VINCENT BOOTED OFF TEAM

Per The State: As expected, Cortney Vincent has been kicked off the team. Vincent violated team rules last year, got a DUI in December, and did poorly in school this past spring. This means Clemson has to replace all three starting linebackers from last year. Which is the bigger liability for 08 - our offensive line or our linebacker squad? Both units will have some talented newcomers stepping in, but the losses still hurt. Take it to the comments section.

NEWS & NOTES

Oliver Purnell has finally signed the contract extension that was announced in March. Good.

Upstate Today has a nice article about Clemson's 2009 recruiting efforts to this point. Depending on which recruiting service you believe, Clemson has secured verbal commitments from the top two safeties in the nation, Craig Loston (5 star, #1) of Texas and Devonte Holloman (5 star/4 star, #2) of powerhouse Charlotte Independence in NC. A number of 4 stars have also committed and a lot of top recruits have Clemson high on their list.

With more sports blogs (spogs?) popping up every day, the new crops are moving into the realm of extreme specialization. One of the more interesting new ones is called Athletes Making Babies, celebrating the many sports stars who can't keep it in their fucking pants.

The ACC discussed and subsequently shot down a plan to add a 9th conference game to the football schedule, which would have put them alongside the Pac-10 as the only conferences to have a 9 game conference schedule. Coaches were concerned with bowl eligibility as beating SC State is easier than beating NC State. The current college football climate is one in which quality scheduling takes a backseat to playing cupcakes to pad the win column, and this decision is right in line with the current modus operandi (not that the ACC doesn't have its share of weaklings). I am on the fence about this one. I'd much rather play another ACC team than the Citadel or SC State, but I'd rather play a powerful nonconference team like Bama or UGa than Duke.

George Bennett, longtime Clemson fundraiser, will be honored by the SC Athletic Hall of Fame. Congrats to Mr. Bennett on the honor, and on his service to the university.

Former Clemson lineman and 1992 5th round draft pick Curtis Whitley has died at the age of 39. He played for six years in the NFL and battled substance abuse. As of now the cause of death has not been announced. Our condolences go out to his friends and family.

2008 PRESEASON POLLS

A reader passed this LSU site on to us that lists the rankings from various preseason polls in a handy graph form. As you can see, Clemson averages 9.5, with rankings as high as #6 (one AP voter who writes for the San Jose Mercury News), and as low as #20 by a January College Football News poll that was written when it looked as if James Davis was gone. Georgia is pretty solid at number 1, and that's hard to argue against. Southern Pigskin lists West Virginia as their preseason #1, and I fail to understand how you rank a team with a new staff top-to-bottom as the best team in the country. Feel free to give your take in the comments.

NEWS & NOTES

WAIT, BARNHART COVERS TEAMS OTHER THAN GEORGIA?
Your favorite leghumper, Tony Barnhart, released his preseason top 10 in that Atlanta fishwrap today. He lists Georgia as numbers 1-6 and 8-10, but somehow found his way to slip Clemson into the conversation at number 7. Like us, he has questions about the Tigers' offensive line, but everything else is golden. If you want a real laugh, read some of the comments on his blog. Regularly the most frighteningly dumb mouthbreathers imaginable give their take on Tony's articles, and almost without exception there's a "dawg" somewhere in their handle. Go figure.

WELL PLAYED, COACH KOENNING, WELL PLAYED
Say you're a defensive coordinator. You know the NCAA regulations prohibit you from chewing out your players for being lazy in offseason voluntary workouts. What do you do? If you're Vic Koenning, you call up a reporter and complain, knowing your comments will be published, circumventing those pesky regulations. The players in question are then called out, lighting a proverbial fire under their asses, and all is well. Here is the article in question.

SWEEEEEEEP
The Florida State Seminoles swept the Tiger baseball team this weekend, pretty much dashing their hopes for the ACC tournament. They could still make it, but with the dangerous Georgia Tech squad up soon, things aren't looking good.

THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON... CLEMSON?
I don't cover a ton of recruiting on here outside of signing day. It's highly speculative, full of rumor and pure bullshit, and often a kid who has "committed" to a school will change his mind several times. However one recent Clemson commit is fairly noteworthy. Craig Loston, the top rated safety in the nation and a five star prospect, committed to Clemson over LSU. He had previously been committed to Texas A&M, but withdrew his commitment after their coaching change. More interesting than Clemson plucking one of the top players out of the lonestar state is how Loston found Clemson. He watched Clemson play Florida State on Labor Day last year and fell in love with the way our defense played and with the Death Valley atmosphere. He then sent our staff tape. He recruited Clemson, not the other way around. Here is Loston's Rivals page, with some very impressive highlights of him.

CLEMSON ATHLETES IMPROVE GRADES
16 of Clemson's 19 varsity sports showed improvement in the recent Academic Progress Rate statistics. The APR has great importance, as a score too low will result in the loss of scholarships.

CU BILLBOARD IN ATL

DFIG reader Jeff asked us to post this:

I've talked to several people at IPTAY, the Athletic Department, and various other Clemson organizations, and have gotten alot of support for this...

Idea: A billboard in downtown Atlanta that proudly exalts the Tigers upcoming game in the dome against Alabama. The spot is I-20 and Memorial Avenue near the Capitol. The money needed is $13,000 for both sides of the billboard for 4 months, plus installation and the vinyl. If anyone is interested in donating or pledging or just wants more info, please send me an email at russellmarkmillerjr@yahoo.com

If 500 people on this board gave $10, there's $5,000 right there, so don't think you can't contribute. I barely make any money and can't really afford to donate alot, but every little bit helps.

The billboard is reserved for us and is just waiting for the initial $4,000 payment for it to go up. Go Tigers!

-Mark Miller
c/o 2006

PS: I'm not asking for checks or $$$ right now, just asking for "pledges" to see if we can do this! Thanks to those who have said they'd give...can yall send me an email just saying a ballpark amount you'd feel comfortable giving, so that I can have some idea of the total attained/needed?

EXTREME KORN REPORT: SPRING KORNSTRAVAGANZAPALOOZA

Jam goes on english muffins.
This is a TOAST bed, motherfucker.

ORANGE & WHITE GAME POST THOUGHTS

This season's Orange and White game was pretty interesting. I didn't go to last years game, but it's good to see that it's no longer just first stringers vs the rest of the depth chart. It's good to see they might actually try and start selling (in an promotional sense, not monetary) this game and get people to come out. They actually tried to distribute the talent around on both teams. I'm not going to go through stats and such, so you might want to check out the Clemson Athletic Department article.

Some reactions that I felt necessary to be covered after stewing on them for a week:

- Our depth on offensive line is crap, but to their credit they're really young and inexperienced. I think our first stringers did well, but they really need to work hard this off season and get on the same page.

- To be brutally honest, Willy Korn is starting to show that he's getting antsy in the pocket. I think that there might be a conflict of interest where Willy wants to run but the coaches don't want him to. I say, let him go with his instincts. The kid practically shit out state championship rings in high school, so let him do what he needs to do to win. If that involves playing chicken with a freight train on the other side of the ball, then so be it.

- Our defensive line is seriously the meat and cheese of our defense and I love it. Chris Rumph has done an excellent job here at Clemson and I hope that we can realize this and keep him around when other schools come waiving checks at him like the stockbrokers from Trading Places.

A brief look into the future. Here we see a few ADs from other schools vying to get Chris Rumph on the phone.

- Aaron Kelly is just great. I feel as if I could throw babies continually at him when he isn't paying attention and he could swaddle, feed, and put each one to sleep before I had the chance to reload.

Don't worry, he does this all the time (Chilishop)

- After spending hours upon hours going over spring game film and slaughtering a baby lamb on my Clemson football alter at home, I liquidated all of my assets sans car and house and put everything on Clemson to win THE BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP NEXT YEAR. ALL THE WAY BABY! WHOOOOOOOO! WE'RE GOING TO MUSH FACE OTHER TEAMS ON OUR WAY TO THE CRYSTAL BALL, BABY! YYYYEEEAAAAHH!!!! YYAAARRRGGGHHH!!! No seriously, I'd be elated with a ten win season and/or an ACC championship bid next year. Of course, come November I'll probably be singing the tune of "Fire Bowden" for getting to and losing the ACCCG next year.

SOLID ORANGE WRAP UP

Besides the baseball team getting swept (we totally suck now... I can't believe I actually thought we were going to be awesome) and the rain and lighting cutting Eddie Money's set to about 8 minutes the entire event was awesome. Here are a few clips of the first night. Wyclef Jean absolutely rocked. I got to meet him at the meet and greet and he was pretty cool, as were the Wailers.

Wyclef had an amazing set.

Don't necessarily agree with his presidential views, but at least he did some old school stuff too.


The Wailers (Bob Marley's former band) had an awesome set too.


The Movement had some pretty good stuff as well.

If any of you guys have any pictures or videos from the weekend that you would like to share you can send them to use via the feedback email and we'll put them up. Also, if you went, let us know what you thought about the event in the comments section.