Sunday sermon: Fly the flags, boys!

Sep 2, 2012, 10:11 AM

Try to rip THIS helmet off, Auburn!

Come Monday, the morning commute will be fluttering with flags.

Some folks, like in my neck of the woods, will be flapping flags to honor a ritual sacrifice to open the season, hoping the splash of color and snapping of fabric will drown out still-nagging doubts that they have a team worth celebrating at all.

Others fly with a sense of relief as much as celebration ... knowing that your victory came against someone you were supposed to manhandle, and had to rely on an official's incompetence to escape.

The Sons of Clemson fly our flags, both for a beginning and an end. A beginning of a season filled with promise, and the end of being the butt of an ugly joke that rang through the summer, a snide undercurrent in every conversation that popped up with fans of other schools:

"Did I hear that West Virginia scored again?"

In deed they did, and more power to them. West Virginia scored again.

But Auburn didn't.

And that's why our flags are flying.

Clemson didn't have to pansy-dance to get that opening win. We didn't have to beat up Jerry's Kid's or bumble and stumble to get past a defensive line we outweighed by 40 pounds per man.

We didn't start with soup or fruit salad. We went straight to the main course.

Clemson just had to line up and play the game we all believed was possible ... maybe even a little more so.

Did it truly surprise anyone that Hopkins could do what he did? Or that a healthy Ellington would be able to put up dizzying numbers. Naw, not really.

What was surprising, and frightening to future foes, was watching Clemson's green O Line mature into hardwood before our eyes.

I'll take you back to last night, late in the first half. Clemson has the ball, jogging through play after play. Auburn's D Line, supposed one of the best in the SEC ... the D Line that was supposed to shred us and disrupt our play ... was gassed. I'm not talking getting a bit winded. I'm talking looking over at their 80s #### star D coordinator like condemned prisoners headed to the gallows.

At that moment, we knew that if that game was coming down to a late drive to win, we'd be winning.

Sure, we were shredded ... we only got about 500 yards of offense. Add another 80 or 90 yards called back after motion penalties, correct a few drops that won't be drops later in the year and toss in another wide receiver who was sitting this one out, and you get an idea what this offense can REALLY do.

Look what's coming, if your defense stands in our path, and shudder.

A couple of pesky issues remain, particularly the strange lack of safety help on a couple of long pass plays. Blake's score last night was a mirror image of VTech's only TD against us last season.

But when things got hairy, Auburn got nothing but FGs. And a team that wants to trade field goals with Clemson is a team that's going to lose. After all, you can only rip off so many helmets.

The next couple of weeks are going to fly by at Clemson. Barring injury, there's no reason things won't get better, stats won't get padded, rankings won't climb. If Ellington doesn't top 230 yards again, it's simply because the starters will be sitting in the second half.

And opponents who feasted on cream puffs or nearly choked on undersized opponents will watch and wonder: "What the hell are we going to do about Clemson?"

You keep wondering, and the flags keep flying. And the true Sons of Clemson keep coming.

Deal with it.