• 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.

With the tournament looming, and the team’s NCAA aspirations hanging in the balance, I find myself right where I want to be: pessimistic to the point of not caring. Ever since the disaster against Virginia, I’ve been in a pretty bad mood. Things got worse with the lose to a miserable Wake Forest team. Things have improved though. The Tigers beat Miami and a ranked Virginia Tech team on the road. Plus after taking the league lead, Virginia got beat by the same sad Wake Forest team. Schadenfreude? You betcha.

Moving on, tomorrow the team plays Florida State at noon. Clemson is 21-9, FSU is 19-11, and both teams went 7-9 in conference play. Two of Clemson’s wins were against Florida State. Clemson tends to be ranked a bit higher by the computers, and Vegas favors them by 1.5.

In my view, there are two burning questions that have to be answered.
1.) Does Clemson have enough luck to win in what is almost a home game for Florida State?
2.) Is it worth skipping work tomorrow to watch the game on TV?

There’s no good way to predict the answer to #1. So I did what any rational person would do. I flipped a coin; heads=yes. Two flips led to 2 tails. You heard it here first.

The 2nd question isn’t as easy as it sounds. Watching the team lose is more painful than work. And as demonstrated by the coin flip, it’s going to be painful. Going back to the coin, it says to skip work.

And thus it is decided.

I saw the 17-10 final score of Virginia Tech’s win at Miami over the weekend. I even looked up the attendance at the Orange Bowl.

I just assumed that to score 17 points VT would have shown some kind of offensive compentency. Not quite.

Their offense at Miami was pretty much as bad as Clemson’s at Virginia Tech. Let’s compare.

Sean Glennon was 5 of 19 (26%) for 86 yards, 1 interception and 0 touchdowns.
Will Proctor was 11 of 28 (39%) for 86 yards, 1 interception and 0 touchdowns.

VaTech ran the ball 40 times, gained 99, lost 46, and netted 53, or 1.3 yds/rush.
Clemson ran the ball 28 times, gained 86, lost 6, and netted 80, or 2.9 yds/rush.

To be kinda fair, VT did lose 13 yards killing the clock at the end of the game.

VaTech had 3 penalties for 15 yards.
Clemson had 1 penalty for 5 yards.

VaTech had 5 three-and-outs and 8 punts.
Clemson had 8 three-and-outs and 10 punts.

VaTech was 3 of 14 on 3rd down (21%).
Clemson was 4 of 16 on 3rd down (25%).

VaTech won the battle of turnovers 3-1.
Clemson lost the battle of turnovers 2-1.

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…
Read the rest of this entry »

Luckily I went to bed after Proctor threw the interception at the beginning of the third quarter. Unluckily, I watched the first half. I should have avoided the game entirely as I had a bad feeling about a Thursday game in Blacksburg 5 days after such an emotional ride versus GT. The following are the stats for the game……coincidentally they look very similar to Clemson vs GT with Clemson standing in for the Jackets.

CU VT

First downs 8 15

Rushes-yards 28-80 58-224

Passing yards 86 108

Return yards 6-70 3-30

Comp-Att-Int 11-28-1 9-15-0

Punts 10-39.4 8-40.5

Fumbles-Lost 1-1 1-1

Penalties-Yards 1-5 3-22

Time of possession 24:10 35:50

Oh well, woulda shoulda coulda, the Tigers have absolutely no way into the ACCCG now if you look at what needs to be done (Wake lose 1 and BC lose 2). BC plays Wake, Maryland and Miami while Wake plays BC, VT, FSU and Maryland. So yeah the Wake thing could pan out but they and someone else has to beat BC. I don’t think this is going to happen, if it does I will be uber-elated. I just keep telling myself that Clemson has had one heck of a season with a injury stricken young successful team. Just imagine what nest years team will be like with all thees young guys coming back and a senior leader in Tremaine Billie leading the D.

Anyway, it’s one loss but it ain’t over. Feel sorry for the Terps as they come to the Valley next week to feel the wrath of a scorned Tiger team. Win out and the Tigers play in a decent bowl. Just hope that no one else forces us to throw the ball again.

So far we’ve only had one person reach us through a Google search trying to figure out where, exactly, Tommy Bowden lives on Lake Hartwell.  I expect this number to increase.

I did my best to not degrade GT after last week’s game (and how I wanted to) because I know that what goes around comes around. And how quickly it does.

Spiller and Davis “Thunder and Lightning” have the same looks in their eyes that Calvin Johnson and Reggie Ball had in their eyes last week.

Ain’t it a bitch?

I just wish that one player, one unit, or any part of the team would have shown up for this game. Nobody did.

How stupid does that “Chilling” post look now?  At the time it was only over the top.

So what did we learn, Clemson Nation? Well probably not much. Here’s what I knew, way ahead of time.

1. GT was big, but it was just the next game on the schedule.
2. Caring about uniform combinations is roughly equivalent to going out of your way to make sure your girlfriend’s purse matches her shoes.
3. GameDay means ABSOLUTE SHIT FOR THE FUTURE OF YOUR PROGRAM! Ask South Carolina who is about to have their 4th GameDay.
4. The WestZone doesn’t win nor lose any games for us.
5. Never, EVER, buy the fucking hype. (See: Notre Dame)

Here’s my humble suggestion to all the dozen Tiger fans that read this blog: if your thoughts aren’t centered around what happens on the field, then GROW A GODDAMNED BRAIN! Winning football has shit to do with a bigass stadium, purple uniforms, or television coverage. It has everything to do with showing up, playing with everything you’ve got, ripping people’s heads off, and shitting down their necks. My suggestion? Don’t get blinded by the lights. If “football” is about pomp and pageantry to you, you are the testosterone ridden version of the bitchy 15 year-old rich girl planning her Sweet 16 birthday party on MTV.

Congratufuckinglations!

To the VT Hokies, good job. You kicked our asses fair and square. You should be proud. I suggest you look at the points above, adapt them, and learn from them if you haven’t already.

Excuse me, I have to go break the fuck out everything I own.

Bored? Want to know what the Hokies are thinking about tonights game? Head on over to Tech Sideline and get your read on. Then ponder on how they came about naming themselves Hokies and allowing a Turkey to be their mascot……or at least I think it’s a turkey.