South Carolina quarterback Jeff Grantz was walking with teammates and fans to the annual Tiger Burn in 1975 when one of the best athletes in school history noticed a stressed expression on the face of one of the Gamecocks' biggest supporters.

"What's wrong?" Grantz asked R.J. Moore. "You look worried."

Moore, longtime owner of the Exxon station on Rosewood Drive, confirmed it.

"Hell yeah, I'm worried!" he said. "We've got Clemson tomorrow. We've got to win to go to a bowl."

Grantz rolled his eyes and laughed. "Don't worry, R.J.," he told Moore. "We're going to score every time we've got the football."

The exchange was meant to make Moore feel better. If it didn't for some reason, what happened the following day at Williams-Brice Stadium absolutely did. Grantz and his Gamecocks teammates went out and registered the most decided of South Carolina's thirty-nine victories in the series.

To this day, say "56-20" to a diehard Clemson or Carolina fan and they will know precisely what it means. You will likely get a strong reaction of some kind. Grantz was true to his word-and then some. The Gamecocks scored each time they had the ball, all right. "Turns out we scored touchdowns every time we had the football," Grantz said. "We didn't have to kick a field goal. I didn't have to punt."

It was not as if the result came altogether unexpectedly, if for no other reason than that Clemson was enduring one of the worst seasons in school history. The Tigers entered the rivalry game 2-8, and injuries had rattled the team to its core.

Still, no one on South Carolina's side expected the Tigers to simply hand the Gamecocks the game. Clemson had played well two weeks earlier, to defeat North Carolina, and it hung with a good Maryland team on the road the week before. The Gamecocks saw a Tigers team playing better ball. "I've really been expecting them to explode every week this season," Carolina senior center Mike McCabe told The State that week. "I don't know what their problem has been, but I've been waiting for them to get it all together. That's apparently what they've done the past two weeks."

South Carolina, meanwhile, started the season 5-1 to jump into the polls at number twenty. That was somewhat surprising, since Carolina had been an average 4-7 team in 1974. It might have been underestimated because it had gone through a coaching change, with Paul Dietzel's dismissal and Jim Carlen's hiring. Carlen had led Texas Tech to bowl games in four of the past five seasons, and he had a core of strong senior leaders, including Grantz and McCabe.

The Gamecocks' start to the year was stunted by a 24-6 loss at Louisiana State and then a last-second defeat on TV at North Carolina State. The season threatened to come apart when Appalachian State then came to Columbia and upset the Gamecocks 39-34. It was gut-check time for Carolina and especially its seniors.

A rebound win against Wake Forest got South Carolina to 6-4, and it needed a victory against Clemson for a berth in the Tangerine Bowl. "We felt like we should have been 8-2," Grantz said. "Woulda, shoulda. It doesn't matter, whatever. All that mattered was we had to beat Clemson to get to a bowl."

In addition to raw desire, the Gamecocks also incorporated a few wrinkles the week leading up to the game. Commonplace now but virtually unheard of then, Carolina would put its running back in motion and have him line up in the slot, giving the team four receivers. "We felt like they couldn't cover, couldn't adjust to it," Grantz said. "We all felt really good about the game plan. We were very confident."

Hence, Grantz offered those strong words to Moore on the eve of the game.

Grantz grew up in Maryland, far removed from the passion and pageantry of the Big Thursday tradition and the Carolina-Clemson rivalry. He first saw the game up close in 1971, on a recruiting visit hosted by the Gamecocks.

Clemson's coaches ran over to the South Carolina sideline and chided him, letting him know he should be in the Tigers' section and not the rival's. "Right there, first hand, I knew about the rivalry. It was really intense," Grantz said. "All the other games I'd seen before were nothing like that one, you know? You could just see and feel it."

Grantz recalled seeing Carolina quarterbacks throw about a half dozen interceptions in a 17-7 loss to the Tigers. Yeah, the Gamecocks could use him.

A tug of war among a handful of schools, Carolina and Clemson included, ensued. Clemson was ruled out because it did not have the major Grantz desired. When North Carolina learned he picked the Gamecocks, the Tar Heels' coaches told him he "ruined their Christmas."

Grantz's signing was a victory for Carolina in more than one way: he would also be a valuable member of the baseball team, twice helping it to the College World Series while on campus.

Several quarterbacks played Grantz's freshman year, but no one stuck. After a 4-7 season, Dietzel felt that it was time to tweak the offensive system. The Gamecocks would reduce the number of drop-back throwing plays-ones that were successful for Tommy Suggs and the ACC title winners in

1969-and go with more of a veer offense. The passing plays would come more on rollouts and fake handoffs. "As soon as they did that," Grantz said, "I thought, 'Hey, this is me.'"

Grantz became so committed to the offense that, in the spring of 1973, he told baseball coach Bobby Richardson that he wanted to focus on football for the time being. He received Richardson's blessing since he was not playing much as a young outfielder. "If you need me, you know where to find me," Grantz told Richardson.

One day, Richardson called him. Carolina's center fielder had pulled a hamstring. Grantz was needed. "It was the coolest day ever of my life," he said. "We had a scrimmage that Saturday afternoon, and then I played that night in center field. I got a hit, actually."

The opponent? Clemson.

The Tigers were already tiring of Grantz by the end of that year. He made his mark on the football rivalry by running circles around Clemson-in sneakers. Grantz had been gimpy for about a month after bruising an ankle in the LSU game, but there was no way he was missing his first real shot at the Tigers. "I taped it up and put on high white Chuck Taylors," Grantz said with a laugh. "It didn't bother me one bit. They were brand-new, blinding white."

Sneakers probably would not have worked as well on Williams-Brice's current natural grass playing surface, but the concrete-hard artificial turf was a good enough fit. And, well, it was South Carolina's superhero wearing them. "Nothing Jeff ever did surprised me," McCabe said. "He could have

been out there in tap shoes and done well. He had that confidence that he'd get the job done. All we had to do was do our job, and he would do his. It was really special playing with him."

The 32-20 victory against the Tigers as an example, the new offense-with Grantz running it-was a success. So it was confusing the following season, in 1974, when Carolina reversed course to finish 4-7, including a 39-21 loss at Clemson. Grantz recalled that Bill Wingo, whose son Scott would later star at Carolina in baseball, intercepted one of his passes. "I remember someone came up to try and block me and I was so mad I threw him down on the ground," Grantz said. "While I was doing that, the guy ran right by me to score a touchdown. Rather than make the tackle, I was too busy being upset. They beat us up there pretty good."

That was Dietzel's last game at Carolina. He was done after nine seasons, finishing 42-53-1 at the school. The seniors rallied around Carlen, his successor. Still, the Gamecocks needed that Clemson game in 1975 to receive a rare postseason bid. It was Grantz's last chance, at both the Tigers and a bowl.

The State called Grantz's finale in the rivalry a "something-to-rememberme-by" performance. People still remember. Clemson cannot forget.

Carolina piled up 458 rushing yards and 626 total yards against the Tigers. In addition to Grantz's play, the Gamecocks also featured two 1,000- yard rushers that season-when they had never even had one previously. Clarence Williams rushed for 160 yards against Clemson, finishing with

1,016 yards in the regular season. Kevin Long had broken the 1,000-yard plateau the previous week at Wake Forest; he finished with 1,114 yards in the regular season.

Grantz added 122 rushing yards, including a 19-yard touchdown run. With that success on the ground, he did not have to throw all that much. He made the most of his throws, though. He completed nine of twelve passes. Five of the nine completions went for touchdowns.

Top receiver Philip Logan had thirteen- and forty-one-yard scoring receptions. Long caught a three-yarder. Randy Chastain had a thirty-four yard touchdown catch. Stevie Stephens had the other, a nineteen-yarder. It's safe to say, Clemson had no answers for the wrinkle Carolina added that week. "My key would be the strong safety," Grantz said. "If he did this, I'd hit this guy. If he did that, I'd hit that guy."

The Gamecocks led 35-6 at the half, scoring just before the break on a play Grantz said he drew in the dirt with Carlen and Logan. Grantz faked the post-route throw, and Logan broke for the corner. Touchdown. Backbreaker. "That's the first time I ever remember showing much emotion," Grantz said.

Carolina just kept scoring and scoring-one too many times if you ask Clemson's players or fans. The last touchdown came on a Grantz throw with fifty-four seconds left. Tigers quarterback Mike O'Cain was not happy about that after the game. Grantz shrugged. "It was fourth and goal at the twenty-yard line," he said. "What do you do? Kick a field goal? All our plays were called at the line of scrimmage, twenty yards and in. I got up to the line of scrimmage and called a simple out route. The guy makes a diving catch in the corner of the end zone. That put us up 56-20. It was my last game. I wasn't going to stand there and take a knee."

The objective in any game is perfection. For one day, Carolina got close. "It's execution and perfection," McCabe said. "That's what your ultimate goal is. That day was something to see. Someone scored a touchdown every time we had the ball. It made it sweeter that it was against Clemson, obviously."

The Williams-Brice scoreboard indicated that Grantz had set records for single-season total yardage (2,071), total touchdowns (28) and passing touchdowns (16). He left as the school's all-time leader, with fifty-three total scores. "When people ask me when I played, I tell them I was a center for Jeff Grantz," McCabe said. "It was an honor to play with him."

The fifty-six points were, at that time, the most scored by either team in the long-standing series. "I just kept looking up at the scoreboard and going, 'Man, this is an awesome way to go out,'" Grantz said. "That was it. That was my last home game, ever. What better way? We scored every time we had the ball."

On the other sideline, it was a most humbling feeling. Clemson, so dominant in the series, was on unfamiliar territory. It was one more painful wound in a 2-9 season. "I feel like I'm just waking up from a nightmare," the Tigers' Frank Wise told The State. "That's what the season has been, a nightmare."

There was a residual effect, though. How exactly it played out internally and externally is up for debate, but Clemson's supporters and administration made it clear that it was not to again happen. The Tigers pumped resources and energy into their football program like never before.

Clemson promptly won seven of the next eight games in the series and claimed the national title in 1981. Grantz, great as that victory was, unknowingly sparked the Tigers' glory days.

"Everyone gets pissed when they lose," he said. "I guess they were more than mad. After that, it was Clemson, Clemson, Clemson. I told my wife I wasn't going to go back to Clemson until we beat them up there, and then I wasn't going back anymore. I didn't get to go back until after Mike Hold

and 1984."