Is it a blog? Who runs it? Who has oversight of its editorial content? I see in the footer of the page a few apparent "super users," who also seem to be the main writers. Is there an "About" page that tells us more about them, how they came to form this site, their apparent blessing/qualification by sbnation, etc.? I just keep seeing editorial introductions to all the articles that start with "We". Who is that?

Yep. I guess that about covers it. lol

jake

Syracuse and PITT will be cross divisonal rivals... ACC to 9 game conf schedule.. everything else pretty much the same..... Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (theACC.com) - Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford announced today the future scheduling formats as approved by the ACC's Faculty Athletic Representatives and Athletics Directors. The announcement was made following the annual ACC Winter Meetings and will go in effect once Pittsburgh and Syracuse become playing members in the conference. "We have been engaged in discussions on the various options for integrating Pitt and Syracuse since early fall," said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. "It's a tremendous tribute to the leadership at our schools that we will be able to seamlessly add Pitt and Syracuse at the appropriate time when they become full playing members." A breakdown of the future scheduling models include: Football: The Atlantic and Coastal divisions will remain the same with Syracuse joining the Atlantic and Pitt joining the Coastal. The current primary crossover partners will remain consistent with Syracuse and Pitt becoming primary crossover partners with each other. When Pitt and Syracuse join the ACC, the league will play a nine-game conference schedule. The format will consist of each team playing all six in its division each year, plus its primary crossover partner each year and two rotating opponents from the opposite division. This six-year cycle allows each team to play each divisional opponent and its primary crossover partner six times (three home and three away) while also playing each rotating crossover opponent two times (one home and one away).

We all use statistics to form our opinion.

We use statistics because we believe them to be objective and to tell the story from a point of view that cannot be disputed (sans Wilt Chamberlain’s claim, of course).

If I had to summarize what I have posted over the previous four parts in just two statistics it would be these.

The average scoring defensive rank of a “top ten team in plays run” over the past 5 years is 60.3

The average rank of the “top ten scoring defenses” in “offensive plays run” is 85.2

I like these two the best because they encapsulate 100 years of football evolution that says that a coach can choose to use his offense to control the clock and keep his defense off the field to keep them rested and hungry (Bryant, Ford, Saban).

Or, you can choose not to, as we have chosen at Clemson, and choose to win “Offense First.” You can take rest and opportunity from your own defense and use it to put more pressure on the opposing defense.

I’m not saying that when the defense gets mudstomped, it’s the offense fault. It’s not the offense’s fault.

It’s the offense’s fault when they don’t double-mudstomp the opposing defense.

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We’ve looked at offense and defense “per possession.” Now, let’s look at overall production (offense + defense) to gauge how well the offensive philosophy change is working to make Clemson a better football team overall.

There is a lot of information here so feel free to read this in increments.

We saw in part 1, how teams that run offensive plays at the rate we do typically have defenses in the bottom half of the national rankings. The thought process here is that it’s ok to adapt an offensive philosophy that diminishes defensive performance as long as the offensive gains out-weight the defensive losses.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to assign a clear value as to what those defensive losses should be. It’s even more difficult to separate philosophy, depth, talent, and scheme issues to come up with a quantitative value of where we should be. What we know is that at Clemson there is about a 6% difference in “per possession” production between getting a raise and getting fired as a defensive coordinator.

Now we’re looking at the combined level of “per possession” effectiveness to gauge how much more effective The Tigers have become as a team.

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Ed.: Fanpost from a reader who tried the Batson Program

Dr. B: I really enjoyed your article on Batson's S&C program and wanted to give you my personal experience with it.

I graduated from Clemson in 2003 and my brother tried out for the team in 2004, when he was a freshman. He played football in high school at Northwestern, under Moose Wallace, so he was very experienced with being in a S&C program, albeit at the high school level. My brother, at the time, was 6'0" and weighed 200 lb. and was solid as a rock. Long story short, he didn't make the Clemson team that year but was given the S&C manual from Batson, who encouraged him to come back the following year. I'm sure you have seen this manual, all 100+ pages of it. It’s like a phone book, and very intimidating to someone who has never had a manual of this proportion before.

My brother asked me if I'd like to do the program with him, and being a 24 year old with nothing better to do than work I said sure. Me, personally, I was 5'9" and weighed 140 lb. at the time so I wanted to get ripped like the football players. We followed all of the instructions in the manual, including the speed/agility sections.

When we got to the lifting portion is where the problems quickly emerged. The whole lifting program was nothing but bench press, umpteen thousand variations of squats, and numerous shoulder presses. Absolutely little to no core work was employed here.

My brother and I did the program for roughly 3 months, and while we both got significantly bigger mass and strength gains, there were some other severe consequences, which I know you have well documented. My shoulders are now permanently damaged and I have lower back problems. My brother ruined his back and had to have surgery to repair his wrists, which to this day are still not as strong as they used to be.

I say this because it is plain as day to me why Willy Korn, Cullen Harper, James Davis, and now I fear Watkins will have permanent damage to their shoulders and I don't think this is a coincidence. Same goes for JK Jay and Kalon Davis with back problems. I will mention that my brother and I were under no trained supervision from any one, which could indicate we were not practicing proper form. However, with my brother being an experienced lifter, with over 6 years of experience at that time, I don’t think this was a huge issue as we spotted each other and used weight belts and wrist supports.

I have since completed the P90X program, which definitely stresses core work for stability and to me is a much better program (because I'm not a fine tuned athlete) than Batson's program. I really appreciate you hammering on this topic because it is a shame that the athletes that come through our program are at substantially greater risk to injury because of Batson's inept S&C program.

Take Care, AC

Alright, that’s enough dwelling on our defensive futility, let’s examine the brightspot of 2011, the offensive side of the ball. Last time we looked at how our defense performed “per possession” over the past few years. Now we are going to look at the offense.

First, let’s review through Part 2 by the numbers:

The average defensive rank of the “top ten team in plays run” is 82.3

The average defensive rank of a “top ten team in plays run” over the past 5 years is 60.3

In the first year of Malzahn’s offensive philosophy Auburn’s defense dropped 58 spots to 73.

In the first year in Morris’ offensive philosophy, Clemson’s defense dropped 70 spots to 81

In 2011, Clemson’s defense dropped in “stop rate per possession” 6.25%

In year one in Malzahn’s system, Auburn’s defense dropped in “stop rate per possession” 10.57%

Auburn’s National Championship defense out-performed Clemson 2011 “per possession” by 1.82%

Oregon’s National Runner –Up defense out-performed Clemson 2011 by 10.36%

The logic here remains the same as Part 1-2. The offense and the defense are married to each other and work together to help the team win. Their effectiveness is linked together. If the defense can get off the field quickly, it increases the effectiveness of our offense by creating more stress for the opposing defense and more possessions for them to defend.

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Again, this one is a lot of information so, take your time and don’t hesitate to stop and come back later. I’ll give you a few days before I post part 3.

In part 1, we saw how running more plays attributes greatly to poor statistical defense and we examined some accomplished defensive coordinators that were unable to overcome it. Again, my goal here is to affect perception and to better allow all of us (including myself) to become better educated football fans.

After researching for part 1, it occurred to me that our offensive philosophy might affect the defense but, I’m pretty sure I never saw Kevin Steele and Homer Simpson together…coincidence? And wait, didn’t Auburn just win the National Title with Malzahn using this same offensive philosophy? Yes, they sure did. Let’s look at that. Let’s use Auburn as the control. Not only do they use our system, they won the national championship with it.

As you probably already know, in 2003, Chad Morris and his high school staff met with Gus Malzahn to borrow his big picture offensive philosophy. Since then, the two have skyrocketed from coaching high school to becoming the "highest paid offensive coordinators" in FBS football.

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Are you ready to get your geek on? Oh, I know you are. Well, here comes a post that would make my math teacher in high school blush. Ok, not really. Actually if you can read a chart and understand what a percentage is, you’re good.

You’ve probably seen the theory that "offense affects defensive performance" before but, probably nothing like this. I have been working on this most of the season so, I realize there is a lot of stuff here. I had a lot of questions that I wanted answered so, I just kept digging and digging.

This is divided into 5 parts.

My goal here is much like Shakin The Southland. I want us to all better educated football fans (myself included) so that our grief, elation, and/or influence is (mostly) directed to the right areas. I also invite you to tell me what you think, let me know what I might could add to this, and where you think I’m wrong.

Sources: cfbstats.com, teamrankings,com, FootballOutsiders.com, Rivals.com

This post is about perspective.

This is not a "defending Kevin Steele" post. It’s an "It is what it is" post designed to help create perspective. It may not look like it at first but, I will try to show you that we should be doing better defensively but not necessarily in ways that show up on a National Ranking. I do not take issue with Kevin Steele being fired for job performance.

I’m also not trying to convince you that you didn’t see what you saw with your own eyes on a play-by-play basis on Saturdays. If you didn’t see that our defense had problems, you should probably seek litigation against your optometrist immediately. We can be better.

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It appears that current defensive coordinator Brent Veneables of Oklahoma who was in Clemson over the weekend about the Clemson DC opening is staying a bit longer than expecting. Apparently, he has even met and talk with some of the recruits already, and if you listen to the fine folks of TigerNet.com he is looking for houses as we speak. Now that may be a little far fetched but it does seem like he is the #1 guy for Dabo and I am just not sure I like the hire if its made. Veneables defense were ranked in the mid 50's the past two years and every game I can remember watching of OU this year, the defense was horrendous(Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State and rightfully so, and KS). Is he really going to be the answer to our problems and what does he offer that we didn't have in Steele? Maybe I am wrong and I hope I am but I just don't think this is the best hire we can make especially coming off of what was one of the worst defenses I can remember in Clemson history.

here are the depth charts for each team and its the damnest thing I've seen. Either alabama is shooting testosterone or they are recruiting kids straight from Judges 16. I looked at LSU's depth chart and it is nearly identical to clemson in height and weight.

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