Archive for the recruiting 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.
4-star rated wide receiver Bryce McNeal out of Minneapolis chose Clemson today over Oregon and several other programs. View the video of him choosing Clemson live at the US Army All America game here. Here is a link to an interview with McNeal about his Clemson choice.
Here is a highlight reel of McNeal.
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)
FOOTBALLIN’
The Post & Courier has some practice notes for you to chew on. Seems that the defense is a little smoother than the offense right now. Kyle Parker also seems to be making a lot of progress and should serve as a great backup to WILLY KORN once he’s scored a dozen or so touchdowns in the first half and feels like letting someone else have a shot.
Clemson has chewed up its 13,500 ticket allotment for the Gator Bowl and has procured 1,000 more to distribute. This article states that 62,000 of 67,000 seats have been sold, which is odd, since an article we linked to (lanked?) last week claimed 70,000 out of 77,000 tickets have been sold. SOMEONE STOLE PART OF THE GATOR BOWL.
Gene Sapakoff from the P&C backs up, surveys things, and let’s us know that it’s okay to like Tommy Bowden. He makes some great points here, and as we’ve said before, Tommy left the program better than he found it.
The Spartanburg Herald has a piece on Tyler Shatley, a Clemson commit and back for the NC Shrine Bowl team. The article mentions his penchant for smash-mouth football and he gives some thoughts on Clemson’s running game.
BASKETBALL UPDATE
AParker points out the best part of this article about the Tigers’ 11-0 start in basketball:
The biggest cheer, though, came only moments from the end when 7-2 freshman Catalin Baciu’s basket earned free tacos for the fans from a local fast-food chain.
More on basketball from the ACC Sports Journal, who really should kick us a membership with all the links we’re sending their way HINT HINT WINK NUDGE. While Clemson has gotten off to fast starts in the past against creampuffs, the Journal looks at this season’s matchups and proves that Clemson has passed some tough tests this season already. They also explain that depth may be an issue, with only a couple of the freshmen being up to the task of facing the rigors of an ACC basketball season.
ADDITIONAL NOTE
Congratulations to former Tiger and future hall of famer Brian Dawkins, who made yet another Pro Bowl. The ACC Sports Journal tells us that the ACC is representing STRONG in the Pro Bowl, claiming 23.8% of the roster spots. The SEC is represented with 15.5% and the Big XII has 9.5%. That’s gotta count for something, right?
RECRUITIN’
Clemson hosted a big haul of top prospects this weekend and emerged on Monday with one commit and a number of guys who now have Clemson in their final three or so choices.
4-star safety Jonathan Meeks out of Hargrave Military in VA committed to Clemson on Sunday and brings Clemson’s total number of commits for 2009 to 9. He will graduate this week and enroll in Clemson in January. 4-star DE Leon Mackey, another Hargrave product and January enrollee candidate, did not commit to Clemson but will make a decision between the Tigers, Arkansas, and Virginia Tech before January.
WR Bryce McNeal out of Minnesota reportedly now has Clemson in his final three and will decide at the Army All-American game. It is important to note that this is a guy who had shown some interest in Clemson, but really was highly swayed by what he saw once he set foot on campus.
PRACTICIN’
The Post & Courier has an update on how the Tigers are preparing for their bowl game. Interesting notes from this piece include the fact that Clemson is willing to pay the next defensive coordinator up to $415,000 a year for three years.
Gene Sapakoff tells us that WILLY KORN’s shoulder is getting stronger, healthier, hungrier. Also, LB Stanley Hunter sprained his knee but should be good to go by bowl time. Sapakoff tells us, in another article, about the bowl swag players are receiving this year, including a disturbingly high number of bowls giving away Crocs.
UNRANKED #25
Clemson basketball reached 10 wins before any other team in the nation. They have still not lost a game. They are still unranked. ***UPDATE*** The coaches’ poll was just released and Clemson is #25. They are, however, hovering between the number one and number two spot in the Real Time RPI rankings. The Tigers are coming off a 90-63 drubbing of SC State.
OLD SCHOOL
Sports Illustrated’s Vault presents us with a nice little article on Clemson and Frank Howard. Try to tolerate the annoying “aw shucks” style the author chooses to go with here, try not to cringe when he says to pronounce Clemson as “Clem-zin,” and try not to be jealous when you hear about Danny Ford’s awesome 172 peice hat collection. I wonder how many he has now.
***UPDATE***
Just heard that kicker Richard Jackson will be academically ineligible for the bowl game. Not a huge loss. A guy who came in as a heralded kicker, suffered from injuries, and according to one reader has been too busy playing frat boy to study or dedicate himself too much to football. Let’s hope he gets his academics in order, then works towards earning that scholarship.
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:
