Shoeless Fearless Prediction for La Tech

So we manhandled UNC… I had us at 45-10 and I’ll take a 52-7 final in our favor any day!! Living in Charlotte seems a little easier this week. I’ve worn my orange in public everyday and haven’t even managed a 2nd glance much less any ribbing; but then again I always wear orange so that’s nothing new.

Now let’s take a look at what we’ve got in store for us this week… La Tech huh? Well, at least it’s not another noon game.

No need to really break anything down. We should roll, maybe we won’t be as impressive as vs. UNC but I think La Tech would probably beat UNC this year.

James Davis will probably get 2 TDs instead of 4 and 80 yards instead of 90. Spiller will have another 2 and will get close to 100 on the day assuming Reggie will probably sit this one out to rest his ankle. Chancellor will get some more carries and maybe even have a career day. Add in a couple of better passes by Proctor and a big play or two and we’re looking at another close to 50-point performance.

Now that being said… let’s take a look at the USC game instead. Auburn huh? Wow… ummm yea… this is going to be ugly. -13.5? Holy crap!! I need to make a phone call… brb….

So yea… let’s get to the point you’ve got stuff to do and I’ve got videos to get ready to make.

Write it down, take a picture, call your momma, eat at Joe’s… The Shoeless Fearless Prediction for this week is:

Clemson 48 La Tech 13 (defensive plays more 3rd teamers early for reps and allows La Tech to score a little more than you’d expect)

USC 7 Auburn 38 (yea it’s gonna be ugly)

Now let’s recap last weeks games predictions:

I went 25-3 this past week improving me to a 97-19 overall record. I know a lot of you have been complaining that I don’t pick against the spread however I am 4th in the donor board pick’em so far with a 63-37 record with the spreads. One reason I don’t pick against the spreads is that I don’t have a way to judge the spread by the time I make my picks and I don’t want you fools to get mad at me when you bet on my picks :-)

Weekly Records:
Week 1: 28-4
Week 2: 24-4
Week 3: 20-8
Week 4: 25-3

Overall: 97-19 Clemson: 2-2

Let’s take a look at this weekend’s games:

BYU 10 TCU 35
Auburn 38 South Carolina 7
Rutgers 24 South Florida 17
Virginia 10 Duke 9
Tennessee 35 Memphis 20
Wisconsin 20 Indiana 0
Illinois 10 Michigan St. 30
Colorado 14 Missouri 30
Sam Houston St. 7 Texas 45
Maine 10 Boston College 34
Miss St 0 LSU 39
Alabama 10 Florida 24
Purdue 16 Notre Dame 14
California 34 Oregon St. 17
Boise St. 43 Utah 6
Texas Tech 28 Texas A&M 31
Oregon 30 Arizona St. 15
Liberty 0 Wake Forest 33
Georgia Tech 24 Virginia Tech 20
Northwestern 10 Penn St. 30
Miami (OH) 30 Cincinnati 42
Houston 0 Miami 32
Temple 0 Vandy 23
So Cal 42 Washington St. 23
Kansas 10 Nebraska 28
Michigan 39 Minnesota 20
Ohio St. 14 Iowa 17
Georgia 23 Mississippi 10

Shoeless breakdown and Fearless prediction for UNC

Alright, alright, alright! No one is happier than I am that my prediction came up wrong from last week! I traveled to Tally, dominated their town and improved my record at their house to 2-2 :-). I’m extremely proud of our team for rising to the occasion and getting a tough road win overcoming a lot of adversary from the previous week up in Boston and in Florida as well.

Now let’s take a look at what we’ve got in store for us this week… oh God… North Carolina. Man, I really hate those guys. Most of you have to deal with a different brand of Carolina fans where you live; well I get this brand. Having lived in Charlotte for a couple of years now, I’ve encountered my fair share of Tarholes and for the most part they weren’t too bad to deal with, esp when talking about football. However if you ever watch the news around here or ready the paper you’d see why we really hate UNC.

Now that being said… please Jesus let’s beat the living heck out of them this weekend! I have a couple “friends” here that I know will be blowing my phone up for the next couple of weeks if we don’t!

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system… let’s take a look at the breakdown. UNC is not terrible team but then again they aren’t really a good team… I’d probably rank them as below average. They are ranked at the bottom of most defensive categories and that’s all that needs to be said really. However, if you recall… Clemson still owes UNC some long needed revenge from 2 games from years ago… 2001’s 38-3 shellacking thanks to one freak named Julius Peppers and 1996’s 45-0 beat down. I haven’t forgotten either of those games and attended both in person… and though we did get a little bit of revenge in 2002 with a 42-12 victory… I think we still owe them plenty more!

If we do what we are SUPPOSED to do in this game, it will be a nice relaxing noon game for most fans making the journey to Tiger Town. I don’t really see it being any other way. I think this game will not be a let down game and we won’t let a bad team to come rob us of this one. The sellout crowd will amp up the team and they’ll come out busting heads, they’ll get on them early and we won’t need to kick FGs this week (wink wink).

Write it down, take a picture, call your momma, eat at Joe’s… The Shoeless Fearless Prediction for this week (and I really hope I’m wrong) is:

Clemson 45 UNC 10

Now let’s recap last weeks games predictions:

Thankfully, I was wrong about the FSU game but not by much… I had the final at 21-20 FSU, and would have taken any score where I was wrong and Clemson won hehe.

I went 20-8 this past week falling behind on my previous pace of the first 2 weeks however I’m still trucking along with a solid 72-16 overall record.

Weekly Records:
Week 1: 28-4
Week 2: 24-4
Week 3: 20-8

Overall: 72-16 Clemson: 1-2

Let’s take a look at this weekend’s games:

Virginia 10 at Georgia Tech 42
Cincinnati 3 at Virginia Tech 35
Wisconsin 17 at Michigan 42
Iowa 21 at Illinios 10
Louisville 55 at Kansas St. 3
Colorado 3 at UGA 45
Howard 3 at Rutgers 35
Buffalo 0 at Auburn 45
Iowa St. 17 at Texas 34
Arizona St 31 at California 35
Rice 0 at Florida State 38
Alabama 17 at Arkansas 14
PSU 10 at Ohio St. 24
Marshall 0 at Tennessee 37
West Virginia 35 at East Carolina 10
Wake Forest 24 at Mississippi 10
Florida Intl. 0 at Maryland 30
Tennessee St. 3 at Vandy 19
Middle Tenn St. 3 at Oklahoma 50
Florida Atlantic 10 at South Carolina 28
Mississippi St. 14 at UAB 17
Troy 10 at Nebraska 48
Kentucky 10 at Florida 45
Southern Cal 24 at Arizona 21
Boston College 20 at NCSU 17
Tulane 0 at LSU 65
Hawaii 20 at Boise St. 45
Notre Dame 35 at Michigan St. 29

My trip to Tally by Numbers…(links to pics included also)

82,300 people in Doak on Saturday night
Seeing 74,000+ people doing the Tomahawk Chop is a cool site
74,000+ people were sent home upset
8,000+ Clemson folks dominated the stadium before, during and after the game
7,000: Clemson fans can out cheer 25,000 of any other teams fans in the nation
900: the amount of minutes I spent on the road driving from Charlotte to Tally and back
565: the amount of beer (in cans/bottles) that was purchased and consumed by members of my party from Thurs night until early Sunday AM
$300: the amount of money I spent the whole trip (we had a free place to stay that’s why it’s so low)
250:1 the ratio of friendly FSU fans to jackass FSU fans we encountered before, during and after the game
200:1 the ratio of extremely hot FSU girls to non-skanky looking hot FSU girls
100: the heat index at kickoff (Gawd it was hot)
‘89: the year of the last time Clemson beat FSU in Tally (another game I attended)
87: the amount of yards James Davis had on Saturday night
75: the amount of seconds it took for FSU scoreboard operators to pull the plug after the game went final
63: 17 (sorry had to throw that in there)
12 hours the amount of sleep I got over 3 nights
10 mins, how long it took to drive thru Atlanta going mach 10
9 points we GAVE FSU when we should have scored
8 coolers full of food and beverages we took to the tailgate
7 hours after the game ended until we feel asleep
6 layers of atmosphere we had to cross before reaching our seats in the stadium lol
5 stupid screen passes that went for 2 yards or less lol
4 great days of partying, seeing old friends, and how many times I’ve been to Tally to see Clemson play.
3 out of 4
2 in a row
1 hell-of-a weekend!
0 voice left!

Go Tigers!!

Here are all the pics from before, during and after the game

Pictures

a lot of the game photos didn’t come out as the lights affected my view so much.

Here are the two panoramic shots that came out also

I'm going down to Tally

Well, there’s not much more to say about the Boston trip now so I’ll just dive right in to the FSU prediction.

Let’s see, FSU beat Miami and Troy even though both were nail biters, a win is a win. In the 2nd game they rushed for a season high 45 yards vs. Troy and were held to negative yards vs. Miami.

This bodes well for Clemson having lost 1 or 10134324 key defensive players on defense it seems. FSU, however, has balanced out its lack of a rushing game by shutting down opponents rushing game in return… boasting the nation’s #1 rushing defense that only is allowing 13 yards per game. Granted we are only 2 weeks into the season but on the flip side Clemson is already averaging 167.5 yards per game on the ground… something’s got to give.

Who do you think will show up this week? The in your face, no guts no glory bad-ass stomp your face in Clemson team? Or the let’s play not to lose, don’t take any chances, conservative Clemson team? Well, either way... I'll be there to support the team I love most and I hope you'll be there to join me.

I personally think we have the ability to go down to Tallahassee and put a whooping on them, but I also know we have the same ability to go down there and lay and egg. This might be the year we win at Doak for the first time since ‘89 (a game that I also attended) but it also might be the year we return disappointed and start pointing fingers again complaining of another lackluster start.

I personally think the game will come down the running game. Conservative or not, if we can get 150+ yards on the ground Saturday, we should be able to win the game in convincing fashion, otherwise we could be in for a long evening.

I’m not a betting man, and if I were I would never put money down for or against the Tigers because of how inconsistent we are week to week so that being the case you can almost expect us to do something different. That might be a good thing that might be a bad thing.

What do I think about the game though? Well, mistakes on special teams can’t happen or we’ll lose again. If we don’t get any pressure on Weatherford we’ll lose. If we get the ball 1st and goal from the 3 and have to settle for a FG we’ll lose. If we get a turnover we’ll have to make sure it’s legit and take advantage of every opportunity we get esp if Ron Cherry is in town or we’ll lose.

That’s a whole lot of things we’ve got to do better in order to win and I know this team can get it done but they have to prove it first. I don’t like to pick against Clemson because it never seems to jinx the other team but this time it might not matter. FSU already has a huge win on the road vs. a top 15 team, and that little bit of confidence might be the difference between a win and a loss.


Personally, I think it will be a great show on Saturday night seeing our powerful offense vs. their shutdown defense that will most likely lead to an exciting game for the public; but as it seems with most of these exciting games for us… we tend to fall just a little bit short at the end.

There’ll be no circle the wagons posts this year and even if there were, it wouldn’t mean as much as before. We didn’t just get our asses handed too us by a weak team, we aren’t about to fire Bowden. We are a better team now filled with great athletes at every position. We are a team capable of beating anyone in the country but we just can’t seem to get it done sometimes. With that being said…

Write it down, take a picture, call your momma, eat at Joe’s… The Shoeless Fearless Prediction for this week (and I really hope I’m wrong) is:

Clemson 20 FSU 21

Now let’s recap last weeks games predictions:

I was wrong about the BC game but not by much… I had the final at 31-17… if they hadn’t gotten an early Christmas present from Santa Cherry Claus they probably wouldn’t have scored to tie the game at 24.. and let’s say we break off another big one or just drive down the field slowly and get a late one… what’s the final then? 31-17… anyway-- nobody’s handing out if’s or but’s right now so “Fack it” (in my best Boston accent).

My record this week was just about spot on from week 1 though. I went 24-4 this week and making my overall record 52-8. I should have known not to take SC but whatever that’s a win-win situation either way :-)

Weekly Records:
Week 1: 28-4
Week 2: 24-4

Overall: 52-8 Clemson: 1-1

Let’s take a look at this weekend’s games:

Maryland 17 vs. West Virginia 24
Duke 0 vs. Virginia Tech 38
BYU 21 vs. Boston College 24
Wake Forest 14 vs. Connecticut 17
Cincinnati 10 vs. Ohio St. 45
Iowa St. 10 vs. Iowa 14
Arkansas 7 vs. Vandy 10
UAB 10 vs. Georgia 40
Troy 10 vs. Georgia Tech 24
Temple 10 vs. Minnesota 34
Oklahoma 35 vs. Oregon 31
LSU 14 vs. Auburn 17
W. Michigan 17 vs. Virginia 18
Youngstown St. 14 vs. Penn St. 35
Miami 35 vs. Louisville 38
Michigan 28 vs. Notre Dame 29
Texas Tech 16 vs. TCU 17
Mississippi 10 vs. Kentucky 13
Texas 45 vs. Rice 0
Portland St. 10 vs. California 55
Wofford 3 vs. South Carolina 35
Tulane 17 vs. Miss St 24
Furman 17 vs. North Carolina 20
Nicholls St. 10 vs. La Tech 24
NC State 10 vs. Southern Miss 7
Arizona St. 42 vs Colorado 28
Florida 10 vs. Tennessee 17
Nebraska 28 vs. So Cal 31

Trip to Boston

First off are my random Shots from Boston.


Random pics of Boston

Mostly tourist stuff from downtown Thurs night, our sunset tour of the Bay, etc etc...

Thurs was fun day, we hit the town with a bang and those yanks didn't have a clue! Lots of laughs everywhere we went esp when those rat bassers got Chick all pissy lol

Celtic drank Boston dry and they ran us out of 13234 bars. The only place that didn't want to get rid of us was the Union Oyster Crap-face restaurant! We sat in JFK's favorite booth, but we figured that they just said that b/c he sat there so damn long waiting on his food! Worst service I've ever experienced but the laughs were plentiful.

We called it a night pretty early Thurs b/c of the early flights and were up bright and early Friday heading out for our tour of Fenway. Those Bostonians must have seen us coming b/c they promptly shut down the T-Trains going to town so we had to catch a cab to Fenway and thankfully our cab didn’t have a break pedal so we made fantastic time! (Note: there are no speed limits, traffic laws, or cautious drivers when it comes to Boston Taxi Drivers.)

We arrived early to Fenway and had a cozy group of about 25 or so touring Fenway with us (20 of the 25 were Clemson fans) but before that this old man gave us the comedy routine of the century repeatedly throwing out gems and keep the crowd rolling before the tour began. My side is still hurting (Note: this was sarcasm, Fireball’s witty comebacks to this poor, hopefully, mentally challenged man were funnier than “the jokes”).

I did learn a lot about the history of Fenway and the Red Sox on this tour and got a lot of good shots.


Pictures from Fenway and the game that night

The game that evening was a gem too. The Sox lost but the people around me were mostly season ticket holders and the conversations with them were fantastic! They all commented on all our fans and all the orange in Fenway that night and I made sure to invite them down to see us next season even though none of them cared much for BC.

After the game I took it upon myself to dominate the downtown scene alone as Fireball had drank Boston Beer Works dry and Celtic and Chick had dipped out early. It didn’t take long to meet up with some people I knew and we were off like Paul Revere except with more orange.

They call Boston a “walking town” and they weren’t kidding… 6+ miles, 30+ bars, multiple free drinks, 13 females, 2 butt whippings, and 4 hours later… I finally called it a night and headed back to the hotel. I don’t remember much of the ride home but Boston looks really cool at Mach 12.

I did get to meet a new doctor at the hotel as we both arrived at the hotel at the same time. They said they remembered seeing and hearing me from earlier in the night and wanted to get a picture so I obliged and then I retired to my room (but not before a visit to their personal chambers only to get coot-blocked by Momma). Here’s that pic and yes my hair is orange

If I remember correctly, the 32 secs of sleep I got that night were the best I ever had!!

It wasn’t too long after waking that we headed down to the JFK Library and Museum. This was such a great time (rolls eyes). I’m so glad we decided to embark on this 3 week trek across the land to this wonderful place filled with unbiased opinions and free from political opinions (cough cough). Actually, it was an interesting visit but the 90 mile walk was a little too much for the skin on my inner thighs that rubs while walking, which was now severely bleeding lol.

After we made it back to the Hotel, that we headed to BC. Unfortunately we had lost most members of our party on the trail crossing the Mississippi and to Malaria.

Those Bostonians didn’t have a clue to what was about to hit their bar area. We were there well before 11 and there were already 100s of Clemson folks everywhere. We took over and I think even the BC fans were doing C-L-E-M in Cadence count before it was all over.

After getting a bite to eat and a drink or 12, I headed over to campus to snap a few shots.

Thankfully, I left the bar 12 hours before kickoff otherwise I might have been late getting to the stadium considering it was only about 12 miles from where we were “tailgating”.

For the most part their fans were nice. There were a few assholes who decided to be rude, but everyone has a few of those types so I let it slide.

I got to the game early and the Clemson fans poured in. I think we probably had close to 8,000 total spread out and we made just as much noise as they did. A few of their fans commented that they had never seen a school travel so well and they are right.


Pics from the BC game and campus

Now… sigh…to the game.

If there was one thing I would change about the weekend, it would be the scoreboard… that’s it. Nothing else (as most would agree).

Everyone has hit on every point on why we lost and how we could have won so I won’t go into it but I will say one thing… it’s a lot easier to blame the officials than it is to blame the team I love, so that’s what I’ll do. Ron Cherry can eat a pile of shit—and wasn’t just one play but… “indisputable”??? my ASS!! I’m not saying anymore or I might get upset again.

I haven’t re-watched the game to get clips yet but I know when I do I’ll get that same sick feeling I always get after a loss.

After the game I didn’t feel like doing anything else so we headed back to the hotel and crashed. The group sex with the 15 foreign bikini teams staying at the hotel wasn’t the same after a loss either.

All in all it was a fun trip. I would love to do it again on someone else’s dollar next time but it is something I’ll never forget.

I’m heading down to Tally this weekend so I hope to see you there with me. If you’ve never traveled to an away game before, you need to… Clemson fans are the greatest and have more fun than anyone!

Here’s to turning the panhandle Orange!


Here are the panoramic shots I got from BC and Fenway

Shoeless Fearless Prediction for BC

Well, first off I would like to say I REALLY don’t like the new clock rules for College football. I probably wouldn’t mind so much if they were truly trying to shorten the game but they aren’t… they are trying to shorten the game so they can add more commercials into the same timeslots. That’s just greedy… it kind of reminds me of how potato chip companies save money when they make cut backs… they don’t make the bag smaller or raise prices, they just keep everything the same except the amount they put in the bag.

Who would want to shorten this great game anyway? It’s like we were having too much fun or something. They could have made the games longer for all I care.

I was going to write more on this subject, going into great detail about how the new rules hurt the game, change stats and outcomes; but, I realized that’s just over kill and so I’ll just say again… I don’t like the new clock rules for College Football.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my check let’s take a look at BC.

Clemson played a decent game on Saturday vs. Florida Atlantic but almost everyone agrees that we have a few kinks to work out. The way I look at it is we really only have one problem on offense… there’s only one football to go around. Seriously! How in the world do we expect to get the ball to Davis, Merriweather, Spiller, Kelly, Taylor, Stuckey, Ford, or any one of our TEs hands every play?!?! Here’s a simple solution… get it to one of each every play and 8 – 10 plays later… TD. Piece of cake :-)

I don’t think I’ve ever been as comfortable with our running game as I am right now. Forget about CJ Spiller for a minute and just look at James Davis and Reggie Merriweather. They both put up great numbers on Saturday with fairly limited carries and they also picked up a handful of 3rd and shorts on the ground with room to spare. I’m not saying we’ll do the same easily vs. BC but I feel as though having run our vanilla package this weekend and BC not really having much tape on all of our plays, we should be in great shape.

Defensively I’m not as confident. Even without the loss of Waters and Billie I think our defense should come out with something to prove this weekend. We got absolutely punched in the mouth last year by their offense and we need to return the favor this year. With the lack of experience and depth at LB I think the game will rest in the hands of the defensive line… but I can handle that. Our Dline looks like one of the best we’ve seen in a long time. Really, the only difference between this year’s line and last year’s is losing Charles “Biscuit” Bennett on the end however with the addition of Cumbie and Sapp I think we have enough to do the job. If the line can win the fight up front against a much smaller offensive front of BC I think the game will be ours for the taking.

With all that being said, I think we are in for a good one folks with Clemson getting a late 4th quarter TD to put the game away.

Write it down, take a picture, call your momma, eat at Joe’s… The Shoeless Fearless Prediction for this week is:

Clemson 31 Boston College 17

Now let’s recap last weeks other game predictions:

I went 28-4 with 3 of the 4 incorrect picks coming within the ACC (UNC, WF and Duke) not too shabby.

Let’s take a look at this weekend’s games:

Akron 10 vs. NCSU 28
Virginia Tech 42 vs. UNC 10
Cent. Michigan 10 vs. Michigan 42
Duke 0 vs. Wake Forest 21
Louisville 42 vs. Temple 10
Auburn 48 vs. Miss St. 0
Mississippi 17 vs. Missouri 7
Eastern Wash. 6 vs. West Virginia 38
Nicholls St. 3 vs. Nebraska 32
Iowa 45 vs. Syracuse 0
Samford 6 vs. Georgia Tech 40
Vanderbilt 14 vs. Alabama 24
Washington 10 vs. Oklahoma 35
Wyoming 14 vs. Virginia 20
Penn St. 17 vs. Notre Dame 14
UCF 13 vs. Florida 41
Middle Tenn St. 10 vs. Maryland 27
Troy 0 vs. Florida State 42
Arizona 13 vs. LSU 35
UC Davis 3 vs. TCU 24
Florida A&M 7 vs. Miami 45
Minnesota 25 vs. California 27
Air Force 6 vs. Tennessee 40
Georgia 24 vs. USC 25 (yep I’m calling the upset and the chicken nation goes into a frenzy)
Ohio St. 25 vs. Texas 24
Texas Tech 56 vs. UTEP 24
Nevada 10 vs. Arizona St. 43
Oregon 28 vs. Fresno St. 20