USAT: Clemson, not Alabama, now face of college football

GrayTide

Hall of Fame
Nov 15, 2005
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Coaches: Some already out the door to other jobs. Some coaches were in over their head from the start of the season. Lack of preparation. Inability to make in game adjustments.

Players:. Not ready to play. Huge case of entitlement. Underestimated opponent. Out hustled, out hit, out smarted.

The team and staff were not ready to play and that is on the head coach. All of this is fixable and the new staff could be his best ever. Players need to play smart football for 60 minutes not go into games "with a chip on their shoulders" looking for revenge.
 
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BamaMoon

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Apr 1, 2004
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Dominated? Dominated?! -won handily? Yes, Dominated? No! The game was fairly close except for a few plays! I do hope we get Bama / Clemson 5, Sunshine is over rated. His greatness is based on beating an average Bama defense. The way people are reacting, you would think Clemson put up 600 yards of offense!
I agree...except I wouldn't say Sunshine is "overated" but he's probably "overhyped" at this point. It's just like what the media/fans did to Tua. I expect him to have a great year and probably get Clemson back to the playoffs unless he truly has a Soph. slump. Tua didn't and I doubt he will either, especially with their easy schedule.

The word dominated refers to the scoreboard at the end of the game. We lost by a dominating amount of points. Despite the context of the game, thats not what people remember. People remember Sunshine dropping dimes, receivers making a couple of our DBs look like high school Juniors, our Oline not protecting, and Tua throwing two Ints. No one remembers we moved the ball more yards than clemson, no one remembers the red zone inefficiency. The Score was 44-16. Thats a dominating win no matter the reasons or excuses for losing. Alabama doesn't lose to anyone by that amount.

I stand corrected. Clemson had more Total Yards than we did. They moved the ball 482 Yards to our 443.
Yes, scoreboard says "it wasn't close" but the game stats tell a different story. The game stats really show we played much better than the scoreboard indicated. We were leading in the second quarter and had three straight drives into Clemson territory in the 3rd quarter which resulted in zero points.

And I agree our coaches' minds were other places (CNS says so) and our players might have felt they couldn't be beat, which set the narrative to play so poorly, by our NC game standards. We would have beaten most teams even playing that distracted and poorly, but it's a credit to Clemson and Dabo that they were ready and got it done.

Give them credit, but it doesn't mean we suddenly are irrelevant.
 

bamacpa

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Jul 19, 2006
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Cool, let them wear the target awhile. It’s not always as fun as it sounds.


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Bamabuzzard

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We are the better draw no doubt, but at this point Clemson is the better team until we beat them. With credit to Bill and his Ric Flair analogy, "to be the man you got to beat the man".
The problem with this mindset is the teams that played on the field back in January no longer exist. Clemson will field a brand new team as will Alabama. This dynamic of college football is why it is completely flawed and highly unreliable to predict future dominance of a program based on previous teams. From year to year teams lose and gain players. The talent coming in doesn't always match the talent going out. The chemistry of this year's team may not be the same as last year's. It maybe better or it maybe worse. It changes from year to year.

If we want to talk about the better program, that is a more realistic discussion. But then again, even that discussion has some of the same elements as discussing which team is better. Personally, I don't think a "better program" discussion is worth having if the look back window is less than three years. My preference is five. Let's put up the numbers for both Clemson and Bama in the last three to five years. Without looking, I'd say anyone would have a hard time making the claim that Clemson has "surpassed" Alabama.


A recent but not so recent example of the flaw in predicting future dominance based on one game or one season is Colin Cowherd (after the 1 second game) that Gus and Auburn were entering into a season of dominance over Nick Saban and Alabama. How did that play out? LOL! ROLL TIDE!!!
 
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B1GTide

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Apr 13, 2012
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Lots of rat poison out there....... let them feed on it, and let Bama prepare for the season......
Dabo is doing a great job of telling his players that Clemson is still getting no respect. I think that poor mouth stuff works, and "rat poison" only hurts your team if the players buy into it and stop working.
 

STONECOLDSABAN

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Sep 21, 2007
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Exactly what I thought was going to happen. Writers trying to pretend like Alabama didn't trounce Clemson in the sugar bowl the year before and how things can change a lot in one year. I hate sportswriters so much sometimes it chokes me. And no I am not mad that they are dumping on Alabama. I am mad because stuff like this is such Phony garbage that people eat up.
 

Evil Crimson Dragon

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Feb 4, 2018
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Dabo is doing a great job of telling his players that Clemson is still getting no respect. I think that poor mouth stuff works, and "rat poison" only hurts your team if the players buy into it and stop working.
Poor mouthing only goes so far though....... eventually someone will believe their own press, and then another, and so on.......
 

cjhadley

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Jan 1, 2007
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Exactly what I thought was going to happen. Writers trying to pretend like Alabama didn't trounce Clemson in the sugar bowl the year before and how things can change a lot in one year. I hate sportswriters so much sometimes it chokes me. And no I am not mad that they are dumping on Alabama. I am mad because stuff like this is such Phony garbage that people eat up.
Like Finebaum keeps saying that Clemson has won 2 of the last 3 and blew Alabama out in the National Championship game. When if you go back just one more year it is 2 and 2 with Alabama beating Clemson in the 2017-18 semi-final game.

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GrayTide

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The problem with this mindset is the teams that played on the field back in January no longer exist. Clemson will field a brand new team as will Alabama. This dynamic of college football is why it is completely flawed and highly unreliable to predict future dominance of a program based on previous teams. From year to year teams lose and gain players. The talent coming in doesn't always match the talent going out. The chemistry of this year's team may not be the same as last year's. It maybe better or it maybe worse. It changes from year to year.

If we want to talk about the better program, that is a more realistic discussion. But then again, even that discussion has some of the same elements as discussing which team is better. Personally, I don't think a "better program" discussion is worth having if the look back window is less than three years. My preference is five. Let's put up the numbers for both Clemson and Bama in the last three to five years. Without looking, I'd say anyone would have a hard time making the claim that Clemson has "surpassed" Alabama.


A recent but not so recent example of the flaw in predicting future dominance based on one game or one season is Colin Cowherd (after the 1 second game) that Gus and Auburn were entering into a season of dominance over Nick Saban and Alabama. How did that play out? LOL! ROLL TIDE!!!
Well stated, Buzz. Going with what you said then Clemson was the better team last year, but if we want to judge the program we should go back to when CNS and Dabo took control of their respective programs. Using this rationale, it is not even close, Alabama, as a program, is ahead of Clemson, but I would say Clemson is certainly the second best right now. And you are certainly right about the teams that played in January of 2019 no longer exist.
 

EnterBama

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Oct 24, 2018
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If Clemson can lose the talent and experience they lost on defense, especially the D-line, and be as good as last year my hat will be off to Dabo Swinney. I think they may suffer some setback(s).
 
Dabo is doing a great job of telling his players that Clemson is still getting no respect. I think that poor mouth stuff works, and "rat poison" only hurts your team if the players buy into it and stop working.
Is he? This is the first I’ve heard of that. Looks to me they are getting all of the accolades. Deservedly so.


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Tideflyer

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Dec 14, 2011
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If Clemson can lose the talent and experience they lost on defense, especially the D-line, and be as good as last year my hat will be off to Dabo Swinney. I think they may suffer some setback(s).
You may be correct in your last statement but to whom ? Other than A&M? They should hardly break a sweat in that pitty pat conference they play in if they're the world beaters everybody thinks they are.
 

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