Posted by Block-C Staff

For the 18th installment of DSOT, the hot issue is Tommy Bowden’s contract extension. Enjoy.

Posts like this are the reason I’m sick of Tigernet. It’s not so much that there’s a big, dumb herd mentality, it’s more that it’s a big, dumb herd mentality that refuses to pay any mind to any opinions that differ from theirs.

I’M SO ANGRY AT YOU FOR NOT LIKING TOMMY BOWDEN THAT I WANT TO WET YOU DOWN AND ANALLY PENETRATE YOU… wait… what?

This guy is one of the dopes who thinks you have to be a Bowden uber-fan or you’re not a Clemson fan. This guy is probably just some sidewalk alum who has only been around for the Tommy West/Tommy Bowden era and only sets foot on campus on Saturdays. I’ve said it before, I’m a graduate of Clemson University, not Bowden University. Doesn’t mean I hate the guy, but it means I put the greater good of the school and its team ahead of one man.

Some of my favorite posts are when some of the Tigernetters try to sound slick and clever. Why aren’t people outraged just as much at basketball’s collapse as they were at football’s collapse? Because one is Clemson basketball… and the other is Clemson football. One coach has been there 9 years, the other 4. One program has multiple postseason victories and All-Americans, the other has a WNBA coach as their most famous alum.

Yeah, because you have to be a high level athletics administrator to say anything negative about our team or coach! Prior to stating that I might have reservations about playcalling or coaching in general I better have the right credentials, because surely being a fan or alumni only allows you the right to go to games, clap, or shut the fuck up. If I’m criticizing I must be an enraged, fanatic moron! I must be a genius to criticize coaching. Yeah, well I guess technically it would take a genius to comprehend why we throw three yards behind the first down marker on third down consistently and refuse to run the ball with our top-tier backfield in goal line situations when it counts most. It would definitely take a fucking mental giant to comprehend that.

You know who else slammed all dissenting voices?

That’s right… NAZIS.

Another type of post that never fails to amuse me are these desperate missives meant to appeal to the nonexistent football recruits who are “constantly” cruising Tigernet. I’m friends with a lot of current and past Clemson players, and I can assure you, while they sometimes check out Rivals or Scout, the fringe messageboards are virtually nonexistent to them. Hell I can barely stand to wade through the shit on Tigernet to cull these gems, you think a recruit wants to slop through the intellectual wasteland to maybe see his name mentioned?

Thank God there are still some posters like this on Tigernet to not make it a complete and utter embarrassment of sunshine pumping loonies. Most, if not all, of his sentiments have been echoed by us here at DFIG.

Of course the minute someone posts a thoughtful and well conceived post that goes against the grain they are immediately blasted. I swear to God some of these people are actually proud of being “top Tigernet posters.” That’s like being the tallest midget at the circus, people. Wakka wakka.

Although I did laugh at this a little bit.

Maybe one of the greatest posts I’ve ever seen on Tigernet.

Posted by Block-C Staff

Okay, readers. Here’s a chance to show your prognostication skills. Here’s a list (correct as of 11/29) of most vacant coaching positions in D-1. Submit ASAP your list of who you think gets the job. The winner will be announced… whenever the positions are full. Refer to this ESPN page for updates on hirings.

**Update: Sources are saying Tuberville to Arkansas as of 11PM Thursday night.

Arkansas
Auburn
Colorado State
Duke
Georgia Tech
Michigan
Nebraska
Washington State

If you want you can double speculate and tell us what coach will fill the position vacated by a coach you figure will go to one of these schools, for example Jimbo Fisher to LSU to replace Les Miles to Michigan. Easy.

Posted by Willy Mac

The above billboard is located on I-26 near Harbison, beside the Jamil Shrine Temple in Columbia. Chili and I feel that it’s completely hilarious, but also completely obnoxious and classless at the same time. If something like this had been put up outside Clemson after last year’s game you bet we’d climb up and spray paint the bitch. I think Clemson fans have finally had enough of all the talking from the USC victory last year and we’re starting to show our teeth.

Injuries

- It turns out that James Mays’s injury isn’t as bad as first thought. Originally, James was thought as to have had a hip fracture that would have put him out until the beginning of ACC play. Secondary scans done of his hip showed that there was no fracture at all and that it’s actually just a bad sprain. New estimates have him coming back for the tail end of the San Juan Shootout.

- Sam Perry had knee surgery and is also expected to make a comeback for the San Juan Shootout. I think we did pretty well against Purdue seeing as we had two major players out for that game.

- Jarvis Jenkins had minor wrist surgery. Chris McDuffie had his elbow scoped and cleaned up. Finally, Cullen Harper had arthroscopic surgery on his throwing shoulder. Also removed from Cullen were three .45 slugs, a blowgun dart, a few tiger shark teeth, a metal cleat spike, the tip of a bayonet, a three inch nail, and what amounted to be two handfuls of buckshot. All three will be back for the bowl game.

News

- As per the heavily Gamecock based The State newspaper, a chance to go to the Chik-Fil-A bowl for Clemson has become a bit better. For Clemson fans the article should read: “If Virginia Tech beats BC, Clemson goes to the Chik-Fil-A bowl.” Since it was probably written by a USC fan/alum, it actually reads: “Oh yeah, Clemson is a shoe in for the Peach… or are they? Yeah they are. Or are they?”

- Thomas Austin gets the ACC Linemen of the Week award as he graded out at 87 percent for the South Carolina game. That performance included eight pancake blocks.

Posted by Willy Mac

Are we still in good hands? Should we stay the course, as always?

In early June of this year I wrote an article entitled “The Pros (And Cons) of Ditching Tommy Bowden.” Well now that the regular season has ended and not only are we once again not even playing for the ACC title, Mr. Bowden is licking his chops and getting ready to restructure his contract again. Following my pros and cons from the first article, let’s take a look at what Bowden has in each category. The last article was the pros and cons of getting rid of Bowden. These would be the pros and cons of keeping him. Please feel free to leave your opinion in the comments section.

Pros

- Sub Rob Spence, Bowden has a baller set of assistant coaches that are loyal to Clemson University and our goals. In actuality, I think Spence has a great play book (minus the screens) for this offense but he either chooses the wrong plays at the wrong times or he gets a comfy lead and then starts coaching not to lose.

- He is a great coach all around. He doesn’t meddle too much in his assistant coaches doings. He doesn’t really call anyone out in the press. He’s respectful to players, coaches, officials, etc. Tommy tries to portray Clemson as best he can under incredible scrutiny and pressure. He works hard. He also makes sure his players get degrees that they can take into the post college world.

- He doesn’t talk too much trash. Tommy stays classy. He looks presentable whenever he’s on TV and he’s not a scum bag. We don’t have to worry about him going off on a month long drinking tangent culminating in a vaseline covered Bowden blowing up a bank vault or something of the like. We also don’t have to worry about major NCAA violations ever. The guy and his program are so squeaky clean that it’s almost too good to be true.

- Hate to bite the bullet here and seem like a Tommy Bowden Kool-Aid drinker, but he is the best thing we’ve had since Danny. He’s improved facilities as well as brought back our recruiting presence. Season ticket sales are at an all time high as are IPTAY donations. Most importantly, we’re consistently ranked in the top 25, even top 15. What’s more is we’ve been finishing ranked lately as well. I sat through those 1992 (5-6), 1994 (5-6), and 1998 (3-8) seasons. I grew up with that. I can’t go back to that and with Tommy around, we’re almost guaranteed not to go back to that.

- He still has a smokin’ daughter. In fact, I’m putting out an APB for her. Someone figure out what she’s doing nowadays, so I can, uh… just find out where she is. You don’t need to know what I do with the information afterwards.

I do enjoy the fact that Tommy really gives it to the referees when they make a bad call. Most of the times though he’s so lost in his own tirade that he doesn’t call a timeout for the booth to review.

Cons

- As many fans like me, I want my hard nose, up the gut Clemson football back. I want to go back to the days where the center and guards were bigger than the tackles. Where the running back shouted at the linebackers “I’m coming through the A gap, try and stop us” before the snap. He allows Spence to coach way too east and west and not enough north and south.

- He just can’t seem to string together an entire season. Either we endure a scenario where we come out of the gate laying in our own shit, have a mid season pity party, or an end of the season crash and burn. I can’t take the Clemson Football Rollercoaster. I constantly feel like the kid that’s a little too drunk to be on the ride at the amusement park and my brain is constantly telling me, “Oh god. Dude our mouth is watering really bad. The stomach says everything is on the way out. GET OFF THIS THING.” I feel as if his team’s positions go in cycles that Bowden can’t manage to sync together. One year we have a stellar offense except the O Line, etc, etc.

- The Bowden’s used to be known for their trick plays and most of the time those risks panned out for us. So why did we stop taking them? I feel that sometimes Tommy needs to take the reins and call a few plays of his own, but doesn’t. I feel as if he’s never actually put together a playbook of his own and called his own plays. He just hires people to do it for him and stands there, shrugging his shoulders when things don’t work out. At least Spurrier has the nuts to say “Yeah, I called that play. I made that decision. That’s my fault, I fucked up.”

- He schedules out of conference cupcake teams. If we are going to consistently go 8-4 or 9-3 in the regular season, let’s play some real teams. Stop fluffing your schedule and let’s get dirty.

- It’s been nine to ten years since he signed up for the job and he hasn’t brought us any hardware that actually counts for something. He’s brought us a few memorable wins, but how about a few memorable championships, is that too much to ask in a decade?

- For big games, we deep dick the opposing team and put them in a hole Then we play conservatively and hope that we can hang on and that we don’t lose. Now, this is Spence’s fault but Tommy needs to know when to say, “Hey, put the foot on the gas and not the brakes, pal.” Let’s just do what we did to Wake Forest and keep pounding it out.

What Bowden needs to work on

- The offensive play book is good, it just needs a few tweaks (Getting rid of screens, stop running plays that haven’t worked all season). As of now, it is still a little too home run centered and not enough pound it out. Perhaps this could be discussed in the contract meeting.

- Maybe we should start focusing more on defensive and offensive linemen and the talent players will follow. We need to stop getting small linemen with good technique out of high school and trying to build them up size wise once they get here. Let’s just find some hosses and work on their techniques.

- When he restructures his contract, perhaps he should offer to take a pay cut as a trade off for more years. That money lost should be filtered into the incentives of his contract. He should also lessen his buy out because sometimes it feels as if he is holding us hostage. He hasn’t won anything yet, so he is still unproven. The honorable thing to do would to stop digging in our pockets when he hasn’t earned it yet. He feels like that buddy that always borrows money, but probably won’t get you back. “C’mon man, you know I’m good for it.”

Now again, I’m not attacking Bowden or defending him. I’m just throwing this out there and it’s how I feel. If you don’t agree, let me know in the comments. If you’re just disagreeing to disagree, there’s a bunch of neanderthals in a jerk circle over at the Tigernet forums waiting for you.

Posted by Block-C Staff

The 2007 All-ACC Football teams were announced today and Clemson places 4 Tigers on first team offense and an puzzling 0 on first team defense. James Davis, Aaron Kelly, Barry Richardson, and Chris McDuffie all receive first team nods. Cullen Harper was tapped as second team quarterback. Clemson’s defense is 10th nationally in points per game allowed, second in the league only to Virginia Tech, 5th nationally in yards per game allowed, again second in the league only to VT, yet they place nobody on the first team defense and only Michael Hamlin on the second team. Don’t worry though, North Carolina placed 3 of their defensive wonders on the second team. Announcers referred to our D at times as the “no-name defense” and apparently the ACC sportswriters agreed. I hope you don’t have to ask if the Tigers placed anybody on special teams All-ACC teams. Congrats to all the Tigers who made the team, and to Phillip Merling, you were robbed, man. Robbed.