Clemson is looking a little shaky at the position of place kicker. The most experienced PK on the team, Richard Jackson, is apparently still a total head case. He’s now the third man on the depth chart. It looks like primary PK duties will fall to Chandler Catanzaro. I’m not exactly sure who that is, but I bet I’ll know and hate him the first time he misses an important kick, which probably won’t happen until the Auburn game.

I was able to watch much of the final game of the Auburn regional while I was stuck in my office last night. As terrible as the previous game was to watch, this one was pretty good aside from the homer announcers from Auburn; they were still terrible. Clemson pulled out to an early lead and countered all the subsequent moves made by Auburn. In particular, Clemson forced Auburn to leave 12 runners stranded on base. Clemson left only 5 on base.

Clemson will host Alabama for their super regional games.

The bad news of the night from the football fan’s perspective is Kyle Parker’s draft position. He was taken as the number 26 pick by Colorado. Everyone expects this to mean buh-bye. If KP does end his college football career at this point, the best thing the Tigers will have going for them will be the low level of expectations for the season.

It looks like there was good reason for kicking Jamie Cumbie off the football team.

Cumbie “is charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.”

The victim’s injuries included 6 or 7 fractures of the facial area, numerous lacerations to the mouth, a hemotoma to the right temple that included swelling and bleeding of the brain, two black eyes, a broken tooth and other teeth “bent back to the gum,” a warrant obtained from the Clemson Municipal Court states.

The victim’s nose was also broken in several places, the warrant states.

Block-C’s favorite quarterback, Peter Lalich, of notoriety for getting kicked off the UVA football team for drinking related incidents and being a general douche, has now been kicked off the Oregon State football team for a “boating DUI.”

[Oregon State Coach] Riley said it was not necessary to let the legal process work itself out in the Lalich boating DUI case (Lalich’s arraignment is June 21) because he had all of the information he needed…

Riley has been criticized in the past for being overly-lenient with players and being more than what would be construed as being generous in terms of giving them chances.

TigerNet has a rundown of which Clemson players went where in the draft as well as which former Tigers played in the NFL in 2009. It also includes this year’s crop of guys who went undrafted and have since signed free agent contracts.

Michael Palmer is going to Atlanta.
Thomas Austin signed with the Minnesota Vikings.
Chris Chancellor will get to keep all his orange clothes as he heads to Cleveland.
Kevin Alexander will also get to maintain a familiar wardrobe as he goes to the Broncos.

Things are less clear for ManBearPig. He “was expected to sign a free agent contract, but it was not known as of this writing.”

In other NFL news, Justin Miller is getting a tryout with the Cardinals. Says RotoWorld:

Miller, 26, was a Pro Bowl returner for the Jets in 2006, but hasn’t been the same since sustaining a complicated toe injury in 2008.

Gotta hate those toe injuries.

• 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!