Remember 70-33

[Anotherwvufan]

Since that win these programs have gone in different directions. WVU has dropped to a fringe top 20 team while Clemson has gone on to be Dominant in every aspect of the game. After that season, both teams replaced their Defensive Coordinators. The potential candidates included Gibby who we hired and we were also looking at Brent Venables from Oklahoma. I am not exactly sure of how it went down, but Ollie did not pony up enough money to get the guy. Nobody has come close to putting up 70 on Clemson since that time, while we have had several 50+ points scored on us.

I wonder where both teams would be today if Ollie won the Venebles bidding war.



WVU capped off its first season under Dana Holgorsen with a 70-33 thrashing of Clemson in the 2012 Orange Bowl. West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith threw for 407 yards and six touchdowns in South Florida that night, as the Mountaineers rolled up 589 yards of total offense. The record-setting WVU performance led Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney to fire his defensive coordinator Kevin Steele a week after the bowl game.

Swinney’s search for a new defensive coordinator took him to Oklahoma, where Venables was the D.C., but was in a bit of a power struggle with Mike Stoops, who had just returned to OU after an unsuccessful stint as the head coach at Arizona. With Mike’s brother, Bob, serving as the Sooners’ head coach, Venables saw how that struggle was going to play out, so he took the offer from Swinney and headed to Clemson.

The combination has worked well ever since, as the Tigers have gone 72-11 since Venables’ arrival and have twice played for the college football championship, winning one in 2016.

Venables was already doing very well financially, but last week he signed a deal that will pay him $2 million a year for the next five years plus retention bonuses that could add another $1.6 million to the package if he stays through 2022. LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda is the only college football assistant making more on an annual basis, as he agreed to a $2.5 million a year contract this past January. But because Aranda’s deal is for four years, Venables’ total package of $11.6 million is actually the highest ever for a college football assistant.

And it all happened because Smith, with help from Tavon Austin, Darwin Cook and Bruce Irvin, hung 70 on Kevin Steele and the Tigers in the Orange Bowl.

 

[WVUDAD]

That 70-33 was the last game that Clemson.....Clemsoned, Swinney and the entire athletic department swore that day it would never happen again, and for the most part it hasn't. That was the last game that Clemson hung their heads and gave up. Great coaches learn from past mistakes, just like Bowden always pointed out the come from ahead loss to sPitt as a lesson in never taking your foot off the gas. I THINK that after that game is when Casteel left and Efore and Patterson were named CO DC........leading to a comedy of errors on defense that cost us MANY games, Efore may have been the worst coach ever at WVU!!!! I think 2013 Patterson was DC and Efore was ST coach, then Gibon was made DC for 2014.