Looks like Clemson fans made quite the impression on BeanTown on the last road game (thanks TigerPundit). So much that they want to emulate the Orange nation in attempts at attracting bowl sponsors and the likes. That’s pretty awesome, I need to snag some 2′s before I head to Winston Salem I guess.

Once again the Tigers went into OT with the Eagles of BC and once again the result was an L in the column.

Deep Breaths……Ok I got yelled at, as usual by the wife last night for my, ahem, exuberance towards the Tigers inability to score in OT from the 2! As I only got to watch the 4th quarter on TV and had to listen to the other 3 on the radio I didn’t get the full flavor of the game. From what I heard and gathered it seemed that Clemson basically beat themselves.

I have not seen the box score yet but preliminary stats have Clemson demolishing the Eagles on possession. Proctor put in one hell of a showing for his ACC opener with over 300 yards passing (190 or so to Stuckey) and from what I heard they were varied in speed and distance so that is comforting. He did overthrow some receivers and bobbled a few snaps, but I think that his nerves are suring up. The running game did not factor in as much as I had hoped and from what I heard all week from the media and Spence in terms of controlling the clock but they did rack up around 200 yards. Spillers miracle run was actually ruled as a pass so add those 82 yards to rushing as it was a 5 yard pass and that’s a pretty good day. The O-Line got some retribution from last year with their performance but I think that having a mobile QB like Proctor helped out. The only question I have on the O is what killed us last year: Red Zone. I know James scampered in on one, but when you can’t close the deal from the 2 with 3 running backs in the backfield, I believe that there are still some issues.

The defense, oh the defense….. To say that the absence of Waters and Billie is not evident is an understatement. The defense lacked focus and leadership as the core was continuously picked apart. The youth and inexperience was taken advantage of as the secondary seemed lost at times and even had a true freshman directing a veteran as to his blown coverage. The D did just enough to not keep Clemson in the game but to keep BC from running away with it. I think that the LB corp will gradually find their nitch as Clay and the boys are settling in for the long haul. The problem I have is the pass protection and the short routes across the middle that Clemson has let up on in the past two weeks. FAU worked a 7 yard sideline hitch down the field enough times and BC had multiple third down conversions of under 10 yards. I am not sure what the solution is here but I have faith that Koenning will get his players settled into their positions after the shake up and solidify the D.

Finally, the culprit, Special Teams…..or lack thereof. First let me say that I am beyond glad that we had punt protection. If we had the same protection as last year you could probably have tacked on a few blocked punts on top of the horrendous coverage. When Chason replaces Dean for kickoffs you know that the secondary is struggling. I am not sure what was wrong with Dean but he did not play up to his normal “clutch” self. Not one of his kickoffs went into the endzone….not even an inch. Jad is usually trying for three points from the tee so it was very discomforting when he kept kicking inside the ten. Then the ball keeps landing in what seemed to be BC’s Jacoby Ford, Smith’s hands. That boy tore the coverage team UP!! Something like 190 yards in return yards alone with an average starting position of their 47 yard line?!?! The return was bad enough but everyone saw it coming with a performance like that. If it wasn’t for Jacoby Ford’s speed in the last quarter, Smith would have broken off another TD return. This aspect of the game was the obvious culprit. If not for the poor coverage the Eagles would have started, at least, on their own 20 or around that area with ¾ of the field instead of ½ to cover. Jad will recover, he is a rock on the team and his performance dictates field position for the D. The coverage is another story. Maybe that whole, no punting the previous game came and bit us in the ass but something needs to be done. Was it formation, missed assignments or were the Eagles just that good on the return?

In the end the Tigers put together one heck of a gameplan. By the numbers, the Tigers more than held their own and defeated the Eagles…….on paper. After getting ahead early the Tigers could not keep the momentum and let BC pick away at the lead. Clemson played a respectable game against a valid opponent, the only problem was that they didn’t follow through. The good news is that the Tigers had tons of learning opportunities in the game and have a bunch of film to review before their trip to Tally. Now let’s hope that this game was the kick in the pants they usually get around game 6 and go 5 and out to end the season strong. If the Tigers can go into Tally and pull off a win, the ‘Noles know who is the only one in between them and the division: BC and play them later in the season after both teams can only get better. So come on Tigers, learn everything you can and get it together for the turn around in Doak!

What has the baseball team been up to in the two weeks since taking the series against South Carolina?

It took the first game against a good Georgia Tech team in Atlanta, 7-6. Tech then proceeded to show that they were a very good team by putting up 12 runs and winning by 9. Thank you Sir, may I have another? Why yes, yes indeed. Sunday they elevated their performance by putting 22 runs on the board. Yeah, that stings.

What do you do after getting drubbed by a conference rival? Why you give up two mid week games to Winthrop and Furman. That there’s quite a little losing streak.

But when you’re down, it’s always a good time to visit bottom-dwelling Boston College at intimidating Shea Field.

Well the bleeding slowed down, with Clemson taking the Friday night game 6-3 before splitting a Saturday double-header 2-3 and 4-1.

There goes our chances to take the division and maybe the conference championship.

Wrong.

Over the same two weeks, previously leading Florida State self-destructed as well. They dropped 2 to Miami and 1 to Florida before getting swept at home by that Georgia Tech (13-8) team who’s now leading the Boyd’s pseudo-RPI (Clemson is 2nd in the rankings, but has the same rating as Tech with Rice just behind in 3rd.) Meanwhile Miami (12-9) also dropped 2 to Virginia (13-8) at Coral Gables.

All this means that Clemson (12-6) is tied atop the division with Wake Forest (14-7). FSU and NC State are right behind, each at 13-8 in conference.

From here on out, Clemson hosts Wofford tonight and Virginia Tech (3-18) for a series over the weekend. After a week off for finals, the team travels to Duke (6-15) for a Sunday-Monday-Tuesday series. The Tigers end the season with 7 home games against FSU, College of Charleston, and Wake Forest.

Having 3 of the last 4 series at home is definitely a good thing. This team on the road scares me. Sure we swept Miami, but we’ve also been swept twice now (edit: What was I thinking? We’ve only be swept on the road once. Apparently the two losses to GT seemed like 3 because of all the runs scored.). This may be ok for the regular season, but getting beyond that is going to be tough. Let’s hope that Leggett has the team’s head in the right place from here on out.

Ok, time for a hot dog, some spare ribs, and a tall cool Budweiser.

When the schedule for this season of Clemson football came out in February, I immediately got my Bayer ready. After all it has saved many a lives when it comes to heart attacks. With the toughest start in Clemson history (or at least that I have seen), I can honestly say that I was, in reality, accepting a 0 and 4 start to the year. I am a pessimist at heart, I find that if you look at the world this way you are never disappointed. If you expect to lose the first four games, and you win a couple you are elated. If you lose those four games, you were prepared. So far, the now proclaimed Cardiac Kids of Clemson are living up to the name, keeping every game close to the final minutes. To say that I was elated when we beat Texas A&M and Maryland to start the season off is an understatement. When we lost to Miami in a triple overtime ESPN instant classic, I looked at the glass half full and called it a good loss for lessons learned sake. It was when we lost to Boston College in OT that the pessimism came back. My mistake, you see, was that after the Miami game I truly believed that we had BC pinned before they even entered Death Valley. I believed that Clemson would reach that next level after the Miami game, a multi leveled attack, which would wear down the BC team in the southern heat. What happened instead was Clemson coming ill prepared and not even performing close to what they had done against Miami.

I don’t even know how to start the review of this game so I will break it down into sections.

Environment:

Death Valley is known for being a hostile environment, as it is usually stagnant hot air and a rowdy sea of 80,000 Orange clad fans. From here on out I say Clemson goes the way USuCk goes when a game isn’t picked up by a major station. If it isn’t national coverage you play the game at night. The noon game time, although originally was supposed to wear down the Eagles, ended up hurting Clemson in more ways than one. The time consuming Eagles offense kept the Tiger D on the field over 60% of the game. In direct correlation, the Tiger fans attempted to be the well known audio motivation for that 60%. By the half, the crowd was exhausted and the D was struggling. The crowd was initially sold out but after the half I believe that many people stayed out tailgating to escape the 92 degree heat and stale air. Without the noise, the Eagles didn’t struggle on offense and the Tiger D had nothing to motivate them.

Offense:

In it’s previous three games, Clemson attempted to establish a well balanced run and pass offense. With a respectable crew of wide receivers and two very different options of running styles in the back field, the Tigers had a bag full of options to try on the nationally 3^rd ranked Eagle rush defense. James Davis had limited snaps as his hard nosed, up the middle running was continuously jammed by the line. Reggie Merriweather had a bit more luck with his agility but again was not enough to get respectable yardage. Why the Tigers tried to continuously run against this defense is mind boggling. When watching the FSU/BC game it was evident that the weakness was in the secondary. Clemson never opened this wound……well OK they did once, but I guess no one was looking as the Curtis Baham bomb was the biggest play of the game. The Clemson receiving core has an average height of about 6’ 3” I would say with Aaron Kelly and Kelvin Grant towering at 6’6” I believe. The BC corners are all around 6’2” or less, and the mismatches were very evident even sitting in the stands. Clemson exposed the defensive weakness with a long ball to Curtis Baham and never tried again. With the strength and accuracy of Charlie Whitehurst and the talent and height in the receivers, the Tigers could have opened the running game by forcing BC to spread the D to cover the pass. Instead, the Tigers continued to try to run the ball against the hulking D line and get off short passes on 3^rd and long in attempts to cover the yardage. The icing on the cake came in OT when the Tigers face 3^rd and 3. The previous play was a sweep left which put a man in motion to cover the sweep on 2^nd down. As that was successful, the offense used the exact same play, only in reverse, in attempts to get the first down. I am a fan….in the stands…and the same man goes in motion to the other side for the same stance. If I can pick up the play it’s no wonder Reggie lost yards on the final Tigers down. Spence has got to open the long ball up. Charlie has a great completion percentage, great, but what is it getting us on the field? This game I was yearning for the days of Rod Gardner, Derrick Hamilton and Kevin Youngblood long ball football. Spence has GOT to open up this part of the offense if he wants to open the rushing game up. I don’t care if it means Charlie’s percentages go down or we get less time of possession, it is a big part of the game and it motivates the crowd, and I have already stated what happened there.

Defense:

I am a defense man at heart. I will root for them to no end, so it is hard to find fault in their performance, especially considering the situation the offense put them in for the second time in as many weeks. The one threat that BC had on offense was the man that Tye Hill was covering. Obviously Tye did a great job as his man was not a top receiver and Tye got a possible game saving pick in the game. My wife’s favorite player, Jamaal Fudge, also had a good game with a end zone pick and multiple assists on tackles. The line and linebackers are what I saw problems with in the game. Now given that the BC line was, to say the least, gi-normous, the Tigers had absolutely NO pressure on the second string QB. They had one heck of a head snapping hit, but that was as close as we got to him all day. Another thing that worries me is the inability to cover the 10 to 15 yard post route that every team has pulled on us. BC was in more than one 3^rd and long situation when they would pull a post in route for the distance and have a man in the flats WIDE OPEN. This isn’t the first team to do this to the Tigers, so where is the adjustment? If it is the difference between zone and man coverage then change the coverage for a series and see how it works out! Drop a the middle linebacker for short coverage while the other two contain….do something! Overall though I can not be critical of the defense, they took what was handed to them and held the Eagles scoreless for over 3 quarters.

Special Teams:

In short Jad Dean is clutch, he should be drafted NOW. As for punting Cole Chason is in deep doo doo and I think Stephen Furr is up next. As we didn’t leave the stadium for the half we got to see the special teams warm up. Furr continuously had the perfect spiral punt that turned over at the peak and sailed for over 50 yards each time. Now many would say “that’s great, but how would he do in pressure”. To that I would say: The Eagles had no pressure on the punter all day and Chason still flubbed punts all over the field. It was only when he got a Clemson bounce that the crowd applauded the effort. On the receiving side of the ball Chansi Stuckey and Curtis Baham should be the only ones in the back to catch and run. The one question I had there was the fair catch at the 6 yard line, let it bounce son, I haven’t seen a punt coverage unit that can control a 5 yard bounce yet. I don’t know why they keep putting Coleman in kick return either as all he does is run straight for the block and then get pummeled. As was evident when he was a running back, he gets the ball and as soon as he hits turbulence becomes a tap dancing fool who doesn’t get anywhere. As for the blocking, I have no idea who is supposed to be where and when but this is the exact same crew who aided Derrick Hamilton and Justin Miller on the kick/punt return so unless those guys were THAT much better, we have some assignments gone wrong.

In the long run I am pleased in the teams performance, ending up 2 and 2 when I thought we could have easily been 0 and 4. But as any back seat driver, you have to be critical of what is obvious and that is mostly the offense. I won’t call the next game easy but it is a bit relaxed compared to the competition that the Tigers have been playing recently. Wake Forest showed some life this past weekend as they hung on with Maryland in Winston Salem, hopefully the Tigers can come off their traditional slump and avoid another embarrassment at the hands of the Deacs. I guess we will have to wait another week to see what fate has in store. In the mean time, I think I am going to buy some more Bayer as these close games are going to kill me sooner or later.

I begin first by suggesting you all go to news.google.com and setting up Clemson email alerts. Whenever Google finds a new article, you get an email. It may be the best way to stay on top of things with respect to Clemson sports, and the university itself.

What interesting tidbit came to me through this channel this morning?

Boston College sends strong message to ACC

Boston College learned something about itself in defeat and sent a serious message about its toughness to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Eagles defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka says players were disappointed with last week’s 28-17 loss to Florida State that kicked off the school’s ACC era. But beware, future ACC opponents, Boston College is for real.

“[FSU] is supposed to be the dominating team in the ACC,” Kiwanuka said. “If this is the benchmark of the league, then we showed we could play with anyone.”

Boston College is a great team who has put up some impressive numbers this year already. They received a lot of recognition as a real contender in the ACC from the beginning of this preseason.

That said, I have not yet seen what “strong message” they have sent to the conference. What message is it? You’ll beat us if our star QB is hurt? We let teams come from behind to win by 11? At home?

FSU is another fine team. They look to be piecing together another fine season. I expect a fierce battle when they come to Clemson November 12th. But, for some reason I just don’t see FSU as a dominant team this year.

Either way, both schools have ample opportunity to prove me very wrong. And it will not be until the end of the season that we know that BC’s “stong message” truly is.

Clem here, bringing you the forecast for this weekends games. As seen on the map it will be a hot and steamy 90 degrees in Clemson. We have no idea where Autumn is, but hopefully it will show up soon. Boston has not come down south yet so we hope the weather will play an effect on the Eagles as they are enjoying a nice 70 degrees up there in Boston. I believe that Bowman will probably take the forecast responsibilities in the future weeks, I was just kicking the weekly gamecast off.

Greene, AKA the Broken Gnome, is on board as well. Later tonight or tomorrow I intend to make use of the statistics available for both Clemson and Boston College in order to make gnome prediction of the outcome. (It has got to be better than grading papers or doing homework, right?)