One word really sums it up for me. Frustrating.

Not how we played but that we didn't get the win. I feel like we've lost two games that we had a chance to win and either didn't get the breaks we needed or got screwed out of.

You know the old cliche, "Football is a game of inches..."? Well, yesterday was a fine example.

On the 2nd drive for TCU we had them 3 and out what... like 4 times??? Except for stupid penalties and then they throw deep and we tip the ball at the line and its looking like a sure-fire pick... when we miss-time our jump and it falls helplessly into the arms of their WR. Then 2, freaking, plays later their QB throws a perfect pass that was about 6 inches over our LB and 6 inches under our CB. ERRRRR!!!

There's a play that was crucial when looking back.

Then there's the missed FG in the 4th qt. We make that and we aren't forcing the issue on the last two drives and just need a FG to win instead of a TD.

Their 2nd touchdown was an inch or two away from a pick or incompletion. Then again if it was an inch or two in the other direction there's no spectacular catch and it's just an easy TD.

Then there's the final drive where our WR clearly got a first down but the ref spotted the ball short and the clock kept running so we were forced to scramble and we panicked and we fumbled the game away. Even if it was close we should have gotten a measurement.

Then there were all the catches we should have made that we didn't.

Sigh... woulda shoulda coulda (again).

I don't think we should be writing pink slips for offensive coordinators just yet but we def have to play better if we are going to beat these better teams. Yes, we were out coached but we still were in the game until the clock read 0:00. We had our chances and just didn't capitalize on them. If anyone is to get any sort of reprimand its not Napier but Brad Scott. You can say all you want about being young or having injuries, our O-line just isn't manning up like we should. We aren't blowing people off the ball like we should. Remember the 4th and inches we had? We ran a quick play. We have at least a 2 man advantage over the ball vs the D line and STILL got stuffed. That's unacceptable. If it wasn't for CJ Spiller we wouldn't have much of a running game at all.

It's just wishful thinking to think about what "coulda been" but its SO frustrating to think about!

Moving on...

CJ Spiller is a beast! Don't disagree you'll just look foolish.

There's still good news... other than it being annoying this game doesn't change anything. We still control our own destiny in the ACC and there's no reason we shouldn't win vs. MD, NCSU, WF and UVA. Miami was proven to be weak if rattled and FSU is a bipolar nightmare. We have a great opportunity here and we just have to put this behind us and move forward.

I cannot express in words the anger and frustration I have with AT&T after nearly 2 years of "Business" with them... more like, 2 years of anal rape from a multi-billion $$ company that would rather fuck everyone in the ass than have one ounce of ethics, morals or self-respect.

I won't go into details about the company but the jist of it is this... I was lied to. I was manipulated. I was taken advantage of.

I have no respect for AT&T, its employees, it's business practices and anyone who supports AT&T.

If you think I'm the only one, just do a search and you'll see 100s of different stories about how horrible a company AT&T.

My hope is that at least a handful of people will see this before it's too late and that AT&T will fail as a company before they take advantage of anyone else.

I pray to God that I can have the strength not to hate them in the future as much as I do right now.

Step Brothers

Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/stepbrothers/

Trailer:


Review:
Pretty funny. Nothing special or unexpected came from this movie but it was funny, in a stupid humor/Will Ferrell kind of way at least. I've said this before and I'll say it again, if you like Will Ferrell and his type of humor, you'll probably like this movie too. I certainly wasn't expecting much from this movie after the last handful of WF movies but this one did make me laugh and chuckle quite a bit.

HigherDef Rating: out of 5

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Here are an assortment of all the Clemson highlights from the Boston College game in Clemson, SC on September 19, 2009. The longest game in Clemson history.

Especially check out around the 8:45 mark



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Notorious

Website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/notorious/

Trailer:


Review:
So if you know anything about Rap music and the rappers who rapped that music back in the 90s then you probably already know the story of Christopher "Notorious BIG" Wallace. To me BIG's death was the beginning of the end of "Good Rap". Rap back then was not only popular but the rappers were intelligent with their rhymes as well as original with their craft. There are still a handful of artists out there that are pushing, but overall the genre of music is crap now. The movie was pretty good though. I don't know much about the "true" story of Christopher but I will say the movie was entertaining and other than Lil' Kim and Faith, nobody seems to have any problems with it in real life either. I would def watch this movie again and for about 2 days after watching this movie I listened to all the 2 Pac and Biggie I could stand.

HigherDef Rating: and a couple of pours for the fallen rhymers

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Faith, in a car...

Tire Envy...

Big House video Declaration

So Tiger fans, what did we learn from yesterday's game vs. Boston College?

I'd say we know that our defense can get nasty at times. I watched a Clemson defense that looks almost blood thirsty yesterday. Players from all over the depth chart were flying around the ball looking to make plays all afternoon long. The rain almost seemed to spark the defense into wanting to make plays. Other than 1 broken coverage, after a costly turnover in the shadow of our own end zone, the defense was perfect. I was completely impressed by our defense yesterday.

I'd say we also know that our QB play is shaky. Parker is still our #1 right now but I hope he can learn from his mistakes and make some adjustments soon. Not all of the incomplete passes were his fault but the interceptions were. You can't make a throw down field off your back foot. I still have a lot of confidence in Kyle though, I saw what he is capable of in the first two games and expect him to have a better game next week. Korn still looks scared out there. He needs to get a boost in his confidence some how, his throws seemed weak and almost hesitant.

CJ Spiller is freaking beast! 3 TDs in 3 games and 3 different types, kick off, punt and receiving. He's just needs to break off a long run now and he'll have his stat board filling up fast! I applaud the coaches for not over using him late in the game and hope that he'll getting over that turf-toe injury soon.

Clemson fans are loud but apparently will melt in the rain. After the 1st lightning delay I was a little disappointed in the amount of people who left and didn't return but can, slightly, understand why they left. You can make all the excuses you want about why you/they left but I won't b/c I didn't leave. That, however, is not the purpose of this paragraph. I want to say that the fans that stayed were some rowdy ones. I almost couldn't hear a drop-off in crowd noise after the 1st delay and then after the 2nd when barely 10,000 were left in the stands it seemed as though we still made a lot of noise! Now, I'm not even going to pretend that they were as loud as 80,000 strong, but I applaud the fans that stayed to the end.

Who ever made the decision to switch back to the old style souvenir cups in the concession stands should be given an HD-TV or something nice anyway. For what, the past 10 years or more, we've had to deal with these cheap ugly cups and FINALLY we have the old style back again! These new (and old) cups are actually worth saving and drinking from at home/work/school/church/tailgate rather than the ones from last year. I know it's a stupid thing to praise about but I'm glad to the old style back!

Richard Jackson has got a powerful leg. 52 yards, in the rain? "I'll just kick it 62...". Well, that's what it seemed like he would have said yesterday. What a leg that kid has and it's great to see him rebound after the stuff he's been through in the off-season. Let's just hope he doesn't have the same mental collapse that our last kicker who went 6-6 in a game did. (No offense meant to Jad, he was a great kicker, just went a little mental at the end of his career.)

I still think we know very little about what we are capable of right now. I think we are a better team than last year and I think we have the potential to make a run at some big things, but we don't know that just yet.

Also, I will have some video clips up later this week.

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I know we lost the game but there were still and handful of clips that were worth another look. Unfortunately the outcome wasn't what we wanted. If you don't want to relive the outcome, don't watch the video.

The last clip is of the "holding" call. Feel free to argue about it to your hearts content.

Go Tigers, beat BC!



Check out my blog!
http://www.shoelessworks.com/blog/Blog.html
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CJ Spiller is a beast. If people kick to him they'll lose and if they do everything their power to stop him they might still lose! GT didn't win the game last night b/c Spiller was "contained", because he wasn't. It was good to see him go the whole game and still look fresh in the 4th quarter.

The holding call was bogus but it shouldn't have come down to that. 3rd and 1 from inside the GT 5 was more important to me than a holding call. Not because of the impact of the play individually but the statement that we could have made scoring a TD instead of being held to a FG. I'm in no way saying the holding call wasn't huge but, then again, we didn't get either.

When's the last time a Clemson team went on the road and turned around a 20+ point deficit? Last one I can remember is a team coached by Ken Hatfield up in Virginia but if I remember correctly, weren't the Tigers the heavy favorite in that game? I like the poise this team showed. I like the fact that we weren't mentally beaten when the score was 24-0 and I like the way the team responded. I really felt like we were the better team after we turned it around.

I still don't think we know what kind of team we are just yet. We've played two teams in less than a week with two COMPLETELY different styles of play. One spreads out the field and throws the ball all over the place and the other likes to run option until you're bored to tears. I don't think we'll really know who we are until after next week when we play Boston College.

With that being said, I think we'll be "okay" this year. I think we'll have weeks where we're riding high and feel like we can't be beaten and other weeks where we are left scratching our heads. We're still young as a team. New coach, new coordinators, new QB, running a new system... there are going to be some ups and downs. I think, our best is in front of us and we are still right where we want to be even with a loss, in control with some confidence.

What can we say we "know" after our first game of the season?

We know Kyle Parker had a good first game as Clemson's starter. Unfortunately, we don't know what that will tell us on Thurs or for the rest of the season.

We know Willy Korn had a BAD game. We don't know if that means we should cross our fingers and hope he never sees the field again or just hope the next time he has a little better luck.

We know CJ Spiller looked great in limited action. We don't know if he'll be 100% before Thursday and/or if we should expect that type of play vs a higher quality team just yet.

We know our defense looked tenacious but won't really know what to think about them for a couple more weeks. GT's offense will force us to play a more assignment based and not free to attack as much. I don't think we'll really know where we stand defensively until after Boston College.

We know our offense has potential, what we don't know if how vanilla the package was we saw vs. GT. I am hoping that what we saw was only about 1% of what GT will see on Thursday night. I expect the offensive line is going to be our biggest question mark all season long and there's a good chance we'll lose games where our defense and special teams don't help out.

We know that something is different this year. Even if it's just the start of something new, the team just wasn't the same as in year's past. Coach Swinney once said something like, "We're going to make mistakes, we just need to make them at 100 miles and hour..." and I felt we did that on Saturday. I'm not saying that we should give him a lifetime contract right now but I do feel as though he's taken a step forward for the time being.

I know this could be a fun year... but I know that we've only played one game and we really don't know anything more about our team just yet.

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These are the TDs and big defensive plays from the night. Sorry no downloadable version available right now.

Glad we got the win!
Go Tigers!
Let's get Tech on Thurs!

So, I've seen/heard the arguments about Spiller and his Heisman campaign this year and with those points aside we still should have Spiller be the focal point of the offense (and return game).

What sounds reasonable? 20-25 touches a game? Probably. But how can we get Spiller his needed 25 touches? Easy actually.

Think about it. There are about 75 offensive plays per game and another 15 or more special teams plays (10 or more are punts and kickoffs) so depending on the type of game being played there can upwards as 100 chances for Spiller to get his hands on the ball.

EXAMPLES: In the Alabama game last season there were 48 offensive plays and 8 special team kick return plays... 56 total.

In the SC game there were 64 offensive plays and 9 special teams plays, 73 total.

In the Duke game there were 79 offensive plays and 12 special teams plays 91 total.

Yes, yes... I know, Spiller will never be on the field 100 times during a single game, even a blow out, but that's beyond the point. The point is that Spiller will be on the field 50+ times a game even when the offense is struggling and that's why we need to be creative.

There's more to a touch than a simple hand-off or screen pass. There should be more reverses that send him and Jacoby in motion. Utilize their speed. Even the wild-tiger offense, or whatever they want to call it, should be implemented occasionally but with more twists (IE passes, WRs as the backs and simple screens from the formation).

There are at least 10 different types of running plays in a game: dives, counters, tosses, draws, off tackles, weak sides, strong sides, options, zone runs, traps, reverses, etc etc. There's got to be a mix of these in a single game alone in order to ensure some success offensively.

Same thing goes with the passing game. How many different pass plays are there? 10..12...30... a lot! Why not put Spiller in the flat or even line him up as a WR once or twice a game to go along with the simple HB screens and scat routes out of the backfield? Even as a decoy he's got to be out there in different places. Teams are going to single him out and try to eliminate his touches which is why being creative will be a must.

Our home opener for instance. With no lack of respect for MTSU we should win this game and I hope we can win by more than 20. This is a game of vanilla offenses and defenses but should be a fine indicator of how Spiller is to get the ball in order for us to get the greatest efficiency out of him. CJ should get at least 15 carries, 5 passes thrown to and 5 punt returns without even trying to get him the ball extra times. There's 20 touches right there. Assuming the game stays close and CJ doesn't take 3 of these long distances for TDs that would be a good total for him in this game. This game isn't where Spiller will need to get his touches. Its games like GT, FSU and TCU where his touches will become more important... important for our team to have balance running the ball as well as who is getting the ball.

The Heisman campaign and the wins will come together, not separately. There won't be any 8-5 Heisman talk but there will if we can get to 10 wins and to an ACC title. It's no secret that getting Spiller the ball, into a flow and successfully will give us a better chance to win. That's one of the things our opponents will be focused on stopping as well.

In my opinion, there's got to be an average of 25 touches per game given to Spiller in BIG games if we are going to have any shot to win. This means a handful of things too. Not only would our biggest play-maker in history be given 25 shots per game to make something happen, it means that we are (hopefully) forcing punts and not kickoff returns, creating some running lanes and a rhythm on offense. It's quite simple really. Get into a rhythm, run the ball and play solid defense. Sounds like a good strategy to win huh? Just get CJ the D### ball and I think we can find that rhythm... on offense at least.