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Posted by Chili
PICK SOME GAMES Y’ALL
We’re going to start up the Block-C Yahoo! Pick Em league this year, but I wanted to ask you guys how you wanted it set up. Comment on this post letting me know yea/nay for confidence points and for whether we’re picking straight up or against the spread.
AND SO IT BEGINS
Today marked the first day of practice for both Clemson and Sakerlina. Clemson comes into practice looking to replace three huge offensive weapons in CJ Spiller, Jacoby Ford, and Michael Palmer. The wide receiver position is basically a gaping hole at this point, with Xavier Dye being the most experienced returning receiver with all of 14 catches under his belt. As the article says, the defense will be the strong point this year. I really like what Coach Steele is doing with that squad. Speaking of D…
TIME TO STEP IT UP
Da’Quan Bowers is a beast, no doubt, but a beast who has yet to produce results near worthy of the hype with which he entered Clemson two years ago. Travis Sawchik at the Post & Courier has penned an article on the subject of Bowers and the expectations thrust upon him. Sawchik writes that “In 955 career snaps at Clemson, Bowers has four sacks.” The article goes on to compare Bowers to everyone from Julius Peppers to Courtney Brown. Bowers vows this year to stop taking shortcuts, and quotes from coaches go on to support this newfound focus on excellence and his fight against the vile temptation of hot McDonalds on those long Clemson nights. I think I remember hearing a similar story last year… Right now Da’Quan is Garrett Morris, and we need him to be Eddie Murphy.
MCDANIEL ON THORPE AWARD LIST
DeAndre McDaniel is on the Thorpe Award watch list which is a prestigious award for the nation’s top defensive back and homemaker. I’m sure it’s one of those two things.
ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER ONE GONE
Clemson hitting coach Tom Riginos is leaving the Tigers to take the head coaching job at Winthrop. Pitching coach Kyle Bunn bolted for Bama last year.
Posted by Chili
In tremendously good news for the Tigers, Kyle Parker will return to play football for Clemson in 2010. The Parker family had set a midnight deadline for the Rockies to have a deal in place with him, and when the Rockies missed the deadline the Parkers informed Clemson of Kyle’s impending return. They will continue to hammer out a contract.
Last year, Dabo Swinney said his most important recruit was CJ Spiller. In a similar fashion, KP may be this year’s greatest catch.
Posted by Chili
CROOTIN’
The State carries a piece from The Post & Courier (a news well we’ll be drawing from more lately as the Greenville News has put up a big faggoty pay wall. Those legitimate journalists, how dare they try and make a living… harumph.) touting Clemson’s 2011 football recruiting class. The 16 member class is currently ranked 11th by Scout and 19th by Rivals. The article talks about Clemson’s top recruits Marlin Lane, Mike Bellamy, Charone Peake, and Shaq Anthony and the good numbers of o-line and d-line guys. Sounds like it’s shaping up to be a solid haul coming off last year’s class which was smaller due to limited available scholarships.
JACOBY
Jacoby Ford signed with the Raiders (you just read that with a Chris Berman voice in your head) on Monday. CJ Spiller has yet to sign and there is talk of him holding out.
PARKER
Still no final word in the Kyle Parker countdown to disappointment. At first there were reports stating that he was closer to returning to Clemson, now the latest news is that the Rockies are giving him monies that would persuade him to jump right into baseball. The latest update from The Denver Post’s Rockies guy says that all options are still on the table. I’ve been saying for months now that Parker is gone, and while I still believe this I hope I’m wrong. Just in case, I wanted to beat Tardnet to the punch in coming up with t-shirty nicknames for Tajh Boyd:
Tajh Mahomie
Tajh Mahaulass
The Black’n
Mocha Woody
Tajh Boy Dis Guy Ain’t Ready
Posted by Willy Mac
Tonight’s game can be seen on ESPN2HD at 9 pm Eastern.
I don’t know any where near what i knew for the ASU game but I did catch the OU/SCAR game in it’s entirety. OU isn’t as good as ASU, this I can tell you. that’s certainly no reason to overlook them.
Pitching-wise they’re one of the lesser teams here. Fielding-wise they haven’t allowed many errors lately. Batting-wise they beat the shit out of the ball.
We need not overlook this game, but it’s far more winnable than if we were playing, say, Alabama.
Sorry for the short post, but I gave you what you needed and I’ve been too busy with actually being here and the World Cup. Oh and drinking. Oh, and eating bountiful amounts of steak. Make sure you check out the official Clemson preview.
Posted by Willy Mac
They’re calling for rain here in Omaha so that might set us back a little bit or outright cancel our game. Either way, we will have to play Arizona State, so here’s what I’ve gathered on them for you to know what we’re up against.
Pitching – As a staff they are a very aggressive bullpen. They are potentially the best bull pen at the world series and probably one of the best we’ve seen all year. They all throw a lot of strikes and work very efficiently. They work extremely fast so our batters will have to take their time, step out of the box a few times, and make them pitch when we’re ready so as to get them out of a groove. They throw a lot of fast strikes so our guys will need to be ready to get their wrists around. If we can successfully get around expect to see a few towering home runs from our guys. They really rely on batters chasing outside pitches to get the K.
Box line as a team:
ERA – 3.14
Opponent BA – .239
Strike Outs – 537
Walks – 160
HBP’s – 64
Fielding Pct. – .976
Their starting pitcher is likely to be Seth Blair (Jr, RHP, 6-2, 190) who is undefeated at 12-0 with 102 innings pitched. He has only given up 105 hits all year. He has 24 walks while striking out 104 batters. His ERA stands at 3.35. His fast ball is speedy and aggressive and he’s not afraid to put it on either side of the plate. He throws fast balls early in the count to set up his slider (best pitch) later to get the strike out. He works more away from LHH and more into RHH.
Fielding – They are a very good defensive team with a fielding percentage of .976. Not many errors committed inside the diamond. The only glaring chink in the armor is that teams have had some pretty good success at stealing bases. Another chink in the armor is that teams that have been aggressive with base running have seen it pay off.
Batting – Many of their starters hold averages over .300 with more teetering towards .400. They are very careful hitters who draw a lot of walks that will make our staff really work for the strike. It’s hard to be efficient against the Sun Devils. Our likely starter will be Casey Harman (Jr, LHP, 6-2, 200). Harman is 7-3 with an ERA of 3.73. ASU is a heavy hitting team that usually depends on singles to get the win.
Overall, this is going to be the toughest game of the series for us but if we can beat the Sun Devils, it might be a punched ticket to the finals. The teams to beat here are obviously TCU and ASU. Arizona State isn’t anything the Tigers haven’t seen all year.