Sport: First Last, but Maybe Not Always

Clemson stops Nebraska and holds off the N.C.A.A.

Unbeaten and untied, Clemson still has not had a perfect season exactly. The Tigers' record was 12-0. They won the Orange Bowl over Nebraska 22-15 New Year's night, and the wire services anointed them champions of all college football. But a National Collegiate Athletic Association probe of Clemson recruiting methods is in progress, so nobody knows whether to cheer just yet.

Except, of course, for the shouts of triumph coming from the ordinarily quiet community of Clemson in South Carolina, where people paint their faces with orange cat's feet. The Tigers' bowl performance gave them something to meow about, a persuasive blend of competent offense and elegant defense, and Nigerian David Igwebuike kicked in three field goals.

The victory left Clemson fans singing "We're Number One!" Theirs, though, is the seventh chorus of that this season. This is the year in college football when everyone seemed to be No. 1 for 15 minutes—first Michigan, then Notre Dame (which went on to its first losing record since 1963), then U.S.C., Texas, Penn State, Pittsburgh—and now with the N.C.A.A. hovering over Clemson, it almost seems no one is No. 1. An injustice has been done all right, maybe to Clemson's opponents, maybe to Clemson.

The system of justice in college athletics is as slow as any other. These things can take a couple of years. U.C.L.A., the school with the most honored initials in college basketball—U.C.L.A., like plucked strings—struck some bad notes a few years ago but is just facing the music now. For past recruiting violations, the Bruins have been pre-eliminated from the N.C.A.A. postseason tournament. Also, they were obliged to return the runner-up trophy from 1980, which prompts the awful thought of possibly one more No. 1 1981 football team yet to come, perhaps a year and a half from now.

An investigation is not an indictment, but in the cynical atmosphere of college sports, the effect is the same. If the sports world were as sweet and uncomplicated as the real world always hoped, there would be no more appealing champions than the Tigers, whose record last year was 6-5. In a happier time, the most talked-about freshman recruit might have been William Perry, an extraordinary 6-ft. 3-in., 305-lb. noseguard, known to his teammates as "the Refrigerator."

But two other recruits have become more renowned than the Refrigerator and have carried more weight. James Cofer and Terry Minor, former high school teammates in Knoxville, Tenn., reneged on the "letters of intent" they signed at Clemson. Then, after fighting for their release from these standard agreements, they went public with allegations they had been paid for their signatures. Now Cofer and Minor are suing Clemson

Coach Danny Ford, among others, for $12 million in damages to their careers.

Whether or not this is even the main ground the N.C.A.A. is tracking, investigators will not say. They only acknowledge the fact of the investigation. "The N.C.A.A. has sent two men to Clemson twice," says the school's sports information director Bob Bradley, "and we haven't heard anything else from them."