Following a win over South Carolina to close the 1990 regular season, 14th-ranked Clemson accepted a bid to play in the Hall of Fame Bowl in Tampa, Fla., on New Year’s Day. The Tigers’ opponent was from the Big 10 as John Mackovic turned Illinois into a winner and the Illini ranked 16th in the country.
Mackovic was no stranger to Clemson head coach Ken Hatfield. The two were graduate assistant coaches at Army in 1968 and were good friends.
“We used to play basketball together almost every night in the summer at Army,” Hatfield recalled in the 1991 book Death Valley Days.