Interesting times for Clemson

Dec 3, 2004, 6:07 PM

Clemson has gone 11-2 at home the past two years with huge wins over our arch rival. We ran off a national championship coach at SC by simply demolishing his team by a combined 92-24 score. We won 3 games over top ten teams and finally got a win againt our huge nemesis, Florida State. We beat State and Maryland for the first time in several years. In 2003, Coach Bowden was ACC Coach of the Year. To my untrained but experienced eye, our talent has been pretty clearly upgraded. In many circles, the two years Clemson posted in 2003 and 2004 would be considered good years.

How has Coach Bowden responded? It looks to me like he is fighting mad that we didn't do better. He fired a really nice guy in Mike O'Cain because our offense was terrible and made almost every game close this year. He fired John Lovett, I'd guess because we started out so badly on defense. Coach Bowden seems to have fired a six year assistant who hasn't been burning it up on the recruiting trail. I think we have a HUNGRY head coach who wants to and demands to get better.....lots better.

I like the looks of it. I cheer every step Coach Bowden is making to mold Clemson into the sort of team HE can be proud to call his own.

I think the firings have likely been hard on Coach Bowden. I think he's a nice guy and that firing coaches is a really hard thing to do. I think Coach Bowden didn't get to enjoy this season much. He won big at Miami, then came crashing down in Durham. I'll bet that was GUT WRENCHING for Tommy Bowden. We won HUGE against Lou Holtz and cememted forever the fact that Tommy owned this hall of fame coach. Two days later we banned ourselves from a bowl, publicly reprimanded players and likely embarrassed and made Coach Bowden fighting mad. I think the last month was pretty amazingly hard for Coach Bowden.

I salute Tommy's determination to make Clemson a much better football team. He has my unqualified support in his efforts to make the Tigers much much better. I'm looking forward to next year. I think we'll take the field pretty fired up from the get go. It ought to be fun.

Go Tigers!!

Message was edited by: Harley®

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

likely set the direction of our program for quite some time.

Our offense underperformed this year. There is no way a Clemson team with the weapons this team had should lose to Duke. I know it was a trap game (after the win in Miami and before U$C) and I know it took a lot of bad breaks for it to happen but when Mike O'Cain said Duke's defense "confused" him, that was the death knell for him.

Our defense was unstoppable the last 6 games of the year. Unfortunately, even when they were playing well, they struggled on third and long and mobile quarterbacks killed them. We could never cover a tight end in the flat or a FB out of the backfield. In the first 5 games of the year, we were soft.

Now, the heads are flying. Who will come in? We have a QB that is a fifth year senior. His entire career has been in one offense with one terminology. Will he have to learn an entirely new offense for his last season?

The hires Bowden makes to replace O'Cain as OC and QB coach and Lovett as DB coach will mark the fortunes of this program for a LONG time. I'm glad he made the moves that he needed to make. I hope he isn't done. I pray he makes the right hires to replace them.

Interesting times for Clemson

Good Post !***

11-2 at home past 2 years***

Like I wished I'd said...."11-2 at home past 2 years"******

Good post--I agree with all of that***

Great post. Tommy Bowden is taking Clemson to the next level***

This shall be known as "The Purge of Ought 4" and it will

duke's defense confused him? No wonder

good post***

Excellent post, props to you***

So it's time to contend for the ACC championship then, right***

In 2005...we have a TOUGH schedule.

yes, and....

Great Post!!!! THis is HOF material Great job!!!!!***

TigerBoard POTD