All my nightmares have been realized

Nah, it'll be okay. You can only sign 25 at a time and typically these kind of things have little influence over the short term because, #1 ... this 2017 class is already largely assembled and #2 ... the next class will be assembled largely upon what is being done next season.

Clemson loses a lot.

If Clemson falters in 2017 it will effect their 2018 class.

What this will effect is the classes down the road that are comprised of current 10-12 year olds who just became huge fans of Clemson last night.

The last time this happened, in '81, we saw their 85, 86, 87 classes really boom. Now, some of that was because they immediately went under investigation and were placed on probation in '82 and '83 ... who knows, it could happen again because we know they are cheating on some level, but these days kids are committing much earlier than back in those days so this class will not be hugely affected by what happened last night.

The key is to beat them, plain and simple. We have to beat them. Kids have short memories.

Honestly, where would Dabo go? He can win at Clemson as he showed last nite, and he is now a deity there for doing so. I don't think the NFL comes calling, either.

What's with his coordinators? Why haven't they moved on? That's the best we can hope for short term.

Eh, at some point he'll go home to Bama when Saban leaves.

What I want to happen, Brent Venables and the o coordinators get HC jobs and then we see what dabo is made of as a coach.

That's been the word for some time now, what with him being from Pelham and graduating from Bama.


I'm curious to see what they'll do once Watson leaves. Part of me feel like they'll pull an Auburn and more or less fall off the face of earth once Cam left. We'll see what happens.


All I know is that it's REALLY hard to repeat as national champs. I know that all too well........

True they have been recruiting lights out recently but I still feel like they'll miss Watson more than they'll care to admit.

Plus next year they'll have auburn and fsu at home and Louisville,NCState,VT and y'all on the road. The target on their backs will be huge and they'll be getting everyone's best shot, week after week. Also believe it or not the ACC might be deeper next year. More so than the SEC.

They Cant play the underdog role, or the "we're being disrespected" card anymore. They're the hunted.

Watson is a once in a generation player. They will take a step back but still have plenty of talent to win 10 games in the ACC. Their defense will be nasty, especially the D-Line, but there is no way their offense will produce like the past two years.

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Sadly, I think some of you guys are kidding yourself. Clemson isn't going to fall off, or even take a step back.

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Dear god, i could die.

I agree wholeheartedly, and it makes me sick. I am depressed , digisted, and dispondent. We are light years away. More later Too sad to discus now.

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Sadly, I think some of you guys are kidding yourself. Clemson isn't going to fall off, or even take a step back.

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They will not fall off ... but it will be very difficult for them not to take a step back. A step back is not winning a national championship. Two steps back is not making the playoffs.

It's tougher to do than it's been made to appear to be able to do the past couple of years.

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They play in a 2 team conference, they are now considered an elite program, and they have been recruiting lights out for several years.

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Here's the thing about that KingSlayer. Everyone has been saying the SEC is a one team conference for years now. It's not correct.

Clemson will have to face FSU every year. They've got Louisville whenever, and NC State and Va Tech and UNC and Notre Dame from time-to-time but yeah, that's not as strong as the SEC or SEC West or even the SEC East probably ... but it's tough to stay perfect playing big boy football in the South.

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They are going to be one game away from the playoffs nearly every year for a while.

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Like Ohio State, Bama, et al? Listen Brother ... it's been that way since the beginning of time. It all goes in cycles. FSU won the ACC how many years in a row before they finally lost it? How many years outta how many years ... was it 14 out of 18 or something like that? Everyone was outraged, for years, that FSU had an unfettered path to the BCS game and even before the BCS ... hell, ask Charlie Bloom - The BCS was basically devised to stop FSU from just waltzing-in to the championship every year.

For those that are unaware ... Charles Bloom, who now works for us, was the architect of the BCS format while working for Roy Kramer.

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We were ahead of them and could have helped keep them from this run, but we chose to not fight hard for recruits for a few years after we got Clowney.

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Ehhhhhhhhhh, I dunno about that. I mean I get where you, and many others, are coming from but that's not necessarily 100% correct.

It's been well documented, and admitted-to, that some of our coaches rested on their laurels - no doubt about it ... but that had far more to do with us than anything Clemson was doing differently at the time that we might have had an affect on KingSlayer - or that we might have been able to take advantage of from our own perspective.

They are cheating, there is no doubt about it, they are cheating. They are really good at it, they always have been. Their cheat network is incredible.

History reminder. 1975 and Jeff Grantz beats their brakes off. Clemson supporters went ballistic. They started paying recruits the next day ... win at all costs. Now, we had surpassed them for all practical purposes. If you check modern history from post 1945 to 1975 we led the series, or it was close to even ... I'd have to go back and look but the series was in our favor, if I am not mistaken during that time frame, and trending even further in our favor. But after '75 they started paying players in a big way and everyone knew it ... especially through the Inhabinet fella, the Pepsi bottler or whatever he was. Vince Dooley and Jim Carlen, all the ACC coaches, Bill Battle and Johnny Majors ... everyone was complaining about Clemson cheating. Matter of fact it was Johnny Majors and some recruits in Knoxville that finally brought Clemson down back then ... to some degree.

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The golf course and over confidence in our ability to coach up players led us to sitting on our laurels while Dabo was trying to improve their recruiting every year.

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Two things.

Spurrier said it best ... he stayed past his expiration date. We have to blame part of that on Ray Tanner.

Secondly ... the Clemson thing was already in motion. The pieces just happened to fall into place. They paid the right people, got the right players, etc., and we in no way could have had any effect on the outcome these past couple of years. To be cliche', the writing was already on the wall.

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We're going to have to really step up our game in every aspect or it could be tough living here for a while.

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You are 100% correct. We ARE going to have to step-up our game. That's the beauty of all of this - it raises the standards. How we go about meeting the challenge is another story.

Compared to Clemson, one of the cheatingest programs in the history of the NCAA and that's just a fact .... our program is squeaky clean. And under Spurrier it was off-limits to do anything to potentially harm his legacy. He despised FSU for their cheating and he knew full well that Clemson was/is cheating.

Will Muschamp be willing to get in the game ... that game? Should he? Should big money boosters? Should the Gamecock Club start a secret organization to deliver payments?

Is that the only way to get to the promised land?

There are a lot of factors that go into recruiting and signing the right players to fit a system and then coaching them up ... we shouldn't have to get on a level of payola that Clemson and some others are on in order to compete for championships.

I think Muschamp, the more I see what he is doing, I think Muschamp is going to get it done the right way - we're just going to have to be patient and demanding at the same time.

Trust me, this Dabo thing will falter at Clemson eventually, probably sooner rather than later. He's like the Jimmy Swaggart or Jim Bakker of college football. Dabo's fall will be epic and shocking when it comes.

A lot of fans feel that way these days ... especially given the toothless NCAA bark regarding egregious cheating by UNC.

So ... I mean, maybe. Who knows. The network has to be put in place. It's a complicated process. Takes big money ... cash and commodities.

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They will not fall off ... but it will be very difficult for them not to take a step back. A step back is not winning a national championship. Two steps back is not making the playoffs.

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I would disagree slightly. Would you say Alabama took a step back this year because they came up 5 seconds short? I wouldn't. To me getting to the playoffs is the goal, winning takes good matchups and luck. If Clemson wins the ACC and makes the playoffs and doesn't win, in my opinion that would not be a step back any more than us losing to Arizona in the CWS finals was not us taking a step back.

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Clemson will have to face FSU every year. They've got Louisville whenever, and NC State and Va Tech and UNC and Notre Dame from time-to-time but yeah, that's not as strong as the SEC or SEC West or even the SEC East probably ... but it's tough to stay perfect playing big boy football in the South.

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Reality is, no one in the ACC other than Florida St has won anything of note in a long time. Sure Clemson may stumble against a Pitt, but the truth is if they beat Florida St they likely are going to win the ACC. On the flip side, if they lose to Florida St they probably have little chance at winning the ACC. It's a much easier path for them than teams in most any other conferences.

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Like Ohio State, Bama, et al? Listen Brother ... it's been that way since the beginning of time. It all goes in cycles. FSU won the ACC how many years in a row before they finally lost it? How many years outta how many years ... was it 14 out of 18 or something like that? Everyone was outraged, for years, that FSU had an unfettered path to the BCS game and even before the BCS ... hell, ask Charlie Bloom - The BCS was basically devised to stop FSU from just waltzing-in to the championship every year.

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Ye, it's always been that way for the elite. Clemson has never been one of those elite, now they are. It makes me want to vomit in my mouth to see the level they have reached.


(ETA: Hit Submit too soon.)