It all started following Clemson’s 7-6 victory over Georgia in Athens. As the Tigers were making the 70-mile hike back to Clemson, head coach Charlie Pell asked the bus driver to pull over. Pell wanted to savor the victory considering it was Clemson’s first win at Georgia since 1914.

So, as the legend goes, Pell went into a convenient store and bought every player on the team a cigar to commemorate the win. The cigar celebration became a big part of the 1977 season as the Tigers used the Georgia win to jump start a great run.

Pell and the Tigers went on to win seven straight games, and after each victory, they lit up a cigar. Well, sort off. Clemson wide receiver Jerry Butler chose not to smoke his cigars and instead he scribed the score and the date on each of his. There was just one place left in his collection back at his dorm – the South Carolina game.

But South Carolina wanted no part of this so-called rite of passage. The Gamecocks were still smarting from the previous year’s loss in Clemson when the Tigers, despite winning just two games, pounded USC, 28-9, while knocking it out of contention for a possible Peach Bowl bid.

The roles were reversed this time around when they met in Columbia on November 19, 1977. The Gamecocks were sitting at 5-5 and knew their season was over regardless of the outcome, but Clemson, 7-2-1, was in the running for a Gator Bowl invitation and needed a victory over their archrival to secure the bid and go bowling for the first time since 1959.

During the first two and half quarters, everything was pretty much going according to plan. The Tigers had a veteran team that was hungry and had a head coach that had them believing in themselves. The Gamecocks were young and unsure of what they could accomplish.

The Tigers jumped out to a 17-0 lead by halftime, thanks to a Warren Ratchford touchdown, a 30-yard field goal by Obed Ariri and a Lester Brown touchdown from the one. When fullback Ken Callicutt rumbled 52 yards midway through the third quarter, Clemson found itself up 24-0 and well on its way to victory.

“I wouldn’t say we thought we had it won, but it certainly felt like we did,” quarterback Steve Fuller said. “It seemed like we were the far superior team for three and a half quarters.”

It was about that time when South Carolina’s Spencer Clark raced untouched for a 77-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 24-7. Over the next eight minutes, the Tigers could do nothing right and USC could do no wrong.

On Clemson’s next three possessions, it fumbled the ball, went three-and-out and then shanked a punt 10 yards. USC took advantage of each mistake to crawl back in the game with two Steve Dorsey touchdowns to make the score 24-20.

South Carolina again gained possession of the football late and had a chance to take the lead for the first time all night.

“We called a pass route we had not run all day,” South Carolina receiver Phil Logan said years later To The State Newspaper in Columbia. “The defensive back backpedaled, and I curled.”

When Logan curled, quarterback Ron Bass delivered a strike. It was fourth-and-10 at the Clemson 40, and USC seemed desperate to make one last play to at least extend the drive. What Logan did not expect was to be so wide open.

“I expected to be hit, but nobody was there,” he said. “I cut across the field, got some blocks and I was never touched.”

Logan’s 40-yard touchdown gave the Gamecocks a 27-24 lead with one minute and 48 seconds to play. Logan and his teammates were so confident the game was over, he was seen lifting his jersey to the crowd revealing a garnet t-shirt with white letters which read “No Cigar Today.”

“That kind of ticked this old boy off,” Butler said.

It appeared to tick off the entire Clemson offense. Facing a third down-and-seven, Fuller hit Rick Weddington for 26-yards and a first down. After an incompletion, Fuller found Dwight Clark across the middle for 18 yards, setting Clemson up at the 20.

“That was one of those games you can put on tape and watch, and it is till exciting,” Fuller said. “You kind of feel like you don’t know what the outcome is going to be even though it is obvious that you do. I remember watching it from an end zone camera and seeing how close fingers and hands were to tipping balls or somebody on their side making a good play. It makes you think ‘Holy Mack! It is a miracle that it happened.”

The Tigers quickly rushed to the line to run another play, when Fuller noticed South Carolina’s defense was confused, and they had trouble getting players onto the field. The play called for Butler to cut to the corner, but USC got pressure to Fuller and forced him to throw the ball earlier than he would have liked.

“It was not a throwaway, but it was certainly a throw that was designed that nobody could have a chance to touch it but him,” Fuller said.

Butler thought Fuller was throwing the ball away, but he was determined not to let that happen.

“I saw the ball headed toward the middle of the field,” Butler said. “He was dumping the ball out of the end zone, but I jumped and got my hands on the ball, and if I got my hands on the ball, I caught it.”

Butler made a leaping, twisting catch that no one else could have made in that game, and no one else has made since.

At Clemson, it is simply known as “The Catch.”

“With all the great success lately, it is really nice for it to stand the test of time,” Fuller said. “I think it was a moment in our history that probably is as big of a moment as any other. If we would have lost that game, it would have been like we made some progress, but really when it comes down to it, we really can’t win the game we need to win. It would not have been starting over, but it certainly would have sent us back. The fact that it was Carolina, that would have probably set us back for quite a while.”

Instead, “The Catch” took the Tigers back to a bowl game for the first time in 18 years and sent Clemson football into a new era, setting it up for its first run to a national championship four years later.

—photo courtesy of  Clemson Athletic Communications 

Put some Clemson on your Christmas Tree this year. Clemson Christmas Decorations from Clemson Variety & Frame