It's My Blog

Clemson just beat Miami 40-37 in overtime. I don't know what in the world happened in this game. Our defense looked like they had swine flu. Our offense played pretty well, with the exception of Parker's panic fumble. Our coaches proved once again that they are rookies learning on the job. The game management of the last two minutes was amateurish. I haven't seen clock management that bad since Tommy West. When you hire rookies... At least we won. Hopefully our coaches can learn from their mistakes.

CJ Spiller is definitely the MVP of this team. I still can't wait until Harper and Ellington are running the ball. Hopefully we'll get a receiver to make up for Spiller's ability there.

Labels: Clemson, football

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Posted by Tom on 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I just found out about this site and I have to say it is a great idea: www.opencongress.org

I encourage everyone to go and sign up and follow the issues that are important to you, as well as your elected Representatives. The great thing about this site is that you can add your input to each issue, bill, or representative. It's basically the Facebook of politics. (here is my profile, in fact.)

The only think I would like to see added would be a feature that allows people to vote for each other based on their viewpoints on issues and bills. This site has profiles for elected officials, where you can give them your approval or disapproval. It would be awesome if everyone could make a profile like that for themselves and select to be "up for office" for Mayor, State Rep, Governor, Senator, President, etc. Over time we might come up with candidates for these positions that are actually picked by the people of the country instead of the party leaders and/or the media. We might actually get a representative government.

Labels: politics

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Posted by Tom on 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I'm going to keep this short but I wanted to write this down. I have figured out the great O's plan for socialized health care.

He is allowing the public option to be left out of this current legislation so that all of the rest of the bullshit regulation and taxes and penalties for small businesses and everything else can stay in and make it through the house and senate. He knows that this will only make health care in this country worse, which is why he will sign it into law.

Then, 3-5 years from now, when health care is even worse, all the good doctors have retired, insurance costs 5 times more and medicare is completely bankrupting the country, the Democrats will say with glee "See! We told you we needed a single payer system! Look what the free market has done! The evil capitalists are ruining your health care!" and they will push for new legislation that will amount to a complete government takeover of the entire medical industry.

They are purposefully harming the lives of Americans to get their dream of socialized health care passed, knowing that once that shoe falls, all out socialism will be next.

Sadly, they will not allow the real solution to take place. They will not allow an actual free market solution. We do not currently have a free market, and we never have. If we did, we wouldn't be in this mess. Freedom is their enemy though, they want to control our lives and enrich themselves using propaganda and the force of government. If we don't stop them now, then we will get what we deserve.

Labels: politics

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Posted by Tom on 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Clemson beat Wake Forest 38-3 this weekend in a game that turned out exactly like it should have given the makeup of the two teams. Unfortunately for Clemson, it took a loss to an extremely poor team (Maryland) to get the coaches fired up enough to make the routine game look routine. The defense played like they have all year, but the offense came out inspired and basically dominated Wake all day. There were two differences this week that made the performance possible:

1) The receivers actually caught the ball. It's amazing how great the offensive line and the quarterback look when the receivers actually make the catch. Last game "the OL sucks!" but now they're awesome, only nothing they did changed. Wake's defense wasn't able to play us tight and our drives didn't end on third down and it was all for the simple reason that we actually caught the ball this week.

2) The Tight End was used as an integral part of the passing game. We have thrown to the tight end a few times this year but in this game it was obvious that we were trying to get him the ball. The reason this is so important is that it forces the linebackers to respect the passing game, which makes running the ball that much easier. Also the tight end is a good target because he's usually bigger than the defensive backs and they usually catch the ball (although not always.)

That's really it. It wasn't some magical improvement in the blocking or in the running game or in the quarterback or in the playcalling. It was the simple fact that we caught the damn ball. Amazing how that works.

Some other notes:
- CJ Spiller has got to get the ball upfield faster. He simply dances too much. By the time he was able to make his long 60+ yard TD run we already had Wake's defense on their heels and the line opened up such a huge hole that even CJ had time to get there.
- CJ Spiller is simply an amazing open field runner. We need to put him in a position where he can get the ball in the open field instead of taking handoffs.
- Kyle Parker is still hesitating in the passing game. He makes the throw just a split second too late but luckily he has the arm strength to still deliver the ball.
- Korn throws late, slow, and low. Glad he's only in the game when it's over.
- I really like the attitude of our Defense, especially how our DB's go for the ball instead of going for the hit.

One last thing: our offensive coaching staff should be fired ASAP. This game proves that we have the talent to dominate the ACC on the offensive side of the ball. The loss to Maryland shows that we do not properly coach that talent to utilize their skills. There is simply no excuse for the difference in performance between the Maryland game and the Wake game, and we need to bring in a real Offensive Coordinator (and whatever support staff he wants) so that this doesn't happen again. If we don't, we will be doomed to repeat our recent history.

Labels: Clemson, football

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Posted by Tom on 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Alright so lets see how I did:

Clemson 38, Wake 3
My Prediction: Clemson
Just like I thought, hotseat warms up for the coach, and all of the sudden the players can "execute."

Texas 16, Oklahoma 13
My Prediction: Texas -3.5
These two teams all of the sudden started playing defense. Either that or their offenses just sputtered out completely. I never expected this to be a defensive struggle in the Big 12.

Florida 23, Arkansas 20
My Prediction: Arkansas to cover the 24 point spread, but lose
I definitely didn't expect the close game that resulted, but I also knew Arkansas could keep it under 24. Florida seems to be half stepping it, like they are just going to inherit the championship for being Florida.

GT 28, VT 23
My Prediction: Virginia Tech -3
I never expected this to happen. I haven't watched the game but I'm going to have to catch the replay some time this week. I thought for sure VT would win.

Alabama 20, USC 6
My Prediction: Bama wins but no idea if they cover
USC played inspired defense against a pretty damn good Alabama offense. The Cocks' offense sputtered like everyone thought they would, but they still managed to cover the 17 point spread.

So, against the spread I was 2-2-1, and without the spread I was 4-1. Pretty mediocre performance I'd say.

Labels: football

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Posted by Tom on 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I haven't been writing much lately about politics or anything other than football and it looks like that trend is going to continue. One of these days I'll get back to the American Fascism series detailing how much control the government has over our lives but for now I'm going to stay on the positive side and talk about something I like: football.

So here are some quick picks for this weekend's games:

Clemson vs Wake Forrest: Clemson
Dabo Swinney is turning out to be Tommy 2.0 and just like Tommy I expect him to pull out a big win when his ass is on the hot seat. I don't know the line on this game, but I doubt Clemson is favored.

Texas vs Oklahoma: Texas
The line is 3.5 at this point and Texas will cover. Oklahoma is just not that good, even with Sam Bradford. Also this is the Big Offense league so I doubt the game will have a difference of a field goal.

Florida vs Arkansas: Arkansas
Florida is going to beat Arkansas, but the line is a ridiculous 25 points right now. If there's one thing Arkansas can do, it is score touchdowns. They may lose by 14, but I seriously doubt they lose by 25.

Virginia Tech vs Georgia Tech: Virginia Tech
As much as I like Paul Johnson and his option offense, he does not have a bona fide option quarterback at this point. Nesbit is a great athlete but he does not make the right reads. In fact, you can tell when you watch them play that he is actually pre-determining his reads before the snap instead of reading the defensive end like he's supposed to. Bud Foster will stop this easily, and Virginia Tech will cover the 3 point spread against the soft Georgia Tech defense.

Alabama vs South Carolina: ???
Alabama is giving up 17 to South Carolina and while I know Alabama will win, I have no clue by what margin. SC is not a good team but if they were playing in Columbia I would have to say Alabama won't cover. However this game is at Alabama and so there's no upside down cockroach to save them.

Labels: Clemson, football

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Posted by Tom on 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Clemson lost to Maryland this past saturday 24-21. I sat down last night to watch my recording of the game so that I could dissect everything that happened, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. After watching the first quarter of the game, I saw all that I needed to see.

As I said in my writeup of the TCU game, this team suffers from a lack of experience and/or talent in the offensive coaching staff. We didn't improve on any of the problems I listed, and we continued to look lost and panicked on the offensive side of the ball. This week, our defense didn't save us, and so we lost an embarrassing game to a pitiful team.

Clemson should have never hired Dabo Swinney without stipulating that he bring in a new offensive coordinator with a new offensive coaching staff. There are some who argue that they didn't even look for any other coaches, and that Dabo had the job from day one. Whatever the case, we have not rid ourselves of the scourge that is Tommy Bowden football. Inconsistent offense, shaky special teams, and good defense. We've got the same thing now that we've had for the last 10 years. This is not going to change under the current coaching staff.

So what should we do? Well it's simple, we need Dabo to remove himself from calling plays and we need a real offensive coordinator. If we can't do this right now, then we need to put Brad Scott in charge of the offense until the end of the year, then bring in a completely new offensive coaching staff. Brad Scott might even work for the long term, he was a great offensive coordinator at Florida State and he had some success here at Clemson before being thrown under the bus by Tommy Bowden.

I think Dabo is a great guy and will be a great head coach, but he needs to clean house on the offensive side of the ball and bring in some real coaches. Our plays develop too slowly, we never run basic routes like quick slants or TE curls, our receivers can't block, catch, or run routes, etc, etc. These problems all point to bad coaching, and we have to fix that now or by the end of the year Dabo won't have a job.

Labels: Clemson, football

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Posted by Tom on 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post