I have to hand it to this coaching staff. Who would have thought that the team could win the conference for the first time in two decades and simultaneously leave the impression that things are not moving in the right direction? What a disaster the Orange Bowl was! Rather than procrastinate on another post, I’ll leave this short one.

I’ve often defended the Clemson defense. For years they have played well, for the most part, despite whatever crap they are given by the offense. I was even willing to do the same this year. Was willing. After the bowl game I took a closer look. The defense stinks.

Here are a few stats to keep in mind:

• In terms of yards per play, the defense went from 4.8 last season to 5.6 this season.
• In terms of yards per game, the defense went from 320 to 394.
• In terms of touchdowns per game, the team went from 2.1 to 3.7.
• In terms of rank in total defense, the team went from 19th to 71st.
• In terms of rank in scoring defense, the team went from 13th to 81st.

From that stats I could find, those are just about the the worst team rankings since at least 1989, which is the furthest back I could find stats on the NCAA’s website. I have to imagine the defense was pretty good for the rest of the 80′s. The only year that even remotely compared to this season was 2001. That year, Reggie Herring’s defense ranked 71st in total defense and 79th in scoring defense. Reggie Herring was fired after that season. Comparatively, we’ve had pretty good defenses post 2001, especially post John Lovett’s first season in 2002. That makes this year’s performance a major regression.

Looking at all this, I really miss Vic Koenning, and I’m frankly a bit worried since his new job is at UNC. I’m also not saying that Kevin Steele should be fired (although I am saying that precedent would justify his being fired). But I will say that if any other schools want him, and he’s willing to go on his own, then we shouldn’t stop him.

Despite the football team’s implosion over the last four games, the team has one thing going for it. It still gets to participate in the ACC Championship Game. While it hardly seems deserved at this point, it’s still there nonetheless. A win on Saturday will cure a lot of ills. This team still has a lot to play for.

Plus, think of it this way. This team is great at playing to the opposite of expectations. Start the year with no expectations from anyone? Win 8 in a row. Convince the media that you’re possible national title contender? Lose three-out-of-four and pull one out against a mediocre Wake team. Convince everyone that you’ve given up, that you have neither heart, talent, nor willpower? Win the ACC?

Seeing Bashaud Breeland go down last night with a concussion, I was reminded of a story I read a couple years ago. There are some cues — outside of the hit itself — that can provide quick evidence that someone has experienced a severe head injury, probably a concussion. This can be particularly useful for coaches, players, and trainers… or pretty much anyone, actually.

Led by Jonathan Lifshitz, assistant professor in the UK Spinal Cord & Brain Injury Research Center, the team was collecting data to document a visible, involuntary response to head trauma. Their findings could have immediate value in helping coaches make educated, objective decisions about whether to return an athlete to play after a blow to the head…

Lifshitz describes the response, dubbed the “fencing response,” as a forearm posture that resembles the en garde position in competitive sword fighting. It also can appear as a defensive boxing pose. The fencing response – which has also been observed in rats under experimental conditions – indicates damage to blood vessels and neurons in a critical brainstem region that controls balance, Lifshitz said.

In the course of their research, the team reviewed some 2,000 “knockout” videos on YouTube, eventually narrowing their sample to three dozen that showed moderate-to-severe impacts to the head, where the person receiving the blow did not immediately get up. Of those, two-thirds exhibited a clear fencing response. The response was noted particularly in football and mixed martial arts, Lifshitz said.

“The fencing response frequently takes place before the player even hits the ground,” Lifshitz said.

Among the videos the team reviewed was the head-to-head collision of Baltimore Raven Willis McGahee and Pittsburgh Steeler Ryan Clark in a Jan. 18 AFC playoff game. McGahee’s immediate fencing response is clearly visible in the video.

Moderate-to-severe head trauma can cause permanent brain damage or death if ignored by medical staff. Unfortunately, sometimes these injuries are not readily apparent. The fencing response provides an immediate visual cue that could help injured players get the attention they need, Lifshitz said.

“The observation of the fencing response can help coaches and trainers make immediate and future return-to-play decisions,” Lifshitz said. “But the response is not universal. The absence of a fencing response should not be taken as a sign that no injury has occurred.”

Here’s the McGahee-Clark collision.

Here’s a similar example with a hit on Georgia’s Mario Raley.

For those who want to watch a replay of the hit on Breeland, I don’t know any youtube clips, but the play began with 2:12 left in the first quarter. That is about the start of minute 38 of the replay broadcast on ESPN3.

Addendum
Another good example: Cal’s Jahvid Best against Oregon State in 2009.

Due to a wedding involving a Miami alum, I was unable to see the live broadcast of Clemson-FSU. Leave it to Miami fans to make college football less enjoyable for everyone else. Fortunately, due to the beauty of ESPN3, I was able to watch a replay during the week when I was stuck at work late. Unfortunately, despite the outcome, I wasn’t entirely impressed by the game against FSU. The FSU game doesn’t give me a lot of confidence going into the Tech game. However there may be some upside out there for Clemson.

On the downside for Clemson…

Clemson beat FSU by 5 point in Clemson. And FSU was missing many of their starting offensive skill players. And FSU gave a lot away to Clemson in the way of many stupid penalties (so many I lost count).

Now Clemson has to go on the road, in a tough place to play, to face a team that’s actually pretty tough to beat regardless of location. This is the first road trip for Clemson’s talented true freshman. I’m not aware (not that I’ve really checked) of important injuries to Virginia Tech. And it seems unlikely that VT is going to provide a lot of freebies in the way of stupid penalties and turnovers. For all these reason, there’s a very good reason why VT is favored by 7 points.

On the upside for Clemson…

Clemson is still the underdog. I feel like Clemson plays better (not that they necessarily win) when they are the underdog.

Tonight at 6 we’ll see what happens.

Pleased is actually an understatement. Three weeks in, I’m happier than I expected to be at this point in the season. A few thoughts:

I don’t like have close games against nobody competition (regardless of what league they won last season). However I do understand that there was a lot of new everything this year (QB, receivers, OC, etc) and that it’s good to save things for the real games.

Against Auburn, I would have liked for Clemson to dominate the entire game. Clearly. Nonetheless, it was nice to see the ACC Tigers take control of the game and maintain that control until the final whistle. It’s so much better than getting off to a quick lead early in the game only to see that lead get erased in the closing minutes of the game.

3-0 is good, but Clemson still has no wins in the ACC. In other words, the meaningful season has yet to begin. And by the way, I expect Death Valley will be rocking on Saturday. Unfortunately I won’t be around due to a wedding.

The ACC is expanding, again. Frankly I’d rather the ACC be a 9 or maybe 10 team league. I like being able to play everyone in the league each season. It seems to me that super-conference divisions will basically just be old-style conferences. In the end, it seems to me we’re just remixing and renaming things. Yawn. (side note:, I hope Texas gets screwed.) Not that I particularly care for Syracuse or Pitt (actually, Pitt? really?), but I think it best serves Clemson by having beatable competition than having to face-off week after week against world beaters. Said differently, FSU, Miami, and VT would probably be nobodies if they had each joined the SEC 20 years ago. Said a third way, the major conferences have plenty of teams with mediocre results; perhaps not the preferred destination for a school seeking to improve on a decade’s worth of mediocre results. Although I readily admit I have zero desire to see games in Pittsburgh or Syracuse.

From Football Study Hall via SmartFootball (emphasis mine):

So how did the Ducks win so many games and score so many damn points? Pace, of course. They employed the 2008 Oklahoma strategy of maximizing their per-play advantage by running more plays than anybody else. Pace is a beautiful weapon as long as you maintain that per-play advantage. Simply running plays quickly won’t matter if you’re going three-and-out; in fact, it can be detrimental to your cause if you are not good enough to employ the strategy. But Oregon figured something out and exploited it; with their success — and Oklahoma’s — I’m curious to see if or how other good teams attempt to take advantage of a seemingly worthy “Goliath” strategy. (I’m also curious how long it takes defenses to catch up and adjust.)

This is exactly what makes me nervous about our new OC and his high tempo philosophy. Unless the offense is actually moving the chains, the high tempo will be a detriment to the team via stressing the defense.

Reading some of the notes from spring practice, I’m becoming less optimistic. I feel like the notes about this year are just like they were two years ago. It leaves me to wonder just what happened last year? Did I not notice that the news and notes were the same as the previous year? Or did the coaching staff decide that what worked relatively well in ’09 was unhelpful in ’10?

For example, today I read, from Tiger Tracks:

Clemson is also running more plays this spring in practices – around 85 in a scrimmage last week – and more plays should equal better execution this fall. The only way to improve muscle memory is repetition.

A couple weeks ago I read this from TigerNet:

“It was a first day to remember for sure,” Walker said. “I can’t really find the words for it. It felt like we ran 100 plays. Everything was so much faster, and I loved the enthusiasm that was there. It is definitely going to be a couple of weeks of teaching, but everybody is buying into the system and everybody is trying to find their place in it.”

And here’s what I read two years ago:

So a lot of us wanted to talk about Willy Korn and Kyle Parker this spring, but you consistently talked about things like tempo and quality practice reps. It seems one of your goals, if not the No. 1 goal, was to really change the culture this spring. Did you accomplish that?

“We got as much done in 15 days as I think we could have. The other thing we did is had about 1,100 competitive reps — good on good — which is fantastic, so it was extremely competitive. (Tracking the competitive practice reps) is something Kevin Steele brought. He said they probably had 900 at Alabama last spring. He was blown away with the amount of competitive reps we got. I can tell you we didn’t have near that many competitive reps last year. That’s a result of tempo and how we structure practice. It was get better or get exposed. … If the attitude is not right we don’t have a chance. The main thing is creating an attitude of winning again, an attitude of expectation. An attitude of ‘hey, hard work is OK, I have to pay the price.’ “

Sounds mostly the same to me.

And, although I can’t find any sources right now, I could swear that two years ago we heard about how great it was that Billy Napier was simplifying the offense. I could swear — but can’t find — that I wrote about how I thought the Rob “Mad-Scientist-Or-Whatever-The Hell” Spence spent way too much time creating and working on plays that would never get used and how that came at the expense of being able to do simple things well.

But what’s old is new (again from TigerNet):

“There was so much [lasts season], and this is so much more simplified,” he said. “There was just so much more stuff that we did. As far as the pace – we have had some fast-paced practices, but we have never gone that fast. Coach Morris is just really, really positive, and he was explaining things after each play.”

Am I misreading this stuff? Or are we really at the exact same place we were at 2 years ago.

PS – Speaking of old is new, I keep hearing about the new OC’s fast-tempo offense. I could swear that we shitcanned an OC or two in the middle of the last decade because their fast-tempo offense was great at wearing our own defense. It seems we are headed down the same road, which is unfortunate given we don’t expect our defense to be as dominant next year as they had been recently.

In case you hadn’t heard, Billy Napier and Andre Powell have been fired.

I think the title of this post pretty much says it all.

The Dabo Swinney era is over. Unfortunately we have to endure the remaining year of it.