South Carolina Recap: Piling on ClemBen's Rants

Brace yourself for the chorus of SEC love coming from every corner of ESPN.

• South Carolina's defense dominated with their pressure. Haven't seen this kind of Clemson O-line performance since the Maryland game. Not sure if it was Freeman or Austin bothered by injuries but we were getting beat bad. Matthews and Norwood are good athletes, but I don't think anyone expected them to completely have their way. It didn't help that we were pass-only mode after getting behind by so much.
• Whoever lost their assignment on the final SC touchdown play, that's a lose-your-scholarship kind of offense. You don't do that against your bitter rival, I don't care if the game is out of reach.
• Really the game was lost in the first half. Too many turnovers and stupid mistakes. If we hang onto the ball, we could have stayed with them on the scoreboard in spite of our defensive struggles.
• That being said, the offense was also hampered by some bad playcalling early on. We abandoned the run game in third and short, and SC was all over the short routes.
• The problems on defense that were manifest in the Virginia and N.C. State caught up with Clemson. We ran into a team that had the talent to consistently take advantage of our problems stopping the run.
• I know a lot of people expect us to do well against GT, but after this game I'm stuck wondering how we managed to hold them to 30 points last time.
• Hate to say it, but Carolina has put together a couple of good recruiting classes. Its not going to be easy in the next years.
• Just to echo ClemBen, can Brian Griese be any more of a complete tool? I know ESPN and the SEC have formed a pact (ESPN gets the SEC's support for the BCS through ESPN's BCS contract with the NCAA and the SEC gets an automatic birth in the championship game), but wasn't there another team playing Saturday? And didn't they have legitimate reasons to come out playing flat? I don't want excuses made by anyone for Clemson, but I'd expect the announcers to at least touch on their troubles in the last couple of weeks, instead of pretending that South Carolina came out of nowhere to run the ball on Clemson, thus proving the superiority of the SEC.
• Clemson's comeback against Butler saved this from being one of the worst sports weekends in recent memory. On top of the Gamecock debacle, the loss to A&M exposed some of the weaknesses of the basketball team that could hamper them for a while. Beating Butler gives us potentially a nice line on the tournament resume (although I'm not completely sold on Butler yet). I'll try and post something about the basketball team later in the week after I've settled down. Suffice it to say we only have two more chances to add to the non-conference resume: Illinois and South Carolina, with both games coming in the next seven days.