Taking a little vacation this week, but here are some quick thoughts on the stance Dabo articulated yesterday regarding possible Big 12 membership:
-- First of all, Dabo has a track record of speaking his mind quite forcefully when he feels strongly about something. So it's possible that yesterday's forceful soliloquy against Big 12 membership was articulated independent of whatever his superiors might think on the issue. But I doubt it.
It's my hunch that Clemson's administration -- or the key parts of Clemson's administration, anyway -- knew exactly how Dabo felt on the issue and knew what he was going to do yesterday.
There's a Board of Trustees teleconference today, and we reported last week that Swinney and Brad Brownell were likely to be included on this teleconference to give their thoughts on the Big 12 stuff. But my bet is that Dabo has already stated his position to David Wilkins and others.
-- There's no doubt that coaches' jobs are harder these days as a result of message boards, bloggers, social media and other trappings of the Internet age. So it's not surprising that a head coach chooses to rail on some of the rumors and reporting he's had to answer for on the recruiting trail.
Based on our reporting over the last month or so, it was hard for us to believe that Clemson to the Big 12 was a done deal. And it was impossible for us to believe one claim that Clemson's coaches had been told the Tigers were signed, sealed and delivered for the Big 12 (Dabo evidently wasn't one of the coaches told).
That said, it's not accurate to say the Big 12 speculation was 100-percent hogwash and purely the figment of an overly imaginative blogosphere. People in key positions at Clemson had serious misgivings about some recent decisions by the ACC. These misgivings were strong enough that the Big 12 stuff was very much a part of discussions at Clemson.
We said a few weeks ago that it seemed like wheels were turning, but that things weren't as far down the tracks as some were speculating. That seems accurate in hindsight (emphasis on "seems," because you never really know with a story like this).
-- Dabo's "All In with the ACC" take is quite different from the take Terry Don Phillips offered a few weeks ago in a lengthy interview with TI. Phillips' support for the ACC seemed grudging at that time, to the point that he gave this answer when I asked him to give his level of confidence that the ACC will do what it takes to keep its "seat at the table" of college football's postseason.
“Well that’s conjecture. I don’t want to get into that. I’m not trying to avoid the question – well I guess maybe I am. But what I am confident of at this juncture is the ACC, they’re going to be looking and turning every stone they can. Because they reacted to the SEC and Big 12 situation, and this is not one of those situations where you sit back and say, ‘Well, that’s a pretty good idea,’ and then not do anything about it. We’ve got to be proactive.”
Here's a reasonable conclusion: Clemson's stance on this topic has changed as a result of Clemson getting hammered about the Big 12 stuff on the recruiting trail.
-- Perception often overrides reality in the recruiting game. The reality is that Clemson gets hammered by rival recruiters who tell prospects, "You REALLY want to play in front of 30,000 fans at Wake Forest, Duke, Maryland, Boston College and Georgia Tech?" The reality is that getting a 70 tattooed on your forehead probably inflicts as much damage as anything.
But perception matters, and this is where Dabo was right to get on his soapbox yesterday. The current class isn't going so well at the moment, and maybe the Big 12 thing is an issue with a couple of guys Dabo feels he can turn at camp this week.
So even though there are other realities to consider, even though any decision on conference affiliation is probably way over the head coach's head, and even though these things have to be talked about in the long term, Dabo is justifiably preoccupied with the short term of his 2013 recruiting class.
LW
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