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

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Clemson lost the 2nd game to Wake. It was knotted up at 2 until the bottom of the 9th. There isn’t much else to say about it.

The Tigers play again today at 4 against Florida State. If the Tigers pull off they upset, they can advance to the championship game if Miami beats Wake Forest.

Sources: Read the rest of this entry »

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.

The basketball team is done.

The done as in finished part is correct. But there is absolutely no comparison to made that suggest that the team is hot.

After starting 17-0 (3-0), they’ve lost 7 of the last 9 to sit at a lukewarm 19-7 (5-7).

Eternal optimist I am not, and I see a high probability of this team, which seems to have forgotten to win, losing it’s remaining games to Duke, BC, Va Tech, and even lowly Miami. Today they got destroyed 82-66 at home by Maryland.

The Terps (20-7, 6-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) saw its [sic] 12-point second half lead slip to 59-58 on Cliff Hammonds’ driving basket with 8:19 to go. But Strawberry, despite the Clemson crowd’s singsong chants of “Darryl, Darryl” about his famous baseball playing dad, scored eight of Maryland’s next 15 points to regain control, 74-63.

You can’t say that Clemson fans aren’t classy…

Anyway, I already said that the team has forgotten to win, and at this point it also appears that they’ve forgotten that games last for 40 minutes. And for that, Virginia, Wake Forest, and Maryland are all eternally grateful.

With the season winding its way to a gut-wrenching halt, and a 19-11 final record looming, I am remind that our basketball team never makes sense or does things that others describe as “likely.” Therefore it would be in character for the ol’ Tigers to show up against Duke on the 22nd and pull out a victory. However, I am not betting on it. I will bet on three things:

• 1.) A horrific loss at the hands of Krzyzewski,
• 2.) A bunch of really lame taunts and gags demonstrated by the Clemson faithful in attendance that will refer to our last, poorly officiated game against Duke and/or to their lacrosse team, and/or maybe even black strippers, and
• 3.) After the loss the Clemson faithful will blame John Swofford and the ACC.

To wrap up this post o’ sunshine, I will summarize: Clemson finishes the regular season 19-11 (5-11) to earn the pre-season predicted 9th place ACC finish; they lose their first ACC tournament game just like they lost their last 6 league games; the vocal Clemson fans will blame Swofford & the ACC; and the Tigers will become a bubble team for the NIT where they’ll drop their first game to end the season at 19-13 (the same as last year). Or in other words: “just like football.”

PS – There’s no need yet for you to buy me a “Fire Oliver Purnell” shirt nor fireoliverpurnell.com nor firecoachpurnell.com (neither of which are registered). Suicide watches will also be unnecessary. This time.

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)

Read the rest of this entry »

As I waded through some old bookmarks yesterday, I ran across the BC blog For Here Men Are Men. According to FHMAM, head coach Tom O’Brien just isn’t good enough. They want him fired and do not mince words about it. I guess I just have a hard time being too critical of a coach who, including this year, has four 9-win seasons among the last 6, as well as a 52-22 record for those seasons. That’s a 70.2 winning percentage.

FHMAM may get their wish though. Sort of. Stanford has a job opening and Tom O’Brien may be as eager to leave Boston as FHMAM is to get rid of him.

On the surface that would make sense for Stanford and for Tom O’Brien. But what the hell is Boston College going to do?

If O’Brien leaves, BC will have successfully chased off one of, if not THE, most successful coaches in their history. O’Brien will have left because of a lack of support from the college and the fans. College football isn’t the most important thing in that region, let alone the state. Hell, BC isn’t even the most important college in that city. I really don’t know who they expect to lure into such an attractive position.

But if that’s what BC wants, that’s really up to them. I suspect their odds of finding a better coach — especially for the long term — are quite slim. But in the words and spirit of Peter Gibbons, “I hope your firings go really well.”

PS – I have a hard time labeling Jim Grobe as a “great coach.” He’s certainly had a great year, and Coach-of-the-Year honors are deserved. But was he a “great coach” when he went 6-5 in 2001? Was he a “great coach” when he went 7-6 in 2002? How about 5-7 in 2003? Or 4-7 in 2004 and 2005? Time will tell, but he won’t get my very important seal of approval just yet.

In case you’ve been living under a rock or hiding beneath an umbrella for the last 24 hours, I’ll let you know that Wake Forest slogged its way to a 9-6 victory over Georgia Tech in rainy Jacksonville.

This game was boring to an extreme. The lack of excitement meant I was left alone with my thoughts, which I’ll try to replicate below.

I couldn’t believe that Wake and Georgia Tech were actually playing in a championship game. Take away all the extra signage, and the layperson would have had no clue that this was a game of significant importance. But not only was this particular game bad, the informed viewer realized that the two teams’ only particular trait is that they are good at not-losing.

I’m willing to put money on the table right now that Georgia Tech will be the surprise team of 2007. I don’t know who all leaves the team, but the departure of 9-for-29 Reggie Ball may be the best medicine the team could ingest.

That the game was between Wake and GT underscored the crappiness of the ACC this season as well as how bad Clemson screwed up by dropping 3 league games to teams that did not make it to the championship game.

And finally, could Alltel stadium have been any emptier? The extremely poor attendance could be attributable to a number of things: the schools playing or the weather, perhaps. But I’ll go on to say that I’m not a big fan of Jacksonville and that it just may be the case that no one else is either. Jax isn’t really far enough south to get the advantages of “Florida weather” and its otherwise not central to… well anything really. Now I don’t know that there are any cities which can draw a crowd regardless of teams, but it seems to me that Jacksonville is not that city.

I’ll finish with words borrowed (stolen?) from SMQ:

Congrats and all, good luck in Miami, but damn, this is hardly a champion to get excited about, in a league won by pure, grisly attrition.