Free Three and Out by John U. Bacon Page B

plane, with the Tigers’ trademark orange paw painted on the tail, and a bouquet of orange roses waiting for Rita on her seat. They had them.
    But Tulane’s new head coach, Chris Scelfo, asked all the assistants to stay on to coach Tulane in the Liberty Bowl against Brigham Young. Reluctantly, Rodriguez agreed. The Green Wave drowned the Cougars 41–27 to finish a perfect 12–0 season, then carried Rodriguez off the field, chanting his name. “For all the ups and downs of this crazy profession,” he said, “a day like that goes a long way.”
    *   *   *
    No matter how outlandish the results—maybe because of the outlandish results—critics always said the same thing: “Sure, the spread option worked down there, but it will never work up here.”
    When Bowden and Rodriguez took the spread to Clemson, the critics looked pretty smart—at first.
    Clemson opened the 1999 season at home against Marshall, led by future New York Jets quarterback Chad Pennington. But the Thundering Herd had become a Division I, Mid-American Conference team just two years earlier, so no one thought they had much of a chance. The Tigers’ fancy new offense, however, could muster only 10 points, and they lost a shocker 13–10.
    The natives were not happy, and Rodriguez was about to hear why. Only after the game did he remember that all the coaches had gotten dressed at the field house across the street. No big deal, right? He put his coaching clothes back on, grabbed his bag, and started walking across the parking lot toward the field house, through three hundred yards of tailgaters, and that’s when the thought popped into his head: “Rodriguez, this might not have been the best idea you’ve ever had.”
    But then he thought, “Well, I’m new here, and I’m only an assistant coach anyway. Maybe they won’t know who I am.” But when he looked down and saw he was wearing his bright orange CLEMSON FOOTBALL polo shirt and a bright orange CLEMSON FOOTBALL hat and carrying a bag that said CLEMSON FOOTBALL —well, that’s when he realized the odds of his getting across the parking lot unnoticed were pretty slim.
    At about the exact moment all these thoughts occurred to him, ten yards into his walk, he started hearing it.
    â€œHey, nice offense, Mr. Genius!”
    â€œWhat kind of high school plays you gonna run next week, brainiac?”
    â€œGo back to Tulane!”
    â€œYou hear the first one, you tune it out,” Rodriguez recalled with a grin. “But once they started in on me, word spread pretty fast, and all of a sudden every damn tailgater in the state turned around to let me have it.
    â€œThat was my first experience in Death Valley—and that’s when I learned they were serious about that Death part.”
    The Tigers and Rodriguez redeemed themselves the following week by beating league rival Virginia 33–14. They finished the season at 6–6—up from 3–8 the year before—but they still took those losses hard.
    Rodriguez and Bowden ran together every day. They had two paths: If they won that Saturday, they’d run all week decked out in their Clemson gear on the sidewalks through town, waving at all the fans honking their horns. But if they lost, they’d take their “alternate route,” wearing gray sweats and baseball caps, through the woods and lakes, risking only angry squirrels.
    Fortunately for Bowden and Rodriguez, they needed to resort to the alternate route less and less during Rodriguez’s time at Clemson.
    In 2000, Bowden’s second year there, the Tigers won their first eight games, they were ranked fourth in the nation, and they had an outside shot at a national title game. Things were getting serious when they traveled to play the 5–2 Ramblin’ Wreck of Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
    The Tigers fell behind 31–28 in the fourth quarter. On third down,