Ford Resigns at Clemson Amid NCAA Probe : Football: Youngest coach to win a national title denies wrongdoing, says he will cooperate with investigation.

Clemson’s Danny Ford, the youngest coach to win a national championship, resigned Thursday, ending an 11-year head coaching tenure that brought the Tigers national prominence and NCAA penalties.

Clemson will pay Ford at least $700,000 and potentially more than $1 million as settlement of his “perpetual” five-year contract.

Ford’s resignation comes less than two weeks after the NCAA informed Clemson, the top football power in the Atlantic Coast Conference, of 14 alleged rule violations committed between 1984 and 1988 by the football program.

Clemson was placed on probation for two years in 1982 after the NCAA cited 70 violations committed during Ford’s term and that of his predecessor, Charley Pell.

Ford, 41, said he would “cooperate and participate with Clemson” in responding to the NCAA inquiry, which must be completed by March 12.

“I deny any wrongdoing on my part,” Ford said Thursday. “And I am confident that an impartial review of the facts will so prove.”

In his 11 years as head coach, Ford had the third-best winning percentage among active coaches, .760 (96-29-4), behind only Tom Osborne of Nebraska and Joe Paterno of Penn State.

Ford was 6-2 in bowl games and won the 1981 national title.

In agreeing to leave Clemson, where he spent 13 seasons as a head coach and assistant, Ford will receive $190,000 a year for the next three years--five if he does not accept a Division I-A head coaching job by Nov. 15, 1992--and $100,000 in 1991 to pay off the mortgage on his farm. He also receives title to a van in his possession, health insurance for the remainder of the year, six Clemson season tickets and a $13,000 interest payment on the farm in 1990.

Ford had a five-year “perpetual” contract, meaning that each year it renewed automatically, maintaining a five-year duration.

The school did not announce a replacement for Ford, and an athletic department source said it may be a week before a new head coach is selected.

No one else on Ford’s staff resigned or was fired.

Athletic Director Bobby Robinson said the search for a successor would begin immediately. Early candidates appear to be Fisher DeBerry, head coach at the Air Force Academy, and Jimmye Laycock, head coach at Division I-AA William and Mary.

Robinson praised Ford but added: “We have honest differences of opinion on certain basic aspects of the football program. A separation under any terms would be difficult. An amicable parting is certainly less painful for all involved.”

The school denied that Ford’s resignation was a preemptive move by the Clemson administration to lessen any NCAA sanctions. “It would look that way, but that’s not the case,” university spokeswoman Cathy Sams said. “This is not a strategy to get a more lenient sentence or something like that.”

Tiger players met to discuss Ford’s resignation and issued a statement calling on the school to reinstate Ford or hire someone on his staff to replace him.