Archive for the football Category
BASKETBALL SITTING HIGH
The basketball team beat East Carolina this past Saturday afternoon, 79-66. Sophomore Jerai Grant finally had his showing out, scoring a career high 14 points in an otherwise pedestrian effort by the rest of the team. It was pretty obvious that it was a half-hearted effort as Booker and Sykes were out rebounded and we didn’t hardly block any shots. We were 14/21 on free throws. Look for rankings later today. We’ll update as soon as they come out.
***UPDATE*** The ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ poll was just released, and Clemson is sitting pretty at #11.
SCHEDULES
If you haven’t already seen it, we’ve put together comprehensive schedules for baseball, basketball, and football here at Block-C. The schedules posted stretch from 2006 to next years football schedule. Just click the “Schedules” tab underneath the header image. We’ve found that it works great on cell phones as you usually spend a while trying to find them otherwise.
DAWKINS STILL A FORCE
The New York Times published this article on Brian Dawkins and his leadership that has helped the Eagles run roughshod over the Cowboys in Week 17 and overcome the Adrian Peterson led Vikings in the first round of the playoffs yesterday. The seven time pro-bowler and Clemson alum is only getting tougher as the years progress.
COACH SWAP/AXE IMMINENT FOR TIGERS?
According to this article in the Charleston P&C, Steele has been stated to be taking the defensive coordinator position after his fall out with Nick Saban at Bammer in yet another printed media news outlet. It also pegs Woody McCorvey as the new possible top choice for the offensive coordinator position but we’re gonna have to drop an assistant somewhere. At this point, it’d be wise to keep Napier from a recruiting stand point but who gets the axe? McCorvey has taken that position at Mississisissisisp[sppii State and Alabama in years past but was rather unimpressive at both schools in the role.
JAGS MIGHT BE OUT AT BOSTON COLLEGE
Eagles head coach Jeff Jagodzinski has been warned by the university that if he even interviews for the Jets job, he’s going to get the boot. This is important to us Tiger fans because we’re using our recruiting as the bandages to nurse our bowl game wounds. Tahj Boyd, four star quarterback out of Virginia, has received late, hard pushes by us and BC and according to many. He was going to be choosing between us and BC for his final official visit.
***UPDATE*** Jags is going ahead with the interview as per ESPN Radio, so we’ll see.
POSSIBLE COMMITMENT TODAY
Dabo Swinney travels to Delaware today to have an in-home visit with one of his top targets, 4-star DE Leon Mackey of Hargrave Prep. Mackey was reportedly very high on Clemson since his December visit and a teammate of his, current Clemson commit Jonathan Meeks, said that when he spoke to Mackey Sunday night he said he was going to commit to the Tigers.
***UPDATE*** Mackey committed per TI and CUTigers.
Chili: I’m going to get a few positives out of the way before I go into RAGE mode. Clemson’s defense, for the most part (the most part being any down but third), played well. It’s tough to play to top potential when the other team is getting away with holding and blocks in the back all day. Clemson’s fans represented the school well and came out in droves. I liked the way Coach Swinney handled the loss in his post-game presser. I am particularly proud of the super drunk Clemson fan 5 rows behind me and Willy Mac who, when everything got quiet towards the end of the national anthem, screamed out NINETEEEEEEN EIIIGHTEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOOONE!!!! Godspeed to you, champion.
Okay, negatives. Cullen Harper. I’m not going to go too far in terms of personally attacking a guy who has given a lot of time and effort to Clemson, but I will say I am not sad to see him finish his Clemson career. The piss poor offensive line play by some individuals made it a lot harder for him to execute, but there’s no excuse for his continued lack of ability to throw the ball away, find open receivers, or stay in the pocket. The sack on 2nd down at the end of the game pretty much summed up his play all year. Again, the offensive line play was horrendous. They couldn’t open up holes for our runningbacks, who likely just played their last games in Clemson uniforms. James Davis couldn’t have been sent out on a more sour note. Play calling left a lot to be desired. Whether this is the result of not having a whole season to devise an offensive scheme or not having enough time to deprogram Rob Spence’s scheme, I’m not sure. It seems to me that Clemson needs to go out and get an offensive coordinator. Clemson, as it was in many games this year, was the more talented team, offensive line aside. I’m reserving judgment on Dabo, but I see that a lot of Clemson faithful have already started bitching and moaning about him.
I saw Cullen Harper at the buffet in the Omni after the game, and he was eying the tortellini the entire time. JUST LOOK AT THE SALAD. JUST LOOK OVER, IT’S RIGHT THERE, THERE’S NOBODY COVERING THE SALAD. FUCK. He then tentatively scooped some jambalaya in his plate and then crumpled to the ground when a waiter brushed too close to them. Never let go of his plate though.
Willy Mac: To be honest, both lines looked like shit. No performance, however, looked worse than Bobby Hutchinson. At the beginning of the year when they asked him to come back he should have just said, “Look guys, I’m flattered but I couldn’t block a five year old if I had to.” Seriously, his game plan must have been to snap the ball then shrivel back two steps and get lit up. The funniest part about him is that at the hotel last night he just sat on the sofa in the lobby with his dumb little wrinkled button down shirt and dumb undersized tie like a kid waiting for his mommy to come pick him up. Seriously, he must have sat there all night like he was in time out.
I echo all of Chili’s sentiments, but would like to build on his referee comments. That one play, you know the one where we ran a fumble back for a TD, the ball carrier was more than likely down. But the replay didn’t show any where close to enough evidence to overturn the fumble. That was a terrible, hack job by those guys.
I’m also disappointed in our running game. Early on we started feeding the backs and they chewed up yards. But we had that drive where we were stopped three straight times and punted and our coaches gave up on the run completely. WE WERE AHEAD BY TEN POINTS AND MADE A DEFENSIVE STOP AFTER THE PUNT. You don’t give up on the running game when you know you can have success and when you have a QB that bad. That’s what you get when you have someone as young as Napier calling the plays. I would love to have us keep him around in a demoted role because of his recruiting, but our next move needs to be to find an offensive coordinator, like Chili said. Although, with the way Utah is stomping on Alabama’s nuts on national television right now it worries me about Steele, but this is largely uncharacteristic. (Turn’s out Steele’s not calling the plays, but maybe he should.) My positives: Cullen Harper is gone; Bobby Hutchinson is gone; The game ended; The opposing fans didn’t spit on me; It’s Friday; At least we’re not South Carolina fans; Lastly, the tailgaiting was pretty damn good, so I still won at the end of the day.
Here’s the CUAD presser with the box score, notes, etc. Also, congrats to Chili for the Mac Cup win. He got his prize today.
We’ll have a game wrapup later today once Willy Mac gets back home.
We learn today that Alabama DC Kevin Steele will come to Clemson to take the same position. I thought this was pretty implausable earlier this year, but I’ve heard that Steele wasn’t happy under Saban. Steele is originally from Dillon, SC (as was past potential DC candidate John Chavis).
Current Clemson assistant coach Ron West will interview at Tulsa for a position on their staff. West, who was a reserve guard for the Tigers, has been on the staff since 1999.
Now if only Clemson would start a search for a competent offensive coordinator or a QB coach who can actually develop a fucking QB.
When you see it, you’ll shit bricks.
Clemson: Just shat bricks.
Clemson (7-5, 4-4) vs. Nebraska (8-4, 5-3) in Jacksonville, Florida. 1PM EST, CBS HD, XM 144, Sirius 122, WCCPFM Live Feed.
Line: Clemson - 2.5
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Edge goes to:
Clemson offense vs. Nebraska defense: Push, each side has off-setting advantages to one another.
Clemson defense vs. Nebraska offense: Push. Again, the same story as above.
Special teams: Via Spiller. It can be argued their kicker is great, but let’s be honest: Spiller scores seven, their kicker scores three. End of discussion.
Intangibles: Push, IT’S A BOWL GAME. WHO GIVES A FUCK.
Our Panel Of :
Chili: Reports state that several members of Clemson’s offensive line have come down with the flu. Not good. Nebraska’s offense is a machine, but I’m not sure how stout the defenses they faced were, so it’s difficult to gauge that. Either way they’re as good or better than most offenses Clemson has face thus far. A lot of people said Clemson didn’t deserve this bowl and I hope the Tigers prove them wrong, but I think the Huskers get the better of us.
Nebraska 30, Clemson 24
Willy Mac: I’ve stated before that Nebraska is highly touted to the point where it’s almost completely annoying. I think Nebraska is good, but they’re not good enough. Sobriety and media outlets telling me what I need to think (RE: Alabama vs. Clemson), I really do think that Clemson has enough athletes to hold them to a certain amount of points and run right by them when they need to. Nebraska is not impressive on film and they run like they have brick feet. It’s going to be a scoring contest for sure, but we blow by them in the end.
Clemson 42, Nebraska 35
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)
