Daniel Lee Ford was born on April 2, 1948 in Gadsden, Alabama. Just 30 years later, he would become the head coach of the Clemson Tigers football team and become one of the program’s most winningest (which is a word) coaches in history.
Ford went to the University of Alabama for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and played football for the Crimson Tide from 1967-69. He came to Clemson as a coaching assistant after having also coached at Alabama and Virginia Tech.
After the 1978 season, Charlie Pell left to coach the Florida Gators and Ford was named his successor. In his first year as head coach, Ford led the Tigers to a winning season at 8-4, but it culminated in a 24-18 loss in the Peach Bowl to Baylor.
The 1981 season is the one for which Ford is best remembered. That was the year Clemson went 12-0 and was declared the national champion after defeating the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Orange Bowl. It was the first time Clemson had won a national championship and, so far, the last. During that season, the Tigers beat top-10 ranked Georgia (the defending national champion) and North Carolina.
The 1981 game against Georgia was one of the craziest contests of Ford’s career. Herschel Walker was Georgia’s running back whom Clemson had also tried to recruit out of high school and was the number one running back in the nation.
Clemson would win the game 13-3 on the strength of its defense, which forced nine turnovers (five interceptions and four fumbles), a school record. The nine turnovers were forced by nine different players. Ford had built a defense that could make plays all over the field. In their next game, the Tigers would force another seven turnovers making the two-game total 16, another school record.
Ford remained the head coach of the Tigers until after the 1989 season when he had a falling out with the Clemson athletic administration. He had a brief stint as head coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks, but ended up retiring from football in 1994. He now lives on a farm about eight miles from the Clemson campus, and still attends home games and tailgates every Saturday. When asked about whether he enjoyed his life on the farm he said, “I told my wife, I said well, I think I’m going to be buried right there. I’m going to put a wishing well on top of the cover and I’ll be buried on the farm. That’s how much I like it out here.”