A lofty distinction

Don't want this to sound like a shameless name-drop, but I was talking to Jeff Bostic earlier this week...

Bostic, as most of you know, is a former Clemson great who went on to a 14-year career as part of the Washington Redskins' famed "Hogs" offensive line. I'm usually not fazed by interviewing popular subjects, but this one brought a few goosebumps because those Redskins teams were just larger than life to a kid growing up in the 80s.

(And no, I didn't tell him I used to be a huge Cowboys fan.)

Before Bostic and his brother Joe went on to lengthy NFL careers, they were part of some star-studded Clemson teams that helped put the Tigers back on the national map in the late 1970s. You can talk about the 1981 team all you want, and you can make the argument that the 1989 team was the best in school history. But it's hard to dispute the notion that the 77 and 78 teams were the most talented.

The purpose of the conversation was soliciting Bostic's thoughts for the ongoing "In their words" series, and you'll have to stay tuned for that. But another good thing that came out of the chat was the revelation that the Bostic brothers and former Tiger Steve Kenney were recently accorded with a lofty distinction.

Caulton Tudor of the Raleigh News & Observer is endeavoring to identify the Top 25 players in ACC history by position, and in this piece he tackles offensive linemen.

Clemson has a whopping total of four representatives on the list:

1. D'Brickashaw Ferguson (Virginia '05)

2. Jim Ritcher (NCSU '79)

3. Harris Barton (UNC '86)

4. Jeff Bostic (Clemson '79)

5. Tra Thomas (FSU '97)

6. John Davis (Georgia Tech '86)

7. Ed Newman (Duke '72)

8. Jeff Saturday (UNC '98)

9. Jim Dombroski (Virginia '85)

10. Joe Bostic (Clemson '78)

11. Jim Clack (Wake'70)

12. Bob Pellegrini (Maryland '55)

13. Steve Kenney (Clemson '80)

14. Mike Sandusky (Maryland '56)

15. Bill Bryan (Duke '76)

16. Brian Blados (UNC '83)

17. Bill Yoest (NCSU '73)

18. Ben Coleman (Wake'92)

19. Alex Barron (FSU '04)

20. Ken Huff (UNC '74)

21. Stan Jones (Maryland '53)

22. Lou Cordilene (Clemson '59)

23. Mike McGee (Duke '59)

24. Ron Wooten (UNC '80)

25. Clay Shiver (FSU '95)

The remarkable thing is not that Clemson's four guys rank second to only North Carolina's five, but that the Tigers had three guys in the Top 13 who were on the same team.

"It's scary when you look back at how much talent we had on those teams in the late 70's," Jeff Bostic said.

Scary, indeed. And quite impressive.

LW