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Everyone older than their 20s should remember him. John Cooper was a good recruiter, and built Ohio State's talent level to an insanely good level. They would seemingly begin the year every season in the Top Five and would go undefeated, they would be in the national title picture every year...until they played Michigan. Lloyd Carr was hated by a lot of Michigan fans, but he owned John Cooper's ass.
What happened to Cooper? He got fired for it. Ohio State fans wouldn't put up with losing the national title to Michigan every season, and they got rid of him for Jim Tressel.
Right now Dabo Swinney is our John Cooper. He is the first Clemson coach to lose 5 straight to Sakerlina. Think about that. We've had some shitty coaches come through here and none ever lost five straight to Sakerlina. I never thought I'd live long enough to see the day when it happened. Losing one year here or there is tolerable. I could even deal with losing every other year if they were a good team, but five? No. That is unacceptable at Clemson, and I don't care if Dabo has it easier than West or Bowden. That is an excuse. He's taken three 10 win teams and another division champion and blown it against SC.
If you want to know why I resist blindly supporting him like many Clemson fans, you saw why again tonight. We've turned the ball over at a -11 rate in the last 5 meetings. Gameplans, defensive coordinators, I don't want to hear the excuse, its on Dabo Swinney. He's the head coach, he's 1-5, he's responsible. Sadly, most Clemson fans do not care, and as Bowden's years demonstrated, 8-4 is plenty to keep 80% of you happy enough to keep him for a decade.
Clemson beat one good team this year in a 10-2 season. Without injuries, I do believe that UGA team was a 10-win squad. We beat one good team last year in the bowl game. We likely blew our chance at the Orange Bowl tonight against another marquee opponent.
We handled all the teams we should've beaten but our best statistical QB ever and several 1st round NFL picks couldn't beat the one team we want to beat the most. What I just saw on the field tonight was akin to flopping your dick out, putting on metal cleats, and stomping all over it. We handed a ballgame over because we can't manage to get our shit together against a SC team that could barely beat Florida.
We even did what our writers (and myself) asked us to do with Clowney. We cut him, ran at him, and despite the one time our QB ran right into a sack, Thomas neutralized him. I couldn't ask for anything more there. We ran the ball all over them, yet challenged their secondary only a few times. We stuffed Mike Davis cold. We just couldn't depend on our $800K defensive coordinator to do the obvious and put a dedicated spy on Shaw instead of just using Robber coverage (which for those that do not understand, accomplishes the same until/unless the Robber has to peel off to cover a back). Instead, we vacated the middle of the defense by presnap alignment, overpursued the pocket, and let him run roughshod.
Five straight is unacceptable at Clemson, and it is on the coaching staff, and its on you if you don't make yourself heard. Your clucking coworkers and friends will let you hear about it for sure.
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