Posted by Sam

EA Sports and ESPN’s Sportsnation are doing an “NCAA Football Traditions” bracket-style competition.  Clemson’s tradition of rubbing Howard’s Rock and “Running Down the Hill” are the 3 Seed and beat USC (the Real one, of course) in the 1st Round.  The 2nd Round is under way and has Clemson pitted against Michigan and their overrated “Jump up and hit that sign thingy” that they do.  Right now, the vote is really close, so click on this link and vote for Clemson (or Michigan if you are a jerk).  Do it or we will find you!

“You’re damn right I found a picture with Willy Korn in it!!!!!”

Posted by Sam

According to CBSSports.com, Clemson ranks number one in their APR (Academic Progress Report) rankings for college football.  Apparently CBS took the APR averages of a bunch of Division I Schools (or FBS for the dorks who like to be politically correct) and made some formula in which Clemson got a score of 988 out of a possible 1,000.

Is this a good thing?  Yes and no.  It looks good for the school and the program.  It shows that Clemson puts a high priority on their football players’ grades.  And it shows that Clemson graduates their players.  However, it also shows that the highly touted prospects that do come to Clemson don’t exactly develop into the “3-year and done” kind of prospects.  While you do want to see Clemson’s players stay all four years of their eligibility, it also isn’t necessarily a bad thing when they leave after 3 years, because that means they lived up to their hype (and/or are Jamie “Fumblerooskie” Harper, who leaves after 3 years after not accomplishing much) and developed into the players that they should be.

Look at it this way – would you recruit 4-Star Prospect Brandon Ford (yeah, he apparently plays for Clemson) knowing he wouldn’t be productive but would stay for all four years?  Or would you rather have 4-Star Prospect Alshon Jeffery who is considered one of the best WR’s in the country but will only be at your school for three years (yes Gamecock fans, you have a zero percent chance of him sticking around that hellhole another season)?  Exactly, you would take Alshon 10 times out of 10.

In other words, it may look great that Clemson has a high APR, but wouldn’t you rather see the players live up to their athletic hype and flunk a couple classes now and again over them making straight A’s and going 7-6 again?  But still, at least Clemson is number one is something, that has to count, right?

“Clemson needs more Duane Colemans, aka thugs.”

Posted by Sam

Just a quick update, Clemson has announced the kickoff times for the first three football games. Surprisingly, they are all not at noon. Here you go:

Sept. 3 – Troy 3:30

Sept. 10 – Wofford 3:30

Sept. 17 – Auburn 12:00 (ABC)

“Tailgatin’”

Posted by Sam

If you could have bet that two Clemson players would have been drafted before Da’Quan Bowers, what do you think the odds would have been?  100-1?  1000-1?  Infinity to 1?  Either way you would have made a small fortune if such a bet existed.  Anyways, here is where your Clemson Tiger football players were drafted in this year’s NFL Draft:

Round 2

Pick 9 (41st overall) to Washington – Jarvis Jenkins

Pick 18 (50th overall) to San Diego – Marcus Gilchrist

Pick 19 (51st overall) to Tampa Bay – Da’Quan Bowers

Round 4

Pick 25 (122nd overall) to Buffalo – Chris Hairston

Pick 33 (130th overall) to Tennessee – Jamie Harper

Round 6

Pick 8 (173rd overall) to Seattle – Byron Maxwell

Random Tidbits:

-I was somewhat shocked to see that DeAndre McDaniel was not drafted.  Going into the off-season, it looked like he was going to be a 2nd Round pick, so what exactly happened that he fell all the way out of the draft?  I don’t have that answer.

-Tampa Bay got a steal when they got Da’Quan 50 picks later than he was projected before people started freaking out about his knee.  Even if his knee is injured, you have to think that he is young enough that it will heal and he will be back to his devastating self.

-Another Tiger drafted by Buffalo.  Even if you are happy to be drafted, you can’t be happy that you are headed to freaking Buffalo.

-Only two Gamecocks were drafted, that could be looked at as good and bad.  Good in that it shows that they are not an especially talented team.  And bad b/c it means that all of their talent is still in school.  Either way, I’m not scared of Conner Shaw whatsoever.

Posted by Sam

What exactly is the point of the Spring Game?  It would make more sense if one team had all of the offensive starters and one team had all of the defensive starters so that the game would have the 1st stringers from both sides of the ball playing against each other.  But b/c that would make the game boring once the 2nd stringers came in to play, they have to split the squads up as evenly as possible and that then makes the game no longer resemble what we will be seeing in the Fall.  So, what exactly did we learn from the game?

First off, if you watched the Spring Game then you all probably came away with the same impression of the new offense – meh.  For the most part, the running game was able to move the ball, but the passing game was pretty terrible.  Tajh Boyd couldn’t hit anyone, but when he did, they were able to gain some pretty good chunks of yardage.  Backup Cole Stoudt wasn’t any better, but he can throw a pretty decent long ball and that’s encouraging.

Second, the running game looked great.  There were two guys (Buice and McDowell) who went for 100+ yards and a third (Howard) who came up three yards short of the century mark.  Overall, that’s not too shabby considering the team’s best running back (Ellington) didn’t even play and this past recruiting class’s blue chipper (Bellamy) hasn’t even set foot on campus.

Third, the receivers weren’t exactly good, but when the quarterbacks can’t get them the ball, it’s hard to make a lot of plays to show off their talents.

Fourth, other than the punter the kicking game was the same old story.  They made some long field goals, but missed some easy ones, and they also missed an extra point even if it was the holder’s fault.  Why can’t Clemson find a good field goal kicker, hell, I’d settle for an above average one at this point.

And last, grading the defense is tough to do when the defensive lineman only have to touch the QB for it to counted as a sack and it’s just not that easy in a real game.  Otherwise, Corey Crawford looked great and could contribute right away and Rennie Moore looks like he is going to take over Jarvis Jenkins’s spot on the roster with no problems.  Like I said, I would be able to tell you more about the defense, but it’s tough to accurately judge them in a scrimmage like this.

Overall, I’m not overly excited about the offense at this point, but they have all summer and two crappy non-conference games to work that out before playing a real team this Fall.  Let’s just hope that happens or another losing season might be in the works.

Anyways, here are the final stats for the game:

Individual Statistics

Rushing
Orange: Buice 18-102-1, McDowell 12-100, Boyd 8-43-1 , McElveen 2-11, Craig 1-(-1)
White: Howard 11-97-1, Joseph 2-8-1, Stoudt 5-5, McNeal 9-5

Passing
Orange: Boyd 8-24-114-1-0, McElveen 2-8-28-0-0
White: Stoudt 6-22-118-0-1, McNeal 3-7-33-0-0

Receiving
Orange: Hopkins 4-54, Allen 3-43-1, Traylor 2-26, D. Smith 1-17, McNeal 1-2
White: Jones 3-71, J. Brown 3-59, Ford 1-23, Ogle 1-17, Joseph 1-(-5)

Tackles
Orange: D. Brown 7, Jenkins 5, Shuey 4, Branch 4, Hall 4, Breland 3, Thompson 3, Willard 3
White: Meeks 7, Peters 6, K. Brown 5, Christian 5, Thomas 4, Sensabaugh 4, Hawkins 4

Scoring Summary
Orange – Boyd 10 run (Kick failed), 13:17 lst quarter
Orange – Buice 12 run (Benton Kick), 7:12, lst quarter
White – Howard 1 run (Catanzaro kick), 14:14, 2nd quarter
Orange – Safety, ball batted out of endzone. 6:12, 2nd quarter
Orange – Benton 50 fg, 10:42, 3rd quarter
White – Joseph 1 run (Pass failed), 11:33 4th quarter
Orange – Allen 10 pass from Boyd (Luecke kick), 5:05 4th quarter

“However, sideline cheer-leading still gets an A+.”