So I have an in-law that is a huge SEC and overall college football fan. In fact, he won the scout.com pick-em polls a few years back. This prompted scout to give him a shot at his own SEC blog on their college football news website. He has started up the preseason processions with the declared love of the SEC and blah blah blah they are the national powerhouse (He is an Auburn grad after all), and actually gave some love to USC and their 2001 entrance being the official opening of the SEC season (to which I promptly rebuked him for even recognizing a piped in theme song as anything but retarded and lazy).
His most recent article is looking at the predictions of how the teams of the SEC stack up this year. He surprised me by not jumping the Noshawn Moreno bandwagon and giving it all to Georgia, but in fact has a pretty balanced argument for the top tier teams. The best part of the entire entry, though, is the point where he calls South Carolina and Darth Visor Pushovers in the conference.

“South Carolina : The Steve Spurrier experience has been a complete and utter disaster, he was not brought to Columbia for Liberty Bowls and 6-6 seasons. They have no quarterback to lead the team and Stephen Garcia is begging for a one way ticket back to the state of Florida . While the defense may be good next year the offense will put them in such poor field position with turnovers and a total lack of consistency the defense will be wasted. Steve Spurrier is an elite SEC coach, but his time spent at South Carolina will be finished with the sentence “I guess Lee Corso was right.”

I continued banter with him on email as I berated him on his prediction of Bama over Clemson in the opener. He sent an email back that said that the South Carolina prediction had ignited so much Gamecock fan email that he couldn’t keep up in the first day of posting. I told him that retaliatory gamecock email is always fun….once you comb over it with spell check. i am trying to get some responses from him so that I can post it here so we will see.

In the mean time, the CFN has a preview and predictions for most of the ACC up. So it’s not like you are doing anything at work so go read up on the hype that is ACC football.

For some reason which no one seems to understand, none of the in-site links go to anything. Yet for some reason, the entire back-end which allows us to post is fully functional. But fear not, the people we pay 6 six dollars a month to take care of these problems are working diligently behind the scenes to resolve the problem. I’m sure it won’t take long to fix, just as I’m sure this sentence won’t leave sarcasm residue on your monitor.

Update [2008-06-22] The site is back in working order. I have no idea what the problem was, but an upgrade of the blog software fixed things.

Also, 68 days until kickoff!

This gnome has been paying very little attention to the hoopla of pre-season polls. However I am aware — and alarmed — that we seem to be consensus top-25, if not top-10 picks. It’s frightening. Fortunately, we can all relax because I found a list that doesn’t include Bowden, none of the Bowdens actually.

Via Rivals’ Fanblogs, the Rivals 2008 Football Power Rankings: Football Head Coach category:

1. Pete Carroll (USC)
2. Jim Tressel (Ohio St.)
3. Urban Meyer (Florida)
4. Les Miles (LSU)
5. Bob Stoops (Oklahoma)
6. Mark Richt (UGA)
7. Frank Beamer (VT)
8. Jim Grobe (Wake)
9. Tommy Tuberville (Auburn)
10. Mack Brown (Texas)
11. Dennis Erickson (ASU)
12. Steve Spurrier (USCe)
13. Nick Saban (’Bama)
14. Mark Mangino (Kansas)
15. Rich Rodriguez (Michigan)
16. Gary Pinkel (Missouri)
17. Bronco Mendenhall (BYU)
18. Brian Kelly (Cincinnati)
19. Jeff Tedford (Cal)
20. Mike Riley (Oregon State)
21. Jim Leavitt (South Florida)
22. Mike Bellotti (Oregon)
23. Mike Leach (Texas Tech)
24. Pat Hill (Fresno State)
25. Bobby Petrino (Arkansas)

With it we get some commentary from Fanblogs like:

- How do you put Steve Spurrier at #12? Can you name a game last year where Spurrier’s coaching *won* a game for South Carolina? Oh, well there was that one. But still… this *seems* like a legacy ranking.

- Is it just me… or is this a very West Coast heavy list? Pat Hill?????

I’m sure we all agree about the Spurrier issue. But West Coast heavy? I mean, 7 out of 25 sure seems like a lot, but considering that all the Bowdens are on the East Coast, I think it makes sense. Besides, the number of West Coast teams does not exceed the number of SEC teams (7), so I think we’re ok.

And maybe we should go ahead and agree right now, that if the team does well this year, it is despite, and not because of, HC Tommy Bowden.

Get your pre-season fix on with these dedicated Clemson Football publications:

Tiger Time. This magazine is flat out awesome in all aspects of a magazine. High gloss, good binding, in depth news, reviews, interviews and tons of pictures.

CU Tigers. I would grab this one off of a news stand if you can as an annual subscription may not be your cup of tea. Another good publication, but in terms of coffee table worthiness, doesn’t hold a candle to Tiger Time.

And for those who need the pre-season college football fix, I hear Steele’s is the best (although the sporting news from last year was good as well.

Courtney Vincent officially will be off the team come this season. According to reports on ESPN and TigerNet, Vincent had been suspended for a violation of team rules which was widely known. Due to be a 5th year senior, Vincent apparently did not fulfill goals external to keeping his academic standing that Bowden had put forth this spring. He will have to transfer to a D-II or III school to play in the fall. The defense will now have 7 returning starters.
In other transfer/roster news, Jeff Ogren has left the Tigers as well. He is transferring for currently unspecified reasons. He played in four games with his only reception against La Monroe last year for 8 yards. He’s a 6′2″ WR from Tuscaloosa, AL.

It’s like a bad dream while listing to Bob Seger’s song “Turn The Page”. Here Clemson is again, getting rolled up in national media attention about how we are going to be a top ten team in 2008. I for one would rather start out the season ranked somewhere around 60th then come in and kick some chicken all season long. I have to admit, Harper, Spiller, Davis and Kelly is an amazing one, two, three, four combo offensive punch, but what is the typical routine we are all used to. Yep, we’re going to be the best in the ACC, only to lose a game by one point which could have meant a possible BCS Bowl birth. Hopefully disaster will not come knocking in a few months, then again, I think I’ve said that before too.

Last week Plyler wrote a gushing post about the football team’s coaching staff and their success in recruiting. Certainly the rankings of the recent classes have been good. And his post was spurred by the recent commitment of Craig Loston, who lives in Texas. Plyler writes, amongst other things, “[o]ne of the ways this staff has been able to become so successful is they have identified prospects very early in their high school careers… Clemson has been able to beat many schools to the punch,” and “[t]his staff has decided to take a backseat to no one.”

I definitely don’t follow recruiting much. Part of it is a lack of time. Nonetheless, Plyler’s words certainly made it seem as if our coaching staff is becoming a nationwide force in recruiting. Unless they’re breaking the rules in the process, this certainly sounds like good and comforting news.

Unfortunately, today’s news makes things sound a bit less exciting. Per the Post & Courier

Loston actually initiated the contact with Clemson by sending them film. “They didn’t know anything about me, and I put myself out there to them,” he said. “I like the way they play, I like their style and I think I would fit in well with their defense.”

Another reason I don’t follow recruiting very much is that it is mostly rumor and speculation.

Nonetheless, congratulations to the coaching staff for paying attention and not screwing up when a 5-star recruited himself.

Clemson Women’s Tennis has won the ACC tournament with little hooplah. So here it is ladies! Congratulations from the gnomes to you on your conference championship. They upended the favored Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets as well as the Duke Blue Devils to take the trophy home. Of course with the number 1 national player, Ani Mijacika sitting on the team you know good things had to come around at some point!