A few thoughts while I work on Sunday's sermon...

Oct 14, 2006, 7:52 AM

...and I will note I said 62 points. We got 63. But since I wanted the D to keep them scoreless, I'll toss it all on the bonfire.

Is there any such thing as an ugly 54-point win? If there was, you saw it Thursday night. And I hate to go Harley on y'all, but while sitting in the best seats I'll probably ever have (thanks JD!) I was witness to the ugliest blowout win I ever hope to see.

I'm not even going to comment on the special teams tackling....other than to say we get downfield faster and get knocked around more than any Clemson team I've seen. It's not blocks in the back that do us in. I saw two occasions where Temple simply chose a spot, poured players into it and plowed a trail for the returner. I'll leave it to greater minds than mine how to deal with that, but that's exactly what's happening.

Instead, I'll focus on something I do know a little about: tackling. When you're up 3 TDs with time to go in the first quarter, it's easy to lose focus. But when you've got the quarterback in your arms, or the running back in sight (and the Temple RB was really fun to watch) you have to do what my coach used to say: Wrap 'em up like they was your girlfriend.

Granted Temple's qb has had a lot of experience escaping blitzes this year, but I'll give you five tmies our defense was more interested in making a big hit than actually stopping the ballcarrier. That sort of stuff won't stop Reggie Ball. Evans is begger and more resilient at State, and Lord knows Hollaback at Maryland can take a shot or two.

This is something I recall Jamaal Fudge having trouble with early on. The crowd loves those big hits. The offense would prefer you just wrap the guy up and get them back on the field.

Offensively, I firmly believe we needed to pass more. Yes it would seem like the Tigers were using a Ditch Witch instead of a shovel on the grave, but we already know the running game works. Unless Chansi is coming back a lot sooner than expected, we're still getting our recievers comfortbale to their new roles and patterns in game action. If we're playing what amounts to a scrimmage, try everything.

Please don't take this as bellyaching, or fears of what Georgia Tech will do to us. I have no doubt we spent next to no time on Temple, and that opening series by the Owls showed it. But if you looked at the two teams out there in the fourth quarter, which do you think was playing harder?

It pains me to say it wasn't the team with the 60-point lead. And we're not going to have the luxury of a monstrous lead again this year.

We begin the Death March next weekend, and there will be no Temple oasis to pause and recharge.

It's time to get focused, get hungry and get mean, Tigers. We carve our own trail now.

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important things we needed to get out of that game: improve kickoff coverage and get Proctor some reps with the new receivers. Yep, we already knew we could run all over Temple. Proctor had decent passing yards and some big gains, but I wouldn't say he was "on." In fact, he's still lofting the ball up their for grabs. He seems almost too relaxed back there at times.

We should have also thrown about 20 screens because, while we're very familiar with these plays (though we don't use them as much as last year), I wouldn't say we're really great at them. Far too often the reciever and blockers are not in sync.

There's not much to say about the kick coverage. I don't know why there are so many freshman on the unit after they've clearly proved to be inept. I thought Chason faired better than Jad. He seemed to kick it to the left, which for whatever reason worked out better. Jad keeps hitting them straight on or to the right and not even close to the end zone. I think Chason kicked off twice and both were better than any of Jad's. Now, I'm not dogging Jad here, but he's off right now and so is the coverage, so I don't see why Chason or someone else can't kick off. We have a highly ranked soccer team -- can't we find someone who can kick it deep???

Bottom line: I don't want to hear anything about Proctor being unfamiliar with the other receivers for the remaining games. We didn't work on it when we had the chance. AND, there's a good chance we will all be sick, confused, and downright livid come season's end, because we'll be tormented by the suckass special teams for the duration of the offseason. And that's a looooonnnnngggg time.

A few thoughts while I work on Sunday's sermon...

Let me be the first to give you a point in what will

I second!!!

I'd rather get rah-rah points...much more pleasant.

Point for the Rev and a point for you

Point back atcha for helping our poultry pals.***

(Clapping)***

I'm on your side Rev., but just one question:

Agree - Funny thing about what you say...

Must have gotten out of hand somehow...

The score is really meaningless. We failed on the two most

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