Friday September 11, 2009

This Team is Different...I Think

This Team is Different….I Think
Editor’s Note: Because of the Thursday night game, we will postpone our E-Mail Bag until next Friday.

No one could possibly hate losing more than me. As I grow older, I try to cope with it better but it sickens me to lose at anything.

Also, I have never felt good about losing and would never know what a moral victory would feel like.

With that said, last night just felt different. We will not know if this team is different until the rest of the season plays out but my guess is this team will show us they are different.

Like most of you, I was feeling sick and embarrassed when it was a 24-0 game. Like many of you, I felt encouraged by the effort from that point on.

There were enough mistakes to last an entire season in that first quarter and the Tigers made other mistakes later. You also have to give Georgia Tech a lot of credit for making the plays when they had to.

I guess my main point this morning is that last night’s game could show us one of two things. It could show us that Clemson still has offensive line, wide receiver and special teams issues and this program has a hard time winning close games. On the flip side, it could us that this team is special because they were facing a 24-0 deficit in a hostile environment and came back to take a fourth quarter lead. Unfortunately, we will not know the answer until we see how this team responds.

In the past, this program has seen one loss beat you twice or even three times. So often in the past Clemson had its eyes set on a certain goal and when adversity struck, the ship took on more water. Last night looked different and most of us want to believe it means this team is different.

If Clemson is to take last night as a positive and build upon it then it will have to not repeat the past mistakes of other teams. Other teams stepped on their bottom lip for a few weeks and felt sorry for themselves. They lost focus. Remember, the football season is a long one and every goal Clemson had in the pre-season is still front of this team.

There are examples of something positive coming from a loss but I had to go back to 1977 for the best example. The Tigers were coming off a 2-9 season in 1975 and a 3-6-2 campaign in 1976. The season opener that year was at home to 10th-ranked Maryland. The Terps were a powerhouse in those days. They were 11-1 and finished 8th in the nation the previous season. In 1975 they won nine games and finished 11th. The previous four seasons Maryland had won at least eight games and finished in the top 25 each year.

The 10th-ranked Terps beat Clemson in the season opener of 1977 by a 21-14 score but that Clemson team was different. It was the sixth straight year Maryland defeated Clemson but again this team reacted different than the previous squads. This team found out they could play with a top ten football team. The 1977 Tigers gained confidence they were lacking and used that confidence the following week when they went to Athens, GA and upset the 17th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs 7-6. Some remember that was the game where Clemson head coach Charley Pell stopped the buses on the way home and bought victory cigars.

The 1977 Tigers went on a seven game winning streak after the loss to Maryland to earn a Gator Bowl bid and an 8-3-1 record. It was the school’s first bowl bid since 1959.

The following season Clemson went 11-1 and finished sixth in both major polls.

There are examples of how this program took a loss like last night and turned it into a negative. In 1992 the Tigers were 1-0 and were ranked 13th in the country. Florida State came to Death Valley ranked fifth in the country but Clemson jumped out to an early lead only to see the Seminoles comeback for a 24-20 victory. FSU went on the finish the season ranked second in the nation but they were on the ropes against the Tigers that night.

The following week a 16th-ranked Clemson squad went to Georgia Tech and lost 20-16 to a team that finished 5-6. The Tigers went on to lose four of their last five to finish the season 5-6 and seventh in the ACC.

So was last night a negative that will drain the program to the point that it did in the demoralizing loss to Florida State in 1992? Or will it be a spark that gives the Tigers confidence to build upon something special like it was to the 1977 and 1978 Clemson teams?

The answers will be found in the coming weeks. I would hate to look back at last night’s game and think it was devastating. However, I just don’t get that feeling. I guess I feel that way because of the faith I have in Dabo. If Dabo is anything, he is a motivator. I think he and this staff have this team’s attention and I think this team believes in him and his staff.

I am sure this will be the topic at hand over the next few days and weeks and I want to spend some time on the blog next week with this theme. Where do the Tigers go from here?

Losing stinks and I still don’t know what a moral victory feels like but I am sure I will be excited to welcome this football team back at Tiger Walk and at the top of The Hill next Saturday because I think this team is different.

The Brad Hughes All-State Insurance Agency

Prayer List
We have started a prayer list on the blog. Here are the guidelines:
*If you are offended by prayer or prayer lists then I apologize in advance. The blog is free and the prayer list will be on the bottom of the page so you don’t have to read it.
*If you would like to add someone to the list please e-mail me at mickeyplyler@hotmail.com
*If you want the reason for the prayer to be added to the name please specify in your e-mails.
*Please let me know when it is appropriate to take the person off of the prayer list

Those who need our prayers include:
Finn Brookover, Larry in Naples, FL, RTG-Pawsitive Tiger, Mary-Louise Pawlowski (John's daughter), Jo Ann Bachman, Frank Taylor, Kenneth Bryant, Pruitt Martin, Got igers and his family, David Rowland, Leonard Gillespie and his family, Jim S, Christine Hepfer, Daniel Rosborough, Amy Murphey, Jack Huffman, Nancy Winkler, Dr. Nancy Strom Morgan, John Reeve, Eileen Woodrum, Ethel Southard, Vinnie Brock, Jean-Pierre Bailey, Kaitlyn L, Delores Weaver, Eric Boessneck, John Bowers, Jimmy Ness, Susan Miller, Joyce Harley, Steve Proveaux, John Petrey, Chalmers Carr, Drayton Melton, Jeffrey Greene, the Hutto family, Sherl Drawdy, Caleb Kennedy, Ann Fallaw, Bob Pollack.