First Last, but Maybe Not Always

By Tom Callahan

Clemson stops Nebraska and holds off the N.C.A.A.

Unbeaten and untied, Clemson still has not had a perfect season exactly. The Tigers' record was 12-0. They won the Orange Bowl over Nebraska 22-15 New Year's night, and the wire services anointed them champions of all college football. But a National Collegiate Athletic Association probe of Clemson recruiting methods is in progress, so nobody knows whether to cheer just yet.

Except, of course, for the shouts of triumph coming from the ordinarily quiet community of Clemson in South Carolina, where people paint their faces with orange cat's feet. The Tigers' bowl performance gave them something to meow about, a persuasive blend of competent offense and elegant defense, and Nigerian David Igwebuike kicked in three field goals.

The victory left Clemson fans singing "We're Number One!" Theirs, though, is the seventh chorus of that this season. This is the year in college football when everyone seemed to be No. 1 for 15 minutes--first Michigan, then Notre Dame (which went on to its first losing record since 1963), then U.S.C., Texas, Penn State, Pittsburgh--and now with the N.C.A.A. hovering over Clemson, it almost seems no one is No. 1. An injustice has been done all right, maybe to Clemson's opponents, maybe to Clemson.

The system of justice in college athletics is as slow as any other. These things can take a couple of years. U.C.L.A., the school with the most honored initials in college basketball--U.C.L.A., like plucked strings--struck some bad notes a few years ago but is just facing the music now. For past recruiting violations, the Bruins have been pre-eliminated from the N.C.A.A. postseason tournament. Also, they were obliged to return the runner-up trophy from 1980, which prompts the awful thought of possibly one more No. 1 1981 football team yet to come, perhaps a year and a half from now.

An investigation is not an indictment, but in the cynical atmosphere of college sports, the effect is the same. If the sports world were as sweet and uncomplicated as the real world always hoped, there would be no more appealing champions than the Tigers, whose record last year was 6-5. In a happier time, the most talked-about freshman recruit might have been William Perry, an extraordinary 6-ft. 3-in., 305-lb. noseguard, known to his teammates as "the Refrigerator."

But two other recruits have become more renowned than the Refrigerator and have carried more weight. James Cofer and Terry Minor, former high school teammates in Knoxville, Tenn., reneged on the "letters of intent" they signed at Clemson. Then, after fighting for their release from these standard agreements, they went public with allegations they had been paid for their signatures. Now Cofer and Minor are suing Clemson

Coach Danny Ford, among others, for $12 million in damages to their careers.

Whether or not this is even the main ground the N.C.A.A. is tracking, investigators will not say. They only acknowledge the fact of the investigation. "The N.C.A.A. has sent two men to Clemson twice," says the school's sports information director Bob Bradley, "and we haven't heard anything else from them."

The reaction of Clemson fans to the stories has been as defensive as might be expected, but the shrill response of the school's administrators was unexpected and unseemly. When ABC television followed the Washington Post into the story, educators took off against the messengers. Appearing to be more disturbed by the reporters than the reports, the president of the university, Dr. Bill Lee Atchley, went after ABC harder than anyone at Clemson seemed to be going after the answers.

Atchley complained loudly when a report of the investigation was aired Nov. 28 during halftime of the Penn State upset of No. 1 Pitt. He charged that the network was campaigning for Georgia over Clemson in the rankings and for the ABC-televised Georgia-Pitt Sugar Bowl over NBC'S Orange Bowl. Coming from a university president, this seemed a curious approach to a troubling subject. It did not improve anyone's perception of a successful football team's priorities. A few guileless words from Tiger Quarterback Homer Jordan in a magazine interview didn't help much either. An industrial-education major, Jordan described his study of materials of construction, coaching education and dairy science ("You learn about different kinds of milk, cheese, ice cream ... all the dairy products"). The Ivy League was recently kicked out of big-time college football for, in a manner of speaking, having such weak departments in dairy products.

Against this whole gloomy backdrop, the Clemson football team put on a bright show during the season, of defense mostly. At one point, Tiger opponents (Georgia among them) went 18 quarters between touchdowns. In that 13-3 Georgia game, the Bulldogs' only regular-season loss in two years, they turned the ball over to the Tigers nine times; then they turned over the national championship.

At 33, Ford is a young head coach, who checked in for the job by winning the 1978 Gator Bowl, the same game in which Ohio State's Woody Hayes punched out. Ford played for Bear Bryant at Alabama and later coached under him. His explanation for the improvement of his team is entirely Bearlike: "I didn't make as many mistakes this year as I did last year."

He is not very talkative about the N.C.A.A. trouble. Clemson's on-field defense has been exceptional. The strength of its off-field defense will be tested in the months ahead.

--By Tom Callahan

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