re: What was the first bowl game you saw your team play in person?

1969 Peach Bowl versus WVA coached by Jim Carlen, who would eventually become one of our all-time favorite coaches here at SC. He had an assistant by the name of Bobby Bowden.

They came out and ran the wishbone, which we were not expecting, and won the game. It poured rain on us the entire game - we were a passing team who had just won the ACC Championship.

I remember Paul Dietzel saying after the game that "we ran into a perfect storm. The rain shut-down our Tommy Suggs (long time color man for the Gamecock radio network) led passing game while, at the same time, it played perfectly into the gameplan of Carlen and Bowden's newly installed wishbone attack which we had not practiced for unfortunately ... no one saw it coming."

I talked to both Coach Dietzel and Coach Carlen about it some years later and they both said the same thing basically ... it was the perfect day for WVA on a rain soaked Grant Field. They beat us 14-3 and made a couple of goal line stands against us, plus we turned the ball over three times. Helluva game to witness in person though - hard hitting and muddy - I'll always remember it like it was yesterday.

We could not stop that wishbone attack that day.