COLUMBIA --- Twenty-five years later, the memories are still fresh.
Raynard Brown admits that his knee was down on that 99-yard kickoff return against Florida State. Del Wilkes remembers the final drive for the winning touchdown against Clemson. Bob Fulton says he predicted a letdown against Navy.
South Carolina's 1984 football season -- a 10-2 campaign that featured nine consecutive wins to start the season and a rise to No. 2 in the polls -- was indeed full of "Black Magic." The season remains the pinnacle of success for the Gamecocks program.
In October, members of that 1984 squad reunited and were honored during the Vanderbilt game. It was a chance for them to recall a season full of improbable victories and enjoy the camaraderie once again.
"A lot of things that year happened like the stars lined up for us," said Allen Mitchell, the starting quarterback.
SOUTH CAROLINA WAS LED by Joe Morrison, a former NFL player with the New York Giants who was a relative unknown in the ranks of college football. Known for his penchant for wearing an all-black wardrobe and dark sunglasses, Morrison took over the Gamecocks in 1983 and gave the program some stability in the aftermath of Jim Carlen's departure and Richard Bell's one season in Columbia.
Morrison's first team went 5-6, not much of a change from what the Gamecocks had done through the years. But the coach was able to improve the team's chemistry, and it paid dividends in 1984.
"One of the things coach Morrison set out to do was bring us together as a whole -- offense, defense; white, black -- and I think in the process he brought the whole community together," said Ira Hillary, a former Strom Thurmond star. "Whenever we come back to functions like this we can really feel it."
The Gamecocks started slow that year -- they needed a halfback touchdown pass to beat The Citadel in the opener, followed by a 21-0 win over Duke -- but their "Fire Ants" defense was starting to get noticed.
"We got that name because we were small, quick and stingy," said defensive lineman Glenn Woodley.
Their first hurdle came in the third game of the year against longtime nemesis Georgia.
Vince Dooley's Bulldogs were without Herschel Walker, but Georgia was still a prohibitive favorite. The Gamecocks kept it close, and through three quarters the score was tied at 10.
That's when Hillary had his signature moment of the season. Quarterback Mike Hold found Hillary on a deep route down the sideline, and the play gained 62 yards to put South Carolina inside the Georgia 10.
Two plays later, Hold scored on a keeper, and the Gamecocks' defense held on for a 17-10 win.
"We had struggled against The Citadel and Duke, but to beat Georgia here, that's when we realized we had a chance to do something special," offensive lineman Del Wilkes recalled.
THAT WIN PUT South Carolina in the national rankings, and subsequent victories over Kansas State and Pitt moved the Gamecocks to 5-0. All of those wins were in familiar surroundings at Williams-Brice Stadium. The next game, a trip to Notre Dame, would show if these Gamecocks were for real, the critics said.
And it was a doozy.
South Carolina had employed a two-quarterback system with Mitchell starting the games and running the veer offense. Hold, with the stronger arm, would come in when Morrison felt the Gamecocks needed a spark. (Hold would go on to play arena football, and he coached the Augusta Stallions earlier this decade.)
The Gamecocks found themselves trailing Gerry Faust's Irish 26-14 after three quarters.
Hold drove the Gamecocks for a touchdown and a two-point conversion to pull to 26-22, then turned a busted play into the go-ahead score. From the Notre Dame 33, Hold looked like he was going to be sacked, but he avoided the tackle and raced into the end zone with the aid of some good blocking.
After recovering a fumble, the Gamecocks added another touchdown. Notre Dame did score again, but a final rally was cut short when South Carolina intercepted a pass. With a 36-32 victory, South Carolina was 6-0 for the first time in school history."
"Touchdown Jesus, Knute Rockne, the Gipper, all those experiences, and we were able to get a comeback victory," Woodley said. "It was great.
"Many people thought we weren't for real," he said. "When we got to that third quarter, we told each other on the field, we can do this. We believed in ourselves."
Back home in Columbia, a surprise awaited the Gamecocks at Metropolitan Airport. Several thousand garnet-and-black-clad fans turned out to greet the team.
"It was crazy at the airport," Woodley said. "We felt like rock stars."
AT 6-0 AND WITH a top-10 ranking in both major polls of the day, South Carolina wasn't going to sneak up on anyone. The Gamecocks took care of business against East Carolina with a 42-20 victory in Columbia, and followed it up with a rousing road win at North Carolina State.
In that game, South Carolina reeled off 25 points in the final quarter to preserve its perfect record.
Up next was Florida State, which was blossoming into a national power under Bobby Bowden. The Seminoles were 6-1-1 and ranked in the top 10 by one poll, and the Gamecocks were 8-0 and fifth in both rankings. The game was televised nationally by ABC.
With the press box filled with bowl scouts and one legendary golfer -- Jack Nicklaus, whose son Steve played for the Seminoles -- the Gamecocks raced to a 17-7 lead at halftime.
On the second-half kickoff, pandemonium broke loose. Raynard Brown gathered in the ball at the 1, and it appeared his right knee might have touched the ground. He took off anyway, and Florida State couldn't stop him on the way to a 99-yard touchdown.
There were no instant replays or challenges back then, so Florida State had to live with the call. The play swung the momentum over to South Carolina, and the Gamecocks added two more quick touchdowns to make it 38-7. Florida State scored the final 19 points to make the final score more respectable.
As it turns out, Brown's knee did touch the ground.
"Yes, I can admit it after 25 years," Brown said with a laugh. "All I can remember is I misjudged the ball. It came in lower, so I had to bend over to catch it. My knee might have touched for a split second. I wasn't going to give up on it.
"I can remember in the right side of my helmet, the referee is like this," said Brown, waving his arm. "So I said OK, it's on. I'll take it down the field and see what happens."
The victory vaulted South Carolina to No. 2 in the nation. At 9-0, the Gamecocks were in the conversation for a major bowl bid to play for the national championship.
Road games at Navy and archrival Clemson were all that stood in the way of a perfect season.
BOB FULTON, THE LONGTIME "Voice" of South Carolina football as its radio play-by-play man, had endured plenty of losses during his tenure in Columbia. But he was riding high, along with the rest of the Gamecocks, as they were the toast of college football that season.
In a talk to the Spartanburg Touchdown Club the Friday before the game against Navy, Fulton issued a statement that drew laughs from the crowd. But it was prophetic.
"At the end of my talk I said I want to tell you all something, watch out for that game tomorrow afternoon," Fulton, now 88, recalled. "You never want to play a service team on their final home game. You get 140 percent. Everybody laughed."
When he arrived in Maryland later that night, Fulton found the team too relaxed.
"The ball club was playing pinball machines, I thought everyone was too loose," he said. "They stopped us on a drive, and they just beat us badly."
The Midshipmen were in control the whole way, and by early in the fourth quarter Navy had a commanding 38-7 lead. South Carolina scored two touchdowns to make the final 38-21, but the damage was done.
A great season had its first setback.
"There were a couple of games that we could have easily gone either way, and we would have just been another Carolina team," said Mitchell, the quarterback who grew up in Batesburg, S.C. "We were fortunate to win some of the ones we shouldn't have won, and then of course we lost to Navy. That's what we're remembered for right there, and that's kind of tough to swallow sometimes."
Legend has it that Morrison outlined on a chalkboard just exactly what South Carolina had lost in the defeat at Navy: a No. 1 ranking, a berth in the Orange Bowl and a $1 million payday.
"It was exactly that," Hillary said. "At halftime he came in and gave us a really stern speech and he told us what we had at stake. We were playing Navy and you should never take anyone lightly, and we did. We thought we could go out at halftime and just rekindle that fire we had the whole season, and for whatever reason, it just didn't come together for us.
"After the game everyone was sitting back, saying 'Did this just happen? Did we just lose opportunity to play in the national title game?' Yes, that's exactly the way it happened."
UP NEXT FOR THE 9-1 Gamecocks was Clemson. The Tigers played against Maryland in Baltimore the same day as South Carolina took on Navy, and the Tigers suffered a 41-23 loss. As fate would have it, the team jets for both schools were parked near each other.
"When we got to the airport their plane waiting to go back to Greenville was no more than 50 feet away from our plane going to Columbia," Fulton said.
With a shot at the Orange Bowl and the national title gone, South Carolina had already made a deal to play in the Gator Bowl.
Clemson, on probation, was not eligible for the postseason.
Bragging rights were at stake for both schools, but the Gamecocks were looking to redeem their first loss. Wins in Death Valley, though, were hard to come by, and South Carolina had not beaten the Tigers since 1979.
Danny Ford's Clemson team came out dressed in orange jerseys and pants -- the Tigers were 10-0 in the special uniforms -- and the capacity crowd at Memorial Stadium was in a frenzy. Faint strains of Anchors Aweigh -- a sharp jab at the Navy loss -- could be heard throughout the campus that day.
The first half was all Clemson. Three rushing touchdowns against a lone field goal for South Carolina put the Tigers ahead 21-3 late in the second quarter. Scott Hagler missed a field goal with 46 seconds to play, but a penalty on the Tigers gave South Carolina new life. Still, the Gamecocks faced fourth-and-four at the Clemson 5.
That's when Morrison made a gutsy call to go for it. Quinton Lewis went into the end zone off the left side, and the Gamecocks trailed 21-10 at the half.
"We ran a trap and swung the momentum in that game," Lewis said.
South Carolina sacked Clemson quarterback Mike Eppley for a safety in the third quarter, but still the Gamecocks trailed 21-12. A 41-yard field goal in the fourth quarter cut Clemson's lead to six, but time was running out on the Gamecocks when they got the ball with just more than three minutes to play and 84 yards to cover.
That's when Del Wilkes and the offensive line took over.
"We hadn't had a sustained drive all game long. I'll never forget at halftime, coach Morrison came up to me and asked me how the offensive line was holding up, because it was hot that day," Wilkes said. "I said, 'Everybody's doing good.' He said, 'Well good, y'all hang in there, because those fat blankety-blanks, they'll die in the second half.' And they did. They wore out in the second half."
Clemson's defense was anchored by senior William Perry, the All-American from Aiken. He and the rest of the Tigers had clamped down on South Carolina's offense for most of the day, but now they faced the task of stopping Hold and company one more time.
Hold found Chris Wade for a 36-yard reception to give the Gamecocks some breathing room, and that was followed by a pair of first-down runs that moved the ball to the Clemson 11.
A pair of runs by Hold and a facemask penalty on Clemson put South Carolina first-and-goal at the 1. Hold kept the ball and went over right guard for the tying touchdown with 54 seconds left.
Hagler lined up for the routine extra point -- he hadn't missed one all season -- and hooked it wide left. But Clemson had 12 men on the field, and Hagler got a second chance. The kick was true, and South Carolina had its first lead of the game at 22-21.
Clemson tried to move the ball into field goal range, but it could pick up only one first down and turned the ball over. All Hold and South Carolina had to do was take a knee and run out the clock, which they did.
Hold then offered the football to Perry, but it was not accepted.
The win was especially satisfying for Wilkes, who had played against Perry since his high school days at Irmo.
After his college career, Wilkes became a pro wrestler and appeared as "The Patriot."
"We played against each other quite a bit. But Joe was right, that last drive he had his hands on his hips, he was worn out," Wilkes said. "It was very satisfying. To go up there, with them wearing all orange, at Clemson, I think it was better to do it there than it was here."
THE 1984 SEASON CONCLUDED with a 21-14 loss to Oklahoma State in the Gator Bowl. It was a disappointing ending to a season that held such promise.
"We knew we were better than that team," said Hillary, who enjoyed a career in the NFL and now works for Quest Diagnostics in Cincinnati. "Their tight end made a great play to put them ahead. It was sort of a letdown to a great season."
The Gamecocks achieved highs that year that have still not been surpassed, including the 10 wins and the No. 2 ranking.
"They were good. I don't mind giving them credit," said Ford, the Clemson coach. "I know that they deserved special recognition. They achieved a lot. They had it rolling there, just for a little bit."
The good times of "Black Magic" did not continue. South Carolina suffered losing seasons in 1985 and 1986.
The 1987 squad, perhaps the most talented in school history with Sterling Sharpe, Todd Ellis and Harold Green, had only road losses at Georgia, Nebraska and Miami on the way to an 8-4 season that culminated with a loss against Louisiana State in the Gator Bowl.
The program was rocked in the fall of 1988 by a Sports Illustrated article that outlined steroid abuse by lineman Tommy Chaikin. A 6-0 start ended up with another 8-4 campaign and a demoralizing loss to Indiana in the Liberty Bowl.
Morrison, the coach who had overseen the best teams in school history, died suddenly in February 1989 after suffering a heart attack.
The program didn't produce many winning seasons under Sparky Woods and Brad Scott. The team's move to the Southeastern Conference has yet to produce a league championship, even though Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier have been at the helm.
Some members of that 1984 squad want to see their records stand, but most agree that they want the Gamecocks to excel.
"It'll be bittersweet, but that's what records are for," Mitchell said. "You want the university to get to the next level. I think they've got all the facilities in place to do that."
Still, any team would be hard pressed to match the magic created by the 1984 team.
"We had something a little special here, and we didn't realize it until much later," Hillary said.
Reach John Boyette at (706) 823-3337 or john.boyette@augustachronicle.com.
SOUTH CAROLINA'S 1984 SCHEDULE
| Date | opponent | result |
| Sept. 8 | The Citadel | W, 31-24 |
| Sept. 22 | Duke | W, 21-0 |
| Sept. 29 | Georgia | W, 17-10 |
| Oct. 6 | Kansas State | W, 49-17 |
| Oct. 13 | Pittsburgh | W, 45-21 |
| Oct. 20 | at Notre Dame | W, 36-32 |
| Oct. 27 | East Carolina | W, 42-20 |
| Nov. 3 | at N.C. State | W, 35-28 |
| Nov. 10 | Florida State | W, 38-26 |
| Nov. 17 | at Navy | L, 38-21 |
| Nov. 24 | at Clemson | W, 22-21 |
| Dec. 28* | Oklahoma State | L, 21-14 |
*Gator Bowl
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