When Clifford stepped down from his position at Beaufort High last November and resurfaced around the corner at Beaufort Academy, he forgot to make sure that rule carried over. “I didn’t go over the rules this year,” he says with a laugh. “I should have said, ‘Do not Gatorade the coach.’” His second soaking was worth it, though, because it came after Beaufort Academy beat Andrew Jackson Academy 42-40 in the SCISA 8-man state championship game, snapping the Confederates’ 48-game winning streak and giving the Eagles — and Clifford — their first state title.

The move from Beaufort High — where Clifford took over a struggling program that had won more than two games only once in the six seasons prior to his becoming head coach and compiled a 109-59 record in 14 seasons — to tiny Beaufort Academy rejuvenated the longtime coach. Whispers that the game was passing him by became more common each time the Eagles lost in the playoffs, and in 2016 Clifford made the decision to hand over play-calling duties — his greatest joy as a coach — in an effort to spark the offense. The move sapped some of his energy, and his body, banged up from his own football career, began to fail him.

Clifford still walks with a slight limp, but he has a bit more spring in his step now. At Beaufort Academy he was reunited with Head of School Dan Durbin — the man who gave him his first head coaching job at Beaufort High — and has returned to focusing on the fundamentals of the game. “Getting back to running my offense and play calling again, being in an atmosphere where I’ve got 20 kids and all 20 kids are listening and doing exactly what you tell them to do, I was rejuvenated,” Clifford says. “I don’t think there was a negative thing said all year long. Everything was positive. Everything was encouraging. It was refreshing.”

Watching Clifford take a floundering program and instantly turn it into a winner was nothing new for Beaufort sports fans. Beaufort High had gone 9-59 in the six seasons before Clifford took over and led the Eagles to a 13-1 record and a state semifinals appearance in 2004. He never lost to rival Battery Creek as a head coach and went to the playoffs 10 times in 14 seasons. Clifford attributes the team’s success in 2004 to his experience as a tight end at Clemson, where a new coaching staff took over prior to his junior year and put the team through a hellacious spring practice regimen that laid the foundation for the 1981 national championship three years later.

“My experience with that helped me build it at Beaufort,” Clifford says. “Those kids worked, man. They were tired of losing.” His first team at Beaufort High didn’t lose until the state semifinals, when star Gerald Legree broke his leg in the first half of a 14-12 loss to Irmo. Clifford saw the same fire in the eyes and the same distaste for losing when he arrived at Beaufort Academy, where the players were raw but willing to work hard to improve. They hit the weight room hard and put in marathon sessions on the practice field due to SCISA’s ban on two-a-days. All season, Clifford told the players they didn’t yet know how good they were. When they knocked off Andrew Jackson, they finally knew, and Beaufort was reminded how good of a coach it has in Clifford.