So, Chili sends me the following picture…

And then we have this conversation:

Chili: …dude at a soccer match… that’s insane.
Willy Mac: !!!!! THAT’S FUCKING AWESOME! Where is that at?
Chili: Austria. That’s a fucking Christmas demon or some crazy german shit. *Link.* *Second Link.*
Willy Mac: See, if those would have been standard issue Nazi gear, we’d be speaking german right now.
Chili: Yeah and Brian Urlacher would be vice chancellor.
Willy Mac: (From the Flickr album description) “If you have been bad - the Krampusse put you into the basket on their back and take you away. You are really frightened of them as a kid!!!”
Chili: I’m frightened of them now.
Willy Mac: That’s awesome. Krampusse in 2012. LOOK LIKE A KRAMPUSSE RIGHT DERE BUSTAH! COMIN’ TO GETCHA KIDS FO BREFFAST UH SUMTHIN’! HUNTIN’ FO BLOOD WIT SAINT NICK!
Chili: HE GON BAG UP THAT D-LINEMAN, SEND HIM DOWN TO THE AUSTRO-HUNGARY BORDER, AN SLAP SOME INGLEHOFFER SWEET HOT MUSTARD ON THEM HINDPARTS!
Willy Mac: Funny how almost every conversation we have turns into a Doc Walker imitating session. If we had fans like the Krampusse, we’d win every game.
Chili: Let’s start dressing up as KLEMSON KRAMPUSSE.
Willy Mac: Don’t let Tigernet in on this little find of ours. Next thing you know, there’d be Facebook groups for Krampusse-outs.  You know, we could start dressing up as the Knights of the Klemson Krampusse.

It’s been a hard task trying to find an edge that we hold over Nebraska on paper. It seems as if Nebraska is the current-day bizzaro Clemson from the Great Plains. This post started out as a “Pep me up” that was supposed to make you feel all gooey inside and go out and spend a good chunk of your bank account making last minute plans to Jacksonville for New Years. Are we maybe just be a little too perfectly matched for one another?

There are some scary similarities between us. Disregard the elephant in the room that is the fact that they hold 800 plus wins and they have four more national championships than we do, there are some heartbeats that our two schools share. The University of Nebraska - Lincoln is also a land-grant university that started out as a sleepy little agriculture school way out in the country. They’re also well known for their energetic and friendly fans, as are we. They travel well, they crave hard-nose football, and they would do anything including selling a second or third born child to get back to “the way things used to be.” But the similarities aren’t creepy enough to make you start burning receipts and photo identification in a trash can in your bathroom or scratch off your finger prints with sandpaper, but they’re there. Lurking about like a troll on a message board, burning terrible thoughts and images into your brain.

WHO BEAT WHO

Some of the only ammunition you can find to throw at them is that they play a weak schedule and haven’t really beaten anyone. We thought we had them cornered as they’ve only beaten one BCS team with a winning record in the form of a Kansas team that went only 7-5. Then you remember that we’re in the same boat only having beaten a 9-3 Boston College team. But we beat bowl bound N.C. State who is sitting at .500, that gives us the slight edge right? You could also lean on the ACC’s success this season against the other conferences, especially the Big 12 where we went 4-0 against three less than average teams and Nebraska. Wake beat Baylor, Miami cruised over Texas A&M, Florida State beat Colorado (in Jacksonville, no less), and Virginia Tech pulled out a road win over Nebraska.

FOOTBALL ISN’T PLAYED ON A STAT SHEET

As for the teams themselves, there are still some striking similarities. They have a talented and athletic running back who is an east-to-west runner in the form of Roy Helu Jr. as do we in CJ Spiller. Bo Pelini was once the interim head coach of the Cornhuskers for the 2003 Alamo Bowl and is now the main guy in Lincoln. No need to bring up the Dabo situation. The way things are lining up, we could be looking at a bowl game that would go on forever. The media outlets aren’t making it any easier to place a bet either. Nebraska has a great offense but we have a seasoned and hard nosed defense. Clemson has a decent offense who put up some good stats in the ACC, but Nebraska just dusted off the black jerseys to hand back out to their defense. But here’s where the likeness of our two teams kind of fades away.

If you just peruse through some of their highlight videos on YouTube, you’ll find that not only are they poorly filmed and have hilarious graphics but the big plays themselves aren’t all that impressive. This is evidenced in the following:

Colorado

Kansas State

The highlights are by no means bad, but we’re just used to seeing faster. Ganz certainly is their biggest threat that deserves the most attention, but most of the film on them makes the Cornhuskers and the team they’re playing against look like they’re running in brick shoes. The Huskers lack the ability to make big plays like we can. Plus they play in the big 12 North, which is… the Big 12 North. Sort of, meh. In seven of their last nine games opponents have scored 28 or more points on their “New Black Shirt” defense. They definitely are a worthy opponent, but the safer bet would probably be us. But don’t take our word for it. On August 29th the safer bet was Clemson as well, albeit the circumstances were completely different. Take it to the comments section.

ESPN: Is Clemson for real? Currently we’re losing 67-33. UNACCEPTABLE. CLICK CLICK CLICKITY CLICK CLICK CLICK.

NEWS! HIDING UNDER YOUR BED! BESMIRCHING YOUR TOOTHBRUSH WHILST YOU ARE AWAY!

Read about the Texas lawmaker who is railing against the BCS over at Deadspin.

RF365 has a rundown of Clemson’s 4-star offensive recruits: OL JK Jay, RB Roderick McDowell, and OL Brandon Thomas. Speaking of recruiting, coaches are now out visiting recruits and trying to turn things around. When Bowden resigned under pressure earlier this year we started hemorrhaging recruits as rivals and conference foes starting picking at former commits. As of now, nobody has committed to Clemson since Dabo was installed as head coach after the Sakerlina win. The gears are starting to turn now and things should get better before signing day, but don’t hold your breath for a breakout class.

According to this article, Clemson has sold a bit over 11,000 of its 13,500 ticket allotment for the Gator Bowl. Nebraska is also about sold out of their official cut of tickets. Nearly 70,000 tickets have already been sold. The stadium’s capacity is around 77,000.

The Sports Business Journal takes a look at ACC expansion and surmises that it’s sort of a mixed bag. Basketball is watered down, football is… eh… a little better. The upcoming TV contract negotiations should provide some tangible measure of improvement or decline.

Also, this: