Dear Swoffy

by Mickey Plyler - Radio Host - Feb 20, 2013, 9:17 AM

Dear Swoffy

Dear John,

Well here we are again. I am at my keyboard looking at a blank football schedule and you are probably off in the Outer Banks with Holden.

I promise I won't write this letter again next year if you would just come out with a football schedule at a reasonable time.

It seems you guys in the conference office delay this thing longer and longer each year.

My guess is that you and your cronies don't quite understand the importance of releasing a football schedule in a reasonable timeframe. Please allow me a few paragraphs to explain.

Clemson people love football. I know this may sound strange to a Tar Heel. Actually, this is how most of the country feels. Certainly the television executives explained this to you. This is why 80% of the television contracts are based on football instead of that other sport you guys value so much up there.

The love of football is shared in Blacksburg and Tallahassee. I know this group of three schools is in the minority. After visiting Chestnut Hill, College Park, Charlottesville, Winston-Salem, Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Atlanta and Miami it is clear to me that us Tigers, Seminoles and Hokies are in the minority. Still it is important to us.

If 80% of these armored car trucks full of money are based upon football then you may want to at least pretend to care about the sport. Try and trick em into thinking that you guys in the conference office care about it.

The Big 10 cares about football. They have their football schedules in place for the 2013 and 2014 seasons already. They have been for almost a year now.

The SEC certainly cares about football. They came out with their football schedule in October.

The Big 12 cares about it. Like the SEC, they came out with their 2013 schedules in 2012.

The Pac 12 has shown they care. Their schedule has been out for over a month.

So the only two BCS conferences that have not released their football schedules yet are the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big East. See a trend here?

It can't be that hard. This is not rocket science. Its probably closer to Swahili classes than nuclear physics.

I know Pittsburgh and Syracuse are coming into the league but you can't use them as an excuse because it took this long last year too.

It's only 56 games. How long can that take? Last year I offered to do it for you and we would have had it out before the end of the calendar year.

A major reason to get the schedule out is perception. You guys talk like you want to be good in football but your actions don't back it up.

The officiating is the worst in among the BCS conferences. Certainly this can't be a surprise to you.

I know your son is an exec with Raycom but this is another example of how it is clear that the conference does not take football serious. The studio show for football is second rate. The game announcers and sideline reporters for the Raycom are awful. It is poorly produced and looks like a low budget production.

I doubt your officiating or Raycom will change anytime soon, so getting a football schedule out in a reasonable time frame would be a cheap way to try to show we care about the sport.

You see, at Clemson we plan around Saturdays in the fall. We schedule weddings based upon the football schedule. Churches on open date Saturdays are at a premium.

At Clemson, we travel to road games. We try to take advantage of air plane deals by booking flights to road games early. We book hotels early to make sure we get the best rooms in the best locations.

We schedule our vacation days around football, especially if you have us playing one of those silly Thursday night games.

It may sound foreign to most of you and your staff but football is season is very important to us and we need to know where we are playing this fall.

We are less than 200 days from kicking off our football season. To be exact we are 193 days away. See how serious we are? Please give us our football schedule. If you have to you can hang on to the other 13 schools. Just give us ours.

Thanks.

The Brad Hughes All-State Insurance Agency

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