Friday April 18, 2008
Friday E-Mail Bag
Friday E-Mail Bag
Each Friday I publish your comments and answer your questions. To submit a comment or questions please e-mail me at mickeyplyler@hotmail.com.
Mickey,
I was a little disturbed to see your blog for an ACC/SEC challenge because it is a slimmed down version of my view. I imagine you didn't steal it from me though. Instead of an ACC/SEC challenge, the 6 BCS conferences should rotate the challenge. When the ACC is playing the SEC, the Big 10 should be playing the Pac10...Because your challenge allows other conferences to pad their schedule with cupcakes while the ACC top guys play the SEC top guys. We could finally eliminate the soft schedules some schools use to get ahead and eliminate the excuse of a weak schedule keeping you out of the title game. The Big East would finally have to play at least 1 tough game a year. Since ND gets special treatment, they would have to play the toughest seed the Big 10 would have to face. Why? Because you get special treatment, then you get special treatment. Or, just leave them out of BCS consideration unless their record warrants it.
Anyway, I think their needs to be a BCS Round Robin every year. Pick 1 week and that's the week all of them will play that game. That would be a better Saturday than the New Year's Bowls - since they already messed that up.
Mark
Mark,
I would not have a problem with your plan of including other conferences. All of this would have a better chance of happening if we had a playoff. If we had a playoff then teams would be willing to play bigger teams in the regular season because one loss would be as devastating.
Mickey,
My co-worker in the office next door to me is friends with the Wingo kid's, (at USC), dad. His dad was a 2 sport lettermen at CU. The kid wanted to go to Clemson, has been a Tiger fan all his life. I am told his dad tried and tried to get Jack to look at him. There was little interest and time was running out so he went to Carolina.
How is that looking now? Has the best talent evaluator taken a job at another school? Yes, the draft hurt us, but that happens. What is left looks like an good 4-A high school team.
I'm not one of these "Message Board Idiots", but there should be better talent left on that team.
Look, Jack should retire here. He is a class act. I have heard first hand from a little league coach who took his teams to both places and Jack met them at the gate, took a lot of his time talking to them, gave them "stuff" and made the kids feel special. Tanner on the other hand acted like he could care less and the Carolina players were rude to the team and even threw drinks on them when they asked for autographs, something the Clemson players gladly did.
That being said, this is not an average "rebuilding" year.
Charles
Charles,
I am told that Clemson had interest in Scott Wingo and offered $2,000 in scholarship but South Carolina was offering $3,000 in scholarships. He made his decision independent of his dad’s thoughts. I think he is a good player but Wingo would have made that big of a difference on this baseball team. This team has talent issues in a lot of areas. I agree this is not your average rebuilding but Leggett has done a good job of upgrading the program every time his teams have been down.
Mickey,
Fire Jack Leggett, Crazy! I agree we are bad and next year may not seem much better. Coach Leggett needs to start recruiting better. We have played a tough schedule and have rarely beaten anyone better. I keep hearing that we are young and we are, but our veterans are not doing it and we have had some injuries. As Coach Leggett says and I believe it "you never give up on the Tigers" and I want and if I have the money next year I will renew my Tiger Baseball season tickets. Real Tigers do not give up on their team, Go Tigers!!
Dwayne
Dwayne,
Well said. Like you, I also am not sure next year’s team will be great but I am convinced the program will be back in the near future. Leggett has a passion for this program and his hard work will shine through. You better get Clemson now because Leggett will have the Tigers back.
Mick,
The stretch. I think they posted a perfect 0-11 record.
Please admit that changes are need in the baseball program. Aside from 2006, the program has been in a slow, steady decline since the 2002 Omaha meltdown (and Corbin's departure to Vandy). To deny this is to deny reality.
Leggett needs to make major changes this offseason or more below average season's are headed our way.
John
John,
Obviously this team is not very good and they are not playing well. Most of those teams had more talent than Clemson. I will also admit that Tom Corbin is a master mind and a relentless recruiter. I think Corbin might be the best baseball coach in America. I also agree that some changes to the program might need to take place but I trust Leggett to make those changes. I also agree that 2009 might not be the best but I think the long-term future is still very bright.
Mickey,
I love your blog and make sure I read it every day. Thanks for all you do.
Since this week, you did the post spring analysis of both the defense and the offense, I came up with a couple of my own "way-too-early" questions. Here goes.
#1- Because of our depth and experience on the DL and in the secondary, do you feel that their positives can outweigh our negatives at LB?
#2- Who will be our starting 5 OL for the game against Bama?
#3- Will our special teams still be cringe-worthy or will they be closer to automatic?
#4- Brandon Maye is a player that I really like. Just how good is he and how much upside does he have to draw comparisons to Anthony Waters?
Thank for your answers!
-Wes
Wes,
Thanks for the excellent questions. Here is what I think:
1-I am not sure. I would rather be good on the defensive line than any other place on defense but when Clemson has been good at linebacker they have had excellent defenses. I think the defensive front will take a lot of pressure off of the linebackers and I also think Hamlin and Clemens will able to help in run support.
2-I think the OL will change at some point next season but I think in the Alabama game I would think we would see LT-Lambert, LG-Smith, C-Austin, RG-Humphries, RT-Hairston. Cloy, Norris and McClain will have a chance to break into the starting lineup at some point.
3-I think the special teams will be improved. No one spends more time on it so I think they will be improved.
4-Maye is emotional like Waters. I am not sure how he will develop but he already has better instincts than Waters. What we don't know is if he will become the leader that Waters was in his days as a Tiger. Clemson has seen few leaders like Waters.
Mickey,
When we received our ticket application from Clemson it stated that Clemson was only receiving 10,000 tickets for the Alabama game. The application said that they will be allotted by donor level. By the time they get to my level I feel certain there will not be any tickets available. I called the Ga. Dome this morning to ask how I would go about buying tickets for the game. A woman informed me that they would not be selling tickets and that I would have to go through the school.
Having said all of this my question is, who are the other 40 to 50,000 tickets going to????? Who's getting all of those? Just wondering if you had any info on the matter.
Thanks for any help you might be able to give me on this.
Joe
Joe,
I have not heard anything on the subject and thought each school would get about 30,000 tickets each. I will check and hopefully have some information soon. Thanks for the heads up. Hopefully we will get to the bottom of it.
Hi Mickey,
I appreciate your upbeat nature. However, I think we also have to be willing to criticize something in an effort to improve it. The Tigers' current losing streak in baseball is at 11 games! Don't you think the criticism of Leggett is justified now? After all, no Clemson Baseball team has ever lost that many games in a row.
Kirk
Kirk,
I have said before that fair criticism is OK. Leggett should be criticized about this team and the program. However, you have to also understand why it got this way. Consider all of the factors. Also the idea of firing Jack Leggett is ridiculous. Jack has earned the right to rebuild.
Mickey,
I am shocked that many of your callers have picked UGA as their school to support if there was no Clemson or USC! It seems that many so-called Clemson fans forget our nasty rivalry with UGA. Perhaps they haven't enjoyed the true Athens experience: rednecks barking and cussing at you, 9 year olds flipping you the middle finger of fellowship, etc.
Put me down for a vote for aTm...a place with good football and some class.
Double T Tiger
Double T Tiger,
I have always enjoyed the trips to Athens but I have to agree with you. I have never been treated so well as I was when Clemson visited College Station, TX. First class program and fans. Hopefully Clemson and A&M will play again before they put me in the ground.
864-834-6060
The Brad Hughes All-State Insurance Agency
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On the Alabama game tickets. The Tickat app. states Clemson will be offering 10,000 Iptay members an opportunity to purchase tickets to the game, so please do not order over your asigned allotment. Both Clemson and Alabama will have 33,000 to sale.
Posted by NABTGR on April 18, 2008 at 01:37 PM EDT #
On the RS Fresh OL group all we heard about was how great Walker would be. Then all during spring and post-spring we are hearing about Smith and Cloy. What gives, where is Walker?
Posted by NeoCon on April 18, 2008 at 02:50 PM EDT #
UGa fans are complete idiots. I've never seen such low class white trash rednecks in my life. They think its so cool to act the way they do.
Posted by drock4484 on April 18, 2008 at 03:41 PM EDT #
drock4484,
I agree 100%. UGA fans make USC fans look like saints.
Posted by Locotiger on April 18, 2008 at 04:11 PM EDT #
Just a note that the Alabama tickets are being offered to approximately 10,000 IPTAY members by Priority Points not 10,000 tickets by Donor Level as Joe stated in his post. At least that was what my application said.
Posted by 80Fan on April 18, 2008 at 05:08 PM EDT #
Mickey
I very much appreciated your piece on the women's tennis ACC Championship win. They have the potential to raise the bar further.
I also concur with you over the Duke game on Sundaypart of which I heard and the fiasco in Tallahassee. Whatever happened to sportsmanship?
Do you have any further info on Chad Diehl's ankle? I wondered why there had been no news on him of late?
Finally, while there has been much web hype on Alabama 08 apart from a bit on their QB, center and the experience on both sides of the ball will you be providing one of your excellent assessments of Bama 08 including their star studded recruits? I hope so and look forward to it.
Regards
Richard
Posted by richardraines on April 23, 2008 at 08:59 AM EDT #