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Clemson Icon [24226]
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My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
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Jul 9, 2024, 1:55 PM
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I have been watching Clemson football since the late 80's. I started paying close attention in the early 90's. I know what it's like for Clemson to be mediocre for several years. I know what it's like to see Clemson elite. I remember 1998 and being relatively ok after a 3-8 season because we beat the coots and played hard all year long. And then I remember us being in that first natty game against Alabama and it felt surreal (literally like it was a dream) and I was so proud we made it that far. Fast forward to 2020 and we made the playoffs and I was horrified that we lost in the semi's to Ohio State.
Expectations are EVERYTHING for the fan. The benefit of being awful is that you can be happy being less awful. The curse of being elite is the inevitable reversion to mean is painful and fraught with denial.
With that said, my expectations are divided into 3 categories.
1. What I believe will probably happen (which is usually always just based on the last couple seasons + a person's natural optimism/pessimism)
2. The bare minimum it would take for me to say our program is in a good place
3. What would convince me our program is lost.
Before last year I felt like our program was absolutely in a good place. Then the nature of the Duke loss (not just the fact we lost) shattered that confidence. I became pessimistic. The FSU game gave me a little bit of hope back... but then the losses to NC State and Miami were obviously Tommy West type losses. Absolutely looked like 90's Clemson football. Outmatched, clueless, obvious ceiling, around the corner from a disaster.
After the regular season Dabo made some moves that caused me to slide a little back towards hopefulness. He addressed the biggest issue facing our program... the lack of experienced, wardaddy coaches. Rumph and Luke were huge steps in the right direction. After losing the fire that Venables injected our program with... all the brains in the world at DC couldn't fill the void. We needed salty coaches with an edge and brutal expectations. And we made two elite hires in that regard.
So my expectations are influenced with our obvious decline since 2020, our good recruiting, our apparent lack of player development lately, our two new elite coaches, our new OC with a full season under his belt, a Dabo with a Michael Jordan-sized chip on his shoulder who wants to prove himself more than any coach on the planet right now, but most of all.... my expecations hinge on the QB position.
I simply don't trust Cade after last year. Yes, he had a VERY good 2nd half of a 4th quarter against Kentucky. But the rest of the year he was wildly untrustworthy and erratic. And he looked like a high school player in our spring game. And that is NOT worthless. I have seen lots of spring games. I understand the dynamic. It's different than judging from a real game. But it's not worthless, depending on WHAT you see. Cade looked.... well... bad. Not confident, not consistent, not aware, not very good at all.
With all that said... I believe in every other position right now. I'm trying to be sold on Goodwin. Obviously there is load of evidence that he is solid. That he is the answer. But there were games last year that the defense looked terribly coached. Especially against the run and making tackles. We dominated sometimes and seemed prone to terrible gaffes at others. Our ceiling on defense is good enough to win a championship, for sure. But I am not confident we stay close to the ceiling often enough.
This team really has a lot of trust to earn before we can justify huge optimistic predictions.
So what I believe will happen is...
We lose to Georgia, but we don't look as outmatched as most people expect. After losing to UGA, I see us winning 9 of the remaining 11 games. I think we beat Florida State UNLESS Cade has a nightmare game. I expect us to lose two games in frustrating fashion.
The bare minimum it would take for me to say our program is in a good place...
We win 10 games, including beating the coots. No losses by more than 10 points to anyone after UGA.
What would convince me our program is lost...
Defense gives up 5 yards per rush or more. Offense makes no obvious progress from last year. 4 or more losses. Defense regresses from last year. We get blown out by any ACC school.
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Recruit [-100]
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Convince me
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Jul 9, 2024, 2:23 PM
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That we're good? Our Oline stops defenses. Our receivers know what they're doing. Our QB isnt a clown
That we're bad? Our Oline still sucks. Our receivers are mundane or injured. Our QB is a clown.
This is the truth: Dabo's biggest problem hasn't been lack of portal transfers....it's been his sh*t hires at position coaching. We STILL have former players coaching/recruiting RB and WR positions and NEITHER have any business being there.
Dabo's strength was that he was a great CEO and put the right ppl in places to succeed. Then he went and hired a bunch of former players to coach....and all that went to #### in a hand basket.
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Tiger Titan [50797]
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Bingo.
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Jul 10, 2024, 11:50 AM
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Dabo got overconfident in what he thought our keys to success were. The program culture and family atmosphere are great, but the keys to making us elite were great coordinators, talented position coaches, and outstanding talent at key positions.
His hubris prevented him from seeing what truly worked, as well as what we needed moving forward. His refusal to embrace the portal and NIL complicates things even more, and serves to further hurt the program.
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110%er [3909]
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Re: Bingo.
Jul 11, 2024, 7:53 AM
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I agree with most of this. However, I disagree on the whole embracing the NIL thing. Clemson has a good NIL program. Dabo has publicly stated many times he is fine with NIL.
That being said, I fully believe Dabo is against offering big money to top highschool recruits and talented transfers. That will hurt us, especially when all the elite schools are doing it.
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Game Changer [1904]
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Re: Bingo.
Sep 3, 2024, 9:55 AM
[ in reply to Bingo. ] |
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Ohhhh that smell
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Game Changer [1904]
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Re: Convince me
Sep 3, 2024, 9:53 AM
[ in reply to Convince me ] |
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Yawn
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Orange Phenom [14792]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
Jul 9, 2024, 5:01 PM
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I think 9-3 or 10-2. 10-2 would be good year in my opinion.
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All-In [11099]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
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Jul 9, 2024, 5:24 PM
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I think we win 10 regular season games, earn a berth to the ACC, and if we win that game; a berth to the playoff. Should Clemson beat UGA in Game 1, I predict an undefeated National Championship season.
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National Champion [7295]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
Jul 10, 2024, 9:33 AM
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I love unabashed optimism. Hope you are right.
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Asst Coach [877]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
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Sep 5, 2024, 11:14 AM
[ in reply to Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes) ] |
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Would I ever love us to get to the playoffs. I try to be optomistic, however, having watched college football for more years then I will admit to. And since I have said this so many itmes before it is probaly getting old for most of you. We have to and I mean have to upgrade the QB position before we can expect any good results. I hope it is through Cade gaining the ability to make it happen, if not someone else needs to step up. If none of that occurs we must use the portal for a QB1. If we don't, we go into next year with the same QB's and a freshman. I dread that thought.
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Letterman [196]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
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Jul 10, 2024, 9:40 AM
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I want to think that Cade and Viz looking so pedestrian in the spring game was intentional to give UGA film to review that makes them overconfident.
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Clemson Icon [24226]
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That would be nice. I hesitate to believe it though.***
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Jul 10, 2024, 11:28 AM
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Tiger Titan [50797]
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110%er [3909]
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Re: You actually think the coaches told our QBs not to try as hard?
Jul 11, 2024, 7:54 AM
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Wouldn’t that be nice? LOL
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Tiger Titan [50797]
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Winning 10-11 games this year would be an improvement over last year
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Jul 10, 2024, 11:46 AM
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but still below what we should expect given our recent success in the 2010s and our investment in the program.
While it would be great to reverse the trend the last five years of steadily increasing losses, I don’t think enthusiasm for the program would be very high after yet another underachieving year.
At some point, the belief in Dabo righting the ship would be competing with an increasing belief that our elite status just isn’t achievable again with him at the helm - at least not with the way he insists on running the program.
Many of the guys we are recruiting for next year were prepubescent when we won our last national championship…
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Clemson Icon [24226]
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I don't think it's healthy to base expectations on something we did 5 years ago.
Jul 11, 2024, 7:38 AM
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I think expectations should be more based on your current situation and realistic goals for improvement.
The run we had can't ever be expected. It was a miracle. The fact Clemson of all places was one of the two dominant programs for 5 whole seasons is incredible and unrealistic to expect ever again.
I think we should expect to be competitive against the big boys ($$$ and alum base) and consistently beat the programs that have an inferior program to ours. That should put us in the playoff conversation nearly every year, unless we move to the SEC. Then our path to the playoffs becomes much more difficult.
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Game Changer [1830]
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Clemson Icon [24226]
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Keeping track of my expectations. The first half went about how I expected.
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Sep 3, 2024, 9:42 AM
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I thought we'd be a tad closer though. I was thinking like 27-13.
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Top TigerNet [32929]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
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Sep 3, 2024, 9:56 AM
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Safeties were taking HORRIBLE angles. That's on Conn. WR's were running bad routes and couldn't manage press coverage. That's on Grisham.
I think those are the two biggest changes that need to be made right now. Fire them both.
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Paw Warrior [4812]
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Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes)
Sep 3, 2024, 10:38 AM
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Safeties? I think you meant linebackers. Barnes and Mickens played pretty good ball. Woodaz got caught frozen in place a few times and obviously mccloud should not see the field bc he played 2 snaps and gave up huge plays. The only safety that had a bad play that was notable was Venables from what I recall.
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Clemson Icon [24226]
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The OP was done in early July. Still, I didn't think the safeties were that bad
Sep 5, 2024, 9:06 AM
[ in reply to Re: My expectations for 2024 (Lot's of words; not for bibliophobes) ] |
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for most of the game. Obviously we have breakdowns in the 2nd half, but I would need to rewatch the tape to see that the safeties had particular struggles.
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Clemson Icon [24226]
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Keeping track of my expectations, Cade makes the difference, but WR play did too
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Oct 16, 2024, 4:25 PM
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So far we are doing better than I expected post-UGA. Our offense (Cade and WR's especially) are playing much better than I thought. They played about what I expected vs UGA.
My original expectation were losing to UGA by about 14, beating FSU and winning 8 of 10 remaining games. That is still in play, though our surprisingly good offensive performance has me hoping to run the table. I believe this is possible but I would not be shocked by a loss or two.
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Clemson Icon [24226]
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Based on my pre-season expectations I believe our program is in bad shape.
Nov 30, 2024, 7:15 PM
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The bare minimum it would take for me to say our program is in a good place...
We win 10 games, including beating the coots. No losses by more than 10 points to anyone after UGA.
We failed this.
What would convince me our program is lost...
Defense gives up 5 yards per rush or more. Offense makes no obvious progress from last year. 4 or more losses. Defense regresses from last year. We get blown out by any ACC school.
We failed this too, so I say we are a lost program right now.
Things that surprised me
1. Cade was better than I thought
2. Our schedule was weaker than I thought
3. Beating no good teams we are in the ACC championship game.
Things I was right about
1. 9-3 record.
2. Not well coached
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