Clemson Defense Wakes Up, Clinches 2011 ACC Title

I agree that we still aren’t where we need to be and Dabo understands that but for this team, with America telling them that it was over and that they had “Clemsoned” again. With our own fans giving up on them and saying that we wouldn’t win another game. For them to hear all of this and get well and truly WHIPPED for the past month to come out and completely dominate on all areas of the ball, I couldn’t be more proud. It was nut up or shut up time for Dabo and the entire staff and for them to prove that we are a different team than we have been in the past and we did all of that tonight. Now if we can only bring this same intensity for an entire year, then we’ll turly be something to fear.

Great job Tigers! Way to get the win and bring the ACC title back home. Swofford was SOOO upset!

WOOOOOO!!!!!!

Dabo did what Hatfield, West, and Bowden couldn’t do, and even went through an extra game to bring the title home.

Losses and piss-poor play that involve coming out completely flat, like we did against NC State, Wake, and USC are on the head coach, and those 3 losses were on Dabo more than anyone else. Well, tonight, I give Dabo more credit than anyone else. He clearly had the guys focused and ready to play. They came out, took some punches while throwing some in the first half, then came out in the second for a beat down. Great victory.

Here’s the thing I will note though. Despite the fact that Dabo talks about belief, spirit, not quitting, and playing with passion, these are only part of the reason we won tonight. The other huge part of the piece was playing fundamentally sound football: o-line opening holes for the running backs, an accurate QB, WRs making plays, a front four that got major pressure on Thomas, an aggressive package of blitzes from Steele, great ball skills from our secondary, and more than anything else, THE ABILITY TO TACKLE. You win games like these because you stress those fundamentals and you stress being tough up front all week. Clearly that happened in Clemson over the past 7 days.

Dabo didn’t explicitly state it but he implied post-game that the goal at Clemson now is to win a national championship. Now let’s see if he can move forward, win the bowl game, and make the changes necessary to get to the next level in the coming years.

Great that we picked ourselves off the floor and won an ACC title – finally. But. the Bowden era continues with wild inconsistency and feelings of what could have been. Dabo said after the game that there is still lots of work to be done building the program, which is a good sign. I’m just not sure how much the culture has really changed. Regardless, until massive changes are made in the admin/BOT, Dabo is our guy, so maybe this was a big step forward – I hope so.

So many people thought VT was going to blow us out even though we thumped them in Lane. I didn’t buy it. Price coming back was priceless. The team just needed to play hard again, and they did. Boyd said that they got complacent after going 8-0. I think he’s right. Apparently winning the ACC was more important to them than beating NCSU & SCar. Here’s what I wrote at the top of the game thread. How’d I do?

Price is back which will probably have a lot more to do with performance than “mojo”.

Still the same players as the ones that appeard in Lane Stadium, but VT doesn’t have home field advantage. We can win this one. Blitz Thomas. Hit Thomas. Hit Thomas. Blitz Thomas. Need another big game from Branch. Clemson needs to play hard, like it’s for the ACC championship. It is.

Go Tigers!!!

Dabo might not be Saban or Miles, but he does seem young and hungry. You can see that he’s giving it all for our school and fans, as evidenced by his emotional post game comments both earlier in the week and after the game. He’s learning year after year. We had to know that there was going to be some growing pains. The “oil change” line was just selling himself to the admin and fanbase. He’s still very green as a coach. That said, he seems to be pretty aware of the air around him and the sentiments of the fanbase, both good and bad. Also, I think he seems like a pretty self-aware guy. I’d like to think that after the season, he will perform an evaluation of the overall state of the program. What if he comes to the conclusion that Batson is indeed ineffective and makes a change? He is not resistant to change like Tommy, as evidenced by the Morris/Hobby hires. If Batson is still around next year, I have to believe that Dabo thinks he is not the problem. Maybe it was a mental thing this year. Maybe Dabo just needs a few more years to stack this team top to bottom with blue-chippers. I damn sure don’t know what the answer is, but I hope Dabo at least has a clue.

Considering all of these things, if not Dabo, then who would you have? Realistically? Who is available or within our financial means?

I think a big goal for next year should be consistency. The consistent inconsistency of this team, year after year, is absolutely maddening—you guys should do a piece on that. Hell, I’d be happy going 9-5 if we just beat the teams we were supposed to beat and lost to the teams we should lose to, for once.

Feels good! Now if we can only get Dabo to bite that lip of his!

This was a pleasant surprise. I still agree that there must be huge deficiencies in the S&C program. As far as the inconsistency goes, I’m going to attribute this to youth. With 45 freshmen on the roster you have to expect some of that. And other than the S&C program, I do think Dabo is building the program the right way. We have good coaches and we’re recruiting well (this recruiting class looks to be better than last years). If Dabo keeps that up, in two years, when those freshmen are juniors, this is going to be a hell of a team.

So I need to give them credit where its due. They figured out what buttons to push and how to motivate the team. That was the most energy and emotion I’ve seen them play with all year. Best tackling by far all year. Congrats on the ACC championship. Just wish they’d have put forth that effort one week earlier, I absolutely hate losing to the chickens.

And it really sucks that by them mauling us they’re getting a Capital One bowl bid. That F’ing sucks. I just dont see how they’re getting picked over Arkansas and UGA, other than the fact that both of those teams got serious beatdowns in their last game while the chickens gave a serious beatdown to us in their final game.