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Sept. 23, 2000
By HANK KURZ Jr.
AP Sports Writer
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Four games into a season of dominance, No. 11Clemson showed Saturday that it is for real. Woodrow Dantzler is for real, too.
Dantzler ran for 220 yards and two long touchdowns and the Tigers’ top-rateddefense held Virginia to one gift touchdown in a 31-10 victory.
Dantzler, the nation’s second-leading passer and 38th-ranked rusher cominginto the game, did plenty of both. He scored on runs of 75 and 45 yards, andcompleted 15 of 24 passes for 154 yards and another score.
“We just found some holes in the defense that we exploited through therunning game,” Dantzler said. “I just happened to be the guy running.”
Dantzler carried just 18 times, but ended with 374 of the Tigers’ 481 yardsof offense, and gave the Clemson defense plenty to watch and enjoy.
“Woody’s just amazing,” linebacker Keith Adams said. “He can throw theball. He can run. He’s a leader out there on the field. And just a combinationlike that, he’s just unstoppable.”
The Tigers defense did its part, too. It shut down Virginia’s passing game,forced Dan Ellis to hurry several throws and held 6-foot-4 receiver BillyMcMullen to three catches for 40 yards until the fourth quarter.
McMullen, who added two catches late in the game when the outcome had beendecided, earlier had catches for 1 and 2 yards, plus a 37-yarder.
“This was really a test for us,” Adams said. “It was a test for us to goout there and try to prove to the nation and within ourselves that we can befor real. … We definitely feel that we’re for real.”
Ellis, who averaged 316 yards passing in his last two games, was 17-for-39for 170 yards. He was intercepted once and twice fumbled snaps.
“It was just one of those days,” he said.
The Tigers led 17-10 at the half before Dantzler put the game away.
On Clemson’s first possession of the second half, he kept the ball onsecond-and-8 from his own 25, turning the corner wide on the right and down thesideline, finally slashing back to the middle for the points.
“The thing we said from the beginning was, `Don’t let them run the ball,especially with the quarterback,”‘ Virginia coach George Welsh said.
“They spread you out and they nickel and dime you to death with the passeswhen you’re not covering them up, and they keep working and keep working tryingto get him free,” Welsh said of Dantzler.
Dantzler did it again late in the quarter, following Alex Ardley’s end zoneinterception with a five-play drive. Dantzler ran for 7 to start the march, andfor the last 45 to make it 31-10 with 18 minutes left.
Trailing 10-3 before 60,695 fans, the largest football crowd in statehistory, Clemson scored twice in a span of 2:42 to take the lead.
“To get where we want to go, that is going to have to happen,” Tigerscoach Tommy Bowden said of the early adversity. “You have to not panic andremain calm when you turn the ball over and show composure on the road.”
First, Joe Don Reames fielded a punt at his 31, stepped between twoCavaliers and weaved untouched for a 69-yard return that tied it at 10.
Then, after Virginia went three-and-out and Mike Abrams shanked a punt 10yards to the Tigers’ 39, Dantzler needed just five plays. The last one was a30-yard pass to a wide open Jackie Robinson down the middle.
It was the Tigers’ shortest touchdown play of the game.
The Tigers’ 17-10 halftime lead might have been much bigger if not forTravis Zachery’s inability to hold onto the ball. Zachery botched a punt at his3 after Virginia’s first possession, and later fumbled on a third-and-2 divefrom the Cavaliers’ 3 late in the second quarter.
Virginia recovered both times, and turned the first miscue into its onlytouchdown of the half – a 3-yard option run by Antwoine Womack.
Ahmad Hawkins intercepted a pass with 12:32 remaining, marking the firsttime in 80 throws this season that Dantzler has been intercepted.
But the Tigers’ defense held and Virginia turned it over on downs.