FEI Week 4

Another pitiful week for the ACC. Clemson, arguably acquitting itself the best in out-of-conference excitement, only drops four slots to #15. We're now ranked as the second best team in the country with two losses! Only Florida State comes out better, ranked #11. Why, you ask? Their losses have come at the hands of #9 Miami and #14 South Florida. Why are Miami and South Florida ranked so high? I have absolutely no idea...Florida bias, maybe? TCU moves all the way up to #10.

These rankings are still looking strange, but it's not like the Very Serious Polls (AP/Coaches) are performing any better. I still hold out hope FEI stabilizes in a few weeks to something a little more believable. Something we can all agree on, though: Maryland ranked #90. It's time for a rout.

Ken Massey's aggregate rankings have Clemson falling from #26 to #29, with Maryland at #97. It's time for a rout.

TCU Recap

Well, I've calmed down sufficiently to write something. But now I'm mired in the depression that always follows a loss, so we'll see how far I get. Who am I kidding? I've always got a reserve of deep-seated frustration to tap for these kind of posts.

Defense
Strong outing. Lost in all the post-game commentary is that TCU actually has a decent offense. Yes, TCU's passing game was hindered by the bad weather, lots of balls that probably should have been caught by TCU receivers (TCU more than made up for this with the lucky TD reception off the tipped ball and the once-in-a-lifetime catch made by Hicks on the second TD reception.) But the secondary looked good for the most part, I wish someone would have stepped up and and jumped a slant at some point, but for the most part they seemed content to play a little more conservatively, probably not a bad decision with the poor conditions. There's been lots of grumbling over the inability of the defense to adjust to the QB keeper, but looked to me like Clemson was focused on coverage and also wanted to keep the ball out of the running back's hands. The result was Dalton being left free on a few occasions to chew up some yardage, but TCU has a lot of weapons and if you're going to give them one, letting the slow QB carry the ball now and then isn't a bad idea.

Tackling watch: Not bad. I thought the defense looked a little tired at the end of the third quarter/beginning of the fourth quarter and it showed up in some lax tackling, the second level was getting dragged along for several extra yards at a time. Hard to blame them, though, since they were out on the field fo so long with our offense unable to muster a first down.

Offense
I'm gonna differ from most of the blogosphere here, and also ClemBen--I thought the playcalling was baffling at best. The scripted first drive was fine, but after that we were putting ourselves into too many third and longs. This resulted from: 1) too many pass plays and 2) too much running east to west and not north to south. Given the skill player strengths and experience in the offense, we should be calling at least a 55/45 run/pass ratio, particularly if we have the lead or its tied. After conditions worsened I wouldn't mind running this up to 65/35. Instead we were probably running the opposite (35/65 run to pass) to start the second half. Bizarre.

The good news is TCU has a good defense. Boston College has a good defense. The question becomes, what level of defensive crappiness is necessary for us to score regularly? If the answer is Middle Tennessee State, well, we should be able to score against Maryland, Virginia, and Coastal Carolina. If the answer is somewhere in between, we'll have a fighting chance against Miami, FSU, and NC State, as well. I should say the USuCk scares me at this point, but hey, Chicken Curse. I remain as confident as I am every year that we will stomp them into the ground. Mercilessly.

I already covered the red zone offense in the post below. As long as our offense struggles to move the ball anywhere on the field, I can't honestly think of why we should be expecting the offense to score once they get inside the magical twenty yard line. Its a fundamental problem with execution and inconsistent playcalling, not some failure to be "mentally tough enough" or some other garbage to score inside some arbitrarily-defined region of the field.

Special Teams
Good outing. I think we came back to earth a little after the last few great weeks, but we still got some solid returns and looked phenomenal in coverage. Can't ask for much more. Zimmerman's bad boot cost us at the end, but TCU's offense was able to move the ball enough at the end to put our backs against the end zone. And while Zimmerman had a great game up to that point, I think everyone in the stadium knew we were playing with house money on that last punt.

Major Coaching Decisions
Would have kicked the field goal. With the current state of our offense, we had a better chance at getting close enough to score two field goals then to suddenly gain the ability to catch a lob in the endzone. I'm not sure what makes Napier/Swinney think we had a chance to score a touchdown all of a sudden. I hope, hope, hope that Napier isn't on the sideline thinking, "Well, we've had so many chances up 'til now...somebody's gotta step up and make a big play sometime. Might as well be on 4th and 13 at the 16 yard line". Unfortunately, I haven't seen much of anything to indicate otherwise. Kick the field goal, take your three timeouts and entrust them to your better units, special teams and defense.

Can't wait to vicariously take out some frustration on Maryland this weekend.

Natl Championship Possibilities

So I have been wanting to write this post for some time but I realize that if we dont win today we cant win the natl championship so I better write this now, especially since Hairston is doubtful to play.

Indulge me if you will as we collectively don a pair of bright orange sunglasses. We have a shot at a natl championship still. Its like less than one percent of one percent but hey, its still possible. Here is how...

We need Miami to be a legit contender--if they beat VT and Ok then they will be in the top four maybe top two or three since everyone wants Miami back so badly. If that happens we will play them at Miami and will be able to make a statement. If we beat TCU and the other teams handily we should be ranked at that point. That puts us in the top 15. We want FSU to stay with its one loss when we play them and that win puts us near the top ten. Then we beat a South Carolina team that is ranked--maybe they have a crazy year and then we are beating a top SEC team. But I hate them and hate if they do well so whatever. Then we want to play Miami again in the ACC Champs bc we will be their only loss. They should still be top ten by then, maybe even top five depending and we will then be a legit one loss team looking for the natl champs game.

Well for this to happen we need Big Ten pansies to lose two games and the real USC to fall again, probably Cal too. We need either Florida or Texas to win out and beat the other teams up or everyone lose one game and then we can sneak in as the second team. It wouldnt hurt if GT didnt suck the rest of the way too. Oh yeah and Boise State needs to bite it too. But other than that is looks like smooth sailing...(and you know what I half believe it could actually happen)

TCU Preview

TCU vs. Clemson, 9/26, 3:30pm, Death Valley

Always feels good to type "Death Valley".

Tigermax:

I find the circumstances surrounding this game intriguing for several reasons:

1) It's a battle between a top three Mountain West team and, well...I think its pretty fair to say Clemson is top five in the ACC right now. But just how good is a top three Mountain West team relative to a top five ACC team? Sure, TCU crushed Virginia. But this is the same Virginia that lost to William & Mary the week before. I can't believe I just wrote that. (As an aside, I had a relative that attended William & Mary law school a while back. I happened to be living in the area at the time and paid a couple of visits. I was shown the campus and I immediately mistook the football "stadium" for a practice field. I even caught a couple of their games on a local channel that would broadcast Colonial League Football. It was a lot like high school football. What if Clemson lost in week one to that William & Mary team I saw on those Saturday afternoons not so long ago? I think my head would explode.) Anyways, TCU went on to struggle against Texas State the next week before pulling away in the fourth quarter. In the process, they gave up 21 points to a Division II team while playing their starters. All this is to say, while TCU has a reputation for a dominant defense, it hasn't exactly shown up yet this year.

2) Related to #1. FSU is coming off a trouncing of a different top three Mountain West team, on the road. A strong showing at home against TCU is necessary to show the Clemson program is moving in the right direction, too.

3) USuCk just beat the #4 team in the country in Columbia. We have the #15 team tomorrow.

4) Depending on how many "I can't believe they just lost" games FSU has between now and November 7th, this could be the highest ranked team to visit Death Valley this year.

5) Swine flu. How many players have it? How many will be affected by it? Don't give me that "its been contained to five players and no new names have been added to the list crap." You don't "contain" swine flu. And you don't let the other team (or even your own players) know how badly you are hurting going into the game.

Lots of factors coning together before the game, combining to make this the biggest question mark on the schedule. As for the game itself, despite not being totally convinced of TCU's defensive abilities, I'm expecting a low-scoring struggle. Clemson's best strategy to win the game might be to emulate last week and turn the game into a field goal shootout, using special teams to exert control on field position. If TCU shows up and starts driving the ball on possession #1 though, we're in for an ugly afternoon. I don't think its gonna happen, though. Call me crazy and full of this unexpected confidence, but Kevin Steele has made a believer out of me. At least for one week.

Clemben:

I have a slightly different take on TCU than TigerMax for this reason. I think Gary Patterson is a good coach and his entire season is riding on beating Clemson. His BCS chances hinge on this game. He didnt have to show much offensively or defensively these past two weeks so we may see TCU light years ahead of there last two performances show. That being said I think our D is as stout as theirs and we have Mr. Spiller. I think its going to be a tough match-up and a lot depends on if and how much Chris Hairston plays. If he is unable to go I think we win by one point 17-16 and if he is in and plays well then 4 points 17-13. Hows that? We need Parker to be on his A game for sure.

Look for TCU to give us all they got but its time to get fired up--we get another chance at a top 15 team and hopefully Miami can beat VT and Oklahoma so we can go and beat them at home on route to our second national championship. Oh did I mention the ALL IN, ALL ORANGE food fast has begun. Oh yeah, I'm drinking the orange kool-aid already....

Go Tigers!! Beat those horned frogs!!

FEI Week 3; More OL Venting

Clemson up three spots to #11, likely the result of beating the #26 team BC. If BC keeps playing like it did last Saturday, I expect we won't be benefiting from that victory too much longer. For those of you interested, TCU is at #27, so this Saturday should be just another repeat of the BC game, right?

Clemson took a big jump in the Ken Massey aggregate rankings, up at #23 after being #36 last week. TCU tumbled from #10 to #15. It was a rough week for Mountain West schools, and a relatively good week for the ACC. Hey, maybe FEI wasn't terribly wrong after all? Clemson-TCU will give us another data point in the analysis.

Also wanted to draw attention to this excellent post on the offensive line a few days back by DrB. The ClemPson guys are prolific writers, so it might have slipped through unnoticed. Somehow I also missed the post from last year, which is much the same effect. Just to highlight a couple of passages, but really, it should be read in its entirety. Here, when talking about where to spread the blame for the O-line failures:

Whose fault is this? Brad Scott's. He has been OL coach since Spence came on staff. He is regarded as one of the best? By who? Show me who comes calling for him? Brad can recruit in this state, and has built many contacts, but what good does it do us to recruit and not develop? Was that lesson not learned over the last 9 years? If you bring them in and they do nothing, its on the coach. Its either bad evaluation in the beginning, or bad development; either way its on Scott.

In my eyes, in the last 2-3 years Clemson has been plagued by two problems that have absolutely infuriated the fanbase because they shouldn't happen with proper coaching: 1) poor tackling technique on defense and 2) inability to get any kind of push from the offensive line in the run game (we can debate the line play in 2007, there were obviously multiple factors going on there--but I think everyone agrees the level of play on the O-line was well below expectation). Its still early and there have been some relapses (first quarter of the GT game) but problem #1 looks like it is coming under control after one offseason under Kevin Steele. Thank God. Problem #2, however, looks about as bad as ever. There are flashes of ability mixed into every game (even in the BC game), but nothing resembling consistency has materialized.

But to tell the truth, we are not missing assignments altogether...We are BLOCKING the guy we're supposed to hit, but we arent PUSHING him anywhere, that comes down to technique. Its one thing to hit your man, but its another to knock him on his ass...Our technique is what needs work, thats what a coach is there for.

I can't pretend to know the politics in the Clemson athletic department or the football team. But what I can say, and what I tried to point out in my last post below, is that it seems that Swinney has at least some grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of the team and has tried to make changes appropriately (unlike his baffling predecessor). I refuse to believe that he doesn't see the O-line struggles; he's seen the deterioration along the O-line first-hand. Maybe Pearman was brought in as a way to "push" Brad Scott, give him some motivation. But that begs the question as to why he just wasn't removed in the first place, its not like he's got a stable of hand-picked 5-star recruits for 2010. There has to be something going on here that hopefully resolves itself before the start of the next offseason. Or maybe, just maybe, we see some real improvement one of these weeks?

However if Thomas Austin is so good, and Hairston is the "Spiller of the OL" as Dabo says, why do we not have HUGE holes open on the left side and more run plays designed to go there?...This tells me that either Austin and Hairston arent the all-star types they've been made out to be, or Napier is dumb. Its one or the other.

One minor quibble here--it could easily be both.

Quick Boston College Recap

Got company in from out of town, so got to throw up some thoughts quick or wait several more days. It's pretty clear that I overestimated BC in my preview, so my enthusiasm is a bit more tempered than one might otherwise expect coming off a 25-7 thrashing. BC's offense is still a work in progress (hey, I know another team that has that same problem, and they were playing on the same field last Saturday!), and they just didn't look like a contender on Saturday. But hey, you gotta thrash the non-contenders on your way to a championship. To the bullet points!

Defense

• 2 straight dominant starts against ACC opponents. Absolutely controlled the line, and the secondary looked good in coverage all day (how about that McDaniel, huh?)
• Did I just watch an entire Clemson football game featuring solid individual and team tackling on defense? A sight for sore eyes. (How about that McDaniel, huh?)
• As bad as BC's offense looked, its good to keep in mind they still feature a large and talented (if raw) offensive line. We weren't overwhelming some Division II line.
• Welcome to the land of "living up to your much-hyped potential", Mr. Sapp. Stick around a while, please.

Special Teams

• What can I say? I scoffed at our performance against MTSU, waiting to pass judgement until we faced some quality opponents. Well, the verdict is in: We are freakin' awesome.
• I'll try to expand on this with another post later in the week, but special teams has really been an offensive and defensive weapon for us this season by allowing us to control field position relative to the other team. Sure, Zimmerman is a bit of a weak link but it hasn't mattered much thanks to excellent coverage and excellent returns.
• Let's not forget Richard Jackson. All we need is a game-winning kick for the David Treadwell comparisons to start.

Offense

• Yeah, what do you say? Parker is telegraphing his passes and making some poor decisions, never a good combination. The O-line got very little push, enough for us to occasionally pick up a first down but not enough to establish any consistency. Struggled to execute downfield blocking, resulting in quite a few plays that were blown up before getting started.
• Bad bubble-screen flashbacks (even though I actually like the bubble screen when called on occasion, like once every couple of games in the right situation)
• One thing to keep in mind, though: this lackluster performance came at the hands of a good defense. I was wrong about the state of BC's offense but I will still argue that BC's defense could end up being one of the better we see all season. I thought they had excellent play in the secondary, and they were a disciplined, strong team that was able to consistently push through our blocks. The O-line is never going to dominate a team for four quarters, but that was a tough assignment.
• Unfortunately for us, though, it doesn't look as though things will get too much better until after next week, as TCU has an allegedly good defense.
• Good news on Hairston's injury, though.

Putting Down the Orange-Tinted Glasses (this year, anyway)

Around this time of year I've always managed to convince myself, no matter the circumstances surrounding the team, that this is the year Clemson once again captures the national title. Not just the ACC title or a BCS birth, but the national title. I've been pondering over the last couple of weeks why this year is different.

I think its the combination of several factors creating a perfect storm-type of situation. First, while Clemson football has always been my first rooting interest in any sport at any level of competition, Clemson basketball is a close second. The success of the basketball team and the promise of the season ahead has definitely occupied some of the time I would normally spend gauging the football teams chances.

Second, the uncertainty of having Swinney at the head. I haven't commented on this much before but when he was hired, I wouldn't say I was upset but I wasn't particularly excited, either. My reasoning: I wasn't sure the Clemson AD could/would have made a better hire in Swinney's stead, and I was attracted to the argument that he represented a smooth transition for our scouting, arguably the best part of the Bowden years (feels good to say "the Bowden years", doesn't it?). But then he hired Billy Napier as the offensive coordinator, which absolutely shocked me--our offense is currently led by two guys with little experience ever leading one. Experience is generally overrated, but you know whats not overrated in an offensive coach? Having previously implemented an offensive scheme of your own design. Now, every step Swinney has made since then has been reassuring, including turning a potentially mediocre recruiting class into an average one, the emphasis on aggressiveness, and most recently the revelation that the offensive playbook has been pared down significantly. But still, I can't shake the feeling that we have a head coach that got his job by selling himself on unquantifiable coaching tropes like "natural leader", "knows how to connect with players", "knows how to rally the troops", "inspires by example", etc. etc. While his predecessor certainly seemed to lack these qualities, I still maintain that the better perceived team play after Bowden's departure had more to do with a healthy and more synergistic offensive line than Swinney's magical hold on the team and, in fact, if Bowden stays on the results probably wouldn't have been that different. (As an aside, let me be clear that I'm glad Bowden is finally gone. What a whiner.)

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, while the overall talent on the field isn't appreciably worse than last year, it certainly isn't better. I don't see a fix to the major problems that have plagued us most of the last few years--linebackers that are athletic and can hit but can't tackle (I don't care how bad TCU's defense is, if Clemson hasn't improved its tackling they'll run up 30 points on our defense--Mountain West teams know how to get into the second level) and the offensive line is a question mark (maybe not as much as last year, I'll grant you). Add to this a starting redshirt freshman at QB and the baffling problems our talented defensive line had last year getting upfield, I see us as a 6-8 win team on talent.

All of that being said, there's reason for hope: parity in the Atlantic division. Win a couple of close games over the right teams and we could be in the ACC title game with a 5-3 or even 4-4 conference record.

One last point--while I haven't managed to convince myself this is "the year", that doesn't mean I'm not ready to watch some football. GO TIGERS!!