South Carolina-Clemson brawl

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The South Carolina-Clemson brawl was an on-field altercation at a NCAA game between football players from the University of South Carolina and Clemson University. The incident took place on November 20, 2004 at the Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina. This disturbance led to serious repercussions for those involved from the Southeastern Conference (SEC; South Carolina's conference), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC; Clemson's conference), NCAA, and the legal authorities.

1 The disturbance
2 The consequences
3 External links
4 See also

[edit] The disturbance

This particular game saw two fights between South Carolina and Clemson players—one before the game (the previous year, Clemson had the biggest one-sided match in the history of the series, 63-17, and some bad blood had been part of the game), and a massive 10-minute scrum during the fourth quarter in which state troopers had to get involved, but no fans entered the field. Television showed a Clemson player kicking the head of a USC player while he was on the ground without his helmet on. After the teams were separated, some South Carolina players began fighting each other. Play was suspended for six minutes.

The incident was not directly related to the infamous brawl between Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Pistons players and fans during an NBA game the previous night in Detroit. However, Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden said his players had stayed up the night before, watching what had happened in Detroit. There are still questions as to if the two fights were somewhat inspired by the Detroit brawl. To make matters worse, the fights overshadowed the last game Lou Holtz participated in as South Carolina head coach, as he retired at the end of the season, and handed the coaching reins to Steve Spurrier. Clemson won the game 29-7.

[edit] The consequences

The ACC and SEC reviewed the tapes of both incidents before handing out proper punishments to players. However, both schools imposed a punishment of their own on November 22, by saying they would impose a postseason ban because of the fights.

Both the SEC and ACC suspended players from each school, with the SEC's penalties effective for South Carolina's first game of the 2005-06 season, against Central Florida, while the ACC allowed Clemson to suspend their offending players at various games during the 2005-06 season.

The penalties were criticised by some as too lenient. First, both teams' seniors were able to get away virtually scot-free, as they forced other non-offending players to be punished for their actions by sitting out postseason games which they had earned, and faced no penalties of their own. Others considered the post-season ban as sufficiently serious punishment for involved seniors and the following suspensions as overkill.

Second, the ACC's policy on players serving suspensions permitted Clemson to punish the players during the season, and not an immediate penalty during the Tigers' first game of 2005, against Texas A&M. Some of the offending players were involved in the crucial game, which resulted in a Tigers win in the final seconds of the game. The penalties were served, based on a case-by-case basis, in midseason games against Temple and Duke. This appears to have been a way to make the punishment equal to that meted out to USC players and to have equal impact on the two teams' following seasons.

The SEC's policy forced South Carolina to punish its players for the Central Florida game, the first game of the ensuing season. The Golden Knights had gone winless the previous season, but with George O'Leary joining as the new head coach after a short stint as an assistant coach in the NFL after a scandal involving his résumé forced a near-immediate resignation from Notre Dame, they would become one of the country's most pleasant surprises in 2005-06, advancing to the Conference USA championship game and going to the Hawaiʻi Bowl. The Gamecocks did beat the Golden Knights, but it was a challenging game as two "name" head coaches made their debuts with their respective schools on ESPN.

Some believe if the schools had allowed postseason play, the penalties would have been stiffer with more justice, as the seniors involved in the brawl would have faced suspensions like the non-seniors, at postseason games likely against Minnesota (South Carolina) and Boston College (Clemson). Furthermore, the games which the players would have served their suspension would have been against a better caliber team, and the conferences would almost certainly have dropped a tougher penalty on the offending non-seniors.