Kevin Steele is getting a lot of heat on the WEZ Board for some of his explanations that followed Saturday's disappointing defensive showing against North Texas.
He basically said he's just happy to win in this day and age, that the bottom line is the scoreboard, etc.
I don't know if this is a case of a person's emotions not being fully conveyed in a transcript of his words, but I don't believe he was a very happy camper after watching the Mean Green carve up his defense.
Exhibit A is his response to my question about North Texas' speed.
ME: Do you think your guys might've been surprised by how much speed they had, not just with Lance Dunbar, but the receivers as well?
STEELE: "Why would we -- I don't mean to get ill, but I'm telling you now. Somebody hasn't kept up with the life and times in college football, to think that North Texas State University doesn't have good players. Does Middle Tennessee? Does Troy State? On draft day, they're getting drafted. Number 5 (Dunbar) could play for anybody in the country. That quarterback is as good as a lot of quarterbacks you'll face in BCS leagues. That's a good player. So don't take anything away from those guys. They're pretty good players."
ME: That's what I was saying. Their receivers as well, seemed like their speed--
STEELE: "Well then I wasn't surprised. I watched them on tape. I knew it coming in."
ME: I was wondering if your players were.
STEELE: "They watch video. They watch video. They saw the video. I mean, why would we be surprised? We spend countless hours watching video. We saw them."
After this exchange, I realized my initial question was pretty clumsy. I was impressed and surprised by the Mean Green's overall speed on offense, and I was seeking a quote from Clemson reflecting on that speed and how much difficulty the Tigers had with it.
The way to elicit an appraisal of the team's speed is not to ask a defensive coordinator if his players were surprised by it -- and particularly not 15 minutes after the defensive coordinator gave up 462 yards to that team.
I guess one could make a reasonable argument that, even after watching these guys on film all summer, Clemson's players still could've been surprised by seeing the real thing in person. But Steele's basic point is correct: It's not as though Saturday was the first time Clemson has seen these guys play.
I pulled Steele aside afterward and told him I probably should've phrased my question differently. I told him the "surprise" terminology was more a reflection of my surprise than a question of whether his players were surprised.
He explained that he's an excitable guy, and "that's just who I am."
The point in relaying these exchanges is to illustrate that Steele wasn't as comfortable or content after Saturday's game as his words might've appeared.
The man knows he has some work to do, knows there's something that's still just not right.
I thought the most revealing quote of his entire session with reporters was this:
"It’s all about 'Here’s where you are, and here’s where you’ve got to go.' We’ve got good players. They’ll work hard. We’ve just got to recapture that dominant spirit and dominance of people. We’ve got to look at some things, because we didn’t tackle well. Usually in the first game, sometimes that happens. But you can’t look dead-legged doing it. We just didn’t look like we had our normal zip."
Awaiting Dabo Swinney's arrival to his post-game press conference, I was sitting beside Bart Wright (how's that for a celebrity name drop?) and we were both astounded by the number of plays North Texas ran.
Clemson allowed the Mean Green to run 83 plays, and how often do you see a team do that and lose by 25?
I thought that qualified as the stat of the week ... until I checked out the stats from Auburn's 52-26 win over Arkansas State, and from Boston College's 38-20 win over Weber State.
Auburn allowed Arkansas State to run ... 84 plays.
Boston College allowed Weber State to run ... 86 plays.
So Clemson, Auburn and Boston College won by an aggregate 69 points while yielding a total of 253 plays.
Amazing.
Speaking of amazing, how about East Carolina's "Hail Yes" win over Tulsa.
Forty-seven combined fourth-quarter points. Unreal.
I'll go ahead and wager that East Carolina's win and Jacksonville State's stunning comeback victory at Mississippi end up being the best games of the entire season. All in one weekend.
Scott Adamson of the Independent-Mail says there's no reason to have preseason games in college football when there are already meaningless exhibitions.
Take Wake Forest’s game with Presbyterian College on Thursday. No one — not the most died-in-the-wool Blue Hose fan on the planet — expected Presbyterian to win the game.
And that’ll be the case a week from today when PC takes on Clemson at Memorial Stadium.
The Tigers will win, the Hose will get a nice check, and everyone gets the warm fuzzies.
And although the game will count in the standings as a win for one team and a loss for the other, you can go ahead and call it an exhibition.
It's a legitimate point. But I bet Ole Miss fans aren't too happy about their exhibition result.
Here's a look at the good and bad from Georgia Tech's win over S.C. State.
So Josh Nesbitt completed one pass Saturday. And some people are surprised he isn't on the NFL's radar?
Dave Shinskie had some "Shinskie Happens" moments early against Weber State.
Shinskie’s numbers Saturday were adequate — 10 of 20 for 185 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. There was also a brain freeze during the opening series when Shinskie lined up behind right guard Thomas Claiborne, hesitated long enough to incur a delay-of-game penalty, then threw an interception.
Shinskie recovered quickly to help BC take a 31-10 halftime lead, but it was not a confidence-boosting performance.
“I saw improvement,’’ Spaziani said yesterday. “But I didn’t see as much improvement as I would have liked. I still need to see improvement.’’
Good column by Bob Ryan on Mark Herzlich's return.
Here are some observations from Auburn's victory.
Good stuff here from a former New York Times reporter who interviewed Bear Bryant 31 years ago this week.
Or thought he interviewed him.
I was 25 and in my first year as a sports reporter for The New York Times. As I looked up beyond the desk and that face all the way up there, the Wizard of Oz had acquired a Southern accent.
But quickly it became clear that this was not a forbidding figure. Bryant could not have been more kind. He was 66. The lines on his face were more pronounced than the ones you would see on television. He was gracious. He volunteered stories, all the way back to his childhood. He laughed. He took the conversation in different directions that seemed to be instructive, or enlightening, or fun.
But there was this other problem.
I had no idea what he was saying.
LW
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