• I dare to say it, but Clemson may be peaking at the right time. Last night the Tigers pulled away in the 2nd half to defeat Georgia Tech 91-80 in Littlejohn. The Tigers have won 5 of their last 6 and seem assured of a spot in the NCAA tourney. That’s the good news. The bad news is that 4 of those 5 wins came at home, and it may be that the late season strength is just a reflection of being scheduled well. This is also potentially bad news because the team may relax and lose intensity at just the wrong time now that the NCAA bid seems assured. It’s imperative for the Tigers to go to Winston-Salem on Sunday and put down Wake Forest giving Clemson a very respectable 10 wins in conference.
• Via Examiner.com, there’s a poor quality video of the NFL network’s official 40 runs at the combine. Despite the low-quality, it’s pretty interesting to see the results with Ford and Spiller taking 1st & 3rd places, respectively.
  

  There is some speculation that Spiller could end up being drafted by the Browns. That would likely re-unite him with James Davis. Chansi Stuckey is also with the Browns right now.

• Bleacher Report lays out the case the Michael Palmer should be getting more attention from the NFL than he is. Since Palmer became one of my favorite player’s last season, I would love to see him overcome the odds and make it in the NFL.

• After last night’s road win over FSU, I took a deep breath. However now is definitely not the time for the basketball team to relax. They’re still something of a bubble team with 2 regular season games remaining. Next up is GT, at home fortunately. The last game is Sunday at Wake Forest. Wake is on a three game skid and just lost at home to UNC.
• The baseball team remains undefeated after sweeping Wright State over the weekend. With the wins I can now claim collegiate baseball dominance over my dad, a Miami University alum, and my brother a Wright State alum who even made a decent run to be a walk-on for the Raiders many years ago.
• From the NFL combine, we get some reports of the best 40 times. Per the Buffalo News:
  

  The fastest running back was California’s Jahvid Best at 4.35 seconds. Next was Clemson’s C.J. Spiller at 4.37 seconds.

  The fastest time among receivers was run by Clemson’s Jacoby Ford, who was timed in 4.28 seconds, according to the NFL Network.

• The Bills are apparently taking a look at Charlie Whitehurst. Maybe he’ll end up getting some playing time within the next 5 years.
• Lastly, Khalil Greene’s fresh $750k contract with the Rangers has been voided. Hopefully Khalil can get his shit together.

Why is post titled Wite out? Not because of some now-unoriginal gimmick, fortunately. Wite Out only because I didn’t want to use “News & Notes” again and my handy bottle of quick dry correction fluid was the first thing I saw.

• Duke plays at Clemson at 9PM. USA Today says the Tigers are looking for revenge. The line hasn’t been posted yet, but as game time approaches you should be able to find it at VegasInsider or the Daily Line section at ESPN. This game should be extra fun for me as I’ll be at a party hosted by Duke grads.

  UPDATE 2010-01-23 09:10 AMThe spread shows that Duke is favored by 1 point.

• Willy Korn is heading to Marshall… at least to visit.
• Kevin Steele is staying at Clemson, and he’s even saying the right things about why.
  

  “Regardless of what people might believe, it’s a factual statement that money was never discussed in this process with Clemson University,” he said. “I’ve never talked to (athletic director) Terry Don Phillips or Dabo Swinney about one nickel. Not one nickel. And actually did the other. I told Dabo, ‘Coach, if you want to discuss money it’s going to offend me because it’s not about money.’ “

  To be open about this, when I heard the incorrect news that Steele was leaving, I didn’t care. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the D’s performance this year. The worst thing about the situation to me was not that he was leaving, but that we’d have to find a replacement on the fly. When news broke that he was staying, all the speculation was that he would be getting a nice raise from Clemson. That didn’t seem like such a good idea to me. He came in and, I would say, met — not exceeded — expectations. So why should he get a raise just for being contacted by alma mater? If it turned out that he was playing that game, and that Clemson played along, then I would have been pretty upset.

  Hopefully the Steele’s defense looks better in 2010.

• Clemson University apparently had extremely high voter turnout in this past election. “‘It is widely recognized that young people influenced the 2008 election by voting in larger numbers,’ said Campus Compact President Maureen Curley.” Seeing how that election came out, I don’t think I’d be bragging about that.

Addendum:

• Bad good PR: Stuckey to donate $10 for each point scored against Duke to Haitian Relief. Look, generosity is fantastic. That’s great. However, getting a press release as an NFL player earning over $400k/yr for committing to an approximately $700 donation is pretty silly. I’m hoping that it was supposed to say $100 per point. Just to be clear, the amount itself is fine, it’s the press release about the amount that bothers me.
• It appears that Kevin Steele will get a huge raise, amounting to a reported $200k on top of his current $375k/yr contract. Look, I don’t have any fucking problem with coaches making a lot of money. But I have a huge fucking problem with coaches getting gigantic raises only 1 slightly-better-than-mediocre year into a 3 year contract. If Kevin Steele deserves more money, give him an incentive based contract, and not this bullshit. If this raise is real, then everyone involved in pushing this raise through deserves a giant FUCK YOU!

• In the immediate aftermath of Clemson’s dominating win over UNC, fans stormed the court. Some people apparently didn’t care for it. I think I can summarize my opinion by relating my thoughts from the time. I never even considered that it was inappropriate. Instead I thought “it would be nice if more people joined in because only about 1/2 the court is covered.
• Clemson’s next game is Saturday @ NC State. Game time is 12 noon. Raycom will have the television coverage. Lines haven’t been posted as of the time of my writing this.
• In other news, mark your calendars for Clemson’s spring game. “Clemson’s Spring football game at Memorial Stadium will be held April 10 and have a 4:00 PM start.“

Line update: Clemson is favored by 4.5.

Today is the day of the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl. I can’t say I’m too excited — I’m not too excited about bowl season this year in general, and I’m about as excited about this particular game as Jamie Cumbie.

My primary fear before before this game was that the team would have already given up and/or lost focus well before the opening kickoff. The only bowl game I’ve cared enough to watch this season was the Oregon State-BYU game in which the Beavers had clearly given up on their season after missing their chance at the Rose Bowl in their last regular season game. The pre-game press for Clemson has been about how the team is responding to avoid such a let down performance. Dabo, in some potentially unfortunate foreshadowing, had this to say a couple days before Christmas:

Swinney recalled years when players were late or missed practice and meetings.

“They’ve been where they’re supposed to be,” he said. “And we haven’t any guys getting into trouble. That’s usually a sign of a pretty focused team.”

Of course that was before the four players showed up late to the hotel and earned themselves spots on the bench for the game.

I’ll certainly be pleasantly surprised if Clemson wins — and the ACC would love any win over an SEC (or, at this point, ANY) opponent. However, a loss will mark a season that is as defined by success as it is defined by failure, that will not spare Dabo negative comparisons to his predecessor, that will raise questions about how such a supposedly inspirational leader can end on a three-game losing streak, and that will leave little optimism for next year’s talent-depleted team.

• Clemson hosts 10-1 Western Carolina tonight at 7:30 PM. The CBS Sports preview notes that Clemson is 9-0 all time against the Catamounts. It should be a good game.
• Collegiate Baseball Newspaper released its preseason Top40. Clemson checks in at #16. Other notables include Virginia (#3), Georgia Tech (#6), Florida State (#7), Miami (#12) and North Carolina (#13). Such is life in the ACC baseball world: being a top-20 team means being a mediocre conference team.
• Kyle Parker’s future as a football player remains up in the air. As I’ve said before, I’d take the money and run if I were him. Fortunately for Clemson football fans, I’m sure most college athletes don’t think like me.

Outside the lines…

• Clemson is escalating it’s war on the squirrels. I’m not exactly sure what university the squirrels belong to, or even what sport they play, but I support this just war.

  Honestly though, they’re talking about trapping and euthanizing about 200 squirrels, and I’m wondering why they’re going to let anyone eat the goddamn things?

• Clemson’s Mayor Abernathy trots out his standard defense for everything he proposes, “If we only save one life, we’ve done our job.” No you haven’t, you dumb fuck! You’re job is not to intrude in everyone’s life to immeasurable levels to “save one life.” You don’t understand how much I hate this guy. I’d rather the mayorship be run by Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier.

  In this case the mayor is defending a proposed text messaging ban. Frankly, the fines for these things tend to be so miniscule, and the chances of being caught so small, that the bans are pretty much symbolic. But let me be very clear about one thing: STAY OFF YOUR GODDAMN PHONE IN ALL CAPACITIES WHEN YOU’RE DRIVING YOU FUCKING DIPSHITS!

  And stay off my lawn, too!

Making my memories of that horrible day in October that much worse the latest ESPN Bottom 10 ranks Maryland as #9. Maryland, in case you hadn’t noticed, finished the season at 2-10 — their only other win coming in overtime against JMU.

Following up on last night’s post, here’s some more information about the turnover battle. It turns out the turnover battle is a good proxy for the outcome of Clemson games this year.

• Six times Clemson won the turnover battle. Clemson won all of those games.
• Four times the turnover battle was tied. Clemson went 2-2 in those contests.
• Three times Clemson lost the turnover battle. Clemson lost those 3 games.