Playerspeak
Quoting Thomas Austin via Paul Strelow
“(Swinney) came up to me after Wednesday’s practice and said, ‘Thomas, you know, I think I cussed out everyone on the field.’ He said, ‘What do you think?’ I told him he probably came close. Then he said, ‘Tomorrow, I’m going over to the defensive side.’
“He’s a fiery coach who demands excellence. And when things aren’t going like they should, he’s going to let us know.
“That was good stuff. We needed that.”
Something about this reminded me of my time in frat club at Clemson. It very much sounds like the words I heard so many times at the end of the new member “education” sessions where the pledges promised they wouldn’t fuck up again, that they had learned their lesson, and they were so happy to have learned such an important lesson. They pledges told us what we wanted to hear. And they usually felt really bad about what they had done. For about 5 seconds.
We have to wonder whether Austin actually thought it was needed, or whether he thought it was best to say that he thought it was needed. Is he simply going through the motions, or is he sincere? Gauging from on-field performance, it would seem that most players are interested primarily in going through the motions.
I’m not the only one wondering about such things. Larry Williams (from whom I stole the title of this post) was thinking the same thing.
With playerspeak, everything is always wonderful when it’s in the present. Even in the face of severe adversity, players claim everyone is together and committed to turning things around.
This is the case at Clemson during the Tigers’ recent woes, and that’s the way it should be. If players came out and unearthed disputes and dissension, it wouldn’t be a good thing (not that there are in fact disputes and dissension taking place with this team — just saying).
Or even if they came out and said something like, “Yeah, we might as well go ahead and give up on the season,” that wouldn’t be a good thing either.
Nevertheless, the last 3-and-a-half seasons have conditioned me to almost nod off when I hear players talk about how great things are, even during extremely difficult times.
As the ceiling caved in on Clemson’s 2006 season, with the Tigers losing four of their last five games after a 7-1 start, we heard about all the seniors keeping the team together and all that.
When the Tigers suffered ugly losses to Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech in back-to-back games in 2007, we heard that things were different because the previous year’s team was filled with seniors who didn’t care.
Then last year, you could take your pick of debilitating moments — Alabama, Maryland, Wake Forest, Florida State, Nebraska.
A year later, C.J. Spiller tells us that last year’s team splintered. He says that won’t happen with this team because there’s much more chemistry.
I’m not discrediting what Spiller is saying. Just saying I don’t put a whole lot of stock in playerspeak.
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