Quick MTSU thoughts, a look ahead

While I feel its my job to inject some pessimism into the blog, I'll save it for the GT preview. But I do want to post a couple of quick thoughts:

• After the MTSU game, I felt like a high schooler suddenly reassured that the varsity team can beat the J.V. team. I guess its all the Stockstill & Co. talk getting to me.
• As such, the end results don't mean much but there were some positives to take away from the game. On balance, I liked the play-calling on offense (yay power formations!) and I liked what I saw from Parker, raw but displayed some pocket awareness and also should move around enough to keep opposing defenses honest.
• While its not predictive of future performance (because we were playing MTSU), was that the best single-game special teams performance in, I don't know, the last five years?
• Despite looking horrible Saturday, I'm thinking it ain't a bad thing having a player like Willy Korn around as the backup QB.
• The real season starts this week. I agree with Clemben's post below, but I would extend the "make or break us" sentiment to the next two weeks. We have one game that tilts against us and another that tilts towards us (I'm not nearly as down on BC as some others are, it seems). Lose both and its a long climb back into division contention.
• Miami did us a real favor last night. I don't expect them to lose any "how did that happen?" kind of game this year, so every close loss for FSU is a big plus for Clemson. Its still way too early, but with NC State's (and to a lesser extent, Wake's) disappointing start, it looks like Clemson could really contend. We'll see come Thursday.

GO TIGERS!!!

Middle Tennessee State Preview

MTSU vs. Clemson, 9/5, 6:00pm, Death Valley

The plan is for me and Clemben to both chime in before each game and give some brief thoughts on the games. We'll see how this goes...

TigerMax:

STOCKSTILL!!! (In case you haven't heard his name enough this week). Whatever. If this game is played 100 times, we win 99. The talent gap is just to large. I don't care about MTSU's secondary, or whatever former Tiger coach they have on staff. No excuses.

I had an epiphany the other night. You know who has the most to lose and who is probably up late, late at night in the run-up to these games? Dabo Swinney. You see, he kind of sold his head coaching candidacy in large part on his ability to motivate the players. So if they come out and play lose, or even play flat against a team like MTSU, that kind of undercuts the big "leadership qualities" paragraph on his resume.

We won't be losing, but I'll be watching to see how sharp and energetic the team looks. Because it's such an important, repeatable, head coach-influenced team trait.

Clemben:

Alright, alight enough with the pessimistic pansy attitude. I am really quite scared that Middle Tennessee State, which is not a state for any confused kids reading, will give us problems but with a day to go until the season starts its time to allow ourselves to put on the orange tinted glasses complete with neon flashing "ALL IN" written along the rims. We match-up well, solid secondary, ability to pressure and the team speed to match-up with just about anyone. The offense has Spiller as the safety valve--even in Spence's rubbish Spiller was always worth some points. We will struggle but they shouldnt have the D to shut us out. We win but dont blow them out-come on now, GT is all that matters.

So repeat after me--I'm all in...(u dont even need to know what it means), repeat again--I'm all in...(no one knows what it means), one more time--I'm all in (starting to feel a little better!), now stand up and say it out loud--I'm all in (preferably alone, it might get weird if people are around, give in to the DABO magic just dont go UT wildboys on me and keep your shirt on.

Its going to be a glorious season, thats it I'm saying it--we are going undefeated--believe it, its the only time in the season that you really can...