What ... Idaho wasn't available?

posted by LW, Monday, September 21, 2009

I'm guessing this wasn't Dabo Swinney's reaction when he heard TCU had been added to the schedule.

Hard to be amused when you go from Central Michigan (backed out) to Idaho (backed out) to TCU (didn't back out).

Swinney knew then what he knows now: The addition of the Horned Frogs, while making the fans happy, made his job a lot harder.

By now you might've heard of a defensive end that plays for TCU named Jerry Hughes.

Pick your metaphor for the difficulty Clemson's offensive tackles (and tight ends and fullbacks and receivers) will have with this dude ... with or without Chris Hairston.

This one seems appropriate at the moment:



Apparently TCU coach Gary Patterson was not a happy man after Saturday's 52-21 trouncing of Texas State.

"Right now, I’m very happy with the win," TCU coach Gary Patterson said afterward. "By 9 a.m. [this] morning, I am going to be P.O.’ed."

Only he didn’t abbreviate. And all of his players had a pretty good idea of what was coming even while jogging off with a scoreboard reading 56-21 as a backdrop.

"I didn’t have to say anything in the locker room," Patterson said. "They know how this is going down."

The "how" started Saturday, with Patterson bringing Clemson play sheets back for bedside reading. He’s probably watching film, right now, as you read this on your iPhone at Yogi’s, with steam coming from his ears. And by 4 p.m., when players arrive for meetings, he’ll be all kinds of angry.

In other words, Saturday’s was a perfect Gary win.

His team stays undefeated, which is no small deal considering what happened to Utah and BYU and USC. But the victory is just ugly enough, especially on defense, that he can crack the whip all week long.

"I would have to say yeah," Horned Frogs defensive end Jerry Hughes said when presented with this hypothesis. "Coach Patterson P.O.’ed is a whole other creature. He’s going to be on us Sunday afternoon during practice all the way until we start playing."

I'm guessing this is the kind of, uh, accountability Clemson fans would like demanded from their offensive line.

And there's a TCU linebacker the Tigers shouldn't overlook. His name is Daryl Washington, and he's good enough to draw praise from Patterson.

“I’d watch out for him,” Patterson said in a telephone interview. “On any other team, he would have been a starter last season. He only played every three plays because we just had seniors.”

Here's some reason for hope for Clemson's offense: Texas State hit on some big plays.

Although his team scored the most points on TCU’s defense since Sept. 27 of last year, Texas State coach Brad Wright still felt his team could’ve scored more. "We had a lot of missed chances out there," Wright said. "That’s the sad part about it, because we had some opportunities to get more points on the board and we didn’t get it done."

Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said Saturday's beatdown at BYU reminded him of his early days in Tallahassee.

Count me among the few who weren't hyperventilating after Florida State lucked out a home win over Jacksonville State.

A disturbing development, no doubt. But that stuff happens in college football, now more than ever.

How about that ACC?

Thanks to Virginia, Maryland and Duke, I don't think John Swofford can stick to his claim that the conference is the best from top to bottom.

How 'bout them Terps? They're a whisker away from being 0-2 against teams from the Sun Belt and I-AA.

And this was supposed to be the easy portion of their schedule. Uh-oh.

Those who watched Maryland struggle through its first two games of the season know that Saturday's 32-31 loss to Middle Tennessee at Byrd Stadium should not qualify as an upset of any consequence.

These Terrapins have battled injuries and inexperience and have adjusted poorly to a new defensive scheme. With a 1-2 record and the most difficult portions of the schedule still ahead, it is now clear that this season will be Coach Ralph Friedgen's most difficult challenge in his nine years as head coach.

"No doubt about it," he said.

There also might be little doubt that this is The Fridge's farewell tour in Maryland.

Rob Daniels of The ACC Sports Journal unveils his power rankings and lists Miami No. 1.

Interested to see how good that Miami offense looks when Jacory Harris doesn't have eight seconds to throw.

There was talk last week that Boston College offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill would unveil some looks Clemson hadn't seen. Turns out Kevin Steele was concocting some surprises of his own.

New defensive coordinator Kevin Steele fiddled with his formations, different than what Clemson used in its first two games - a win over Middle Tennessee and a loss to Georgia Tech. By creating unanticipated pressure, the Tigers took apart the Eagles, holding them to three first downs and 54 yards in total offense.

Spoke with Jarvis Jenkins after the game, and he said the Tigers' defensive players call Steele -- get this -- the "Mad Scientist."



LW

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