Posted by Willy Mac

We’ve searched high and low to bring you the best information we can find for extra curricular activities in Jacksonville. To be honest with you up front, Jacksonville isn’t nearly as great as some of the cities we’ve done segments on before, so don’t expect the world when you get down there.

One of your best bet’s in terms of restaurants and bars would be the Jacksonville Landing, located just a few blocks east of Alltell stadium. The shopping in that area is also pretty good in case you’re carrying along an inattentive broad (we can say that here because there’s no such thing as girls on the innernets).

Cole Pepper (yes that’s a real name), a local radio show host that covers mostly the Jacksonville Jaguars told us, “For a great steak dinner, Plaza III is a Kansas City based restaurant with Jacksonville ownership. It’s located downtown at the Hyatt (and they use my BBQ sauce for some of their menu items).” Pepper also mentions, “If you want BBQ, the best in town is Blackjack’s Best BBQ. Call ahead if you want to get some pricing and place advance orders for tailgating. Their phone number is 904-387-3900.”

He also highly recommends a restaurant named “Chew.” It’s an upscale place with a lunch/dinner menu fit for the classy folks. It’s a high end location that is across the river from the Jacksonville Landing in the San Marco area where you can find some other nicer establishments but bring a hefty wallet.  It’d probably be more time efficient and cost effective to just stay on the Landing side of the river, for what it’s worth to you.

If you received the Orange & White this go-round you’ll notice the first thing you see when you open it up is a schedule of some events that the CUAD recommends trying out. Just a few highlights for you from the article:

• Coaches Luncheon & Hall of Fame Induction – December 31st, Noon at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Meet and greet the coaches and players from both teams. Tickets are only $25.
• Gator Bowl Clemson Pep Rally – December 31st, 1:30 PM at the Jacksonville Landing.
• Gator Bowl Parade – December 31st, 3 PM in downtown Jacksonville.
• Budweiser Tailgate Party/Times-Union Touchdown Party - January 1st, 10 AM till 1 PM at the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium Entertainment Zone.

In terms of actual things revolving around the Gator Bowl as well as neat places to check out, here are some quick links that we put together that should help you out:

• Parking Map
• Tickets (Through the Gator Bowl)
• Bowl Patches
• Downtown Dining Guide
• Budweiser Beer Factory Tours
• Greyhound Racing
• Alligator Farm

Posted by Chili

Your undefeated Clemson Tigers travel down to Columbia to take on the Gamecocks tonight. The game will air at 7 PM on Fox Sports Net, but we encourage all Tigers to try and make it to Columbia for the game. There should be plenty of tickets available. Feel free to make this the open thread for the game once it starts.

Excerpts from Tigernet’s game notes:

SERIES HISTORY
Overall: South Carolina leads 86-72
at Clemson: Clemson leads 44-30
at Littlejohn: Clemson leads 19-7
at South Carolina: South Carolina leads 53-25
at Neutral: Tied 3-3
First Meeting: South Carolina, 39-18, in 1912-13
Last Meeting: Clemson, 85-74, in 2007-08

Probable starting lineups

2 Demontez Stitt 6-2 175 So. 	G 	2 Devan Downey 5-9 175 Jr.
(9.3 PPG, 3.8 APG)                	      (19.0 PPG, 4.5 APG)

22 Terrence Oglesby 6-2 190 So. G 	20 Zam Fredrick 6-0 203 Sr.
(12.9 PPG, 1.5 RPG) 				(15.1 PPG, 3.8 RPG)

12 Raymond Sykes 6-9 220 Sr. 	C 	24 Mike Holmes 6-7 230 So.
(9.2 PPG, 5.4 RPG) 				(13.0 PPG, 8.8 RPG)

1 K.C. Rivers 6-5 215 Sr. 	F 	21 Dominique Archie 6-7 200 Jr.
(14.7 PPG, 6.1 RPG) 				(11.1 PPG, 7.4 RPG)

35 Trevor Booker 6-7 240 Jr. 	F 	31 Evaldas Baniulis 6-7 210 Jr.
(14.5 PPG, 9.6 RPG) 				(9.6 PPG, 3.7 RPG)

Posted by Chili

We still haven’t really gotten to the meat of the bowl schedule, which is later this week, but here are standings as of Tuesday morning.

Posted by Chili

Hey everybody, we hope you had happy holidays, here’s to a victorious New Year. The first item for your perusal is a very telling, very controversial piece from the New York Times. Heralded recruit Jamarkus McFarland allowed the NY Times to follow along during his recruiting process, which involved Southern Cal, LSU, Texas, and Oklahoma. Of course we wouldn’t be writing about this if it didn’t include some juicy details into the sordid world of big time recruiting. In a very Smoove B style of storytelling, Jamarkus (or J-Mac as his mom calls him) has this to say about a Texas recruiting visit:

“I will never forget the excitement amongst all participants,” McFarland wrote. “Alcohol was all you can drink, money was not an option. Girls were acting wild by taking off their tops, and pulling down their pants. Girls were also romancing each other. Some guys loved every minute of the freakiness some girls demonstrated. I have never attended a party of this magnitude.”

Oh how very sordid indeed. The Texas board over at Rivals has already scrambled to post a complete rebuttal, but it’s kind of hard to really refute that there’s some insanely iffy shit that happens in the recruiting process. Read the NY Times article here. What a snitch.

GATOR BOWL NEWS

Greg Wallace reports on how the Tigers hope to slow Nebraska’s efficient offensive machine. It should be an interesting matchup, as Nebraska’s offense is ranked 12th nationally to Clemson’s 17th ranked defense. I’m not sure what immediate effect losing Koenning will have on the defensive scheme, but I doubt the Tigers will deviate too much from that plan given just 15 practices before the bowl.

Coach Swinney isn’t letting his team lollygag (LOLLYGAGGERS!) at practice. DABO HATES JOGGING. DABO LOVES RUNNING. WHY DO YOU JOG AND ANGER THE DABO?

CLEMSON BASEBALL JUST SHY OF TOP 25

College baseball’s Top 25 Preseason poll came out today and we were nearly included in it, ranked at 26th overall.  We’ve got 8 out of 9 starters and 4 out of 5 pitchers all returning including Top Player watch list candidates Kyle Parker and Ben Paulsen.  Rawrsome. Also, season ticket info for 2009 is imminent.

MORE MORE MORE

More articles about Clemson’s offensive line woes.  More articles about how historically awesome everything from Nebraska is.  More articles about how awesome Nebraska is now.  More articles about what Tommy Bowd-ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz…… This bowl game couldn’t take any longer to get here.

CHAVIS TO LSU

As per ESPN, John Chavis has agreed in principal to an offer from Les Miles to be the new LSU defenseive coordinator after the bowl game for a cool half a mil.  Horse shit, John Chavis.  Horse shit. (HT: CUVinny)

Posted by Willy Mac