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Rex Brown

Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden signs autographs following the Tigers' spring scrimmage at Memorial Stadium in Clemson in April.

CLEMSON — When he journeyed into Death Valley as Duke’s quarterbacks coach in 1984, Tommy Bowden remembered how different Clemson was compared to any other school in the ACC at the time.

That year, his first ever trip to Memorial Stadium, Clemson had won 22 of its last 23 ACC games. The Tigers had won a national championship in 1981 and had won 30 games from 1981-’83. Starting in 1978, Clemson had won three ACC Championships and 55 games in a six-year span, more than any other school at the time, and it could have been four ACC titles had it not been for the probation year of 1983.

“It used to be Clemson won it (the ACC) every year,” Bowden said.

With more than 80,000 fans on hand every Saturday, Clemson was the king of the ACC and teams seldom came into Death Valley and proved the Tigers wrong. Bowden’s Duke teams tried twice, falling 54-21 in 1984 and 35-3 in 1986 – another ACC Championship season.

Bowden, who is entering his 10th season as Clemson’s head coach, remembers Death Valley was every bit as intimidating, if not more, than any SEC stadium he had visited during his stints as an assistant coach at Kentucky, Alabama and Auburn. He said coming from the Duke perspective, he was in awe the first time he came to Clemson.

“Yeah, it would make life a lot easier for me if this was the old days, but again if this were the ‘80s we would have been champions three times the last 10 years and that would have been pretty good,” Bowden said.

Bowden’s right, if this was the old ACC, Clemson would be entering this season vying for its third straight ACC Championship and perhaps its fourth straight had the ACC had just nine teams in the league. In fact, if Florida State had not joined the league in 1992, Clemson would have won three more ACC Championships in 1995, ’96, and 2000.

“Three times in the nine years I have been here, and every third year win the conference championship that would be pretty acceptable, but none in the 17 years is obviously not very good,” Bowden said.

From 1953, the year the ACC was formed, to 1991, Clemson won 13 ACC Championships, more than any other school. It still stands as the conference’s benchmark today.

“It used to be Clemson won it every year until Florida State came and then you add the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Boston Colleges, which if they weren’t in it we would have been the champions the last three years so it has been a factor,” Bowden said. “If you take those three teams out of the conference then we win it the last three years, I think.”

As much as Clemson fans hate to hear this, the Tigers were just a play away in each of the last three years from playing for the conference championship. In 2005, a touchdown called back against Georgia Tech cost Clemson dearly in a 10-9 loss and then in 2006, the same thing happened at home against Maryland in a 13-12 defeat.

Last year, it was the blown coverage play that led to a Matt Ryan touchdown pass and then Aaron Kelly dropping a potential game-winning catch in a 20-17 loss to Boston College.

Bowden admits falling just short bothers him, but at the same time he understands his day and Clemson’s day is coming, and it will be sooner rather than later.

He has to look no further than his own father, Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden, to understand with hard work and a little bit of patience, good things will happen. After years of being just a kick away from playing for a national championship, Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles won it all in 1993 and again in 1999. Florida State also played in the National Championship games in 1998 and 2000, and has won the ACC Championship 12 times since joining the league in 1992.

Mack Brown of Texas and Penn State’s Joe Paterno are two other legendary coaches Tommy Bowden thinks about as guys who for years came close with painful defeats before finally getting that elusive first championship.

“If I were younger, maybe it would bother me more, but after 31 years of coaching and seeing other coaches going through that and finally you know Mack Brown doing poorly, poorly, poorly and finally winning that, and my father going through it and finally winning it, I think there is a little bit of comfort, not much, knowing we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Bowden said. “We are close and eventually it is going to happen if we can just hang on.

“I think it is going to happen where we will get to the championship game and will get in the BCS.”