TODAY'S GAME SOUTH CAROLINA VS. CLEMSON
BY TIM BOURRET SOUTH CAROLINA UPDATE
ANOTHER PERFECT ROAD RECORD
South Carolina enters today’s rivalry game with a 6-5 overall record, but the Gamecocks have won four of their last five contests. They are one of the most improved teams in the nation under head coach Will Muschamp, who is in first year at the SEC school. The Gamecocks have made strong improvement thanks to quarterback Jake Bentley, who should be a senior in high school this season. He came to South Carolina a year early and has led the squad on a strong run during the second half of the season. He has completed 86-130 passes for 989 yards and six touchdowns against just one interception. South Carolina’s top receiver is Deebo Samuel, who has 41 catches for 579 yards. Those are impressive numbers considering he missed three games due to injury. Hayden Hurst has 39 catches and Bryan Edwards has 37 to lead a balanced receiving group. Rico Dowdle leads the team with 684 rushing yards and six scores. He has played just seven games, so he averages 97.7 yards per game. He is coming off a 221yard rushing performance against Western Carolina. The defense has many outstanding young players as well. Bryson Allen-Williams is the top tackler with 61, including eight tackles for loss, while D.J. Smith has 60. Darius English leads the team in tackles for loss (11.5). He also has nine of the team’s 20 sacks. T.J. Holloman is another outstanding player with 59 tackles and three interceptions.
Clemson has won a school-record 10 straight road games, the third-longest active streak in the nation. Alabama and Oklahoma have the longest active streaks with 11 apiece. The Tigers clinched a perfect road record last Saturday with a 35-13 win at Wake Forest. It is the second straight year Clemson finished the season 5-0 on opponents’ home fields. That is a first in school history.
TIGER CLINCH ACCCG SPOT Clemson clinched a spot in the ACC Championship Game last Saturday with a 35-13 win over Wake Forest on the road. The win gave the Tigers a 7-1 record in the ACC, the same as Louisville. Clemson won the head-tohead meeting in October, and that gave Clemson the tiebreaker and trip to Orlando for a meeting with either Virginia Tech or North Carolina on December 3.
ANOTHER 10-WIN SEASON Clemson clinched its sixth straight season with double-digit wins with the victory at Wake Forest. It is the longest streak of consecutive 10-win seasons in school history. The Tigers were 10-4 in 2011, 11-2 in 2012, 11-2 in 2013, 10-3 in 2014 and 14-1 in 2015. Clemson is 10-1 this season, giving the Tigers a 66-13 mark over the last six years. Clemson is just the 11th different school with a streak of double-digit-win seasons.
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Clemson has had a perfect record on the road seven times. Those years are 1900 (3-0), 1917 (3-0), 1948 (5-0), 1981 (5-0), 1995 (5-0), 2015 (5-0) and 2016 (5-0).
TOP 25 ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BALL One of the reasons Clemson is in the top four of all the polls entering this week has been the level of play on both sides of the ball. Clemson is in the top 25 in
TODAY’S HONOREES
HONORARY CAPTAINS
Two of Clemson’s greatest players and former teammates who helped the Tigers to three straight wins over South Carolina are serving as honorary captains today. Steve Fuller is the only two-time ACC Player-ofthe-Year in Clemson history, as he won the award in 1977 and 1978. He was a two-time Academic All-American and AP Third-Team All-American on the field in 1978, when he was sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting. He became the first Tiger football player to have his number retired. That #4 was placed in service with his permission two years ago when Deshaun Watson came to Clemson. Now, Fuller and Watson will be on the same field today. Jeff Bostic was an All-ACC center for the Tigers from 1976-79. He was a big reason Clemson finished in the top 20 in 1977 and 1978. Bostic was Fuller’s center and teamed with his brother, Joe, to lead Clemson to many important victories. Bostic went on to a 14-year NFL career with the Redskins. He was a member of three Super Bowl championship teams during his career, the only former Tiger to do that.
PROFESSOR-OF-THE-GAME In addition to her role as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Dr. Yeu “Sophie” Wang, Ph.D., is director of the Interdisciplinary & Intelligence Research Lab and has been awarded the Warren H. Owen-Duke Energy Assistant Professorship of Engineering. Wang is leading a team that is finding new ways of helping humans better interact with robots and unmanned aerial vehicles. Wang has won major grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Sci-
ence Foundation. Her team will be exploring ways to overcome some of the challenges the Air Force faces in using teams of unmanned vehicles and other robots to carry out intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance missions under human supervision. For the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program, Wang is focusing on the human attributes of trust and regret to help humans and robots work together to be more productive. She is also editing three books on recent trends in human-robot collaboration.
STAFF MEMBER-OF-THE-GAME Janeen Putman is the student services program coordinator in mechanical engineering, but her relationship with Clemson University began as an undergraduate. She completed her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1999 and followed that with a master’s degree in human resource development in 2001. Putman’s tremendous commitment to and her ability to care for students is second to none. Putman generally knows everything about her students’ progress levels off the top of her head, which is remarkable since she is responsible for some 950 students. Her exceptional sense of service, ownership and pride in her work led to her being recognized with the Hattie B. Wagener Award, the top administrative staff award in the College of Engineering, Computing & Applied Sciences.
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