It’s like a bad dream while listing to Bob Seger’s song “Turn The Page”. Here Clemson is again, getting rolled up in national media attention about how we are going to be a top ten team in 2008. I for one would rather start out the season ranked somewhere around 60th then come in and kick some chicken all season long. I have to admit, Harper, Spiller, Davis and Kelly is an amazing one, two, three, four combo offensive punch, but what is the typical routine we are all used to. Yep, we’re going to be the best in the ACC, only to lose a game by one point which could have meant a possible BCS Bowl birth. Hopefully disaster will not come knocking in a few months, then again, I think I’ve said that before too.

Last week Plyler wrote a gushing post about the football team’s coaching staff and their success in recruiting. Certainly the rankings of the recent classes have been good. And his post was spurred by the recent commitment of Craig Loston, who lives in Texas. Plyler writes, amongst other things, “[o]ne of the ways this staff has been able to become so successful is they have identified prospects very early in their high school careers… Clemson has been able to beat many schools to the punch,” and “[t]his staff has decided to take a backseat to no one.”

I definitely don’t follow recruiting much. Part of it is a lack of time. Nonetheless, Plyler’s words certainly made it seem as if our coaching staff is becoming a nationwide force in recruiting. Unless they’re breaking the rules in the process, this certainly sounds like good and comforting news.

Unfortunately, today’s news makes things sound a bit less exciting. Per the Post & Courier

Loston actually initiated the contact with Clemson by sending them film. “They didn’t know anything about me, and I put myself out there to them,” he said. “I like the way they play, I like their style and I think I would fit in well with their defense.”

Another reason I don’t follow recruiting very much is that it is mostly rumor and speculation.

Nonetheless, congratulations to the coaching staff for paying attention and not screwing up when a 5-star recruited himself.

Clemson Women’s Tennis has won the ACC tournament with little hooplah. So here it is ladies! Congratulations from the gnomes to you on your conference championship. They upended the favored Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets as well as the Duke Blue Devils to take the trophy home. Of course with the number 1 national player, Ani Mijacika sitting on the team you know good things had to come around at some point!

Comments and suggestions are always welcome! Standard 1024×768 (well ok so it’s 701 due to the new column)

Both the ACC Helmet Schedule and the SEC Helmet Schedule will be maintained throughout the season and can always be obtained from the sidebar to your right Just look for these icons every Monday after a game weekend for the new one!!

Woe is the baseball team the last few weeks. I’m hardly even keeping up with the results and they’re almost too much to bear.

Western Carolina hit two homers on its way to a 6-2 win over Clemson on Tuesday night in front of 3,674 fans at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. The Catamounts improved to 17-18, while the Tigers dropped to 18-18.

That would be the 10th loss in a row. So much for my thought earlier in the week that, “well at least we’re playing a nobody on Tuesday and we can end the skid.”

Just finished up the ACC and SEC Sporting Gnomes 2008 Helmet Schedules (or SG08HS’s if you will). Just have to put the finishing touches on the servers and html and we will have them rarin to go. I apologize in advance for errors in the schedules and appreciate any corrections that you guys might find and mention. You will notice that I have changed the size of the image this year from a standard 1024×768 to accommodate the new column of conference record along with the standard overall record. This should be fun maintaining 2 schedules.

I hope to have these links incorporated into the schedules in the near future but for now:
Helmets provided by the awesome site MG’s Helmets. Check out this site for a whole slew of helmets from NFL, to NCAA to NHL. Awesome artwork over there.

Logos (background artwork) provided by SportsLogos.Net. Another great site with multitudes of logos from almost every sporting team out there.

Glad to see that Clemson basketball finally has a coach that can bring success AND stick around once it is established (ahem Rick barnes). Oliver Purnell has quelled the rumors that he would consider going to LSU to coach after the opening became available at the end of the season. It seems that Purnell not only has built the Clemson program to a legitimate contender, but also has long range plans to continue it’s success. With the improvement in recruiting as well as overall play (Hey, those freshmen make free throws!!), I look forward to Purnell’s long haul and career with the Tigers and hope that he sticks around for a long while as he is a great coach on and off the court.

I would like to thank both UNC and Memphis for sucking cockandballs and successfully taking me well out of the money in the one bowl pool which actually mattered.