AGH HOW THE WHAT THE FAIL

Failure, thy name is Tommy Bowden.

We come out strong, with our defense making play after play, yet our "protect the lead" offense causes our lead to disappear.

FOR THE LOVE OF DANNY FORD, YOU GUYS. MARYLAND LOST TO MIDDLE TENNESSEE. MIDDLE FREAKING TENNESSEE.

We just got transitive football herpes or something because we lost to MTSU, I think. And it hurts. It really hurts.

With our talent level, with our facilities, with the amount of money and time poured into our football team, we should not have dropped two in October -- not the way we did, anyway. I'd accept two losses if we fought hard and looked good and were just clearly outmatched. I'd accept twelve losses if we played our best every single week.

But we don't. I don't know where our motivation is, but it's not on the sidelines. It's not in the locker rooms, it's not on the field (not applicable for the defense today, because they earned the right to rub Howard's Rock).

Idiots on Tigernet blame the loss on Harper, but Harper's problem isn't that he's a bad QB. His problem is that he has no protection. The O-line collapses and can't handle the difficulties of defenses who smell blood in the water. We're chum to their sharks.

And we shouldn't be.

--

The MOST TOTALLY EXCELLENT AND EXTREME Clemson Tigers Xtra had an article on the Death Valley of the future, featuring a gadget called iTiger. I don't like the idea of huddling around a screen to watch the game, as opposed to, say, watching it on the field (isn't that why you pay tons of money to IPTAY?) but the idea of ordering concessions for delivery seems fairly neat.

Whatev.

Crushed Orange will be at the GTech game! Details to come soon.

--J.L. fired Tommy Bowden two years ago.

Cluckin' It Up Bigtime

Dear Coot Nation:

At least our embarrassing loss wasn't to a team that hasn't had a winning season record in the past 25 years.

AAAAAAAAAAARGH, take one

So, from my experience, which comes from exactly one game of Pop-Warner football and many hours of NCAA '07, what'd we do wrong?

Finishing the Job: In most of the other fairly big games today, I saw them play until the whistle, tossing people around if they got a hold of them, and piling on whenever possible. They played mean, dirty, smashmouth football. During the Clemson game, if I took a shot of delightful sweet-tea vodka for each missed tackle, I'd need a new liver right about now. A blown sack turned into a completion and a first-down. The failure to grind Coffee down (har har) in the backfield meant another 4- or 5-yard rushing gain. Speedy defenders mean nothing if they can't take the guy down once they get to him.

Attitude: And in a lot of the other games, the teams look motivated: when they tackled someone, they got pumped up and jumped around and shouted and slapped each other upside the helmet--hell, Alabama was doing it, too. But the Tigers never seemed to click, and they didn't seem enthusiastic; they'd take the field, do whatever they did until they came off, and sit on the sidelines until they came on again. The announcers brought up time and again that our sidelines were quiet and gloomy. Not that I can blame them, but It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing: were we unmotivated because we never made these big plays, or did we fail to make the big plays because we were unmotivated?

WTF: We have like FIVE-THOUSAND OF THE BEST SKILL PLAYERS (some who were kindasorta up for award contention), and a star QB and two star RBs and a solid receiver corps and we can barely move the ball forward? Honestly, what the hell is that? It happened in every important game last year: whatever happened, we wouldn't click, and we'd be lucky to make it back to the line of scrimmage most plays.

Overrating: We were #9 coming in to this? Really? After we had another 9-4 year in 2007 and failed to beat any in-season ranked teams? After we blew our bowl game to Auburn? We were decently-good-but-not-great last year, and putting us up at #9 and starting the ACC championship hype was probably a lot of pressure to put on the guys. I don't know if it'd have been any different if we were an unranked dark horse looking to upset top-10 Alabama, but it's probably easier to swallow being down by 20 at the half when you're motivated by the urge to pull off the upset, not depressed by how half of your supporters are going to get kneecapped by the mob because you didn't even cover the spread.

Refs: Okay, for the most part, we blew it for ourselves, but am I missing something, or is having SEC refs in an SEC vs. ACC game not a conflict of interest?

We've got time to lick our wounds, since our next three games are cupcakes, and it's not unfeasible for us to be 7-1 in time to choke against Florida State. And it doesn't hurt our hopes for the ACC championship, though the way it's going, that'll just make us head dung-beetle of the ball of crap.

I'll grump a bit more about the other games tomorrow; it was pretty satisfying to watch Beamer get Beamered.

WHAT KIND OF FAIL IS THIS.

THANKS CORSO.

Or, you know, we could just admit to failing. Deac & I are trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.. he'll post that later, since I'm planning on drinking and dreading work.

They call Alabama the Crimson Tide...

(note: I've been writing this for a year, but never got around to posting it. So, I've updated it in preparation for our season opener vs. Alabama @ Georgia.)


I hate Alabama.

Maybe my reasons aren't the best. I can't exactly figure out why I hate them so badly. Maybe it's cos "rammer", "jammer", "yellow hammer" and "Alabama" are the worst rhymes I've heard in one song since Steve Miller strung together "Texas", "facts is", "justice" and "taxes." Maybe it's just that the name "Crimson Tide" sounds like a bunch of cracker assholes (though the fact that Alabama's women's teams are the Lady Tides gives me a new favorite euphemism for the menses). Maybe it's my dislike of elephants because they're the worst-smelling things at the zoo.

Or maybe it's acting like the New York Yankees of college football. Maybe it's their regular shows of class and sportsmanship. Maybe it's the potential latent racism in their hiring practices. Maybe it's the way they cried foul when Coach Fran promised to stick around, then jumped ship for Texas A&M, but were wetting their tightie-red-and-whities with delight when Nick Saban did the same thing to the Miami Dolphins (and, possibly, the LSU Tigers after their championship).

Maybe it's because half the country has not only its nose, but most of its collective head wedged up Saban's rectal passages. For the entirety of last year, I swore (loud and often, as J.L. can attest) that the announcers would lather praise over his every move. When Houston Nutt blew the Arkansas Razorbacks' opening game against Alabama deep in the fourth quarter, the announcers wouldn't shut up about how this was a "typical Saban victory"--what, squeaking by on the incompetence of the other team? Arkansas would've beat Bama if they hadn't given up two major pass interference penalties in the last five minutes, including one on third and longish-- Alabama didn't win that game; Arkansas lost it.

And at 6-6, they were lucky to go to a bowl game. They went up against Colorado (Colo-who?), who was never ranked or really that great this year, and beat them. And again, a "typical Saban victory" to cap off this "proud season."

WHAT.

Maybe in Tuscaloosa, a four-game losing streak is something to be proud of. Especially a loss (the sixth straight) to arch-rival Auburn, a karmically righteous loss to Miss St. (CROOOOOOOMED) and a simply delightful loss to La-Mo (HAHAHAHAHAHA).

Yeah, I know, Clemson didn't beat a ranked opponent last year, but Clemson doesn't puff and preen with the pretense that (and at least we beat La-Mo when we played them), nor do we imagine that we deserve championships for fielding a team. We don't get our asses kissed left and right because of our "history". And thankfully, we don't have people at Sports Illustrated straining to kiss our ass with the most obnoxiously pretentious aw-shucks attempts at blue-collar romanticism since John Mellencamp lent that godawful "Our Country" song to Chevy.

Oh, let's sing the praises of Alabama football. Alabama, the team who killed half of college football (but set up the most lol-worthy year ever) by padding the schedule with cupcakes. Alabama, home of child-hating parents who name their kids Tyde and Saban (for the kid's sake, I hope they never move to Baton Rouge or Miami). Alabama, where Nick Saban hones his laser vision so that he may strike fear in the hearts of such powerhouses as Western Carolina, Vanderbilt and Houston. (Oh, and let's not forget Louisiana-Monroe. Ever.)

Pew pew!

Prior to the LSU-Bama game, an announcer was babbling on about how Bear said he could coach his team and beat your team, then coach your team and beat his team, and how Saban could prove he was the Dalai Bear incarnate by beating "his team". Funny, they had lost two games before going up against LSU, and while he made good recruiting choices at LSU, it wasn't him pumping them up or calling their plays; it was Les Miles. But everyone still wants to crown him--even though he managed to lose to "his team" with his team.

When les Tigres won the Championship, who was the one sitting on the sidelines, contemplatively masticating his taffy? Who called the plays? Who went on a thousand 4th-and-going-for-its? Who was the one soaked with Gatorade when all was said and done? (Who was the one who kept his promise about not ditching the job for a more prestigious one when a vaunted position opened up at the end of the season?)

"But LSU won with Saban's players!" they cry. Great, it's nice that he's a good recruiter, and I'm sure that'll serve him well in his new position, if he keeps it long enough. But Ol' Nick had the option to stay there, and he chose not to. But hey, if he still "possesses" a team after he leaves it, that means that Nick Saban's Miami Dolphins went 1-15 last year.

The sooner Alabama fans realize it, the sooner people will hate them less: the Big Bear is over, taking a job or scholarship at Tuscaloosa does not automatically grant you magical winning abilities, and if the Tide is going to get a championship, they're going to have to earn it, just like everyone else.

As for the game Saturday, I'm hopeful for Clemson--we've got veterans and pretty big names at QB, RB, WR ; they've got a young team hamstrung by arrests (in fact, they appear to be the worst-behaved team in the offseason this year). It won't be an easy win, but I'm sure it'll be a damn good game of football, in spite of our opponents.

Eager for another year of Orange,
-D. Blues

two thousand hate

Round and round and down the bowl

Roll Tide Roll!

I hate Alabama fans.

I hate their arrogance, their lack of wit, their inability to accept even the slightest criticisms. I hate that they cannot comprehend the possibility of failure, even though last season was full of it. I hate their braggadocio, I hate their stupidity, I hate their stupid chants -- you could lose by one in overtime and they'd still say they beat the hell out of you.

I don't just hate Alabama fans, though.

If you're on the schedule this year, welcome to two-thousand-hate.

And so do I.

--J.L., who hopes to drink the drink of champions -- Tahitian Treat.

a quick note from tiger country

If you believed that Hawaii and Illinois deserved to be in the BCS, you may apologize in the comments below.

If you believed Hawaii deserved to be in the title game, seek help immediately.


--J.L., who is still shaking her head after last night's "game"