Once upon a time, we had some fun with Syracuse’s Mount Rushmore (as we did with all the school Mount Rushmores). The final Syracuse Mount Rushmore: Jim Boeheim, Jim Brown, Ben Schwartzwalder, and Ernie Davis. You can go there to read the reasons why those four were chosen. But if Syracuse was to create a “most-hated” Mount Rushmore, who would be on it?
If you ignore the absolutely embarrassing performance by the refs, and the reality of what last night’s loss means to Florida State (likely, no NCAA Tournament, barring a run in Greensboro), the end of the UNC-FSU game was a good thing for the ACC. Sure, the game was exciting, seeing the Seminoles lead 21-6 at one point before the Tar Heels stormed back, but that’s not why it will have a significant place in history. No, last night’s game was important because Roy Williams set a major conference record, joining the 300 Club of the ACC.
This author has been following basketball since well before Al Gore’s Internet became mainstream. Well before. Before cable TV even. In fact, his first real memories of basketball just so happen to coincide with Jim Boeheim’s first season as coach. Having watched 35+ seasons of Syracuse basketball, this author is nowhere near convinced that the current edition of Syracuse basketball is made of players that should be 25-0 at this point. Nah, this team is a team that should be a 22 or 23 win team right now… good enough to be a national title contender, but flawed enough to be vulnerable just about every night. The sum of its parts, however, is that it is the first of those teams to go 25-0. And it deserves to be 25-0. Here is why.
Between the Mike and Mike Show and the coaches running the no-huddle systems taking the airwaves, there is ample criticism of a new rule being considered in college football. Specifically, the NCAA rules committee has recommended a rule change that will allow defensive units to substitute within the first 10 seconds of the 40-second play clock, excluding the final two minutes of each half, by precluding the offense from running a play during that period. The talking heads and coaches impacted hate the rule. The Confidential says “not so fast.” Let’s think this through before making a knee-jerk reaction to a knee-jerk rule.
What do YOU think about the future football scheduling for the ACC? Give us your opinion.
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Happy signing day, everyone! Today is one of the most exciting days of the offseason because the future of your favorite team is ceremonially handed off to a group of twenty 17-18 year olds live on ESPN. It’s an important day, because these are the players that can make or break the next four years for your program. A good class can save a coach’s job (we’re looking at you, Mike London), or propel him to a national title in just a few short years (congrats, Jimbo Fisher).
Yesterday, we talked a little bit about one of the topics of this year’s ACC Winter Meetings, the nine game schedule. Today, we’ll briefly look at an issue that’s just as important to the future of the ACC as schedule changes and even your program’s signing class- Divisional Alignment and the ACC Title Game.
While everyone was caught up in the hype of the Super Bowl (or changing the channel and tuning into Downton Abbey instead), the ACC quietly had their winter meetings at the end of last week. On the agenda? A number of different things that could drastically shape the future of the league. Today, we talk about the return of the nine game conference schedule. Not a lot has been reported regarding the meetings, so this is only discussion and speculation right now.
Clemson Men’s Basketball starts the week after an ugly loss to UNC last night, improving their record to 57-0. That record of course being the Tarheels have won 57 times against the Tigers while in the Dean Dome, the Tigers never seeing a victory.
UNC is off to a slow start in ACC play but now improves to 12-7 overall and 2-4 in the ACC. Clemson started off hot, being 4-1 in the conference just last week, now drops to 13-6, 4-3 after two consecutive losses to Pitt and Carolina. The Tigers have a tough conference schedule coming up, facing FSU, Syracuse, and Notre Dame on the road.
To note any highlights from last night’s game from a Clemson standpoint, would be a disservice to our readers. The Tigers played flat on defense and hesitant on offense. Seeing it first hand in the Dean Dome was taxing. Stops on defense were rare and the Tigers shot 34% from the field. That’s 18 field goals made out of 53 attempts. It was not a great night for the Tiger offense, to say the least.
Leading scorer, KJ McDaniels, came up with 13 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. He was the game leader across the board for the Tigers. McDaniels has proven to be an offensive leader this season, but he can’t do it on his own. Adonis Filer came up with 12 points of his own, as did Landry Nnoko. Nnoko is improving but between him and Sidy Djitte at center, too many passes slipped through their hands down low in the paint for would be easy points.
To end on a high note, the Tigers finished the night 19-25 at the line, giving them a 76% free throw percentage for the night.
This Clemson team is young, consisting of four freshman, four sophomores, and five juniors to make up the Tiger squad. Playing on the road, especially in Chapel Hill, is tough and the Tigers have their work cut out for them in the coming weeks.
In other Clemson news, a non-basketball related highlight of the evening was having Clemson football coach, Dabo Swinney, in the Dean Dome last night. Sitting a few rows behind the Clemson bench, the dynamite coach just signed a new 8-year contract with Clemson, keeping him a Tiger through the 2021 season. At halftime, Clemson fans throughout the dome stopped by to take pictures with the Orange Bowl Champion, including yours truly. It’s a check off my bucket list and as much as it pains me to say, I guess I have Chapel Hill to thank for that.
Clemson takes on Florida State this Saturday in Tallahassee. Catch the ACC matchup at 3pm on ESPN2.
Everywhere the Confidential goes, there is someone complaining that the ESPN hates their school, team, division, league, conference, mascot, fan base, stadium, city, favorite color, etc. It is borderline paranoia now. With hundreds of personalities, just because someone employed by ESPN says something that is not 100% positive relative to what you believe in or follow, it is immature to believe that ESPN hates or endorses same. It is funny when there are 10 blogs at once stating that ESPN hates things (i.e. hates the Big 10 because it loves the SEC and hates the SEC because it loves the Big 10).
So, for fun and jest, the Confidential is going to introduce a new feature: Who ESPN hates! The hatred as of January 22, 2014, is as follows:
The NFL is NOT broken. Sure, college football is the Confidential’s favorite, for a variety of reasons. But the NFL is the sports king and prints money. Listening to Ryan Clark on ESPN Radio yesterday, he had a very good point, however, about the inconsistency between legislating the physicality out of the game (to protect players), but then scheduling more and more Thursday night games (inconsistent with protecting players). And the “byes” are an annoying feature of the game also. Is there a way to make it all work??? Recognizing that the NFL is far broken, consider this proposal…
The Confidential 