Walker is a landscape architect . . . he knows a lot about grass. That why, when my lawnmower breaks . . . I call Clem, Bowman, or Broken Gnome. (who are mechanical engineers)

But when I want to fertilize my lawn properly and lay down two rows of shrubberies at different heights . . . Walker gets the call.

If you’re not actually competing against “the competition” and/or if you have pre-existing relationships with “the competition” then it doesn’t seem too outrageous to me.

I’m pretty sure that TB and Richt have a long history together. That was pretty well detailed in discussions about why Richt’s son chose to come to Clemson.

TB and Saban, apparently also worked together at West Virginia, way back in the day.

Beyond that, I think it’s also fairly well documented that coaches frequently work in cooperation, particularly in the offseason.

From Strelow:

[I]t is commonplace for head coaches and/or their assistants to tap into one another to share scouting reports and motivational tactics.

What makes this any more damming than when entire coaching staffs go to visit other staffs in the offseason to review their practice set-ups and playbooks? There are conventions where major college coaches share their diagrammed plays with the masses.

The only difference is that, at a time when Bowden is certainly going to face criticism for how Clemson flopped, this perpetuates the timely popular perception he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

His fault was answering a question with the truth.

There are definitely justifiable criticisms for Bowden because of how Clemson performed last weekend. But this is just fodder for angry fans and a few detached, cynical media members merely looking for a scab to pick.

I thought the whole reason was to see what they did to get their teams back on the metal track after the big losses last season (VT to LSU, UGA to USC and FSU, well that’s his dad and he has experience).

Tommy is just getting info from other successful coaches:

Saban just handed him his butt!

Beamer is a Special Teams FREAK (and wore out his Tigers last year)

Richt is a well know Christian Coach (just as Tommy, but with better success).

Father Bowden, is well, Father Bowden – he has been there and done that.

I think it is an awesome move. Learn from other great leaders. Maybe Bowden is trying something new? Maybe the Blind have lead the Blind long enough. It looks to me that Bowden is Damed if he do, Damned if he don’t! If it were, lets say, Les Miles, Urban Myer, Pete Carrol, (insert successful coach here) calling up other coaches and asking questions, we wouldn’t even second guess their decision – we would call them geniuses and praise the ground they walk on.

Hopefully we see a different Tiger team take the field in the coming games – maybe Bowden has had enough of tip toeing around and he is ready to get neck deep!

I dunno about Beamer and Saban, but apparently besides his ol’ Pappy, Tommy has a personal relationship with Mark Richt, which is what he might have been taking advantage of.

I’m sure there is some personal interaction among coaches. A lot of times after a big European soccer game, the management (sometimes including the coaches) have dinner with their opposing counterparts. Sure it’s business and it’s cursory business practices, tactics and the state of the game that they probably talk about, but a certain amount of personal interaction does occur even in the pro ranks.

This, on the other hand given the timing, seems to be like Bowden made an SOS call. It’s just spin, but Tommy just doesn’t seem to have the knack of playing the media to his side.

Guess I missed Broken’s comment about TB’s relationships with these guys.