STS Staff: Football Q&A

In these dog days of summer, when coach-speak and a slow trickle of camp nuggets are all we have to satiate our football hunger, we put together a Q&A round-up of our feelings on opposing teams and how we’d sweeten the pot with recruiting at Clemson.

Let us know your As to our Qs in the comments.

1) Clemson FB gets to schedule a home & home with any school in the country. Who and why?

Tally / Staff consensus:
Tennessee (4)
Georgia (2)
LSU (2)
Michigan (2)
Pac 12 school (2)
Florida (1)
Ohio State (1)
Northwestern (1)

@dbbm: “Northwestern. Honestly I just want people in Chicago to know where Clemson is, and this is as close as I could get”

@DrewTigerAlum: “The joy of destroying Michigan in the Big House would be good for my heart.”

@JohnMcElhaney: “It has to be LSU, the battle for Death Valley seems too good to pass up. A close second would be West Virginia, partially for ‘revenge’ but mostly because it would be sweet and I want to sing country roads.”

@JP Priester: “Tennessee..... My hatred of the Vols runs deep. Nothing I’d love more than going into their place, a packed house, and putting a beat down on them to open the season, ruining it at same time.“

@PatrickLane: “I want to have a home and home with some team on the west coast. Oregon, UCLA, USC, you pick, but more so just for the travel out there. Actually, let’s go with Washington due to their salt about Ngata (plus I hear that Seattle is cool). If I’m going with an OOC foe due to hate, it’s going to be Tennessee, just to shut them up.”

2) Walking to your car in the morning, you kick over a lamp. A genie pops out and tells you that Clemson FB wins eleven of its 2018 regular season games by 1 TD each, but gets to dole out 1 utter whooping. You choose the opponent. Who ya got?

Tally / Staff consensus:
Sakerlina (7)
NCSU (3)
FSU (1)
Syracuse (1)

@JohnMcElhaney: “Isn’t it obvious? S o u t h C a r o l i n a”

@ColbyLanham: “NC State. They need one with Doeren’s boldness these past few seasons. They’ve basically become the South Carolina of the ACC.”

@Revan: “If you don’t choose South Carolina here, are you really a Clemson fan? Kicking their a__ will never get old.”

@RyanKantor: “NC State! I’m already hearing NC State over Clemson as an upset pick from prognosticators. How does this happen every year? Will nothing stop it? Maybe if we beat them by 41 (like we did in 2014) a couple more times the nonsense will stop.”

@Coach Calvin Craft: “Chickens because we can never whip their a__ enough to satisfy me. “
@dbbm: “Let’s beat some Cocks”

@nhtully: “NCSU. We owe them one for Wayne Train.”

3) Applying loose interpretation of permissible benefits for a moment, give us an idea of something Clemson FB brass should implement to maintain its ever-strengthening edge in recruiting?

@Alex Craft: “Compulsory puppy ownership (breed of each player’s choosing).”

@DrewTigerAlum: “I’m all in on stepping up the alternative uniform game. I’m looking for something completely outrageous that we break out once or twice a year.”

@QT: “This idea comes from joel gray on twitter. Why not do full hyperbaric chambers and cryotherapy to improve recovery and use it as a recruiting tool. Clemson now has Normatec kits that help with blood flow and recovery, which is awesome, cutting-edge, and as much about recovery as it can be about recruiting! Why not make an entire Ice-man/Batman hyperbaric room in the facility and make it ‘top secret’ for only players and recruits eyes only.”

@MattGoldin: “We need to let recruits fire the cannon during the game, particularly against a team we’ll score a lot against like a FCS team or South Carolina. That’d give everyone a chance to do it. Who wouldn’t want to commit after firing a mini cannon in front of 83,000 fans?! Oh, and we hire Migos to run entertainment.”

@nhtully: “I have 2: a tattoo chair in the DV Game-day Recruiting Center. Recruits receive class B / commercial drivers licenses on Friday and get to drive the charter buses to the top of the hill on Saturday.”

@ColbyLanham: “Invoke them as a member of the Clemson Avengers. Get some orange Captain America shields, an Orange Iron Man or Black Panther suit. And then put all recruits in a Clemson-promoted Infinity War trailer. We live in an age of superheroes. Be a hero.”

@JP Priester. “A state of the art, football-only dorm on the lake.”

4) To whom does Clemson FB really owe a beatdown (lets call it a 17 point victory or greater)? West Virginia is the clear #1 answer, so who’s your #2 school and why?

Tally / Staff consensus:
NCSU (5)
Alabama (3)
Texas Tech (2)
FSU (2)
Texas Tech (2)
Tennessee (1)
Georgia (1)
Pac 12 team (1)

@Dirk Terrell: “Texas Tech, for that 55-15 whipping they gave Clemson in the 2002 Tangerine Bowl. QB Kliff Kingsbury lit up the Tigers in that game, and he is now the head coach at Texas Tech, so the payback would be doubly good.”

@Dbbm “If we keep edging up against a loss to NC State we’re gonna blow it eventually.

@QT: “Alabama for the playoff losses. FSU for the fumblerooski. USCjr because for all the 5 bombs. Texas Tech for the Tangerine Bowl because I am petty. SYRACUSE because, again, I am petty (also see 1996 Gator Bowl).”

@Alex Craft: “South Carolina is always due but I think Dave Doeren at NC State truly deserves it most. I never imagined I would care enough about State to call them a rival but Doeren has actually made me think worse things than ‘meh’ about State.”

@JohnMcElhaney: “I want Clemson to play a Pac-12 team. We just don’t get to see them very often. And if we play one this year Ryan will look like a genius for previewing them.”

@PatrickLane: “The clear beatdown school has to be Alabama. I want to own them.”

@JP Priester: “Georgia...it’s the Dawgs, enough said”

@Coach Calvin Craft: “NC State. Two narrow victories in a row when we should have murdered them has only emboldened that jacka__ Doeren. We need to humble them.”