Monday News

Basketball

McFarland hit in the bleachers.....it looks to me like he just ran right into the stands, and the guy grabbed him to protect himself, then McFarland got ticked.



Ron Morris wrote a nice article about the WF game, a definite deviation for him from his usual bomb-throwing tactics.

That also is how long it has been since Clemson was considered a serious threat in ACC basketball circles. The difference is that Clemson now appears to be built more for the long haul.

The Tigers were not up to the challenge Saturday against what might be the best team in the land. Even in the loss, though, Clemson showed signs of being an outstanding team. It battled from 14 points down in the second half to within a point. At times, it forced Wake Forest into the kind of hectic pace that favors Clemson.

According to Tim Bourret, the noise level reached 110db in Littlejohn during the game when we got close in the 2nd half. It reached 112 at one point in the last top 5 matchup versus WF in 1997, before we got screwed on the foul at the end.

This week, the Coaches Poll still has us at #9. WF is the new #1, which they deserve.

Now we've just got to get the Chapel Hill monkey off our backs wednesday night.

Baseball
Rivals has Clemson rated #20, and a good FREE article is posted here, previewing the season.

Recruiting
-Corey Addison, a SC committed Safety was in Clemson this weekend, but appears to be still headed to SC.

-Jonathan Scott, another Safety who visited the weekend previously, committed to West Virginia. Together, the two losses hurt Clemson, as we need at least 2 safeties in this class.

-Tajh Boyd rated his visit a "8.5-9" and said he thoroughly enjoyed it, Ohio State and Oregon have already recieved visits, and we're in his top 3.

-Kendall Kelly rated his visit a "10" and said that "Its special up there", his pickup would be huge. Clemson needs a second WR commit in this class. He still is planning to visit LSU and has visited Alabama.

-WR Jamal Patterson and RB Mike Gillislee were scheduled visits for this weekend, but have pulled off. That article also mentions DB Justin Green, OT Jerquari Schofield, and QB D. McElveen. McElveen will be here if Clemson offers.

-Committed LB Quandon Christian visited NC State, and didnt rule out the possibility of switching commitments, yet still says he's committed to Clemson.

Football
Ron West has accepted the Co-DC job at Tulsa, per CUTigers.

Steele and Napier have had recent interviews that have shed some light on their philosophies for next year. I'll give a brief synopsis of each:

Steele: Base will be a 4-3, man pressure when necessary, but wont look much different from what VK has done, and he's trying to use the same terminology with his new playbook.

"I love to pressure. I love to create bad plays for offenses with pressure. It's got a lot of pressure in it. It's got a lot of fire-zone pressure in it. We'll man up when we need to, and then all-out blitz and deny the ball on down and distances that predicate that."

He hasn't decided whether to coach from the press box or not. D. McDaniel will move to SS.

Napier: The staff is going to visit Oklahoma and Texas during the offseason (Dabo has said so as well), where they'll just look at some concepts. Oklahoma's offense uses the Brad Scott hurry-up-and-wait concept alot, and we might see some of that this year. Expect them to study Texas' usage of Colt McCoy as a running threat, but we are not installing the AirRaid+Power-like scheme of OU, nor the Texas offense, just a few concepts. Otherwise, the offense will still be two-TE, multiple power system, with no-huddle. Zone Read plays will return to the offense next season, after being absent since the Dantzler days. He ran an I-formation offense with PA at Furman, but the I is not one of the things they intend to reinstate, unfortunately.

The Zone Read: