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.

I'm looking forward to the season too. From a VT standpoint, we need to see whether the 7-6 season was a fluke or the new norm. Hopefully VT will return to being as attractive an opponent as we have been over the last 20 years.

Major realignment is on hold until the MD case is dealt with. It can't turn out poorly for the ACC because even if MD pays less in the end in exit fees, they'll pay a lot more in legal fees because the ACC will drag this out as long as possible and will spend as much as necessary to defend the league. So, I don't see the ACC losing any more teams any time in the near future.

I love ACC basketball and will love it more rooting for Cuse, Pitt, ND and Louisville out of conference and in the NCAA and NIT tournaments. If you think Clemson is not committed enough to basketball, how about VT? We lost JJ to Clemson because we weren't paying our assistants enough then hired him as a head coach without any head coaching experience. No one else in the ACC would hire someone without head coaching experience (except maybe Cuse's coach in waiting thing). All this and only UNC and Duke pay higher ticket prices than VT (does not include new members). You think Clemson needs more commitment to basketball. VT needs a kick in the ass just to get to a Clemson level of commitment. Although we did just build a nice new basketball only practice facility.

ACC baseball is ridiculous. We may have 1 or 2 teams ranked in the top 25 nationally not even make the ACC tourney. A trip to the NCAA's for VT's baseball and softball would be nice but I won't really even pay attention until they get to the ACC tourney.

VT's football schedule is soft. No FSU, No Clemson, we get Maryland at home, which means Louisville will get a home game from VT the next year without a return game. But we really need it to be soft. Breaking in a new offense and offensive staff should lead to a rebuilding year but I'm hoping for another 10 win season.

On CFL the last 2 days, they've been chronicling a pay for play and grade changing scandal at Auburn that occurred during and just after the NCAA gave Auburn a clean bill of health after the Cam Newton scandal. That's only relevant because 2 of VT's new offensive staff members came from Auburn and I'm hoping that they don't bring any of those problems to Blacksburg.

(04-05-2013 03:18 PM)IR4CU Wrote:  Random thoughts on Clemson and ACC ………..

• 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.

Hope you can make it up here. With Clemson being a big name opponent, and it being our first ACC home game, there should be a good crowd. Especially if we're already playing well in the weeks prior.

The game's on Oct. 5th. So the weather should be nice, temperatures likely in the 50's or 60's.

'Cuse fans are pumped to be in the ACC, and can't wait for next football season. Our first game is Aug. 31 against Penn State in MetLife Stadium.

I think you will see that Pitt and Syracuse (and Louisville next year) take their football programs much more seriously than people at Clemson and in the south generally think. While there has been some bad coaching and bad luck at Pitt, the recruiting has been on average in the top 25 in the country over the last decade. There's no reason for Pitt not to be an upper echelon team in the league within the next few years particularly with Penn State's problems.

While Pitt won't be playing Clemson very often, I look forward to Pitt-Clemson match-ups and love the inaugural conference schedule. It's great to be back playing old rivals Virginia Tech and Miami annually and the home game with Florida State is just icing on the cake. I'm guessing 6-6 or 7-5 this year with the adjustment but hopefully within two years Chryst will have put it altogether.

This ACC expansion feels different from the last one. In 2004 it seemed like Miami and to a lesser extant VT were doing the ACC a favor by joining. BC felt like the little brother your parents make you take along for the ride.

This time it feels like Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Louisville are all very excited to join the ACC - and that seems to have a revitalizing affect on the rest of the teams. I hope it stays that way.

Pitt fans are very excited to join the ACC! Also nice to see a good rational Clemson fan on board. We only had one in the past and I hoped he wasn't indicative of your fan base. Your post make my hopes appear accurate. Hope to see you post more often…

(04-05-2013 05:03 PM)7fielder Wrote:  Pitt fans are very excited to join the ACC! Also nice to see a good rational Clemson fan on board. We only had one in the past and I hoped he wasn't indicative of your fan base. Your post make my hopes appear accurate. Hope to see you post more often…

This is beyond an understatement. 7fielder is 1,000% correct.

(04-05-2013 04:11 PM)MKPitt Wrote:  I think you will see that Pitt and Syracuse (and Louisville next year) take their football programs much more seriously than people at Clemson and in the south generally think. While there has been some bad coaching and bad luck at Pitt, the recruiting has been on average in the top 25 in the country over the last decade.

Pitt takes its football seriously, there have just been, oh, about 30 years of the administration shooting its program in the foot...sometimes on purposes, sometimes just out of stupidity. Pitt has a surprisingly large yet silent fan base if it can just get them to believe there is something to believe; but they will turn on a tv. I really have no idea what to think about Pitt going into this season though. We've done a lot of damage to our program with botched hires so I think most are just hoping to keep our heads above water while we repair some damage.

Paco is correct above. They take it serious but lots of damage has been done. I will be happy with 6-6 and THRILLED with 7-5! But I believe in Paul Chryst and think he has the right plan, it just won’t be overnight. However, due to said botched hires Chryst will actually have that rare luxury in college sports called time.

(04-05-2013 04:22 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  This ACC expansion feels different from the last one. In 2004 it seemed like Miami and to a lesser extant VT were doing the ACC a favor by joining. BC felt like the little brother your parents make you take along for the ride.

This time it feels like Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Louisville are all very excited to join the ACC - and that seems to have a revitalizing affect on the rest of the teams. I hope it stays that way.

You're talking about the same VT that was not part of the original expansion plan and had to use political pressure to get invited at all? That VT felt like it was doing the ACC a favor by joining?

(04-06-2013 09:43 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  

(04-05-2013 04:22 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  This ACC expansion feels different from the last one. In 2004 it seemed like Miami and to a lesser extant VT were doing the ACC a favor by joining. BC felt like the little brother your parents make you take along for the ride.

This time it feels like Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Louisville are all very excited to join the ACC - and that seems to have a revitalizing affect on the rest of the teams. I hope it stays that way.

You're talking about the same VT that was not part of the original expansion plan and had to use political pressure to get invited at all? That VT felt like it was doing the ACC a favor by joining?

Not at all. Miami felt that way. VT felt like the political move that it was. I imagine WVU to the Big 12 felt the same way.

(04-06-2013 09:43 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  You're talking about the same VT that was not part of the original expansion plan and had to use political pressure to get invited at all? That VT felt like it was doing the ACC a favor by joining?

Yeah, I have to agree with Mark. I don't think any Hokies thought we were doing the ACC a favor by joining. Most Hokies appreciated it as the political manipulation that it was. Something you only see in states were college athletics are really important.

Guys, I can tell You Louisville fans are pumped to joining the ACC. We loved the old Big East and hoped it worked out but things changed. We will do what's right to make the ACC proud to have Us.