Way Back Wednesday: Clemson vs Florida State
Each Wednesday, Sam Blackman joins us to talk a little Clemson football history. Here are a few of the topics we touched on this past week. You can listen to the full interview above.
Florida State entering the ACC:
"It came after the decade of the 80's and Clemson won three ACC championships in the late 80's and here comes Flordia State and they win seven or eight straight conference championships it was hard for Clemson to get over that."
Ties between Clemson and Tallahassee:
"The Clemson and Florida State series isn't as old as some of the others, but there was a gentleman who played for Clemson in the 1930s named Thomas Erwin Brown. He was from Cross City, Florida and he came to Clemson. He was a big lineman for Clemson, played tackle, and he played basketball for Clemson. He had a great career, he was named All-South, which was a big honor and recognition for him. He eventually coached at Leon High School in Tallahassee. He entered private business later, but he was called on to be Florida State's radio announcer. I think it's ironic that a Clemson graduate goes down to Florida State and becomes their football announcer."
"Thomas eventually served on city and county commissions in the Tallahassee area. "He was big in county recreation. He was a well-known person around Tallahassee. Eventually, they built a 255-acre park and they named it Tom Brown Park. I just found it so interesting that a Clemson gentlemen, went down and served the community and had a park named for him after his death in 1973."
On Tommy Bowden's getting advice from Bobby Bowden:
"Not only in coaching but in other areas. How to address the media. What you should talk about. I'm sure he was a great influence on Tommy. I'm sure he would bounce plays off of him. I'd talk to Coach Bowden on things like. 'Do you go home for Christmas and y'all talk about football?' He'd say yeah, we get into it a little bit."
On the Puntrooski:
"It took a lot of courage to call that. If it works you are the greatest football genius in the world. If it fails people are going to say, 'Why in the world are you trying to run something like that?' I used to have to go down a little early to lineup where the media would talk to the players and coaches. I just remember coming out of the Clemson lockerroom and I saw a Florida State man running down the sideline and I saw another Clemson man behind him, it was Donnell Woolford. I wondered why that Florida State man was running like that. I thought they punted. I thought he must have been a really good special teams player. Little did I know, he had the football."