So I have an in-law that is a huge SEC and overall college football fan. In fact, he won the scout.com pick-em polls a few years back. This prompted scout to give him a shot at his own SEC blog on their college football news website. He has started up the preseason processions with the declared love of the SEC and blah blah blah they are the national powerhouse (He is an Auburn grad after all), and actually gave some love to USC and their 2001 entrance being the official opening of the SEC season (to which I promptly rebuked him for even recognizing a piped in theme song as anything but retarded and lazy).
His most recent article is looking at the predictions of how the teams of the SEC stack up this year. He surprised me by not jumping the Noshawn Moreno bandwagon and giving it all to Georgia, but in fact has a pretty balanced argument for the top tier teams. The best part of the entire entry, though, is the point where he calls South Carolina and Darth Visor Pushovers in the conference.

“South Carolina : The Steve Spurrier experience has been a complete and utter disaster, he was not brought to Columbia for Liberty Bowls and 6-6 seasons. They have no quarterback to lead the team and Stephen Garcia is begging for a one way ticket back to the state of Florida . While the defense may be good next year the offense will put them in such poor field position with turnovers and a total lack of consistency the defense will be wasted. Steve Spurrier is an elite SEC coach, but his time spent at South Carolina will be finished with the sentence “I guess Lee Corso was right.”

I continued banter with him on email as I berated him on his prediction of Bama over Clemson in the opener. He sent an email back that said that the South Carolina prediction had ignited so much Gamecock fan email that he couldn’t keep up in the first day of posting. I told him that retaliatory gamecock email is always fun….once you comb over it with spell check. i am trying to get some responses from him so that I can post it here so we will see.

In the mean time, the CFN has a preview and predictions for most of the ACC up. So it’s not like you are doing anything at work so go read up on the hype that is ACC football.

For some reason which no one seems to understand, none of the in-site links go to anything. Yet for some reason, the entire back-end which allows us to post is fully functional. But fear not, the people we pay 6 six dollars a month to take care of these problems are working diligently behind the scenes to resolve the problem. I’m sure it won’t take long to fix, just as I’m sure this sentence won’t leave sarcasm residue on your monitor.

Update [2008-06-22] The site is back in working order. I have no idea what the problem was, but an upgrade of the blog software fixed things.

Also, 68 days until kickoff!

Get your pre-season fix on with these dedicated Clemson Football publications:

Tiger Time. This magazine is flat out awesome in all aspects of a magazine. High gloss, good binding, in depth news, reviews, interviews and tons of pictures.

CU Tigers. I would grab this one off of a news stand if you can as an annual subscription may not be your cup of tea. Another good publication, but in terms of coffee table worthiness, doesn’t hold a candle to Tiger Time.

And for those who need the pre-season college football fix, I hear Steele’s is the best (although the sporting news from last year was good as well.

Courtney Vincent officially will be off the team come this season. According to reports on ESPN and TigerNet, Vincent had been suspended for a violation of team rules which was widely known. Due to be a 5th year senior, Vincent apparently did not fulfill goals external to keeping his academic standing that Bowden had put forth this spring. He will have to transfer to a D-II or III school to play in the fall. The defense will now have 7 returning starters.
In other transfer/roster news, Jeff Ogren has left the Tigers as well. He is transferring for currently unspecified reasons. He played in four games with his only reception against La Monroe last year for 8 yards. He’s a 6′2″ WR from Tuscaloosa, AL.

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!

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.

This year, Clemson has received a record number of applications to join the privileged few who can be considered Clemson Tigers. This is great news as Clemson continues to garner national recognition on many fronts while improving it’s admission standards. I know for a fact that I would not make it through the doors now with what I had back then. Always a good thing to hear the Alma Mater improving its standings in the collegiate world. Of course, the “Time College of the Year” and multiple “Best Deal For Your Money” recognitions are always a good thing too! One thing that has been noticed is that the ratio of beach bunnies and volleyball nets has significantly decreased in proportion to the increase of ultimate frisbee and backpacks on Bowman. Backpacks on Bowman? What has this world come to?! I guess that is all part of the improving status in the world of academia.

I will begin assembling and designing the upcoming Gnomes ACC football schedule. Any requests or suggestions? Please comment and let me know! I plan on having a similar design as last year and possibly another conference as well depending on the interest levels shown.