Shakin The Southland: FanPosts

For all of you ACC haters out there

2010-03-08T16:19:28Z

Was this a "down" year for the Conference?.. Yep. Does UNC falling on its face hurt the national perception of the conference ? yep. But.. anyone who thinks this conference can't compete in the big dance.. hasn't been paying attention. here's a look at the top 5 teams in each of the big conferences.. and how they fared vs the RPI top 50 this year.. and those are the teams that will be playing in the Big dance

Record vs top 50 Likely sweet 16 teams

Big 12 : 33-24 4

Big East : 30-20 4

ACC: 29-27 2

Big 10: 23-22 2

Atlantic 10: 17-21 1

SEC: 16-20 2

Pac 10: 7-20 0

Non Power conferences 1

For having SUCH a terrible year.. the ACC top 5 has 1 less win than the mighty Big East has vs the top 50. Now.. i agree that the big east will likely get 8 teams in the dance.. and they will receive a lot better overall seeding than the ACC will.. but the sky is not falling if you are an ACC fan.

1 down.. 4 to go (and we need to win 2 of them)

2010-02-23T16:44:22Z

Yes.. we took care of business this weekend vs UVA. Yes.. we have to go on the road in 3 of our last 4.. and yes.. we don't match up well with 3 of the last 4 (FSU, Ga Tech, and Wake are all bad matchups for us). In case you haven't noticed.. teams with a lot of size kill us. FSU has NBA size at all positions. Ga tech has Lawal and Favors, and Wake has 3 7 footers and Aminu. Our last 4 games come down to forcing tempo, getting tons of easy looks in transition, and praying every time we throw both arms in the air when Stitt, Tanner, Young, or Potter take a wideopen 3.

But... all is not lost if we go 1-3 down the stretch and go 8-8 in the ACC. There are teams in the other big 6 conferences that are playing their way off the bubble.. and 8-8 in the ACC would stack up pretty well vs the likes of...

ACC - Tigers have FSU and Ga tech in the next 2 weeks, and losses by either team severely hurt their resumes.

Big East - S florida, RPI 67, Cincinnati RPI 71 and fading fast, Notre Dame RPI 81

Big 10 - Minnesota 77 and Northwestern 94

SEC - Ole Miss's RPI has fallen to 60 and Miss st is 64

Pac 10 - If Cal wins the pac 10 tourney, this conference likely only gets 1 bid.. Ariz st 56 and Wash 61 are the only 2 teams that have any outside shot at an at large bid

So.. 9-7 in the ACC and we can all breathe easy on selection sunday. 8-8... especially w a 1st round loss in the ACC tourney.. and we could be sweating it.

Clemson Marketing - Money Left On The Table

2010-02-19T19:48:41Z

As a major sports entity in an area of the country without a professional sports presence, Clemson enjoys many advantages. One of those advantages has been poorly utilized by the current administration. Clemson sports command a captive fan base more than 100,000 strong in number. This fan base is a passionate one and for potential marketing partners, it is a loyal one.

Though Clemson takes advantage of certain corporate partnerships with its football and basketball programs, it leaves a great deal of potential revenue on the table because of three things. These are some of the biggest problems facing the Clemson athletic department now and they must be addressed if we are to move forward.

These include:

1) The lack of a truly qualified marketing staff to expand the Clemson brand nationally and internationally

2) The lack of initiative from the top to enhance relationships with current sponsorship partners and attract new partners

3) The lack of creativity in marketing the potentially profitable Clemson baseball program in a manner similar to that of minor league baseball organizations

Clemson’s messed up marketing mix

Clemson University’s athletic department employs some hard working people to man the marketing aspects of the department, but those individuals are not qualified to lead a powerful, multi-million dollar sports business into the 21st century of marketing. The staff is neither large enough nor experienced enough to handle the tasks of creating and cultivating long-term corporate relationships with some of the big players that are within Clemson’s reach.

Currently, Clemson employs three full time professionals to handle the marketing of the entire sports program. That includes marketing a multi-million dollar football program, a growing basketball program, and all Olympic sports as well. The tried and true Clemson tradition of complacency is alive and well with this group of individuals.

Associate Athletic Director Tim Match is the man charged with heading up the marketing and sponsorship portion of Clemson’s athletic department. Like many of Clemson’s athletic department personnel, Match comes from a sports information background. He originally worked as an assistant in the University of Virginia sports information department, before coming to Clemson and working as an assistant sports information director. After three years in that capacity, Match was no surprisingly promoted to a role as associate athletic director, the same position he holds today.

One of the individuals working under Match in a sales capacity is Lynn Sparks, the director of sales for the Clemson athletic department. One would expect an individual with the lofty title of sales director for a major sports company to at least have a background in sales and marketing, but Sparks is only a bachelor’s degree holder in psychology from Winthrop University. A former Clemson student, Sparks started her tenure at Clemson as an administrative assistant in the football office in 1992. After seven years of hard work in that capacity, the university saw fit to promote Sparks to a role in leading the sales team for Clemson’s sports programs.

Mike Money is another individual on board and his title is Director of Marketing. Money started out his career as a graduate assistant at Clemson in 2000 and eventually moved on to serve as the Director of Marketing at East Carolina University from 2002-2006. He then moved back to Clemson, where he’s been given a title and the job of marketing Clemson’s major sports programs.

Though all hard working and decent people, Clemson’s group in charge of marketing is simply not qualified to do the things that Clemson needs to do. They are well equipped to continue Clemson’s long standing relationships with companies like Bi-Lo and Naturally Fresh, but one can see how it would be difficult to market the Clemson brand more than regionally with a group of marketers that don’t have that type of experience and expertise.

Major sports corporations don’t promote their secretaries to the role of sales director and they do not employ a staff that is made up mostly of people with backgrounds in fields other than business. The fact that Clemson has on its marketing staff no individuals with so much as an MBA is frightening and it speaks to the level of commitment in the athletic department.

Comparing Clemson’s marketing leadership to other top college programs

Looking just to the west, Clemson can see a good example of a forward thinking athletic department that is set on expanding the reach of its brand. The University of Georgia has made a major push and its athletic department has become much more profitable over the last decade. UGA has a director of marketing on staff similar to Clemson’s Mike Money. His name is John Bateman, and he is the owner of a master’s degree in sports management. Additionally, Bateman was only named director of marketing after 13 years of work in the UGA athletic department, where he served as director of promotions and in several similar roles.

Bateman also had experience working for the Southeastern Conference for two years prior to joining the UGA staff, an experience that undoubtedly helped him learn some of the basics of national college sports marketing.

UGA also employs Emily Deitz, another marketing professional who had stops at three different major universities before landing her job with Georgia. Deitz worked all over the Southeast, picking up experience at Florida, Auburn, and then with the growing athletic department at the University of Louisville.

Right down the road, the University of South Carolina has recently taken steps to revamp its marketing department. They hired Eric Nichols away from Vanderbilt to handle their marketing and to help growing their global branding. Nichols had long range success in increasing the market share for Vanderbilt sports and spent ten years working at Vandy before he was hired by South Carolina in 2008. He holds a master’s degree and has spent time taking leadership classes at Vanderbilt. All in all, Nichols was a significant upgrade and is another example of a person who had experience working in a major conference for many years before taking over the reigns.

USC has also taken steps to update itself in the 21st century by hiring master’s degree holder Andy Morris as their Director of Digital and Social Marketing. This is another example of an athletic department that notices the need for new thinking and is willing to go outside the box to employ people who possess this mindset.

Florida State University has a marketing and sales team that goes eleven employees deep. They are led in marketing by Jason Dennard, a man who holds a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing and Management Communication. He worked in the same role for Host Communication prior to joining FSU and is currently revamping the Florida State marketing department into a powerful force. Dennard also worked as an assistant director for Georgia Tech.

One needs only to look to FSU’s director of sales and compare that to Clemson’s employee in the same role to see that Clemson is lagging behind in a big way. From Mike McClure’s bio:

“McClure joined the ISP team in 2007 after a successful stint with Pacer Sports & Entertainment, most recently as the company's Vice President of Sponsorship Sales. He provided executive oversight of all corporate partnerships and inventory for the Indiana Pacers, Conseco Fieldhouse, the Indiana Fever and other special events. Prior to Pacer Sports & Entertainment, Mike served as Director of Sports Marketing for WTTV in Indianapolis.”

There is no question that Clemson is lacking in qualification and in the experience to make big things happen from a marketing standpoint. When an organization hires people only capable of the status quo, they should not be surprised when the status quo is exactly what they get.

Lack of leadership from the top

Clemson’s sports teams have one of the most recognizable logos in all of sports and many of Clemson’s traditions will play on a national scale. With 75,000 or more fans regularly packing the stands in Memorial Stadium and Littlejohn Coliseum constantly selling out big games, there are opportunities to enhance sponsorships all over the place. The problem comes from the top, though. There is a serious lack of initiative to pursue any new marketing relationships with far reaching global companies.

Clemson currently has marketing relationships with companies like Naturally Fresh, Zaxby’s, Bi-Lo, Fatz Café, Alltel, and Carolina Pride. There are more, but the list is missing some major players that might otherwise be there. Where are the realty companies? Where are the major banks, all lining up to advertise to a fanbase that is both loyal and financially capable? It is no surprise that Clemson has some of these relationships going, but they could be doing much more than is being done right now.

In addition to that, the leadership at Clemson has shot down numerous ideas that could have provided them with cheap, effective promotional material. Some of the most pronounced examples have occurred over the last five years and they present an alarming trend.

· Clemson fan propositioned the Clemson athletic department with an idea that he would print up 5,000 “CJ Spiller for Heisman” bumper stickers, eating all of the costs, only to distribute them for free to anyone who wanted one. Clemson threatened legal action if he did so.

· Long time, capable Clemson fan Joe Jackson offered to do promotional video work for the university for free. Clemson and Tim Match shot him down, and dropped the hammer on his highly popular highlight videos, as well. Clemson instead opted to run their similar, but markedly worse videos.

Clemson currently seems to have a distaste for anything that might be remotely out of the box and as a consequence, Clemson fans are forced to pay the price. While Clemson is raising ticket prices and re-working its IPTAY contribution plan (rightfully so), it is allowing millions of dollars of potential revenue to slip away. The current administrators fail to explore the possibilities from a new age marketing standpoint, and as a result, they are falling behind.

What we need to make the dance

2010-02-16T02:30:22Z

We've got 5 games to go.

If the season were to end today, I think we would be one of the last 6-7 teams to get in.. and that would probably earn us about a 10 seed.

We have at least 6 games to so including the Conf tourney.

Here are some scenarios ---

Finish regular season 3-2 (stealing a W at Maryland or at FSU). Win 1st round ACC tourney game, lose 2nd round game - Finishing 4-3 = IN the NCAA tournament. 9-7 in conference w a tourney win will get us a ticket.

Projection - 9 seed

Finish regular season 2-3 (Home Ws and Road Ls). Win first round game in ACC tourney, lose 2nd round game. That will probably put us as one of the last 2 teams IN or one of the last 2 teams OUT. Truly.. right on the bubble.

Projection - 12 seed

Finish reg season 2-3 and lose 1st round ACC game = 8-9 in Conference with a 1st round loss equals a trip to the NIT.

Finish reg season 4-1 (i don't know how.. but just have some faith... it's not likely gonna happen, but we could somehow win at Maryland and at FSU). Win 2 games in ACC tournament...If that happens you could see us as high as a 6-7 seed. I happen to see this as likely as Milton Jennings getting a double-double next game, but what the hell.. i can hope..

Are we better off with OP ?

2010-02-02T00:00:55Z

Clemson Basketball is not just a team that I follow game in and game out. I have a relationship with Clemson basketball. I scream at my TV. I get on my hands and knees when we're shooting 1-1 with under a minute on the clock. I live and die with this team.

So, what I'm about to say is not easy -- Clemson has settled when it comes to basketball coaches. We can do better.

I was a student in Clemson for the 4 Rick Barnes years. 3 straight trips to the big dance and a sweet 16 that was 30 seconds away from an Elite 8. Rick came to Clemson as an up and coming coach out of Providence. He and Clemson started off their relationship on equal footing. BUT, in his 4 years.. Rick got hotter.. and suddenly other school were interested.. and he looked at Clemson and said "I can do better"

Larry Shyatt was the classic rebound. He was a mess. Clemson was desperate.. he kinda looked like Rick.. and acted like Rick.. but he wasn't Rick.. not even close. He somehow managed to recruit kids that couldn't shoot and weren't athletic. I choose to block out all memories of any of the Larry Shyatt teams. His 1 team with Rick's players.. choked.. didnt get in the dance.. and made it to the NIT finals. Once he had his own recruits, he won 3 acc games a year.

OP was a very safe hire. Anything was better than Larry Shyatt. He was established, and his resume shows he can build a respectable program. He wasn't flashy, he wasn't going to leave in 4 years. He can win a few games in the regular season, and he can get some decent kids in the program, but ZERO NCAA wins.. will always be ZERO. He can't hide from that. OP will be in Clemson as long as we let him. He's not going anywhere. After years at ODU and Dayton, he made it to the ACC. This job is the pinnacle of his career.

As Tiger fans.. is this what we want ? OP isn't going anywhere.. He's not going to bail on us like Rick did. Wouldn't you rather have the young coach that can get us in the sweet 16 (Brad Stevens comes to mind)? So what if he leaves a year later. I would rather have a program that brings in a coach.. develops the talent in the program.. gives us a deep run into march and then moves on and lets us start over.. To me at least, that's a lot more appealing than watching a team start off 14-0 4 straight years.. only to get ZERO victories in March madness during that stretch.

As Tiger fans.. we can not settle for mediocrity. We can't say... at least he's better than Larry Shyatt. We're an ACC program.. we deserve better.

C J does it again!!

2009-12-06T05:04:49Z

I've been watching clemson football since i was about 8 years old and Im 55 now.

CJ Spiller is about the most exciting player ive seen yet and i wish him well -hopefully Dallas is lookin at him for the draft-would love to see that but whoever gets this man is gonna have a great, unpredictable, fast, and humble man on their team and that might make me have to pick a new favorite team to root for -God Bless CJ you and yours have a great holiday you earned it dude!!!

Idiots on TI

2009-11-14T16:05:00Z

I don't do this often but if you are this stupid you should be called out for everyone.

Fucking dumbass.

Tommy West talks about the Memphis firing

2009-11-10T17:51:04Z

I think Tommy has a point here, but Memphis fans are going to look at it the same way we looked at Bowden's complaints about facilities.

Smartfootball on the R&S system

2009-11-05T15:43:00Z

Since Clemson's offense is loosely R&S based, and we use considerable motion, I thought this would be important to highlight. Note that since Wake Forest, we have used less motion than before.

Related to this is the phasing out of motion in the run and shoot that really began with John Jenkins at the University of Houston. In the original Mouse Davis run and shoot, the offense used a receiver in motion on almost every play. Either they motion from a two-by-two receiver set into a trips or three-by-one set, or vice versa. Jenkins was the first to really get away from using all that motion. The reason was simple. Originally, motion in the run and shoot was used as a key for reading coverages. This was fine so long as the coverages remained simple. But, one result of the ’shoot’s success was that coverages became more advanced in response. Jenkins stayed ahead of the curve and saw it happening before it actually did. He understood that that motion could actually lead to false keys that would hamper his offense’s ability to execute. Consequently, Jenkins began to use leverage as a way of decoding a defense’s intentions. Another reason he abandoned motion was that he understood that it could lead to sloppy route running. A big key to the run and shoot is to “stem” your route correctly — i.e. begin off the line in a particular direction to set up the routes. Motion can be a lazy man’s way of dealing with press coverage. Great technique though is better and will result in a better stem, which lead to a better route. One other point in regards to this is that stemming your route means identifying who in the coverage structure you are running your route off of. Again, motion can muddy the waters.

Smartfootball