team at Clemson University. The Tigers compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic C ...