Amen***

You have to understand the built in bias against Clemson regardless of the national TV defeats.

We're a medium sized (albeit excellent) university in moderately populated southern state in the ACC not near any big city. Based on all of that, much of the narrative is already written about Clemson football regardless of the perceived "Clemsoning".

Yes, we've had some embarrassing losses on national TV, but so have a lot of other programs (See UGA). What makes us different, is that a lot of the surrounding SEC media and northeast media resent us for thinking and trying to be an elite program. In their minds, we're an undeserving upstart who steals their good recruits. For a lot of other programs, we are the "turd in the punchbowl".

There's a built in lack of respect that's going to be hard to change. Our players and coaches have to stop worrying about that and go out and win more.

This program is going in the right direction. If you don't think so, go back and look at the Bowden years. Now there was some serious "Clemsoning."

Saturday was a big kick in the crotch, but I wouldn't trade it at all for some of the big time first quarter blow outs I've seen Clemson receive before on national TV.

quozzel

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Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Sep 22, 2014, 7:11 PM

The term "Clemsoning", honestly, was borne out of Tommy Bowden's teams. There's a reason Tommy Bowden hasn't been able to find a HC gig since leaving Clemson - he did a lot less, with a lot more. He had a monster program with a stadium that seats 82,000+, a devoted and passionate fan base...and we were, for his entire tenure, a mentally (and physically) soft team that dazzled with its potential one week and fell flat on its face the next.

For those who forget, think back on Tommy's gameday demeanor. It was...atrocious, probably the worst I've ever seen from a major Division-I/FBS coach. Sweaty, eyes like saucers, a wide-eyed, slump-shouldered expression that always looked, in the words of one Tigernetter, "like he was watching somebody torture his dog". Tommy Bowden coached scared, and his fear crept into the team. We watched, for instance, one QB after another get off to bright (often brilliant) starts under Bowden...and by the end of their reigns, they were virtual basket cases afraid to throw the ball past the line of scrimmage. We watched a Clemson team loaded with athletes play high-percentage zero-ball on offense and a passive zone on defense, and a team that was often comically bad on special-teams.

Dabo has been a breath of fresh air, for the most part; he's brought an irrepressible optimism and a "why not us?" mentality to the program, along with a chip on his shoulder. He was too diplomatic to say it aloud, but he's had an "eff the SEC" mentality in big games, and he's not been afraid to go for it. Clemson's uber-aggressive, bombs-away offense is a reflection of that. It sometimes results in embarassing beatdowns - we tried to punch with the best FSU team in recent memory last year, and in the Orange Bowl a few years back we got into yet another wide-open shootout with a loaded Air Raid offense that we were, for whatever reason, completely unprepared for on defense...but hey, say what you want about Dabo, he was going for it. Even if we lost big, we came back highly torqued off next game, swinging away yet again.

Which was why the first two losses stick so strongly in the craw, right now. For the first time in a long time, Clemson...looked like old Clemson. I saw (some) coaches coaching scared, and the clown-show special-teams and lack of an attack mentality (Venables and the D, I would strongly exempt from this) were just WAAAY too much like Tommy Bowden and Rob Spence.

I definitely don't think we need to fire Dabo, or Chad Morris...but they need to get that chip back on their shoulder again, because it's been notably absent the first part of this season. And I do think there needs to be some accountability for the complete and utter fiasco that has been our special teams unit, and that falls squarely on Danny Pearman's head. We aren't just bad, across the board, at special teams, we're awful, in every segment, and we suffer huge losses in that all-important "hidden" (and sometimes not-so-hidden) yardage that so determines games.

Sorry, for the first few games of this year, we've been Tommy Bowden's Clemson again. And we've indeed Clemsoned...over and over again, to start the year. It's time to start being the Clemson that punched the likes of LSU, UGA, and Ohio State in the face the last few years, and get that edge back in our game again.

The nation wants to laugh? Fine. We're going to Shut. Them. Up.

That has to be the mentality, the rest of the way. I want to see an angry, angry team out there, down the stretch.

We do that, we'll be fine. But if we go the other way...it can all fall apart like that, too. We're still a big target, and people are smelling blood on us right now.

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Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

too***

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

Re: Some of you get way to bent out of shape about "Clemsoning"

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