Game of the Week

All right people, I am currently sitting in my last class of the week, which just happens to be a waste of time. Since I am bored to death I decided to give my opinion on what I think the game of the week is. You might think that my choice is going to be the Alabama vs LSU game. However, I am one of the few people in this part of the country that has not partaken of the SEC Kool aid. I don't think that the SEC is all that great this year. Granted Auburn is one of the best teams in the country and LSU and Alabama are good too, but the rest of the SEC isn't that great.

Having said that allow me to present to you my choice for the game of the week:

Number 3 TCU at Number 5 Utah.

These are two programs that are on the rise. TCU has talented players and competent coaching staff. while they are not in a BCS team they have been scheduling tough non-conference opponents.

Confession: I am a closet Utah Utes Fan. This is a great program to get behind. They have been making the right decisions in terms of staff and recruiting, they have two BCS wins over the last decade and they are moving to the Pac-10 to face a tougher schedule. this program has decided that they are going to be a national contender, they are moving in that direction and it won't be long before they arrive.

Prediction: Utah 42 TCU38

Bitterness

O.K. to both of readers (thanks Kevin and Mom) sorry for the lack of posting over the last few weeks but I have been very busy with all of the high stress demands of grad school and on-line scrabble tournaments.

As a Clemson fan allow me to say that last week was beautiful. Clemson played Georgia Tech and won 27-13. It was a great game! Historian and I drove down to Clemson, tailgated with my brother and his family and had a blast watching the game in Death Valley. The game gave me great hope for salvaging Clemson's season. PJ's triple option attack was completely stopped and our offense was balanced and effective. I was filled with hope as I thought daring thoughts like"our OC isn't a no talent ass-clown after all" and "finally our receivers are catching the ball" and "it's good to see Jamie Harper making good decisions with the ball".

But, alas, we could not carry such momentum into the BC game this week. We lost the most pitiful excuse for a football game I have ever seen. Two missed field goals, 3 turnovers and countless miss thrown balls cost us the game at BC who is now 3-6. It turns out my daring thoughts were wrong. Our receivers cannot catch the ball, Jamie Harper is a terrible Back and most importantly the OC is in fact a no talent ass-clown! I cannot emphasize that last part enough BILLY NAPIER IS A NO TALENT ASS-CLOWN.

Dear Billy,

You're terrible. Please go back to coaching QB's, preferably at some community college in Oklahoma.

Thanks,

Every who gives a damn about Clemson Football

The following is my sense of how things will shake out this weekend. These are the games that I am interested in and I am basing my not-so-professional opinion on what I have seen from these teams thus far in the season.

- Maryland 24 at Clemson 28: My hope against hope and wish against wish is that the Clemson coaching staff will make the right personnel calls and Billy Napier will not be a moron with play calling.

- no 12 Arkansas 30 at no 7 Auburn 33: I give this game to Auburn for three reasons 1. Auburn's Defense is a little bit better than Arkansas 2. Arkansas is 96th overall in rushing yards. This may seem like small beans considering that they have one of the best passing attacks in the nation but they will need to be able to run the ball against this stout SEC defense. 3. Home Field advantage always helps.

-no 10 S. Carolina 35 at Kentucky10- I don't feel the need to say anything more than: it's Kentucky

I have been extremely pissed off over the last few weeks. So pissed off that I am just now calming down enough to talk about it. As a Clemson fan I get pissed when I see a talented team sitting at 2-3 record in the middle of October. What's worse is, my team is 2-3 and USC is 4-1 with a win over Alabama. Clemson has recruited some of the best talent over the last few years and what do we have to show for it? A fecking music city bowl trophy!

I don't blame the players I blame the entire offensive staff and the Head coach. I can handle our first loss to Auburn, we actually looked very good in that game but just had a bad 3rd quarter. But in the following loss we had SIX turnovers against Miami. Jacory Harris had three touchdown pass on us, JOCORY HARRIS c'mon.

Last week's loss is the worst of all. We lost N. Carolina's second string, wtf? They have the 85th ranked rushing defense in the country while Clemson has the leading rusher in the ACC in Ellington who is averaging 7 ypc. Naturally you would assume that our basic approach is to run Ellington straight at them right. Well it seems that our OC did NOT natural assume this, Ellington only got 13 touches in the game. When we did run the ball we used an inferior back and we threw to a terrible receiving corp that cannot catch the ball if the wanted to. Play calling and personnel decisions were terrible, in short bad coaching cost us two of our three losses.

There were some bright spots though over the last few games. Da'quan Bowers is finally living up to his five star potential. "Nuke" Hopkins is a young WR who made a few plays and gave great effort in Saturday's loss to UNC. Hopkins is a true freshman who should be a dominate go-to receiver when he gets the system down. Also Jaron Brown made a big catch this week and if he gets consistency he should be decent threat. right now Brown and Hopkins are our best shot at deep threats.

I would like to conclude this post by saying a few words to Dabo Swiney our Head coach " Fire your asst head coach Brad Scott, His son Jeff who coaches the wide receivers and most importantly fire the OC Billy Napier." These three will make excellent sacrificial lambs at the end of the season.

Hogg-ed Determination

Like all football fans, I have stuck with my team through highs and lows. However, only a few fans truly know what it is to watch as your team defeats itself. Every year as an Arkansas Razorback fan I see a team that has the tools to win. Even when the Hogs have tough years, they often seem to be in the bigger games. Then one only has to sit back and watch as they shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers.

As always, this year Arkansas was the subject of high expectations. Most of our offensive tools had returned, the defense was bent on improving, and the maturity level of the team had been on an obvious rise. Winning the first road game of the season in dramatic fashion was especially enjoyable. Excitement could never have been higher than going into today's game against #1 Alabama. And it was paying off. The Razorbacks came out firing, and even though Alabama answered at first, Arkansas was on top going into the half. Most of the third quarter looked great as well, with the Hogs holding onto the ball for the first seven minutes and scoring - though not a touchdown - making the day look like revenge for Alabama's 35-7 victory last year. However, everything went downhill from there. The Arkansas defense stopped putting pressure on Greg McElroy, a couple of dropped Arkansas passes, two interceptions - though Mallett's decision on the second was a good one - and an inability to get the ball back with a minute left in the game spelled doom for the Hogs against the #1 team. Describing the feeling of dejection and pain is impossible.

Here's the good news: Arkansas is still strong. The talk the last few weeks has been about the maturity of the team. Now is the time to show that maturity. Put this game behind you, prepare for the next one. Forget about the mistakes, play to the highest level the rest of the way. The only way to get through this league is through determination and sound play. That's what the Razorbacks need now and that's what fans will not only hope for but expect. Because those expectations are everything a fan needs.

FSU Disillusionment

If you keep up with the ESPN conference blogs, particularly Heather Dinich's ACC blog you will note nothing but constant criticism of the ACC's performance this past weekend. No doubt the embarrassing pair of losses by the tech schools and an thrashing of FSU merits some criticism, but there is a something greater going on for Heather Dinich than meets the eye. What would that be? Well, I am glad you asked: she has FSU disillusionment. What I mean by this is simply that she found out what the rest of us already knew: FSU, Jimbo Fisher and Christian Ponder are garbage. Yes, the glory days of FSU are gone and unlikely to return soon, Jimbo Fisher was able to beat some community college in his first game but a community college and Oklahoma are two different worlds. I have already commented on Christian Ponder in previous posts, kindly refer to them for further information.

Seriously, go to Heather's blog sometime and look at some of the stuff she says about Ponder.She is like a 13 year old girl who has a crush on one of her older brother's friends. The phrases she uses to describe him include bur are not limited to Heisman hopeful, one of the best QBs in the nation, MVP of the ACC, Ponder for president, 3rd horseman in the Apocalypse, etc.

So, to Heather I say: I know it is tough when you are the last person to realize that the team you love is common community college trash. I know it is tough when you realize that the coach you put all your money on can't tie up his own football cleats . I know it is tough when you realize that the QB you thought was going to win the Heisman is actual a no talent assclown. In spite of all of that please get out of FSU disillusionment and cover the rest of the teams like NCSU, BC, Maryland, UVA and Clemson. In short, we all knew it and we are grateful that you finally realize it too. Welcome to reality.

Games Of the Week

With it being the second week of the season most teams are still in their tune up games. Yes, many teams are still playing powerhouse school like Southwest Corner of Michigan State Community College. But there are few games worth watching:

1. Georgia at South Carolina
2. Florida St at Oklahoma
3. Miami at Ohio St
4. Penn St. at Alabama

Yes, Just one more week of cupcake schedules and real football can begin!

Clemson vs FSU McDaniel on Ponder Collision after interception

Stories I'm Already Tired of Hearing About

As I was going about my lunch time perusal of football websites (mostly ACC related) I kept running across the same story lines over and over again. This should not be so shocking since all of these writers are talking about the same games and conference activity over the weekend, right? Well there is just one problem. They are talking about the same story lines as they were over the summer and spring. The main offender is ESPN ACC blogger Heather Dinich. So, Heather, here are a few stories that I just don't give a damn about anymore:

1.Mark Herzlich: Don't get me wrong I am happy for the guy's overcoming cancer and that he had a good starting game. But after all the talk of this guy you'd think he was the only defensive player in the ACC or even the NCAA for that matter.

2. Bye Bye Bowden: Hats off to Bobby Bowden for his long and effective tenure at FSU but the man is retired, quit, fired or forced out (no on really knows how it went down) so let the story die already. Also, I hate to break it to you this is not the 90's, no one outside of Tallahassee cares about FSU anymore, nor do we care about Jimbo Fisher.

3. Christian Ponder: No, He won't win the Heisman Trophy. Why? Because he is garbage. Seriously, the way Heather Dinich talks about this guy makes wonder if he sneezes gold bars. View clip above to see my point.