Earlier today I was watching the Daytona pre-race coverage on Fox while gently dozing on my couch.  I find that modern day NASCAR is best viewed in a semi-catatonic state, as it is both designed and marketed for a demographic that inhabits that mental gap permanently.  Regardless, somewhere through the fog of my snoozing I heard Darrell Waltrip seal-bark something resembling the following English-language sentence: “Imagine if your other favorite sport had its biggest event at the beginning of the season like we do in NASCAR.”

Now granted this sounded (perhaps due to my resting haze but more likely attributable to Waltrip’s Tennessee background) more like “imgn ifny odder fvorine sportin had stff at beg gginn liken we did in NNNNNNAAASSSCCCAARRRRR”, but the thought still hit me like a thunderbolt. 

What if college football started off the season with its biggest games?

The biggest games are the bowl games, of course, so what would it be like if we started the season with them? 

The concept got me to thinking.  It also ruined my NASCAR nap.  Excitedly I pulled out pen and paper and began fleshing out the specifics.  I first wrote down every marquee bowl game I could think of.   I left off the lesser ESPN bowls, the ones named after tires, or the ones played on blue fields, and although this was not my intention, coincidently eliminated any bowl that CTU has played in over the last ten years or could hope to compete in for the near future.

That left me with Orange/Sugar/Fiesta/Chickfila/Cotton/Rose/Gator/Outback and a couple of those western bowls that Notre Dame and the PAC-10 pretend to be excited about.  Instead of New Years Day bowls these all would, under my plan, become Labor Day bowls. 

It occurred to me that if we played all of those at the beginning of the year it would restore them to their original meaning:  nothing.  They would mean nothing other than providing us with a good out-of-conference tilt to open the football year.  No national title implications, no concerns other than having a few chambers of commerce trying to set up good ball games that would show well locally and to a TV audience.  The bowl games would be celebrations of the sports and of the teams, not diluted by larger implications.  Heck the Chickfila folks have already blazed the trail for us with their wildly-successful kickoff classic game.

What of the BCS and the polls and the search for a national title?  Keep them all, but keep them at the end of the year as a part of a playoff.  Conference champs only (probably should make the ACC and WAC have a play-in but that’s a blog for a different day) in an eight game playoff culminating with a national title game on January 1^st.

Best of both worlds.

Only shortcoming I can see is having a bunch of seniors fighting and clawing to earn a Gator Bowl bid, just to see the underclassmen enjoying it the following fall while they are out in the workforce.

Solution?  Comp them each with a couple of tickets and an Ole Miss coed.  Problem solved.

So the playoff/bowl controversy is solved at last.

You’re welcome, college football.

This will be my final Jadeveon Clowney-inspired post, at least until my next one.  What brings me back to the topic is this puzzling quote from a Post and Courier story this morning:

“Clowney said he was influenced by NBA star LeBron James’ decision to televise his free agency destination this summer…”

Um…influenced?  Influenced by the worst PR decision in the history of professional sports?  Influenced by an event that turned a well-liked NBA superstar into perhaps the most hated man in professional sports? 

I’m not trying to make anything out of this at all, I just found it a bit humorous.  Let’s hope JC gets his “influence” from more positive sources and/or events from here on out.

The roller coaster ride wrapped in a circus that was the recruitment of Jadeveon Clowney finally ended today.  Despite the ridiculous amount of media coverage that mounted over the last few months, and last two weeks in particular, the importance of his decision to the University of South Carolina football program cannot be overstated.

Oh, sure, we all at one time or another talked about how football is a team game and Clowney is but one player, trying to convince ourselves we’d be fine if he went to Alabama or Clemson.  But as Gamecock fans we all knew that we would not only be missing out on perhaps a once-in-a-generation player, but a huge chunk of good will gained from the 2010 football season would’ve been lost.

Given all the factors that were in our favor, seeing Clowney put on an orange or crimson hat this morning would’ve been nothing short of devastating.  We needed his commitment worse than Clemson or Alabama.  Much worse.

So instead of imagining that dread scenario any further, I bring you good news – Jadeveon Clowney is a Gamecock.  He is the consensus number one recruit in the country.  He has been called the best high school player to come along in years.  Some say he is the best ever at his age.  He has been compared to Jevon Kearse and Mario Williams, which ain’t bad.  His highlight films are freakish.  And best of all, we’ll get the pleasure of seeing him suit up in the garnet and black in the fall.

Here are a few other not-so-random thoughts from a busy day:

Curb Your Enthusiasm – Freshman defensive ends rarely burst onto the college football scene.  Clowney may very well be the exception, and I hope he is, but he needs to add weight, needs time in the weight room, and needs to work on his technique.  Don’t expect him to be the defensive equivalent of Marcus Lattimore out of the gate.

Shane Beamer – The Rubber Chickens bloggers have differing opinions on this.  Spurrier said after the FSU game that Beamer does a good job and he just needs better players.  I tend to believe SOS here, because he doesn’t have a track record of defending bad coaches.  At the same time, we have seen our share of terrifying special teams moments with Shane-O at the helm.  Best of luck to him, seems like a good guy.

Chris Rumph – If this story is accurate, it says a lot about the type of person Rumph is.  Look, I like making fun of CTU as much as the next guy, but what a bum.  To sell kids hard on Clemson one day, and then a few days later tell them “they can’t win at Clemson” is about as low rent as you can get.  (Not terribly excited about JC’s comments about Saban here either, FWIW.)

ESPN – my love-hate relationship with the Worldwide Leader tilted heavily to the negative today.  If you’re going to orchestrate the biggest day of an 18-year-old’s life, then for goodness sake orchestrate it around your commercial breaks.

Next up, spring practice, and BASEBALL!

 

trick shot quarterback

delivers

mind blowing

video

but has no

statistics

as a redshirt

junior?

Earlier this week I read a blog post called “Dear Jadeveon…if you attend the University of South Carolina” (h/t chuckoliver.net). It’s fair, and honest, and lays out some good reasons for Jadeveon Clowney to don the garnet & black next season.

But to the dismay of Gamecock fans everywhere, CTU has come on strong in recent days and by all accounts is in a neck and neck battle with USC for the services of the consensus top player in the country. And let’s be honest, there are a lot of great reasons for him to consider CTU, some football related and some not.

So to keep things fair, I ask the Gamecock Nation to take the blinders off for a moment and consider some of the reasons Jadeveon Clowney might just choose CTU:

• Practically unlimited, and irrisistible, orange and purple uniform combinations
• If you like to have your rear end smacked, Dabo is your man
• The thrill of playing in front of literally hundreds of fans at Cameron Indoor Wallace Wade Stadium
• ACC football tradition…what? Oh, sorry, ACC basketball tradition
• Two syllables: tractors
• Dabo has promised to punch himself in the face until unconscious strictly for your entertainment
• Speaking of Dabo, who else has a coach who also stars on “30 Rock”?

  

• That little street through the middle of town with the store that sells stuff
• The possibility of seeing a drunken Brent Musburger hitting on young co-eds at the Esso Club
• Gameday meals provided by Ernie & Jewell’s Pig Innards and Snout Grindings
• When Cletus brings his wife and sister to an autograph session, you only have to sign two autographs
• If you’re really drunk, the lack of dental services and that big clock in the middle of campus make it easy to pretend you’re in London
• Now that Brad Scott has retired he’s looking to shade some folks, if you’re interested
• Kevin Steele gets so jacked up on the sidelines that he passes out, which is AWESOME
• Cow patties make great doorstops
• Hop in a car and drive south and you can find really hot college chicks within a couple of hours
• CTU facemasks are dipped in diesel fuel to block the smell of the pastures
• That’s Danny Ford lurking in the bushes naked, no kidding
• Make all-ACC more than twice and have your jersey retired and a tool shed named after you
• You can celebrate the 1981 National Championship, and the subsequent 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985 probations (aka “The Salad Days”)
• Every year you’ll only be 8-10 plays and 48-65 points from an ACC championship and/or BCS National Championship birth
• Even after South Carolina beats you four straight, you can still say, “YEAH, BUT LOOK AT THE ALL-TIME RECORD BAYBEE, WOOHOO!”
• Speaking of WOOHOO…Awesomest. Fight song. Ever.
• You never have to hear of the God-awful city of Omaha ever again, for it has been stricken from the record at CTU
• You get to play at the most storied college football program in the history of Pickens County

Godspeed Jadeveon, I’m glad you’re making the decision and not me.

It may be common knowledge that CTU Head Cat, Dabo Sweeney, used to be a Condo Salesman, but what is not widely known is that he also used to wrestle professionally under the alias “Osiris Portal.”  We here at TRC have uncovered archival footage showing Dabo in action.  Note his signature ability, which evidently still works on some naive out-of-state recruits.

Couple of things to watch:

– Not sure whether or not his partner is Chris Rumph, but its possible.

– Brad Scott does a disturbing strip-tease at the 1:35 mark – MY EYES!

#itallmakessensenow

Saturday’s loss to Auburn has me torn.  On one hand I’m thinking:

Is Darrin Horn just not a good coach? I know, I know, he didn’t shoot 7-33 from three-point range or get pounded on the boards, his players did.  He was the same coach in today’s loss to Auburn as he was in surprising victories over Vandy and Florida.

But today might be the worst game he has coached at South Carolina.  The player rotation was what struck me as most bizarre.

– Damontre Harris comes out of the gates hitting nice jumpers on the first two possessions of the game, and winds up playing only nine minutes and taking one more shot.  Why was he on the bench so much?

– Stephen Spinella showed over and over why he should be the absolute last guy off the bench, but somehow was allowed to log twelve minutes and miss all five of his shots.   Why wasn’t he on the bench more?

– Johndre Jefferson, honest to goodness, I forgot he was on the team until he showed up in the second half.  But by the time he arrived playing solid interior defense where there previously had been none, it was too late.  The way we were getting destroyed around the basket, why did it take so long to get him in there?  We may not have seen him at all if Malik Cooke hadn’t been T’d up.

The loss of Lakeem Jackson today just seemed to throw Horn’s entire coaching strategy off.  Jackson is a nice piece, but we shouldn’t have missed him as much as we did.  I just can’t remember a Carolina basketball game in which I kept looking at the floor and then the bench and then the floor again wondering what the heck Horn was thinking.

On the other hand:

What did you expect? This is a team that lost one of the top five players in school history from last year’s team, a team that despite upsetting #1 Kentucky was not very good.  The stars of this year’s team are a freshman point guard who doesn’t shoot all that well and still has trouble with control and decision-making at this level, and a senior who until this year has been a role player.  A good role player mind you, but a role player nonetheless.

The rest of the team is littered with freshmen and sophomores who are not game changers. My fingers are crossed that one of two of them may develop into that, but at this point they are far from it.  Brian Richardson has been in a shooting/confidence slump since the beginning of SEC play, and our two freshman big men, Harris and Slawson, combined for a whopping four points in 15 minutes of play on Saturday.  Tack on a transfer from Nevada and a JUCO transfer, and you can understand why we were picked sixth in the SEC East in the preseason.

I’ve seen several tweets and other comments about how it’s inexcusable we lost to a team that has so much less talent than us.  I find that laughable.  Look at our team from top to bottom and I think you’ll come to realize victories over Vanderbilt and Florida are the aberration, not a loss to Auburn.

So maybe Darrin Horn knows exactly what he’s doing, and a bad loss like Saturday’s is just part of the process.

And to that I say, after watching 30 years of Carolina basketball, I’m sick of the process.