Eleven days ago the Tigers were thoroughly embarrassed at Virginia Tech. What was to blame? The short week? The lack of preparation time? A hangover of some sort?

I don’t know. But a second loss in a row has just happened and none of those old excuses work. Clemson lost a football game that it just shouldn’t have. There was ample preparation time. The defense held a 24ppg offense to 13. There were no turnovers. Maryland wasn’t given the field position that they used to beat other teams. The offense even moved the ball fairly well and got almost 400 yards of offense. And the Tigers were flagged for just one penalty.

But somehow only 12 points went up on the board. Against Maryland, that puts Clemson roughly on par with Middle Tennessee State, William & Mary, and Florida International.

It seems that while the coaching staff was busy plugging all the holes, new ones developed. Kick coverage does not seem to be a major liability anymore. Jad Dean looks to have regained his confidence. Those two things killed us earlier in the year. Now the red zone offense has disappeared and Will Proctor looks like he’s never run the ball before in his life.

The red zone offense has been suspicious in its absense before. It just seemed that those bugs had been worked out. And to be fair, the offense did manage to put one in the endzone. It just so happened that Clemson’s lone penalty of the game happened on that same play. Not enough men on the field and the touchdown went away. And yes, this is the same stupid thing that led to a one point loss last year at Georgia Tech.

I hope the team can get itself completely together to beat NC State and Carolina. I’m pretty sure that both of them would love to come to Clemson and kick us while we’re down.

The Clemson-Maryland line opened at 15, which I thought was quite generous. It’s now up to 20 in some casinos.

This guy knows how Maryland feels.

Is there something going on that I don’t know about, or do the gamblers just expect a good old fashioned ass kicking?

Much like Wake Forest, Maryland has been winning games without overpowering their opponents. They rank 98th and 97th in total offense, respectively, and 67th and 58th in scoring offense, respectively.

Despite that, the Terps are 3-1 in conference with a close loss at Georgia Tech, and close wins against UVA, NCSU, and FSU. I’ve spent some time looking over data from those games. Let’s explore…

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Clemson is favored by between 15 and 16, depending on who you ask.

This strikes me as being high. Aside from their turnover-fest at West Virginia, they’ve played a lot of close games.

• They were +14.5 at Georgia Tech and lost by only 4.
• They were favored by 3 at UVA and won by only 2.
• They were favored by 2 against NCSU and won by 6.
• And they were given +3.5 points against Florida State, a game the Terps won by 3 at home.

Early in the season I wrote them off as dead, but I fear reports of their demise were premature.

With all the regular season travels completed for the Tigers, everyone is glad that the team can stay home and play only in Death Valley. But just how important is playing at home? I decided to look into the numbers to see.

To keep things relevant, I looked at only the statistics since Tommy Bowden became coach

starting in the ‘99 season. Since that time his teams have gone 36-12 at home, 19-20 on the road, and 1-0 at neutral sites during the regular season. That leaves the bowls as neutral site games, in which Bowden is 3-3. Road trips are clearly a 50-50 proposition.

For simplicity, I’ll leave out neutral site games.

In percentage form, the home winning percentage is 75, with the road being 48.7. So the chances of winning by playing at home are improved by about 54%.

However, with two important league games looming, I went ahead and took only league games into consideration. Here, Bowden is 20-10 at home, and 16-16 on the road. Compare that 66.7% home winning percentage to the 50% road winning percentage, and the team is only about 33% more likely to win any given league game at home.

There is some bad news to be added to this year’s 4-0 start at home. So far under Tommy Bowden, we’ve never had an undefeated home season. And through 7 full seasons, there have been only three 1 loss seasons. However if we consider only home conference games, there is a lone season where the team did not drop a conference game at home. That year was 2003.

So how does Clemson compare to other ACC teams under their current head coaches? Read on…
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As I am working 12 hour shifts this weekend I had to find something to occupy my time, so stat junky it was!! Due to the horrendous showing in Blacksburg last week, the stats have failed to prove the projections as viable arguing points but what the heck, they’re always a conversation point!
Maryland comes in to Death Valley after an emotional win over FSU and a potentially game tying FG block. From what I witnessed, they have a very balanced offense and Sam Hollenbach is a pretty accurate and efficient pass threat. The Tigers come off a bewildering loss in a hostile environment to start their home stretch of 3 games. The Terps will come into the Valley on a high but face one pissed off Tiger team who had their ACCCG hopes virtually smashed one week prior. I look for this one to be a close one in the first half and the second half a breakout for the Tigers. That is of course if they can get the running game going again.

Once again the rankings are recorded as (national,conference)

Overall Offense: CU(6,1) MD(58,6)
Clemson has played one game more than the Terps so the stats are slightly heavy on the Tigers side. Offensively Clemson has dropped from the number one spot in overall offense in the nation to #6 (Hawaii of all teams now sits atop the rankings). Maryland comes in at number 58 with a balanced offense at around 1100 yards rushing and 1200 passing for 297 yards and 24 points per game. Clemson has the heavy rush offense with 2155 yards on the ground and 1650 through the air for 423 yards and 38 points per game. Clemson has 7 more penalties recorded for 14 more yards than the Terps.

Passing Offense: CU(62,4) MD(100,11)
The passing offenses are, amazingly, very similar in numbers. Clemson may have accumulated more yards (1268 v 1650) but the percentages are exactly the same at 59.2%!! Clemson has 183 yards per game and 13 TD’s through the air while the Terps come in with 158 yards and 9 TD’s. QB pressure has resulted in 7 Clemson INT’s and 5 sacks while Maryland has allowed 6 INT’s and 15 sacks. I think Gaines Adams and company will be adding to that fact given such a high number in sacks.

Rushing Offense: CU(3,1) MD(68,4)
Rushing is, without question Clemsons strongpoint. They are 1000 yards greater than Maryland with 2155 and almost double in production per game with 239.4. 28 TD’s are the result of the dynamic duo while the Terps have run it in 11 times. Clemson averages 6 yards per carry while Maryland stands at about 4. With the air and ground attack both teams are pretty balanced at a pass/run average of about 24/37 or about a 60% favor to the run.

Overall Defense: CU(12,2) MD(58,10)
Virginia Tech took over on total D after the showing in Blacksburg last week unfortunately. Both teams are more succeptable to the air attack with Maryland allowing 170 more yards in fewer games than Clemson’s 1375. Maryland has also allowed 550 more yards than Clemson’s 800 yards on the ground. Clemson has forced 8 INT’s while the Terp’s have taken in 5. Maryland is allowing 8 ppg and 120 ypg more than Clemson as well.

Pass Defense: CU(28,4) MD(47,6)
Both teams are equal on paper in this category for the most part, allowing about 15 completions on 29 attempts per game. Maryland has allowed more yards through the air though with 1541 and 192 per game versus 1375 and 153 yards per game for Clemson. 5 and 9 are the amount of TD’s allowed by Clemson and Maryland respectively through the air. Coincidentally, in opposition to their own offenses both teams have given up more first downs via the air than the ground.

Rush Defense: CU(20,5) MD(94,11)
Clemson has had 40 more attempts thrown at them on the ground but allowed 550 less yards than Marylands 1354 yards this season. That averages out to Clemson allowing 2.5 yards per carry to Marylands 4.9. Maryland has had the opposing team in the endzone via the rush 11 times while the Tigers have only allowed it 7.

Returns: CU(46,8) MD(19,5)
This stat has to be mentioned as Clemson is still shaky on the special teams coverage (VT gave no opportunity to see what would happen after the seemingly decent coverage versus GT). Maryland is 19th in the nation….wow, with an average return of 10 yards on punts and 24 on kicks. Given Clemson has had half as many kick return opportunities as Maryland they are averaging 27 yards perkick return and 7.7 yards per punt.

From these stats it seems that Maryland is not holding it together too well as Clemson is one game further in the season and is beating Maryland in all aspects of the game. Once again if the running game opens up for the Tigers it will be lights out for the Terps early in the game. The only trouble I see is if Hollenbach and his offensive line somehow hold off Gaines and Antonio. This could be trouble as Clemson still seems to be searching for the perfect fit for safeties and corners. Hopefully the stats don’t lie on this one and Maryland maintains its pass/rush ratio on both sides of the ball. Either way, look for the Tigers to come in pissed and ready to tear some heads off. Hopefully the Tigers put it away early and allow Spence to open up the passing playbook to exercise Proctor’s abilities and get his confidence back.

My guess for Saturday (barring injuries): Clemson: 35 Maryland: 20

We’re 7 games into the season.  We’re 6-1 and already bowl eligible.  Now we have 5 games left to determine if this season will have 13 or 14 games and which bowl we’ll go to.   Is this a championship season?  That remains to be determined but the potential is there.  And the the biggest remaining question mark looms in the form of Georgia Tech this weekend.  Although the next 4 games are all equal important to the overall ACC Championship Game question.

Georgia Tech:

Stat junky gnome, Clem, has already covered this one.  I’ve pored over the numbers myself.  I’ll even add that Sagarin’s computer rankings put Clemson at #10 and Georgia Tech at #35.

If this is to be a championship season, the team has to overcome all those short term negative trends that commentators and pundits love to spew to sell TV coverage.  This means beating Florida State in Tallahassee.  This means getting the Winston-Salem monkey off our backs.  Moreover it means beating Georgia Tech soundly: none of this 3 point-or-less bullshit.

Statistics and rankings aside, this is Clemson’s game to win.  To our advantage, I think our running game will prevail, Koenning will have a good defensive plan, and don’t forget about the homefield.  Georgia Tech has played only one road game this year.  If Clemson takes care of the ball, they should win by at least 12.  Altough I personally think the actual margin of victory will be closer to 8.

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The remaining ACC schedule is about 50% resolved on paper. The following results are this gnomes view on how the games should play out to favor the Tigers chances at the ACCCG and rankings.

Duke v FSU
Since the ‘Noles have dug themselves a hole I will be rooting for them so that our win over them and our division come out looking better. I say that as if there is a chance that the ‘Noles could lose but ya never know, the Tigers lost to the Dukies on their home field once!

Maryland v Virginia
Once again another team that the Tigers will play versus one that they won’t see in the season. And again, the way Virginia has been playing this year, I don’t think that there really is any question that the Terps won’t run away with it. After a close loss to the Jackets, the Terps should be looking to keep their season in tact with a win in UVA. Of course the loss could be demoralizing and have the Terps in a slump. A loss for the Terps would separate them from the top of the division with 2 losses in conference, but I don’t see that happening so if anything as win would strengthen Clemson’s schedule when they play the Terps in the Valley later in the season.

Miami v Fla Intl
Seriously, let’s just get to the remaining good ACC game. There hasn’t been a game besides VT and BC this week that isn’t already decided on paper. Miami needs to get some good press and needs to light up FAI. No Coker hotseat heat here for once.

UNC v South Fla
I would say that this game is an ACC lock but UNC is on a downhill slide this year and USF usually has a good team rolling for them. From my developing stats page USF has #54 overall offense and #28 overall defense. This could be Buntings farewell song and could be a good bottom dweller game to watch a small school get some props by playing and possibly defeating an ACC team.

NC State v Wake Forest
This is the ACC game, besides VT/BC, that Clemson fans will have their eyes on this weekend. After the undefeated streak ending, 4th quarter meltdown against the Tigers, the Deacs head to Raleigh, the giant killing field, to face a hot Wolfpack team. NC State may be on a high after knocking BC and FSU down a notch over the previous weeks and may not see Wake as that much of a threat. I look for Wake to keep their smoke and mirror offense alive and take the pack down for their first ACC loss thus propelling them to the 1 loss familiarity that is the Atlantic division.