I'm doubting Kevin Steele asked Paul Johnson to sign his cast after last year's ACC title game.
Steele, as you know, ended up essentially shattering his right hand before the game while punching a chair in the locker room.
As Steele told a few of us reporters a week or so later, he's been known to do stuff like that. He recalled an instance when he was at Florida State, and he wanted to get his linebackers jacked up. He bit into a fake water glass (he said it was made of sugar) and even had planted a blood capsule in his lip, WWF-style, to heighten the effect. He said his linebackers were whipped into a frenzy as they burst out of the locker room.
Last year's punch didn't produce the desired results. Georgia Tech bloodied Clemson's mouth (and it was real blood) with 333 rushing yards and no punts.
Earlier this week, I asked Andre Branch to recreate the locker-room scene:
"Coach Steele gives a pre-game speech before every game. He just started talking, talking. He gets excited, starts yelling and stuff. And he just punches the chair -- bam!. And you just see him look at his hand, and he says, 'Go get Danny (Poole, head trainer).' And he just keeps talking, like nothing happened. We don't know what happened. And the next thing we know, the next time we see him, it's wrapped up in a cast and everything. And he's the one who makes the calls, so it's kind of hard for us to see what's going on. He just got pretty jacked up in the moment. And stuff like that jacks us up. He really messed his hand up."
A few other anecdotes and musings:
-- Back in July, when I was doing an interview with Da'Quan Bowers and Bowers was announcing 2010 would be the year of a new Da'Quan Bowers, I asked him about the fact that his friend, North Carolina defensive end Robert Quinn, was rated by some as the top defensive end in college football.
ESPN.com rated the top 25 players in the ACC before the season, and Quinn was at the top of the list. Bowers? Nowhere to be found.
Quinn is from the Palmetto State, having played at Fort Dorchester in the Lowcountry. He and Bowers are pretty close. Quinn was far from a no-name coming out of high school -- he was good enough that Clemson's coaches tried everything they could to urge him to go to Alabama instead of North Carolina -- but Bowers was rated the No. 1 recruit in the country.
Over the summer, Bowers said it didn't bother him that Quinn was rated as the better defensive end.
Earlier this week, he acknowledged that Quinn's higher rating was a strong motivator.
"That was definitely motivation. He was doing so greatly and having great years, and I wasn't living up to my name yet. That was motivation in itself, and then everything that happened with my father just motivated me some more."
Quinn has been ruled permanently ineligible by the NCAA for allegedly receiving $5,642 from an agent and lying to investigators. Bowers said the last time they spoke was when the Tigers played in Chapel Hill on Oct. 9.
"He said he was doing good," Bowers said. "I feel bad for him. He was looking forward to this season, and having a big season this year. I'm just sorry it turned out the way it did."
-- Saw Dabo Swinney on Thursday afternoon, and he says this:
"What's your pick for the game, Larry?"
I told him I didn't know yet, that I didn't have to decide until Friday.
"Don't lie, now. You picking us to lose?"
My response: "Hey, I picked you to beat Maryland 30-13."
Dabo: "That's pretty good! What'd we score, 31?"
Me: "Don't ask me what I picked for the North Carolina game."
Dabo: "You picked us to lose that one? I'd have picked us to lose, too, if I'd have known we'd have the ball for a minute and 45 seconds in the fourth quarter."
I forgot to mention to him that I picked Clemson to beat Auburn and Miami.
As for the Georgia Tech pick: Really struggling with this one. Might have to flip a coin for this one.
-- Looking at Clemson's stats, the Tigers' linebackers rank sixth on the team in tackles (Corico Hawkins with 27), 11th (Brandon Maye with 15), 17th (Tig Willard with 10) and 18th (Quandon Christian with 10).
When was the last time the Tigers had no linebackers finish a season in the top 5 in tackles?
Consulted stats guru Tim Bourret on this, and he says it hasn't happened since the school began recording defensive stats in 1977.
He did point out that the 1987 defense employed a 5-2 look, which had James Earle (first in tackles) and Jesse Hatcher (fourth in tackles) as stand-up defensive ends. So the line between LB and DE is kind of blurred, though I'd lean toward classifying them as linebackers.
-- Got a few e-mails and texts yesterday informing me that Upstate radio personality Walt Deptula was ripping me on his radio show.
I didn't hear the alleged rippage, but supposedly he was accusing me of being a Clemson fan while also saying I was being too critical of Georgia Tech.
Nothing against Walt, and no offense at all taken for him calling me out. But the guy needs to do better research if he really thinks those things.
If he spent a minute on TI, he'd know I'm a charter member of the PJ Kool-Aid crew.
LW
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