• 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!

Thanks to wonderful weather in the Pacific northwest, I was stuck in Reno for the night, unfortunately without time to take advantage of all that Reno has to offer. (It’s 4:30AM local time, I can’t sleep, and I have to make it back to the airport soon.)

While all that sucks, it was nice to see that Clemson Tiger basketball pretty much destroyed Miami last night. The final score was 91-72 and it was Miami, not Clemson, that was horrible from the charity stripe shooting only 12-27.

UPDATE: It’s now 10:10AM local time and I’m stuck at the airport riding the standby wave. I may easily be here until Wednesday; there’s a strong chance I won’t make it to my destination at all.

On the upside, it looks like Reno is a pretty fun place to be stuck in. And I’d like to add that I’m now a big fan of the Atlantis Hotel/Casino, as I reserved a room for $30 and was upgraded to a two-room suite with LCD screen, bar, and a slightly-sketchy in-bedroom jacuzzi tub. It’s definitely the best $30 hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. I just hope that if I get stuck here for another couple nights that I end up in the same room and that I don’t lose too much money gambling.

That’s good.

I caught the score just before the half. It was surprising to be that far ahead, but also thought, “we can totally blow this lead.”

Later, I caught the score with a few minutes left. We had totally blown the lead. Fortunately the lead was quickly recovered and retained. The final score was 79-69.

The next day I checked the ACC standings. We’re 3rd. That just doesn’t seem right.

Like last year, I have done my best to roundup all the competing post-spring/pre-season rankings.

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The Tigers decided to turn the heat up in Jacksonville last night as they once again dismantled the Florida State Seminoles in a 5-1 win. This is the 3rd loss for the Seminoles to the Tigers this season (FSU was the home team every time), too bad it came in a showdown for a chance at the ACC title game. It looked as if the Tigers had a handle on the game from the get go and never looked back. Their determination payed off as they now have a chance to play in the title game against the same team that knocked them out of the CWS last year; UNC. That all depends on how the Miami vs Wake Forest game plays out on Saturday. By the way, if you’re a Tiger fan, you will be rooting for the ‘Canes.

In other news, the football team just picked up a huge commitment in the verbal of the number 1 running back in South Carolina, Andre Ellington for the class of 2008. The short of it is he runs a 4.4 40 and had 1600 rushing yards and 15 TD’s his Junior year. He says that his verbal commitment is firm and that he wanted to get the decision out of the way before he underwent his senior season. This takes care of one of the two RB holes for next years class, let’s hope that the Tigers can pick up another stellar one to continue the RB lineage that James, CJ and Reggie have established in The Valley.

Yesterday afternoon’s game became last night’s game. The first pitch was more than an hour behind the scheduled 4PM start time. So I was quite surprised when I turned on the TV around 9PM and found the game still on and in the 12th inning. I’m glad I kept watching.

The 12th ended without much excitement, all tied at 3.

Miami was able to get things going in the top of the 13th. “Tomas led off with a double to left-center” that was more like a bloop single with a fielding error, “and went to third on a passed ball.” Yonder Alonso then knocked Tomas in on a sac-fly to center. Tomas, in case you didn’t know is fast. Very, very fast.

Then Clemson got fired up in the bottom of the inning. Doug Hogan hit a single that the shortstop just kinda gave up on. With Hogan on first, the hit-and-run was on but DJ Mitchell could only muster a pop-foul to the first baseman. 1 out. Addison Johnson drew a walk as the light rain and fatigue were starting to bother the Miami pitcher. With runners on 1st and 2nd, JD Burgess hit a high bouncer over the first baseman’s head and into right field, bringing Hogan home and moving Mitchell to 3rd. Brad Chalk was given the intentional walk to load the bases and open up the force out at home. Miami decided to bring in a new pitcher to face the left-handed Alex Lee. “I wonder if he’ll bunt it,” I told my girlfriend. Sure enough. Lee caught Miami off guard as he squared on the 0-1 pitch and hit a solid bunt past the pitcher on the left side where no one, and I mean no one, had a chance to field it. “And,” to borrow from Marty Brennaman, “this one belongs to the Tigers!”

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• The baseball team had gained some momentum before the Hurricanes came to town. That momentum is now gone, as the ‘Canes took the first and the third games of the series. Sunday’s Game 3 score was 7-6.
• The 8th ranked women’s tennis team went to Chapel Hill and kicked some baby blue ass this weekend. The #13 Tar Heels lost 6-1.
• Men’s tennis, on the other hand, lost on Friday to #2 Virginia 5-2. And they also lost to Virginia Tech 4-3. The lesson to be learned is that people from Clemson just don’t belong in Virginia.
• The bad news continues on into the world of men’s golf. The team finished 10th at the Administaff ASU Invitational. Coastal was first, UNC was 2nd. USCe finished 4th. The team did finish 8 shots better than 15th place USC-Aiken.

And for the golf team alumni at the Shell Houston Open:

• Lucas Glover missed the cut.
• J. Byrd earned $66,660 by finishing tied for 19th at -8.
• Matt Hendrix had three solid and one “oh my god what happened” rounds en route to winning $34,100 and finishing at -5.
• Charles Warren fared less well, but still made the cut. He finished tied for 66th at 2 over. His check was for $11,300.
• Finally, DJ Trahan finished all alone in the 8th spot. He was 10-under for the weekend and 11-under for the tournament. That performance was worth $170,500.

It may be worth noting that the 5 golfers above combined to win $282,500. I’m fairly certain they won more in a weekend that all the Gnomes make combined in a year. Which all goes to show that the time spent in the classroom would have been better spent harassing the cart girl.

Clemson’s future out-of-conference opponents are always up in the air, but at least we know which ACC teams we’ll play through 2015 (assuming the conference stays together).

2007 Clemson Football Scheduled Opponents (in no particular order)::
@Maryland
Wake
@ NC State
FSU
BC
@ Ga. Tech
@ Duke
Va. Tech
(OOC: Furman, UL-Monroe, some MAC team, SC)

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