We are well below our quota of Jadeveon Clowney blog posts which is hurting our #pageview situation so here you go you know you can’t get enough.

Two days ago ESPN came out with its first Heisman watch of the year and not surprisingly Jadeveon Clowney occupied the top spot. Our own opinion is that’s nice, it’s good exposure for us, and we’re happy and proud to see him there. But the odds are very much against him winning the Heisman even though he is starting out in front and even though he is the most hyped college defensive player of all time.

Long odds do not mean impossible, however. A lot will have to fall into place for it to happen, and we decided to take a look at some of those things.

So, Jadeveon Clowney will win the Heisman if:

The rest of the defensive line is as good as we think they’ll be. The worst argument I’ve seen against Clowney winning the trophy is something along the lines of “teams will game plan for him”. OH NO, HE MIGHT GET DOUBLE OR *GASP* TRIPLE TEAMED! I got news for you, college coaches have been game planning for J.D. Clowney since his freshman year. The reason he’s still been successful is because of how good the guys beside and behind him have been. Those guys need to be, and I believe will be, good again. You cannot commit two guys, much less three, to Clowney on every down when there are players like Sutton, Quarles and Surratt to deal with on the same line. If the offense tries to play one-on-one, Clowney will win that most of the time. If Clowney gets double teamed he’ll win a lot of those, but it also opens things up for other guys to make plays. Pick your poison 2013 opponents.

The competition is “meh”. Offensive players like Johnny Manziel and Tajh Boyd (yeah, I said it) have the potential to put up record-breaking, mind-boggling numbers. If they do that and their teams win, which they likely will, then Clowney has an uphill battle. The reason is the voters/pundits have fewer ways to quantify Clowney’s impact versus 3800 yards passing and 35 touchdowns. Clowney needs the rest of the competition to be “meh”, not so impressive.

Double-digit sacks and TFL’s. See above, he will still need numbers to make his case. “Dude, did you see The Hit” won’t get him very far.

Speaking of, he has to have something close to a “The Hit” moment. We all know there will never be another “The Hit”. There just won’t. But he needs a spectacular play or two to help the cause – interception(s), caused and recovered fumbles, and a touchdown or two. The only defensive player to ever win the Heisman, Charles Woodson, had his campaign boosted by his punt return exploits and by playing on offense as well. We know J.D. isn’t going to play offense, so he’ll need a handful of spectacular plays in his portfolio.

We win all, or almost all, of our games. That’s just the way it goes, your team almost has to be BCS or fringe BCS. (I know A&M wasn’t a BCS team, but Manziel’s performance against the eventual National Champion had the same effect.)

McCarron and Yeldon cancel each other out. Alabama will probably go undefeated, so one of these guys will be in the race. If they both have great seasons, they might just split the votes for the best guy on the best team.

Win every individual battle. There cannot be even the perception that a tackle like Tiny Richardson or Taylor Lewan got the best of him for 60 minutes. That will be a killer.

We beat Clemson. I believe Tajh Boyd will be in the Heisman conversation because he will have great numbers and he’ll be on a team that will have between zero and two losses when they get to Columbia in November. It’s at that point that we can kill his Heisman hopes, and boost those of Jadeveon Clowney. Provided all or most of the other things mentioned above happen.

So there you have it, a simple roadmap for Jadeveon Clowney to win the Heisman.

Should we just go ahead and give it to him?

Don’t know @kevROSHAY, don’t know anything about the guy. But when someone gives you the greatest artwork of 20th and 21st centuries you don’t ask questions, you just post it without his permission. This is pure genius.

More of his work at kevjuice.com.

We’ve all heard it.

We’ve all scratched our heads over it.

CoachSpeak.

CoachSpeak is that particularly frustrating method of answering questions or making statements that most (if not all) college and pro coaches lapse into whenever they are faced with a microphone and an inquisitive audience.  It’s an effective rhetorical device for coaches as it allows them to avoid saying much of anything, while still giving the reporters a quote or two for the morning edition.

But it tells us, the insanely interested fan of college football, next to nothing about our favorite team.

Accordingly, we here at TRC have decided to bring both our incredible sports knowledge and our considerable experience of being yelled at by coaches (well in little league anyway) to bear in order to assist you, gentle reader, in understanding just what our coaches are really saying.

Take last night’s post practice interviews for example.  What follows is a series of CoachSpeak responses during the media availability.  We then follow the CoachSpeak with what the coach actually meant but didn’t want to come out and say:

Coach Whammy: “We have a lot of young players that we’re trying to get reps.  Of course, they’re not going to know everything we’re doing. It was a good start. I like the way the young linebackers ran around today.”

CoachSpeak Interpreted:  “We are so very screwed at the linebacker position.  These guys can’t even get lined up right!  I’m going to keep referring to these guys as ‘young’ so I don’t get canned at the end of the year.”

Coach Whammy: “We have three starters returning in the secondary and perimeter and we have a defensive front that has played a lot of football here. We’re young at linebacker. I think we have a lot of good experience on this team with
all the guys that have played a lot of football. I’m not worried about inexperience, I can promise you that.”

CoachSpeak Interpreted:  “I’m very concerned with our inexperience.  Did I mention that we don’t have any linebackers that know what they’re doing?”

Coach Whammy: “Brison will definitely be the free safety and we’ll figure out between Kadetrix Marcus and T.J. Gurley who will be the boundary  safety. “J.J. did some good things today and Gurley did some good things. Right now, Kadetrix is ahead.”

CoachSpeak interpreted: “We are moving people around like a mother right now trying to mask our inexperience.  Its so bad that I’ve forgotten who some of the players are at this point.  I’ve got this habit of calling people “J.J.” when I’ve forgotten their names, I should probably mention that.  Do we not have any walk-on linebackers I can stick in there?”

This technique has its limitations however.  Witness out CoachSpeak interpretation of a couple of Spurrier quotes from last night:

HBC:  “It wasn’t anything spectacular. Nothing special happened. We’ve got a ways to go and we need a lot of practice.”

CoachSpeak interpreted: “It wasn’t anything spectacular. Nothing special happened. We’ve got a ways to go and we need a lot of practice.”

HBC: “Usually after the first one, I always talk about how fast the team is. The team is in good shape.”

CoachSpeak interpreted: “Usually after the first one, I always talk about how fast the team is. The team is in good shape,”

Check back for more CoachSpeak Interpreted as preseason practice continues.

The following was originally published just prior to the 2011 season, but still sums up how we at TRC feel as the 2013 edition of Gamecock football approaches:

I was a boy of nine (almost ten), and it was getting dark.

You might think the next sentence is going to involve me playing happily outside and being called reluctantly in for supper, but I’ve left out two very important details:

It was New Years Day, and I had just discovered college football.

I wondered through our family’s den with a sketch pad tucked under my arm and several pencils in my hand. Not sure where I was going, but I was probably looking for a quiet spot to draw pictures of myself driving life-sized versions of my matchbox cars, which was a favorite pastime of mine in those days. Regardless, my dad called me over and explained to me that the football game on television was called the Orange Bowl and that I should watch it.

He told me that one of the teams belonged (that’s my memory, but probably not his exact words) to Burt Reynolds, the guy who drove the Firebird in Smokey and the Bandit. That detail caught my attention, as I had a matchbox black Camaro that I pretended was the Bandit from time to time. I ran and retrieved my “Bandit” then plopped down in front of the TV to draw myself and Burt in the car.

But the game drew me in, and before I knew it, I was trying to draw a football helmet instead of a Pontiac.

I don’t remember any major details of the game, other than the Oklahoma Sooners won over the Florida [State] Seminoles. This made me happy, because the nickname “Sooners” sounded immediate and exciting to me, and I had no idea what a Seminole was. I also remember that the Sooners threw the football to each other with a frequency that apparently surprised my dad, and that the Seminoles didn’t seem very good at tackling.

I spent the rest of the evening in front of the television, drawing scenes from the New Years bowl games (I think the rest of the games were over at this point, but I may not have understood highlights versus live action). My dad told me that Clemson lost to Baylor the night before, which made me happy, even though I didn’t really know why (my main aversion to Clemson in those days was the sweat-stained tigerpaw t-shirts of the grimey schoolyard bullies). He also told me that South Carolina lost to Missouri a couple of days earlier. This was an absolute affront to my sensibilities and seemed like a painful reliving of the Civil War (which I was also slightly obsessed with at the time).

I learned from the announcers that New Years Day was the best day for the very best teams to play, and that the season would be over as soon as the Orange Bowl game finished.

Season over already?
But I just got interested!

It didn’t matter as it turned out, because I was already hooked. I read everything I could about college football from that point on, and began keeping a scrapbook of my new favorite player, a running back for South Carolina named George Rogers. A lot of people in the paper and on
television thought George Rogers was going to have a big year in 1980, and it would turn out that they were right.

But I remember the anticipation of that spring and summer as I waited and waited for college football to start up again.

I get that same excited feeling each year, although my distractions from the games are no longer just drawing paper and matchbox cars. Now work issues, social obligations, weddings, and even funerals (not my dad’s yet, thank God) crowd college football from my mind for much of the year. It doesn’t help that the innocence of college football seems as distant as that Orange Bowl from days gone by, what with most converage of college athletics nowadays being about impermissive benefits, conference realignment, off-season arrests, and ESPN-fed profits.

But gentle reader, another season of college football is about to kick off, fresh and new. And despite the sport’s many flaws, it still draws me in. I’ll be watching the South Carolina Gamecocks from the stands this weekend, accompanied by my two sons. One of them just turned ten.

I have no idea how the season will develop, whether one team will throw the ball too much, or if the other team can tackle. And I don’t really have any firm idea about how the Gamecocks will fare.

But a lot of people on the internet and on television think a guy named Marcus Lattimore is going to have a big year in 2011, so we all need to temporarily put down whatever else we are doing and watch.

Here’s to a great 2011 football season!

If you want to make a semantical argument that what Jadeveon Clowney did to Vincent Smith in the 2013 Outback Bowl wasn’t a “great” play, we can have that conversation. Yes, he ran through unblocked and hit the guy he was supposed to hit, so if you want to say the play – as in the movement he took to get to the ball carrier and tackle him – wasn’t “great”, then fine.

But you must admit that because of the physical prowess of Clowney the play was “special”, and at the very least “impressive”. As in the most impressive display of explosiveness you have ever seen from a defensive lineman. EVER.

For Devin Gardner to say what he says in the above tweet (assuming McMurphy’s quote is accurate, and I have little reason to believe it is not) is just incredibly disingenuous. Blocks are missed in every game. Tackles are made by unblocked defenders in every game. And on occasion helmets come off because of hard tackles.

But name the last time you saw a ball carrier’s helmet come to rest ten yards behind where he was tackled. You can’t, because this was a once-in-a-lifetime play. Throw in the fact Clowney has the presence of mind to take his big left paw and pick the ball up and try to run with it is just over the top. THAT is why it is so special.

So opponents, Clemson fans, haters, just shut up and enjoy the play. Just because your guy didn’t do it doesn’t make it any less impressive.

TRC welcomes internet sensation Jorge Stevens (@Jorge_Stevens) of Garnet and Black Attack to do an interpretive writing as @ITS_DABO interpreting Dabo Swinney clearing up the following tweet:

FROM THE MIND OF DABO SWINNEY

YALL IN THIS DAY AN AGE WORDS GET YANKED OUT OF CONTENTS MORE OFTEN THEN WE SCORE ON SATURDAYS. SO I FEEL THE NEED TO CLEAR UP THE WATERS A BIT ABOUT SOMETHING I SAID AT THAT OL’ TREE RING CIRCUS YALL MIGHT KNOW AS ACC MEDIA DAYS. TALK ABOUT A ZOO (ALL THO I GEUSS THAT MAKES US THE ANIMALS! HAHA #JOSHIN)

FIRST AND FORTHMOST, WHEN I SAID THAT THE ACC WOULD PERDUCE THE “OVERALL CHAMPION’ I WAS NOT REFERRING TO THE CLOTHING GARNMENT OVERALLS. NOW BEFORE YALL CHASE ME OUTTA HERE WITH BURNING TORCHES AND PITCHFORK’S LIKE YOU WERE BEFORE WE BEAT LSU (SEC SUX) LET ME SAY THAT I AM PRO OVERALLS. ANY TIME YOU CAN WARE ONE THING AND IT COUNTS FOR A SHIRT AND PANTS, BUBBA YOUR DOING SOMETHING RIGHT! TRUTH BE TOLD I GOT A WHOLE RACK OF THEM SUCKERS ALL ORANGE OF COURSE (CEPT FOR ONE CRIMSON JUST IN CASE ID NEED IT FOR AN OB-JAY INTERVIEW HAHA #JOSHINAGAIN HAHA)

NOW WHEN I SAID OVERALL CHAMPIONS I WAS OF COURSE REFERING TO THE OVERALL FOOTBALL PRIZE. THE CYRSTAL BALL! ALL THE MARBALS! THE FULL SLICE OF PIE! WAIT IS THAT A PHRASE PEOPLE SAY? AH HECK IT DONT MATTER CAUSE ITS ALL TALKIN BOUT THE SAME THING. THE OVERALL, NATIONAL CHAMPION SHIP.

 SO WHY DO I THINK THE ACC IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME AWAY FROM TAKEN HOME ALL THAT HARDWARE/ FIVE WORDS: C L A S S. (HAHA, ALRIGHT YALL ADMIT IF YOU CHUCKLED AFTER READING A S S I KNOW I DID) CAUSE WEATHER ITS IN CHAPLE HILL, TALAHAS…SS..SSS…EE, OR UP HERE IN CLEMSON SAH KAH LAH, THE ACC CARRYS ITSELF WITH CLASS AND DINGITY UNLIKE CERTAIN OTHER CONFRENCES (UH LOOKIN DOWN YOUR WAY COLUMBIA.) SO WHILE JADVON CLOWNEY SPOUTS OF ABOUT WHOS SCARED AND WHO HE ALEGEDLY SAKCED OR BEAT OR WHATEVER, WE CHOO-CHOO-CHOOSE TO TAKE THE HIGH ROAD. LIKE I ALWAYS TELL MY PLAYERS, DONT RESPOND–LET YOUR ACTIONS DO THE TALKIN EVEN IF YOUR ACTION IS USING A BIBLE VERSE TO PASSIVE AGRESIVLY RESPOND ON A SOCIAL NETWORK. 

SPEAKING OF MR BIG TALKER CLOWNY, CONGRATS ON YOURE ESPY AWARD…… TO BAD IT NEVER SHOULDA HAPPENED YOU BIG CHEAT! ANY REFERREE WORTH HIS SALT WOULDA THROUGH A FLAG AGFTER THAT PLAINLY ILLEGAL HIT ON THAT POOR KID (REST IN PIECE). ITS WIDELY KNOW’N WE HAVE THE BEST REF’S IN THE LAND UP HERE IN ACC COUNTRY. YOU BETTER BELIEVE RON CHERRY WOULDVE TOSSED THAT KID WITHOUT THINKING TWICE. BUT OF COURSE THE SEC GETS ALL THE CALLS WHICH IS WHY THERE ALWAYS THE OVERALL CHAMPS

 BUT I REGRESS. BACK TO MY ORIGINAL POINT WHICH IS MY QUOTE ABOUT OVERALL CHAMPIONS AS IT WAS INTENTED. IT REFERS WINNING THE CHICK FILET BOWL, ER, BCS CHAMPIONSHP GAME AND NOT I REPEAT NOT THE CLOTHS ITEM. BUT HECK IF I HAD TO GUESS ID SAY CLEMSON IS ALREDY HOME TO THE OVERALLS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS JUDGIN ON THE CROWDS AT MEMORIAL. BOY HOWDY THERE’S OVERALLS EVERYWHERE! BY THE WAY MY FAVRITE IS THE KIND WITH THE LITTLE TRAP DOOR ON THE SEAT WHICH MAKES IT EASY IN CASE I NEED TO TAKE A SPURRIER.

(THATS WHAT I CALL POO! HAHA)

ALL IN

DABO SWINNEY

Sometimes words are not necessary.

I have enjoyed this week. I have enjoyed this week of Gamecock football more than any non-football week ever. And I wish I could freeze time right here, and soak it in for just a little longer.

This week brought us:

• Steve Spurrier at SEC Media Days standing up for student athletes in football and basketball, advocating that they get spending money so their families can come see them play.
• Spurrier poking Notre Dame, saying “We all voted 14-0 they ought to be in a conference.”
• Spurrier being Spurrier at the podium – perpetually moving, scriptless, rambling at times, yet engaging and funny (whether intentionally or not).
• Spurrier smiling at friend-of-the-blog Brandi’s question about his 50-year high school reunion.
• Jadeveon Clowney calling out quarterbacks by name – Murray, Wilson, Boyd – and saying they’re “scared” of him and the USC defensive line.  
• Clowney’s obvious comfort with the media now as opposed to when he arrived. He will be a jewel of a spokesman at the next level for Under Armour, Gatorade, Buick, or whoever decides to pay him lots of money to say nice things about their product.
• Clowney actually saying “Clowney comin’.”  #CLOWNEYCOMIN
• Clowney at the ESPY’s, picking up the award for play of the year in all sports, for what is one of the top 5 college football plays of the last 40 years. (Cal-Stanford, Flutie, Colorado-Michigan…what else?)
• And the cherry on top, this photo: Spurrier at Arby’s, slightly disheveled, but completely in control. Even while he’s grabbing condiments at Arby’s.

I want to freeze time right here because we have these two guys, arguably the best player in South Carolina history and not arguably the best coach in South Carolina history. I want to freeze time right here because of the team we’ll be fielding in six weeks, and the possibilities. Oh, the possibilities.

Survive week one; sneak out of Athens with a win; run that three-game middle-of-the-season road gauntlet; beat Florida for the SEC East; beat Clemson for that elusive thumb ring; Atlanta; Pasadena?

It’s fun to think about. Today.

We say we can’t WAIT for football season, and I’m with you. But the truth is when we start practice in about two weeks our grandiose dreams of roses will fade into another hallmark of Gamecock fandom: we’ll start to worry.

A two-quarterback system never works. Our linebackers are SO young. Who is our go-to receiver? Oh no, <insert player name> tweaked an ankle. If we don’t get pressure on the quarterback we’re going to get picked apart. Why the hell aren’t we running the ball more? Why the hell aren’t we throwing the ball more?  

It’s completely natural. Especially for us. Natural to wring our hands and rub our faces. I do it every Saturday in the fall.

So today, July 19, 2013, I want to think about Spurrier and Clowney and Gamecock football just the way it is. It’s fun. And we’re good. Really good. We haven’t had this much fun, or been this good, in our 131-year history.    

Maybe we’ll win all our games. Maybe we won’t.

Either way, it’s great to be a Gamecock. Especially today.