When James Davis makes a promise, he delivers

We won, I can’t believe we actually won, at least so convincingly. James Davis, guaranteed a victory, and he delivered in typical Thunder style. The offense, in my opinion, looked great, despite being unable to score on the opening drive. I’m still not sure what to think of Buccholz though, I’m sure he tries hard, but I still can’t understand how Tommy is letting him play two sports. Everyone keeps saying that’s not really an issue, but when a kicker has trouble like this, you have to look at the obvious. If Tommy wouldn’t let CJ Gaddis play baseball and football (which , by the way, aren’t played at the same time of year) why would he let this kid play two sports in the same season. Hopefully our kicker will find his niche again and be able to consistently make field goals longer than 40 yards. It didn’t cost us much this game, but with our other special teams struggles, it would be nice to have someone to turn to. As Chili and I were discussing a few days ago, Tommy and his coaching staff have been historically bad with kickers, citing the Jad Dean meltdown last year among others.

Some positives to take away from the game are the fact that both Davis and Spiller gained more than 100 yards, and Clemson was able to put up decent numbers on the ground and through the air against an actual BCS opponent. Maryland was weak and injury plagued, but still put up a little fight, not as much as I expected, but still enough to make us work for a victory. Clemson dominated this game, the score didn’t show it, at the end as well as it did at halftime, but the defense looked great. I guess they got tired toward the end, allowing those two touchdowns, but all things considered, they held them down enough to assure a victory. Cullen Harper is repeatedly adding his name to the Clemson record books. He’s now the fourth quarterback in ACC history to put up 5 passing TD’s in two games in one season, though that’s kind of old news now. The more current stat is that he is now tied with Woody Dantzler and Charlie Whitehurst for the single season TD record for a Clemson QB with 21. With 4 regular season games remaining, he should be able to set that mark much higher. I will say that Harper continues to be a pleasant surprise. While most of us are disappointed that we won’t be seeing Willy Korn every week, we’re glad that we have a dependable QB who can keep the offense moving. We’re also still pissed that Harper was sitting on the bench all last year while we endured Will Proctor. Having too many good QB’s is better than having none at all, so I can’t complain about the controversy, if one really exists. Clemson still has a chance to play to the ACC championship, albeit a slim one, but we’ll discuss that further later on.

Negatives to take away are a little more difficult to find. Of course the big one is the loss of Jacoby Ford to an ankle injury. Ford’s ankle was in fact broken during Saturday’s game and he will be out for the season. Clemson loses it’s fastest man, and a good receiver, luckily I don’t think we need to look very far to find his replacement. CJ Spiller could easily be sent to WR, and third stringer Sadat Chambers could easily replace him as Davis’ backup. We’ll see what Tommy does with that, but I’m guessing he won’t move Spiller unless we struggle at Duke for some reason. Buccholz is still showing some inconsistencies, but I think we’ve beaten that horse to death.

In order to play for the ACC title, Clemson will need to play like this, or better, every game, and more importantly, they will need to get some help from other teams in the Atlantic division, since VA Tech wasn’t able to take down BC. We’ll need to beat BC, and have either FSU, Maryland or Miami take them down as well. Other than that, we’ll probably need something horrible to happen to Matt Ryan. Hopefully this new fire I’ve been hearing about is for real, and Clemson will continue to step up when it counts. I’d love to see at least 9 wins this year, and the way SC is playing lately ( haha) I think we can make it happen. Duke doesn’t have a conference win this year, so let’s hope Tommy won’t be helping them with that again this year. In parting, I think Davis needs to guarantee an ACC title or something, it just might work.

Well, little can be said about this weeks performance, everyone was within a point of each other , just about. Chili was this weeks winner with 8 correct picks and the tie breaker, which helped him claim the number two spot. Other than that, the standings don’t look much different than last week.

1) Sam +94 (6)
2) Chili +86 (8)
3) Lyrtch +85 (6)
4) Willy Mac +83 (8)
T5) Tully +81 (7)
T5) Seigler +81 (7)
7) NoleCC +80 (8)

Clemson (5-2, 2-2) @ Maryland (4-3, 1-2) Saturday, October 27th, 3:30 EST. ABC, XM 191, 98.3 FM in College Park.

The Line: Clemson -3.5

Edge goes to:

Offense: Clemson

Defense: Clemson, who is ranked higher in every defensive statistical category.

Special Teams: I’m willing to bet not Clemson.

Intangibles: Who knows? James Davis’s recent guarantee that we’ll beat Maryland will no doubt be bulletin board material for Maryland, but it should also fire up the Tigers. It’s great to see him continue to step up and be a leader on this team.

Our Panel of Manbearpigs Say:

Chili: With Boston College’s miraculous victory at Virginia Tech last night, Clemson’s chances of wiggling into the ACC Championship Game went from slim to none. As Clemson and South Carolina fans are used to doing, expectations for the team need to undergo a mid-season adjustment. Playing into a decent bowl game is now the long term goal, with beating the Terps the immediate one. I am always prepared to see Clemson fall flat, but I think James Davis’s recent tough talk is an indicator of the team’s overall demeanor and I expect to see the Tigers come out swinging. Friedgen tends to out-coach Bowden and will probably do the same on Saturday. The weather looks to be rainy which may lend itself to a lower scoring affair, if that matters to anyone. I think it’ll be a close game, with Clemson pulling it out or holding on to win… uh… or losing… either one.

Clemson 17, Maryland 14

Seigler: Keeping with the tradition of Clemson playing horribly against Maryland, I feel this game will be close, and of course, low scoring. I can really see a re-run of the 2004 game, a lackluster game that ends in a narrow (10-7) Clemson victory. Clemson proved to us last weekend that they still have an offense, and that it still is capable of scoring massive amounts of points, so let’s hope they don’t take the next few games off. Let’s hope that special teams are good, because I can really see them costing us this game, like they have a few other games this decade. To be honest, it’s so hard for me to get psyched up for these kind of games. I know Maryland is dangerous, they took down Rutgers, who was overrated, but still a good team, but then on the other hand, they’ve lost to the power houses of Wake Forrest and Virginia ( which, despite their wonderful ACC record, is still not a great team). Clemson should roll this weekend, but don’t get your hopes up, Friedgen will out coach Tommy and put his team in a great position to win. I’m really looking for Tommy to start going for it on 4th down, especially when the field goal would be more than 45 yards. It seems our kicker has no confidence, Tommy should start letting him kick short ones for a while, and go for it when they’ll be long. Just my opinion, but we need something to build confidence in our special teams. Against Maryland, in Maryland, Clemson puts up another lackluster performance.

Clemson 21 Maryland 20

Willy Mac: Everything about Maryland’s offense is terrible. Their running back is ok, but for an offense centered around a terrible quarterback, there’s not much hope for them on that side of the ball. Defense-wise, they’re decent. As my buddies already said, Fridge is the better coach but there is something different about this new wind Clemson football team that I really like. I mean, we dropped 70 points on a team thats not Temple. Granted it was a non-BCS conference team, still, 70 points?!?! We may finally have found the rythm we need, if we can just keep the Terps away from Cullen. I’m going the opposite:

Clemson 38, Maryland 16