Andrew Carter of the Orlando Sentinel writes about the ruckus at the ACC annual spring meetings, and that the coaches want an earlier signing date than the one in the first week of February.
The conference’s coaches are in favor of a signing period that would begin on Dec. 18, said Mike Kelly, the ACC’s associate commissioner for football. ACC coaches for years have tried to push for an early signing period, and have argued that it would alleviate unnecessary pressures on both recruits and coaches.
Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney said he’d be in favor of a signing period that began some time in August. Swinney said that would allow recruits who have already made their college choices to officially end their recruitment. Further, it would allow coaches to rest more easily knowing that a player’s commitment is binding.
I doubt it will happen anytime soon, but it would make things less of a headache as far as recruiting goes.
Another 'official' post-spring depth chart has been released (recall there was one on Clemsontigers.com 2 weeks ago) and Korn/Parker hasnt been resolved going into the summer, as we all expected really. RT is still up for grabs, and Spencer Benton beat Richard Jackson out for PK. Ard details the DE lineup for the fall here.
Clemson beat Furman at Fluor Field in greenville Monday 8-5, got moved up to #14 in one poll, and then beat CofC 5-2 yesterday, CofC had won 10 straight and are on the NCAA bubble.
“We’re not quite good enough to finish off the weekend right now. We’ve got to get better,” Leggett said. “We’re a good team at times, but not quite where we need to be. Hopefully we can get ourselves better between now and next weekend, because it doesn’t get any easier from here on out.”
“It’s frustrating,” second baseman Mike Freeman said. “After playing so well Friday and Saturday and coming out here and not getting the job done, it’s definitely frustrating, especially late in the season when every win’s going to count. We feel we’re good enough to beat any team in the country. Today we didn’t show it.”
Wallace then asks the question as to whether we'll get to host an NCAA Regional now. I think the answer is still yes, but we have to show up ready next weekend and pull off a sweep against the Pack and sweep CofC (tuesday) and Furman (today) and have a good showing in the ACC Tourney to seal it. The RPI and SoS are on our side, but just like the basketball tourney selection, its how you finish that counts.
Some perspective on the QB race between Korn and Parker, circa 1980. Headen went on to become a LB/End for the 1981 team as I recall, and I'm quite sure he broke up a pass against Nebraska in the Orange Bowl game.
LB commitment Jake Nicolopulos has been rated a 3-star player by Rivals, #21 at his position.
Typical Ron Morris, he makes it sound like we'd fire Dabo if he loses to Sakerlina no-matter-what.
THE SOUTH CAROLINA-Clemson football rivalry might mean more to Dabo Swinney than to Steve Spurrier. And why not? Swinney’s job might just depend on how well his Clemson Tigers fare each season against Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks.
“That’s an important game to people in this state,” Swinney said Thursday before he and men’s basketball coach Oliver Purnell addressed a gathering of about 800 Clemson fans at Lexington High School.
“It’s important to me because this is my livelihood,” Swinney said.
It also is Spurrier’s livelihood. The difference is that no one believes for a minute that Spurrier’s job will be lost or saved based on his record against Clemson. Nor did his predecessor’s job status ride on how USC played against Clemson.
Coaches such as Lou Holtz and Spurrier can rest on their Hall of Fame credentials. Winning a national championship —- even if it was achieved at another school — will go a long way to washing away a few losses against your closest rival.
That’s a good thing since Holtz’s 1-5 record against Clemson included an embarrassing 63-17 drubbing and an ugly benches-clearing brawl. Spurrier’s teams have won only once in four cracks against Clemson.
Conversely, more than a few Tigers’ fans believe Tommy Bowden bought himself some extra time as Clemson’s coach by consistently beating USC. Bowden’s 7-2 record against USC kept Clemson fans happy as his teams fell short of winning an Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
The last Clemson coach with a losing record against USC was Frank Howard. He stuck around by winning ACC championships, bowl games and gaining legendary status despite going 13-15-2 against USC.
Aside from Marvin Bass, whose USC teams won three of five games against Clemson in the early ‘60s, only Rex Enright experienced consistent success against the Tigers.
Enright started slow, his teams going 1-3 against Clemson from 1938 through 1941. Then he picked up steam when he resumed head-coaching duties in 1946 and ran off a 7-2-1 record against Clemson over the next decade.
Enright was much beloved by the USC faithful despite a 64-69 overall record. That admiration had everything to do with Enright’s teams’ ability to beat Clemson. Following one season, fans rewarded him with a new Cadillac because his boys defeated their hated rival.
So, what has happened over the years is a simultaneous shift. Where Clemson once had the legendary coach whose record against USC could not cost him his job, now the Gamecocks have that. Also, while USC once had coaches who could keep their jobs by beating Clemson, now it’s the Clemson coaches who can hang on by beating USC.
Swinney knows well the intensity of the USC-Clemson rivalry because he sees similarities to the rivalry he grew up with.
“I didn’t like Auburn,” said Swinney, an Alabama native. “From the time I could drag a diaper across the road, I was saying ‘Roll Tide.’ War Eagle was bad words. I disliked orange.”
That dislike for the orange of Auburn extended beyond his youth when Swinney played as a walk-on at Alabama, then served as a Crimson Tide assistant coach for eight seasons.
The transformation to a love for the color orange has been easy, says Swinney, who was an assistant at Clemson beginning with the 2003 season. He was Clemson’s coach on an interim basis over the final seven games of the 2008 season before being named head coach Dec. 1.
“This rivalry, there’s a lot of similarities,” Swinney said by way of comparing USC-Clemson to Alabama-Auburn. “It’s bitter in both states. You’ve got two schools that don’t like each other. Their fans don’t like each other. Everywhere you go half the people like you, half the people don’t like you.”
Swinney said the biggest difference between the rivalries is conference affiliation. So much more is at stake because Alabama and Auburn compete in the same Southeastern Conference.
When Spurrier arrived at USC, he infuriated some Gamecock fans by saying he was setting bigger goals for his team than beating Clemson, like winning the SEC East Division championship. Swinney agrees with Spurrier by saying that Clemson must first strive to win the ACC Atlantic Division title.
Of course, if Clemson falls short in that quest, Swinney stands a good chance of keeping his job by beating USC.
I'll tell you what Ron, Tammy did stick around longer because he could beat the Chickens, despite losing the ACC/Division every year, but owning your rival in everything is a lot better than getting beat by your rival and still not winning the Division.
Clemson did well in the APR rating system, and among the sports that were ranked we beat SC 9-7-1. Football beat them 955-929, Men's BBall 929-909, and baseball 974-926. Hell even our dumb Girl's basketball team (recall they had the lowest GPA of all sports at Clemson this year) beat the Cluckers by one point.
Can a hammer have a rivalry with a nail?
The penalty for scores below 925 can result in loss of scholarships, just ask Ole Piss.
NationalChamps.net previews the season here. Its long but I do agree with most of it. Heather Dinich gives her post-spring analysis here, and I'm left wondering why she gets to cover the conference more and more.
Ard highlights the backfield situation here, and it turns out we have another QB prospect coming in as a preferred walk-on for this fall, Taylor Ogle. He's a pro-style QB and is 6'6", from Gatlinburg. He plans to arrive in late June to participate in summer workouts. He wasn't recruited much, only Carson-Newman and Tennessee Tech offered, but UVA and UT were dangling preferred status to him it seems.
Scout.com previews Middle Tennessee's upcoming season here. Stockstill is entering his 4th year at MTSU at 17-20 overall. Predictably, it looks like they have the best WR corps in the Sun Belt conference, and with Tony Franklin (he who was fired at Auburn midseason) in to run his spread offense, it could be very explosive. I'm still of the opinion that Tubby is the reason Auburn didnt do much with Franklin last year, as Tubbs kept his old position coaches in place and didnt let Franklin bring in his own people, so they had a situation where the other assistant coaches didnt buy into Franklin's philosophy. You can't meld a I-formation running team with the spread unless you completely commit to it.
Since football news is at a premium, we're going to start going into more X's and O's over the summer about our opponents.
Looks like Will Korn has been working with a famous QB coach to fix those troublesome mechanics. Jerry Rhome was Aikman's QB coach in Dallas; Joe Theisman, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien in Washington; and Warren Moon's coach in Houston, among others.
Ard gives his post-spring tidbits on the Cornerback situation here. If you are able to read the latest LW article on Rendrick Taylor, I suggest you do so. I won't C&P it here, but it's enlightening about what the guy wants and has been through.
OL Graduate Assistant Bobby Hutchinson, who hadn't been officially hired yet to replace Sulkowski now that he's left for Colorado, has decided to take a job back in Florida. Former OL Marion Dukes was hired to replace Hutch. A replacement for Sulkowski hasn't been decided.
Baseball SEBaseball still projects Clemson as hosting a Regional. As long as we don't have a huge hiccup again like the last MD game, we should be set. We have Furman set for Wednesday night. We're still ranked as high as #19 in the Nation.
The ACC pulled the Baseball tournament away from Boston, and putting in in Greensboro, saving Swofford from a blunder just as stupid as putting the basketball tourney in Atlanta. If people wont travel to Jax for football in December, then why would you think they'd go into yankee territory?
Despite having record attendance in Greenville when it was there, it created an unfair advantage to Clemson....like Greensboro wouldn't for UNC or the other NC teams.....sure. Just put the thing in Charlotte or...even better, Myrtle Beach. Myrtle in mid-May, pre-bike week.
If you are a student at Clemson, or have been, then you know that 123 through Easley is a street that is rarely patrolled by cops enough, and you know that you've sped well beyond the 55mph limit. I know I pushed my car to over 100mph on that street several times, late at night. I've lost count of how many students have been killed or badly injured on this road. I know at least 3 or 4 died on it during the 4 years I was a student. Its sad but not terribly unexpected to hear another has died. Our condolences to the family.
This article talks about the usual, tired-as-hell-comparison between the ACC and SEC. I could care less, I want to see Clemson do well, to hell with the rest of the conference.
Ard answers mail in his usual "free" friday mail call here, which were mainly questions about the interviews with Pearman and WoodyMac, along with some recruiting bits. Nothing in the interviews was terribly enlightening though. He then talks about our LB Corps for next season, but alot of it is just things that I've covered before.
Dr. Saturday talks about the Congressional BCS hearings last week. Its a good summary of the arguments to to the committee. About the best we can hope for from this, however, is a new impetus to fix the system. The NCAA does not care what Congress thinks about anything at all, and there's nothing Congress can do to them to MAKE them change the system into a playoff.
Spurrier says Emmanuel Cook and Munnerlyn were misled about their draft prospects. I think its just more that they are idiots who didnt listen to the smarter people around them.
Baseball took 2 of 3 from the Turtles this weekend, but we should've swept them altogether. Clemson won saturday, 11-2, won game 1 of the doubleheader 7-4, but "ran out of gas" in game 2 and lost 8-6, blowing ANOTHER game at the end. Maryland is now 2-53 at Tiger Field after splitting the doubleheader yesterday. Sunday's results clinched a spot in the ACC Tournament for the Tigers, but still allowed Florida State to clinch the Atlantic Division title. We're still predicted to host a Regional, but just barely, and depending on the next weekend's games we could be off the bubble altogether. Clemson is up to #20 in the Baseball America poll, from #21 at 32-16 overall, still #8 in RPI.
