Head coach Urban Meyer’s Ohio State football team thought it would be playing for the national championship. Instead they’ll get Clemson in a battle of conference runner-ups.
The seventh-ranked Buckeyes (12-1) will take on the No. 12 Tigers (10-2) in the 2014 Discover Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida – a rematch of the 1978 Gator Bowl that marked a turning point in the history of both programs.
In that game – the debut of legendary former Clemson head coach Danny Ford – the Tigers defeated Ohio State 17-15 to finish the season 11-1 and tied for No. 6 in the nation. Three years later Clemson won its first national championship with an Orange Bowl victory over Nebraska, although the following year the program was placed on probation for numerous recruiting violations.
The defining moment of the 1978 game? Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes punching Clemson defensive lineman Charlie Bauman on the sidelines after a fourth quarter interception clinched the Tigers’ victory. Hayes was fired after the game, bringing to an end his thirty-three year coaching career.
Clemson hasn’t played a Big Ten school since defeating Illinois 30-0 in 1990.
The big story line in this game? Tigers’ quarterback Tajh Boyd – who was heavily recruited by Ohio State but wound up attending Clemson (rewriting the school’s record book in three seasons as a starter).
Boyd will go up against Braxton Miller – another preseason Heisman favorite who is among the nation’s top dual-threat signalcallers.
Kickoff from Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida is set for 8:30 p.m. on Friday, January 3 with ESPN televising the game nationally. Clemson appeared in the Orange Bowl two years ago as the ACC Champion – losing 70-33 to West Virginia. This year the Tigers are an at-large selection to the BCS.
“We are very excited to go to the Discover Orange Bowl for the second time in the last three years,” Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney said. “Getting to another BCS Bowl game is very important for our program. We have developed some consistency the last three years. We have been ranked in the top 15 the last 27 polls, the longest streak in Clemson history, and have won at least 10 games three years in a row, something only six other FBS schools have done.”
Last year Clemson defeated Southeastern Conference powerhouse LSU in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. All-time, the Tigers are 17-19 in 36 bowl appearances (including a 2-3 mark under Swinney). Ohio State is 20-23 in 43 bowl games – including losses to South Carolina in the 2001 and 2002 Outback Bowls. This is their first postseason appearance under second-year head coach Urban Meyer.
28 comments
I would love the Tigers to stick it to the Buckeyes. In the Lowcountry, we’re tired of Ohio State fans. Buckeyes, get this, we don’t care about your school. It’s a thousand miles away. Stop wearing Ohio State gear every time you go outside your house. Take the damn Buckeyes sticker off your car. Put away the Ohio State flag flying from your porch. And most of all, get rid of your Ohio license plate. We see you drop your kids off at school. We know you live here.
The place to rat these Buckeyes out is the DMV, not FitsNews.
Don’t get out of the Lowcountry much do you, a thousand miles away.
I’ve noticed a lot of Ohio State flags in the Charleston area, what’s up with that? Anyone know? Don’t seem to see them in the midlands nearly that often.
I have never seen more Ohioans in my life than in the Charleston suburbs. And every time you meet one they insist that you call their oversized school THE Ohio State University. I’ll acknowledge that they have a kick as band but they tend to be obnoxious in everyway. Give me two bus loads of Long Islanders or Jersey transplants over an Ohio refugee.
No no no,,,keep the markers on your sorry asses so we can see you coming. Ohio people are the absolute worst in every way. They are dishonest, untrustworthy, miserable to be around and permanently hung up on how “great and righteous everything in Ohio is”. Yet, here they are, and like fire ants, they keep hailing back to the long lost relatives to come on down. I hope the Taters stomp their miserable asses all over Miami, and what’s left of them get killed in a bus accident on I-95 heading back home.
“They are dishonest, untrustworthy, miserable to be around and permanently hung up on how “great and righteous everything in Ohio is.”
You just described the Clemson administration.
How would you know? Could you even find Clemson with a map?
What a douche nozzle
Let him use both hands and a flashlight and he couldn’t do it.
I don’t know about the dishonest and untrustworthy bit, but having a few OSU fans in the family and amongst friends I can tell you that they can be pretty intolerable during football season.
If you think Clemson and South Carolina fans think they are the center of the universe you haven’t spent any time with the Buckeyes. They are slightly classier but just as entitled as Alabama’s fanbase, with the annual delusions of Notre Dame, and an enduring sense of victimhood that can only come from Ohio State.
They are slightly classier but just as entitled as Alabama’s fanbase,
TBG disputes this.
Ain’t nothing classy about OSU football.
Sweater-vest /= class.
Anything is classier than the Alabama catchphrase, “If you ain’t ‘Bama, you ain’t ____!”. If I were an Alabama fan I’d cringe every time I heard another fan say that.
Posts like these should make us root for the Buckeyes even more. You boys are some fine “Americans.” If you represent the Lowcountry, than these Ohio natives are classing up the area.
Those Ohio transplants must be like the New Englanders here in Columbia, they’re easy to spot they’re the ones who don’t have neck beards or have a name patch sewn onto their shirts.
I think this is part of the Yankee occupation force from the ‘great unpleasantness’ or what ever you choose to call getting your ass kicked. Y’all aren’t ready to go it alone quite yet.
‘great unpleasantness’
War of Northern Aggression, Chief.
‘War of Northern Aggression’
Getting your ass kicked, Bubba
There is a small town in Northern Ohio raising funds to purchase a one way bus ticket so their town idiot can return in time to follow the animals in the Christmas Parade with his customized shit can and shit shovel
The South lost the war, but we sure killed an assload of those stinking bastards. The best part was that most of them were recent immigrants. Couldn’t get ’em all, but we put a major dent in the “first wave” of filthy Irish invaders.
That was a great comment, and you didn’t in any way let your total lack of intelligence surface.
Yes. The effort was of course largely negated since they reproduced like Papal hares.
+1000
Former Ohio resident. Never gonna move back.
So your Heart Is in Dixie and your Ass is, too?
Excellent!
Cuck Flemson
Really, a negative review – C’MON Man
OK, I can deal with it –
Duck Fabo
you mean the guy all the walmart greeters dress like?
Some of the consistency Clemson has deveoped goes back five years.
So does South Carolina’s. Prior to that, from what i read on here, Clemson never played Carolina on a regular basis.