The 1986 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

1986 NCAA Division I-A football season The 1986 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with Penn State winning the national championship. Coached by Joe Paterno, they defeated Miami (Fl) 14–10 in the Fiesta Bowl. This Fiesta Bowl was the first in the game's history to decide the na ...

. In its ninth 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 an 8–2–2 record (5–1–1 against conference opponents), won the ACC championship, defeated

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

in the

1986 Gator Bowl The 1986 Gator Bowl (December) game was a post-season college football bowl game between the 1986 Stanford Cardinal football team, Stanford Cardinal and the 1986 Clemson Tigers football team, Clemson Tigers, played on December 27, 1986, at Gator Bo ...

, and outscored opponents by a total of 296 to 187. The team 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" ...

Terrence Flagler Robert Terrence Flagler (born September 24, 1964) is a former professional American football running back in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers and Phoenix Cardinals. He played college football at Clemson University. ...

and Terence Mack were the team captains. The team's statistical leaders included quarterback Rodney Williams with 1,245 passing yards,

with 1,258 rushing yards and 78 points scored (13 touchdowns), and Ray Williams with 280 receiving yards.

Schedule

Personnel

References

{{Atlantic Coast Conference football champions Clemson Clemson Tigers football seasons Atlantic Coast Conference football champion seasons Gator Bowl champion 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 ...