Thursday February 04, 2010

Family; Peach State; Jake; 2011; Schedule

Welcome to the Family
One thing I heard again and again over the past few months was prospects that had committed to Clemson talk about family. As fans we get it and many of us got it early in our lives but it is refreshing to hear it from the prospects.

It is also nice to hear our coaches and our head coach talk about family as often as they do. As fans, we often times understood that family aspect because our families were the ones that introduced us to Clemson. Many of us came to games as kids and we related Clemson to family experiences. Many of us grow up close to Clemson and it was convenient. Also, many of us did have the exposure to other colleges across the Southeast.

But that is not the case for many of the prospects that signed with Clemson Wednesday. Many of those guys did not have family members or friends that went to Clemson. Many of them did not have family members take them to Clemson football games when they were young. Several are not from the surrounding area like many of us. And most of these guys have been exposed to the finest football programs in the Southeast.

Yet, now they are like us. They chose us. They chose our way of life. They are now Tigers. They are now family.

It really takes a special place with special people to get someone who has never been here to get that feeling the first time they step foot on campus. But our staff, our players, our support staff and our people get them to feel what we feel.

The bond does not always happen at first and not everyone gets it. But those that do, have it forever. Gaines Adams had it. Anthony Waters has it. So does Joe Bostic, James Davis and Tony Elliott. I think it was easy to see that C.J. Spiller has it and so does Jacoby Ford.

When we see it Spiller and Ford, then the prospects see it as well. You can fake a lot of things in recruiting but this one is hard to fake.

Often times you hear prospects say they chose a school because of how comfortable they felt. Every once in a while they take it a step farther and mention family. But at Clemson, this seemed to be the norm. Prospects would come home from official visits and almost every one of them mentioned the word family.

I think that is part of the reason David Beasley was able to do the rare thing and tell Georgia thanks but no thanks. The same can be said for Corey Crawford and the Dawgs and Victor Beasley and Auburn.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the staff in the final two weeks was holding off UGA, Auburn, Georgia Tech and Florida State. The Beasleys, Crawford, Darius Robinson, Tra Thomas, DJ Howard and Justin Parker had to tell other schools no late in the process.

Did you see all of the de-commitments yesterday from across the country? It happened to Georgia, Tennessee, Florida State, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Stanford and South Carolina but all 21 of Clemson’s commitments stayed strong. The Tigers even added two.

Peach State
One of the goals of the staff was to get a presence back in the state of Georgia. Dabo decided to put seven Clemson coaches in the state and it paid off. The Tigers signed seven players from the state of Georgia. That was the most for the program from Georgia since 2002 when Clemson also signed seven players from Georgia. Clemson had only seven players sign from the state of Georgia in the previous four classes combined.

Jake
Wednesday had to be a very proud day for Jake Nicolopulos and his mom and dad. Jake has been progressing in his rehab down at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta but he had extra motivation leading up to Wednesday. Jake had been practicing his signature as part of his occupational therapy in order to sign his letter of intent to Clemson yesterday. Whenever he is ready to come to school a full scholarship is waiting for Jake and I know his family is extremely proud. Jake has moved to an outpatient therapy at the center and continues to improve through hard work.

2011
I have mentioned the tremendous opportunity the staff has in 2011 several times and they are off to a great start with seven commitments for the upcoming class. Max Preps announced an “early top 10 recruiting classes for 2011” late Wednesday afternoon. Clemson was ranked second. The top 10 was: 1. LSU, 2. Clemson, 3. Florida State, 4. Stanford, 5. Alabama, 6.Ohio State, 7. Louisville, 8. Nebraska, 9. Oklahoma, 10. Florida.

2010 Schedule
The ACC will release the 2010 football schedule today at 2:00 PM. In some years it is leaked out a day or two in advance but I have not seen it this season. We know who the Tigers will be playing and where but today we find out when each conference opponent is scheduled.

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, Kaitlyn L, 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, Bob Pollock, Teresa O'Connor, Matt Jacobs, Mike Kingsmore,Perrin Seigler, Carole White Begley, Candee Massee, Lindsey Jordan, Sam Catoe, Tyler Felch, Steve Cato, the Nicolopulos family, Cason Palmer, Candace Fallaw, Scott Jackson, "the Jacksonville, FL guys", Kim Sims.