Well, that was unpleasant. As much as I love the Clemson road trip, this one will certainly not go down as one of my top five college football experiences. I guess they all can't be winners.In addition to the obvious points, there were other things that contributed to the overall shittiness (you do spell shittiness with an "i", not a "y", right?) of the day. Below are BCMike and Wesley's draft of the top 10 things that were crappy about this past Saturday.
1W) The Rain
Although I will say I feel like the multiple trips out of the tunnel somehow helped bc, overall it made it unpleasant for tailgating etc.
2M) The Insufferable Delays
It’s one thing to call a delay if it’s unsafe for the players,
but seriously….this was just horrendous. I guess they have to do what they have to do, but they turned a long game into a longer game with those insufferable delays. What’s worse is it gave me false hope—that this was just the break BC needed to right the ship and get back to BC football.It was like a bad date…one with two mandatory 40 minute waiting periods between the dinner and the desert, and the desert and the check. Oh yeah, and she was supposed to be pretty, but she's actually 500lbs and ate fifteen surf and turf's on your dime. Just brutal.
3W) Losing playbook at The Esso Club the Night before the game
I'm
not sure who did it, but someone had too many cape cods at the esso the night before and somehow left the BC playbook there for enemy hands to capture. This was evident on Saturday as Clemson seemed to be in BC's huddle all day.4M) Stubborn OC playcalling
Now, I am not a football coach. I know this because in my office
there’s not a big “coach” plaque that’s sitting on my desk, and no letters and titles etched on a glass and mahogany door that one must pass through to enter. However, the playcalling on Saturday was nothing short of painful. Particularly in the first half when Clemson was throwing eight to ten guys in the box and run-blitzing them all, we still went forward with the delayed handoff or belly read. Just horrendous, awful, atrocious play calling by Tranquil. The complete and total lack of adjustments taken to allow our team to compete was rage inspiring.5W) Down in front crowd
Yes I agree, the rain made it harder to jump up and
down in excitement. But when Clemson is on fourth down, in the visitors corner its time to get loud, even if there's only 5k or whatever of us. Team needs your support!6M) My piece of shit blue tent
Wesley, I agree with you...BEFORE the Spiller TD, BC's crowd was loud and could be heard. After the Spiller TD, 90% seemed dead and didn't want to stand or cheer. It was a little disappointing.
For my pick, I have to go with my POS blue tent.
A while back, I had to purchase a tent at the last second for a tailgate I was going to be hosting (at UNC last year). I had not planned on having a tent, but the forecast had called for a 50% chance of showers so I wanted to be prepared for my friends. Now, I wanted a BC tent (like this one), but they’re not easily found in Atlanta. So since I was only going to have it for one use, I decided to purchase an inexpensive temporary fix—my piece of shit blue tent.
The worst part about owning a shitty blue tent is that you OWN a TENT…so it’s tough to justify purchasing another tent if you already have one—shitty though it may be. So what I thought was going to be a one-use tent has turned into a pain in the ass at every event I’ve been to in the past year. In addition to UNC, it also made the trek to Vanderbilt, a Relay for Life event, a Braves game, and now Clemson. More on this later. Back to the tent.
It has, quite literally, 53 parts that one must assemble (seriously I’m not exaggerating) in order for the unit to “work”. My buddy JC and I had to set up the tent first thing and had a surreal battle getting it to stand up and work. We finally were able to have it function, but by the grace of God JC inadvertently ripped the tent causing an unfixable tear in the unit and making it unusable after Saturday. In a very good way, I was able to leave the tent at the Clemson dumpster, never to be seen again. Screw that tent. Did I mention my hatred for that tent?
Earlier in this selection I noted that I had used the tent at three BC games: UNC, Vandy, and Clemson. What do they have in common, aside from being road games vs. good teams? Big, sucky, awful losses by BC. I am happy to say the tent is now dead and will never, EVER be at another BC game.
EVER.
7W) The Clemson kicker
After getting a bad rap (from our blog friend Block-C), the
Clemson kicker. Went on to have a career day, although this says good things about our young defense holding clemson to nothing but fgs all day outside of st play. One would hope that the clemson kicker would suffer some because of the weather.8M) BC Quarterback play
No kidding about Richard Jackson (that's McFadden / O'Rourke MVP Richard Jackson to you). SIX FG's including a 52-yarder in the rain. Amazing performance by the Clemson kicker.
For 8, I have to go with BC's QB play.
I know most folks have jumped on the O-Line as being
the reason for why BC looked so inept on offense, but frankly I put most of the blame for that on Tranquil and Devine. It’s not as if our O-Line guys are INCAPABLE of playing well, or UNABLE to execute a block, and frankly they’ve done both many times before. So to me, it’s not so much that the O-Line guys played bad (not so say they played well, which was certainly not the case), but the prep that Devine provided—or lack thereof—and the playcalling by Tranquil regardless of what defense was opposing us.But on to my choice…QB play. Both Tuggle and Shinskie STRUGGLED MIGHTILY. I’m trying to be nice and not go full-out, but it was very, very, very, very, very, very, very disappointing as a die-hard BC fan getting drenched in the rain watching the QB play we had this past weekend. Sure, the WR’s had some drops, but when your QB’s combine for four turnovers and five completions (3 INT’s for Tuggle, 4 completions, 1 fumble for Shinskie, 1 completion), that’s simply the worst statistical line I have ever seen in all of my time as a BC fan. When we finally did start throwing deep, we did into double coverage where the safety didn’t even have to move more than two feet to his left to pick the ball off. It was embarrassing.
9W) Clemson D-line in BC backfield
Made it hard for anyone on the offense to look good, having problems running and passing are going to happen, when the opposing teams dline is behind the oline. Worst part of this is that it hard to gain as much experience , or learn much, as the team had to play on their heels as they were staring at Clemson's big uglies face to face for most of the day
10M) The Highly Intoxicated Hillbilly Clemson fan parked next to our tailgate
Now let it be known that I have nothing against country folks, and for that matter, have made it abundantly clear for my overall appreciation
for 99.99% of Clemson fans. EVERY fan base is going to have it’s a-holes, and Clemson honestly hides it better than anyone…but that being said, we found one.In fact, he was parked right next to us.
The funny part about this guy is he went from cordial to a-hole gradually over the lifetime of his bottle(s?) of bourbon. At first we spoke about football, tailgating, offered each other food and beverage…the standard order of business one goes through while at a tailgate.
As time moved on, he started doing more of the “I’m going to talk down to you and give you backhanded compliments, but bathe it with enough southern charm so that you Yankees won’t know what I’m really saying and just take it” schtick, which grew remarkably old. Again, I should mention that he only really got bad after the first rain delay (we went back to our tent for a couple quick beers before returning), and after the game. Here are the things I learned from that point forward:
- Clemson has seven guys that will be drafted in the first round over the next two years. Not just first rounders, but high first rounders. He knows this because he knows a guy who spoke to a guy who used to be a scout.
- Kyle Parker has the strongest arm in college football.
- Clemson is probably the best team in the ACC, and when playing well, probably top 5-10 in the country. No higher than that, though.
- Dabo Swinney isn’t necessarily God, but there’s no convincing proof otherwise, either.
- Boston College joining the ACC was bad for the ACC. West Virginia would have been a better fit because their football program is better, but the academics were too bad for the North Carolina schools to approve the move. He's still not sold on having BC in the conference, as northern teams can't compete with Southern Football (this despite BC going to the ACC Championship games in back to back years, mind you).
- While the defense is really good and the starters are almost all sure-fire NFL’ers, it’s the fact that Clemson has tons of NFL-caliber players that are playing BEHIND those guys which makes it so impressive. We didn’t even get a chance to see the REAL strength of the Clemson team, the remarkable DEPTH of the defense, which has got to be the best in the country.
- My friend JC grills so poorly, he would get coffee cups thrown at him if he worked at Waffle House (okay, this was funny for two reasons…one, the comment is just funny, regardless. Two, my buddy is a Director at a Publicly traded company. He probably won’t have to worry about his Waffle House performance).
- Tuggle was a great quarterback. This was just the staff misusing him by having him throw the ball so much.
- While Kyle Parker is a great quarterback, he might even be a better baseball player. He’s likely to be drafted in the first round of the MLB and NFL drafts.
- He likely caused Tommy Bowden to be canned, as he emailed the AD and the AD replied to him and said that he felt his pain.
There were many more, of course, but I was doing my best to throw high octane brews down my hatch to try to stop the pain and shame feelings, so I think my subconscious may be protecting me from many other pot-shots this guy took.
Again, we were treated graciously by 99% of the Clemson folks we ran into, including the guys on the other side of us who were super-nice and let us watch TV with them after the game. This was the exception to the rule of Clemson fans, but a notable one at that.
RECAP:
Wesley drafted: The Rain, Lost playbook at Esso Club, Down-in-front crowd, Clemson Kicker, CU DL in BC's backfield
BCMike drafted: Delays, OC, POS Blue tent, QB play, intoxicated hillbilly
Posts
glad to hear that tent is gone...definitely bad mojo
ReplyDeleteUgh, you have no idea how much I hate(d) that tent. Well, after that rant maybe you do...
ReplyDeleteBut yes, next time I will have the BC tent in-tow for sure.