A troubled sport?

For years, we've proceeded under the quaint assumption that impropriety and shadiness aren't nearly as rampant as they were in the 1970s and 1980s before the age of NCAA reform.

Mark Richt and priorities

In yesterday's blog we touched on Dana Holgorsen's behavior and talked about how rare it's become for high-profile head coaches to publicly demonstrate impulses and frailties that affect the rest of us humans.

West Virginia's gambler in waiting

So we can add another line to the growing list of reasons why coach-in-waiting plans aren't a great idea.

Russell Wilson and Auburn

Interesting news out of Auburn with Russell Wilson supposedly visiting The Plains, though that info appears to be in some question.

Home, sweet Doug

Don't mean to jinx anything, but my calendar for next week now bears the following:

"NCAA Regionals--Clemson."

I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but the Tigers' chances of returning home for postseason baseball certainly look good.

This team boosted its hosting certification credentials the last weekend of April by taking two of three from Georgia Tech at home. Then came the attention-grabbing series win at Florida State over the weekend, including Saturday's victory on the Seminoles' senior day.

The Tigers (39-17) probably need to win a game at the ACC Tournament -- they play Georgia Tech, Florida State and N.C. State -- to feel totally secure about their chances, but it's hard to dispute their case at this point.

They have won 25 of their last 30 games. They rank No. 9 according to the RPI. They are 12-12 in games against Top-50 RPI teams, and five of those wins came against teams in the top seven of the RPI (2 vs. Georgia Tech, 2 vs. Florida State, 1 vs. South Carolina).

Six of the losses came to teams that are 1-2 in the RPI (North Carolina, Virginia).

And when you look at the recent struggles of some other teams the Tigers could be contending with for a hosting spot, you like the Tigers' chances even more:

-- Southern Miss (38-15, 15 RPI) enters its conference tourney leaking water, having lost four of its last five. Included are two home losses to Rice by a combined score of 20-2.

-- Stetson (40-16, 19 RPI) has lost four of its last five, including two of three at home to Belmont over the weekend. Another bad loss in the last 10 came to Lipscomb (217 RPI) by a score of 9-3. The Hatters' resume is also smudged by two losses to Bethune-Cookman (134 RPI), one to Campbell (256), one to Siena (194), and one to South Carolina Upstate (215).

-- Arkansas (36-18, 13 RPI) sports some nice credentials, including a May series victory over No. 3 Florida, a sweep of No. 20 LSU, a victory at No. 6 South Carolina and a series victory over No. 41 Ole Miss over the weekend. But the Hogs are 7-5 against teams ranked 101 to 200 in the RPI, and Clemson is 16-2 in the same statistic.

Here's how Aaron Fitt of Baseball America saw things heading into the weekend:

REGIONAL HOSTS

SECURE TEAMS: The eight national seeds listed above, Texas, Arizona State

ON THE BUBBLE (IN): North Carolina, Southern Mississippi, Cal State Fullerton, Oklahoma, Texas Christian, Arkansas

ON THE BUBBLE (OUT): Rice, Clemson, Stetson, Fresno State, Miami

Miami, by the way, has lost five of its last eight. The Hurricanes (33-20) are 16th in the RPI.

A few more baseball thoughts:

-- Remember in recent years when Clemson suffered a cluster of mid-week losses that ended up being costly come NCAA selection time? Well the Tigers took care of that problem this year, as illustrated by the aforementioned 16-2 record. Their only two "bad" losses were to Presbyterian and Eastern Michigan, and now we're seeing how important it is to avoid a high number of slip-ups against teams you should beat.

-- As important as pitching has been to the Tigers' late-season blossoming, you can't ignore an offense that has delivered in a number of clutch situations.

The Tigers are hitting .320 this season -- 14 percentage points higher than last season with the old bats. They smashed 93 homers last season in 70 games, compared to just 39 this season through 56, but they're averaging 10.9 hits per game -- exactly the same clip they accumulated last year.

Run production is down to 7.1 per game from 8.5 last season. But given the new bat specs and the loss of three productive bats (Kyle Parker, Mike Freeman, Wilson Boyd), it's hard to complain.

-- Kudos for Jack Leggett for keeping his cool when this team was 14-12 and doing a lot of soul-searching after a sweep at North Carolina.

Leggett knew his team wasn't far away from turning things around, knew things could change once a number of guys got healthy, knew the schedule was turning in the Tigers' favor.

He could've freaked out, but he didn't. He outlined the "30-game season" mentality he wanted his team to follow and said he wasn't going to brood about the past. As trite as it might've sounded at the time, the premise and the forward thinking it promoted was easier said than done.

Carrying it out was an important piece to the puzzle this team is figuring out at a most opportune time.

LW

Clemson-UGA: Make it happen

Not all of my ideas are original, and certainly the following is not a novel thought:

Clemson and Georgia need to play every year.

In football.

Period.

The thought occurred to me while reading the news that teams' scheduled meetings in 2013 and 2014 will be the season-openers in Death Valley and Sanford Stadium, respectively.

I'm already excited about those games, and I'd bet a number of you are as well. I'd also assume a bunch of folks out there are like me in deeming it an abject shame that a full decade will have passed between meetings of these two old rivals.

My understanding, based on explanations from former Georgia AD Vince Dooley years ago, is that Georgia's neutral-site game with Florida mucks things up and makes it difficult to schedule a regular home-and-home with Clemson. Georgia needs the revenue from a seventh home game, and playing Clemson regularly would mean the loss of that revenue every other year.

But the logic doesn't make sense to me in view of Georgia's non-conference games in recent years. Off the top of my head, the Bulldogs have engaged in home-and-home arrangements with Arizona State, Colorado and Oklahoma State.

Since the teams' last meeting in 2003, Clemson has managed home-and-home dates with Texas A&M and Auburn.

A 12-game regular season is what allowed the Canines and Felines to meet in 2002 and 2003, resuming the rivalry for the first time since 1995.

The 2006 season brought the resumption of the 12-game schedule, and the idea was to cultivate more attractive cross-sectional and inter-conference matchups.

Clemson-Georgia is precisely the sort of matchup that should be enabled by this setup. And it should happen every single year.

Tell me what rivalry in college football was better from 1977 to 1991, when the two teams battled to a 6-6-1 draw.

Nine of those 13 meetings were decided by a touchdown or less. Five of them were decided by three points or less.

Georgia won on a 60-yard field goal in 1984. Clemson won on last-second field goals in 1986 and 1987.

Over a four-season stretch from 1980 to 1983, Georgia lost two regular-season games with one tie. Clemson was responsible for one of the losses (1981) and the tie (1983).

In 1978, 1981, 1982 and 1983, Clemson's aggregate record was 41-3-2. Two of the three losses, and one of the two ties, were against the Doggies.

The pinnacle of the rivalry was 1980-83. Georgia won the national title in 1980, Clemson won it in 1981, and the two teams hooked up for the 1982 season opener in titanic matchup in Athens (Georgia won, 13-7).

In that era, a number of Clemson players considered Georgia a bigger rival than South Carolina. That gives you an idea of how big it was.

Clearly, both programs are a long way from the aforementioned dominance and glory; they're both still shell-shocked over 6-7 seasons in 2010, and neither of these proud programs should ever have losing records.

But they're still separated by just 78.3 miles of asphalt, and there's really no excuse for them not to trade trips on that asphalt on a yearly basis.

It might not be an easy thing to work out, but it can happen if they really want it to happen.

Get it done.

LW

Brownell goes to camp

Seems as though the normal protocol around these parts is to pay attention to basketball from, say, January to March, then completely forget about it until the next winter rolls around.

Morris and the QB situation

A big part of following college football these days is reading between the lines.

Getting off the field

The presence of Chad Morris' Hurry Up, No Huddle offense brings an assortment of encouraging things, and there's little doubt in my mind the encouraging outweighs the discouraging.

Talent gap?

From late July to mid-April, folks who cover college beats for a living are pretty occupied with football and basketball.

Examining N.C. State's crazy plays-per-game numbers

(Almost 80 plays a game from this guy? Who knew?)

In this story that ran Friday, we examine Chad Morris’ offense and the advantages that can come from the accelerated pace in the Hurry Up No Huddle approach.

Dabo Swinney believes that one of the big advantages of this attack is that no one else in the ACC runs it. We know all about the difficulties faced by a defense that has to prepare for Paul Johnson’s offense on one week’s notice, and Swinney thinks that this offense – and all the funky stuff that comes with it – will present some of the same headaches.

We went back and compiled last year’s plays-per-game averages in the ACC, and this is what it looked like:

1. N.C. State 77.3
2. Duke 72.6
3. Miami 72
4. Virginia 71.8
5. Georgia Tech 70.8
6. Clemson 66.5
6. UNC 66.5
8. Virginia Tech 65.2
9. FSU 64
10. Wake 63.4
11. Maryland 63.2
12. Boston College 62.6

First impression: Last year’s ACC title game participants finished eighth and ninth in plays per game, and two bottom-feeders (Duke and Virginia) finished second and fourth. So jacking up the tempo isn’t the only way to win games, and more plays don’t necessarily translate into more wins.

The most interesting thing to me is N.C. State’s 77.3 plays per game. That’s a staggering clip, and to be honest I had no idea until this week that the Wolfpack were that high last season.

Take a look at the nation’s Top 10 in plays per game, and N.C. State is right up there with per-play juggernauts Tulsa, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Oregon – and ahead of Auburn.

I recall N.C. State going up-tempo at times, including their game at Clemson, but mostly their pace seemed conventional and deliberate. And in 2009, their plays-per-game rate was at a far more normal 70. Seven more plays per game is monstrous.

So, how to explain the Wolfpack coming extremely close to the 80 plays per game that HUNH coaches like Morris and Auburn’s Gus Malzahn strive to reach, without using the breakneck pace and trying to snap the ball with 18-20 seconds left on the play clock?

Let’s examine some other numbers to try to make sense of it:

-- N.C. State ranked seventh nationally in third-down defense, allowing opponents to convert just 33.1 percent of the time. The Wolfpack were also first in the ACC in opponents’ first downs per game with just 16.1. If you’re consistently getting off the field, you give the offense more opportunities.

-- N.C. State attempted 544 passes and completed 319. That’s a good completion percentage of 58.6, but it’s also a lot of clock stoppages that come after incompletions.

-- N.C. State led the ACC in first downs with 23.3 per game. That’s a lot of momentary clock stoppages.

-- N.C. State ranked second in the ACC in rush defense, giving up just 114.3 yards per game on the ground and 3.4 yards per carry.

-- N.C. State ranked first in the ACC in fewest penalties with 36.4 penalty yards per game. Penalties can be a killer on both offense (killing drives) and defense (sustaining them).

-- N.C. State also gained 20 fumbles last season, by far an ACC high.

The Wolfpack managed to put up ideal hurry-up numbers without hurrying up, and all this goes a long way toward explaining how they won nine games.

LW

Thoughts on the noon hysteria

Have to admit I was a little dismayed to see the noon start for the Auburn game.

Most of the time, sportswriters and media types actually prefer noon. You get in early, you get out early, and you actually get to settle in and watch some football for fun later in the day (and night).

And, truth be told, most coaches and players are preferential to noon starts because it gives them time after the game to decompress, relax and live like normal humans before resuming the grind Sunday morning.

But there’s absolutely no question that the most appealing atmosphere at Death Valley is at night or mid-afternoon at 3:30. And it’s not just because fans have time to get properly, uh, prepared in the parking lots for hours on end.

For any Southern school that’s utterly consumed with football, the proper showcase occurs when the sun is setting or down altogether. And there’s no doubt Clemson’s home setting fits into that category.

The atmosphere at last year’s game at Auburn was truly special, and it ranked among the more memorable experiences I’ve had. Had the game been at noon instead of 7:45, it’d have still been pretty cool. But not goosebump-inducing cool.

Most of you probably remember the 2002 game between Clemson and Georgia in Athens. That was a night game, and at kickoff the place felt like it was about to explode.

Some folks would point out the fact that the next year’s game between the Tigers and Bulldogs was at noon, and that the atmosphere at Death Valley was just fine. And it was – about as electric as you can get for a noon game.

Georgia pummeled Clemson that day, and it’s hard to imagine the outcome being any different had the game started at 3:30 or at night. There are plenty of cases of night games seemingly giving Clemson a better opportunity to win – Georgia Tech in 2006, Florida State in 2009, Florida State in 2003, off the top of my head – but there have been some night duds as well. The 2002 team was humiliated at home, at night, by N.C. State and Maryland by a combined score of 68-18. The 2007 team squandered the Atlantic Division title at night against Boston College. And, of course, last year’s team was throttled at night by South Carolina.

To me, the bottom line is that noon games are just kind of weird. As much as I’ve favored them over the years for professional reasons, when I detach myself from those preferences I can’t deny that there’s something about them that just doesn’t feel right.

I don’t know that the news of the noon game against Auburn merits hysteria. But I can see why some folks consider it unfortunate.

When you think major cross-sectional matchup between a defending national champion and a team that’s starving for its own taste of greatness, you’re thinking of a night or late-afternoon setting

It’s not a great travesty that we’ll all be shoveling ourselves into that stadium in the AM hours on Sept. 17. But it’s not ideal, either.

LW

Big plays in the HUNH

Earlier this week we took a look at the big plays produced by Chad Morris' offense and the two others that most closely resemble it -- Gus Malzahn's at Auburn and Chip Kelly's at Oregon.

It's pretty impressive stuff. In Tulsa's offensive stats from the past four years, you can see some of the big-play production in the years Malzahn was there (2007 and 2008), followed by a dip the year he left, followed by a bulge last season when Morris was there.

(These stats, by the way, are culled by the folks who run the fine site cfbstats.com.)

Running plays of 10 yards or more:
2010: 100
2009: 73
2008: 125
2007: 92

Running plays of 20 yards or more:
2010: 28
2009: 10
2008: 38
2007: 12

Passing plays of 15 yards or more:
2010: 96
2009: 78
2008: 114
2007: 130

Passing plays of 25 yards or more:
2010: 38
2009: 34
2008: 52
2007: 64

Here's what Auburn's big-play stats looked like in the three seasons before Malzahn's arrival:

Running plays of 10 yards or more:
2006: 63
2007: 56
2008: 62


Running plays of 20 yards or more:
2006: 19
2007: 13
2008: 9

Passing plays of 15 yards or more:
2006: 57
2007: 57
2008: 44

Passing plays of 25 yards or more:
2006: 19
2007: 17
2008: 20

And now, the past two years:

10-plus rushing
2010: 132
2009: 85

20-plus rushing
2010: 41
2009: 20

15-plus passing
2010: 71
2009: 78

25-plus passing
2010: 33
2009: 27

Oregon's numbers under Kelly are fairly staggering -- particularly the big-play numbers in the running game:

10-plus rushing
2010: 114
2009: 107
2008: 128
2007: 118
AVERAGE: 116.7

20-plus rushing:
2010: 39
2009: 39
2008: 37
2007: 27
AVERAGE: 35.5

15-plus passing
2010: 69
2009: 52
2008: 60
2007: 59
AVERAGE: 60

25-plus passing
2010: 30
2009: 23
2008: 25
2007: 24
AVERAGE: 25.5

Here's a look at Clemson's big-play numbers over the last five seasons:

10-plus rush
2010: 49
2009: 70
2008: 46
2007: 70
2006: 86

20-plus rush
2010: 14
2009: 21
2008: 16
2007: 18
2006: 26

15-plus pass
2010: 47
2009: 63
2008: 68
2007: 64
2006: 56

25-plus pass
2010: 17
2009: 26
2008: 23
2007: 24
2006: 23

LW

A new era in college basketball

Texas A&M's Mark Turgeon has been hired to replace Gary Williams at Maryland, and there will be spirited debate as to whether Turgeon is the right choice to lead the program Williams oversaw for more than two decades.

But the real story here centers on the arrival of parity in college basketball.

Some people scoff at the notion, saying the big boys still rule the sport despite a few instances of the little guys rising up to do impressive things. And to a certain degree, these poo-pooers of parity are correct.

But the gap between the so-called powers and the so-called pip squeaks is as narrow as it's been in a long, long time. And the surest evidence in support of that is presented in the choice of Brad Stevens and Shaka Smart to remain at their respective institutions in the face of certain interest from "name" schools.

Let's rewind back to March, when Smart was becoming the story of college basketball by guiding VCU on a spectacular run all the way to the Final Four. If you'd have told me at the time that Williams would step down after the season and asked me the percentage chance Smart takes the Maryland job if offered, I'd have said 100 percent.

No idea what went on behind the scenes between Maryland and Smart, and whether the Terps made a strong play for him. But the man is the head coach at Virginia Commonwealth, and in signing an eight-year contract he has sent a strong message that he's happy there, and that it'd take a lot to pull him away.

Same deal with Stevens at Butler. The conventional assumption about a man who has astoundingly reached the NCAA final in back to back years is that he'd be interested in cashing in on that success and seeing how things work out at a bigger school with more resources.

And maybe Stevens is indeed awaiting the perfect opportunity. But when the man spurns Maryland, among other schools in the power conferences, it's an indication that he's happy where he is.

The evolution of the coaching searches at Maryland and N.C. State have to be somewhat unsettling for the fans of both schools, not to mention the ACC. Though Turgeon and Mark Gottfried might end up working out just fine in College Park and Raleigh, both of these basketball programs have storied history and bountiful resources. For whatever reason, those attributes don't hold the import and gravity that a lot of us might've thought.

Heck, even Mike Brey turned down the Terps to stay at Notre Dame? Can this be taken as a statement that the ACC's stature is diminished?

Not sure if there's a good answer to that at this point.

But there can be no doubt that we're in a new era in college basketball when the coaches at Butler and VCU don't view supposedly big-time jobs as upgrades.

The conventional concept of the coaching ladder is being obliterated.

LW

Running in the HUNH

For years, Clemson's rushing offense has been inconsistent season to season and game to game.

It's hard to imagine the Tigers not making drastic improvement in the running game under first-year coordinator Chad Morris.

Last night we posted this story on the immense running success enjoyed by Morris' offense and the two others that most closely resemble it.

Here's a closer look at Tulsa's rushing numbers last season with Morris running the show:

537 attempts (41.3 per game)
2,820 yards (216.9 per game)
5.25 per carry
32 touchdowns

Here's what the rushing numbers looked like in 2009, the year after Gus Malzahn's departure and the year before Morris took over:

480 attempts (40 per game)
1,809 yards (150.7 per game)
3.77 per carry
19 touchdowns

Here's what Malzahn's rushing numbers have looked like the past two seasons at Auburn:

2010
652 attempts (46.5 per game)
3,987 yards (284.7 per game)
6.12 per carry
41 touchdowns

2009
550 attempts (42.3 per game)
2,756 yards (212 per game)
5.01 per carry
24 touchdowns

And here's what the numbers looked like in 2008, the year before Malzahn's arrival:

469 attempts (39 per game)
1,642 yards (136.8 per game)
3.5 per carry
12 touchdowns

Let's move back to Tulsa, where Malzahn spent the 2007 and 2008 seasons. In 2006, the year before he arrived, Tulsa's numbers looked like this:

484 attempts (37.2 per game)
2,107 yards (162 per game)
4.35 per carry
30 touchdowns

Here's 2007:

562 attempts (40.1 per game)
2,421 yards (172.9 per game)
4.3 per carry
28 touchdowns

And 2008:

674 attempts (48.1 per game)
3,752 yards (268 per game)
5.57 per carry
40 touchdowns

And we'll close with Oregon, which Chip Kelly has built into an offensive juggernaut using some of the same stuff Malzahn and Morris use.

In 2006, the year before Kelly's arrival, the Ducks averaged 182 rushing yards per game and more than 5 yards per carry.

Here's what they did in 2007:

615 attempts (47.3 per game)
3,279 yards (252.2 per game)
5.33 per carry
32 touchdowns

2008
585 attempts (45 per game)
3,641 yards (280 per game)
6.22 per carry
47 touchdowns

2009
547 attempts (42 per game)
3,012 yards (231 per game)
5.51 per carry
38 touchdowns

2010
630 attempts (48.4 per game)
3,739 yards (287 per game)
5.93 per carry
42 touchdowns

LW

Clemson and elite company

If you're trying to make the case that Clemson has not underachieved in recent years relative to the amount of talent on hand, don't try determining where the Tigers' draft numbers stack up nationally.

Draft history: a deeper look

So we've been looking at cumulative draft numbers and where Clemson stacks up compared to the rest of the ACC over the last six drafts in the post-expansion era.

The Draft and The U(nderachievement)

Clemson fans can take solace in one thing: They're probably not the biggest underachievers in the ACC over the last six seasons.

The Russell Wilson sweepstakes

A big problem with opining from afar is the lack of information that can accompany the opinion.

Mission accomplished

When you wake up and turn on the radio and hear that Bin Laden is dead, it's hard to manufacture the inspiration to write about sports stuff.