Note: The following appears in the LSU football gameday program.
Danny Ford had seen enough. He blew his whistle at the 8:03 mark of the second quarter of the Aug. 19, 1987 scrimmage in Memorial Stadium. He brought the entire team to the center of the field. I was in the press box keeping statistics wondering what had made him upset.
The press box during that time period was enclosed, so I could not hear what he was saying to the team. After a few minutes, the entire team applauded as #91 Michael Dean Perry headed towards the locker room in the west end zone.
“At first, I thought he was mad at me when he told me to go to the locker room,” said Perry recently.
I did not notice that Perry had done anything wrong. He had not been called for a penalty on a late hit or even jumped offsides.
In fact, Perry had arguably had the greatest performance I had seen in a preseason scrimmage. In a quarter and a half, he had 10 tackles, six tackles for loss and two sacks.
Ford told me after practice that he “dismissed” Perry from practice because he was too good. He did not remember ever doing that in his career.
“I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, but no one was blocking him. We couldn’t get anything done on offense.
“No one has blocked him all preseason camp. He earned his early departure from practice.”
Bill D’Andrea was in his second year of a four-year run as Clemson’s offensive tackles coach.
“I thought Coach Ford might fire me on the spot,” said D’Andrea with a smile when reflecting on Perry’s performance that day. “We couldn’t block him.
“In all my years in football, no one could anticipate the snap count quicker than Michael Dean Perry. He had an incredible burst of speed to go with it. We would look at film wondering if he was offsides, but when we slowed it down, he wasn’t.”
That burst is a big reason Perry will be inducted into the Clemson Ring of Honor prior to tonight’s game. It is a talent he developed as a youth playing another sport.
“I credit my quickness to playing basketball against my brothers,” said Perry. “We were very competitive and all my brothers were very good athletes. I had to learn how to make a quick first step in basketball growing up, and that carried over to my football career.”
That August scrimmage was a foreshadowing of what Perry would accomplish in regular-season games that season.
As a senior in 1987, Perry was one of three finalists for the Outland Trophy, was a first-team All-American by Football Writers Association and just the fifth defensive player to be the ACC Player-of-the-Year. His brother, William Perry, had won the same award in 1984. Michael Dean finished the season with 74 tackles, second on the team, and led the ACC in tackles for loss (24) and sacks (10).
Perry’s senior year was his best, but he was far from a one-year wonder. As a freshman in 1984, he had a career-high 75 tackles, 15 tackles for loss and seven sacks. William had a team-high 100 tackles and a national-high 27 tackles for loss, giving the defensive linemen who played side-by-side that year 175 tackles and 42 tackles for loss. No Tiger interior defensive line duo has combined for those numbers since.
Michael Dean credited William for his early and future success at Clemson.
“William had the biggest impact on my career,” said Michael Dean of his older brother. “I patterned everything I did after him and followed everything he told me. William always said ‘players will play’.”
Michael Dean took that to mean great players make big plays. William registered a record 60 tackles for loss during his Tiger career between 1981-84, and Michael Dean broke that mark with 61. Thirty-eight years later, they are still the top-two career tackle for loss totals in school history.
Michael Dean had an injury-riddled year in 1985, when he missed five games, but he still had 34 tackles and seven tackles for loss. He told me this past summer that he did not think he was a good NFL prospect until the 1985 season.
“I never thought I was good enough to play in the NFL until Coach Ford talked to me when I was injured in 1985. He basically said of my injury that it could have been worse and affected my NFL career.
“That struck me that he thought I had a career at the next level, and it made me think along those lines going forward.”
Michael Dean continued to return to good health and earned First-Team All-ACC honors in 1986 as a junior with 56 tackles, 15 tackles for loss and nine sacks.
Team success is also a factor in consideration for the Clemson Ring of Honor. The Tigers won the ACC championship in 1986 and 1987 and finished No. 17 in the AP poll in 1986 and No. 10 in the UPI poll in 1987. The Tigers were 18-4-2 over those two seasons.
On April 24, 1988, Perry was a second-round draft pick (No. 50 overall) by the Cleveland Browns. It did not take him long to adapt to the professional game. He was named to the 1988 NFL All-Rookie team, then in his second year, he was named UPI NFL Defensive Player-of-the-Year. He had 92 tackles to match his uniform number and seven sacks during that 1989 season.
“Bud Carson came in as head coach of the Browns in 1989 and recognized my ability to get a quick start,” said Perry. “He told me to tilt (slant) and get upfield two yards as quickly as possible and disrupt the other team’s line of scrimmage.”
Carson had done this with “Mean” Joe Green when he coordinated Pittsburgh’s “Steel Curtain” defense.
Perry’s success continued in 1990, when he had 11.5 sacks and earned first-team All-Pro honors for the second time.
Overall, Perry was named to the Pro Bowl six times, second to Brian Dawkins’ nine selections among former Tiger greats in the NFL.
Carson was one of the many coaches who had a positive impact on Perry’s career. However, his selection to the Clemson Ring of Honor is about his college career, where Ford and Defensive Coordinator Tom Harper had a huge impact.
“The best way I could describe Coach Ford is that he was hard, but always fair.
“Coach Harper was a player’s coach. Everyone I know who played for Coach Harper loved him. He always said, ‘You win with thoroughbreds, not mules.’
“We had some thoroughbreds when I was at Clemson, and I share this award with them and the coaches who helped me along the way.”
