Random thoughts on Clemson & ACC
Random thoughts on Clemson and ACC ………..
• Congratulations to all the ACC and future ACC members who made the NCAA basketball tournament – I was / am pulling for all of you (even pulled for UNC!)!! Good luck to Louisville and Syracuse at final four.
• I went to the ACC tournament this year for the first time since I was at Clemson (many, many years ago!). I had a blast even though my team lost in the first round (as usual). The tournament should be awesome with the new teams coming in to play. A lot has been said about where the tournament should be held in the future – I personally think it should rotate something like this: Greensboro (2 years), MSG (1 year), Greensboro (2 yrs), MSG (1 yr), and so on.
• Speaking of Clemson basketball ……. a lot of us so-called “football schools” have been ragging on other so-called “non-football schools” to get serious about football. Well, in all fairness, I think Clemson needs to get serious about basketball. Football will always be the top priority at Clemson but there is no reason that we should not have a competitive basketball team year in and year out with an occasional good to great team. I am optimistic that our new AD is going to drive some much needed basketball facility improvements – hopefully these new facilities will help improve recruiting. I still think Brad Brownell is a good coach so I am not yet ready to say we need a coaching change – getting better recruits is the name of the game.
• Conference realignment – who knows what if anything will happen in this area in the near to immediate future. I am fine with the ACC as it stands now with the additions of Pitt, Cuse, and Louisville. I wish we could get ND to join full time but hey I’ll take what I can get. Having said this, I would still wholeheartedly support a Clemson move to the SEC but I doubt this will ever happen. I have seen numerous re-alignment scenarios that I would consider to be doomsday scenarios for Clemson – I do not want to a part of the Big 12 but would accept this if (and only if) the ACC was to implode and there were some other acceptable southeastern football schools that went to the Big 12 (ie FSU, GT, NCSU, etc.). Neither do I want to stay in the ACC if FSU, GT, NCSU, Miami, UNC, and VT leave for other conferences. Either of these two doomsday scenarios would make it near to impossible for Clemson football to continue to recruit at their current level and thus make it near to impossible for us to compete with the “big boys” not to mention a huge drop in interest level. Therefore, if our only option was to join the Big 12 without other SE schools or stay in a watered down ACC, then I would actively push for Clemson to give up FBS football and rejoin the Southern Conference – we could probably make a run at the FCS championship most years!
• Lot’s of good baseball teams in the ACC this year. Should make for an interesting tournament. Clemson has a lot of talented but inconsistent young players. Hopefully they will pull it all together and be playing their best ball at the end of the year. In any event, the next couple of years look very promising for Clemson baseball.
• I can’t wait for football season to start! Our home schedule is very mountainous ….. several high peaks (games with Georgia, FSU, and GT) but lot’s of valleys (games with BC, WF, South Carolina State, Citadel). I want very badly to go to the game at Syracuse but am having a hard time convincing my wife and our two football traveling companions to go. If we don’t go to Cuse, we will probably end up going to UVA game. My wife and I will once again venture to Columbia to watch Clemson / South Carolina – I certainly hope Clemson wins but either way, it will be an exciting college football game and atmosphere.
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