Some thoughts from last night's gut punch in Tallahassee -- and man, was it an absolute gut punch:

-- We noted multiple times this week Brad Brownell's feeling that his team seems somewhat scared or uncomfortable in crunch-time moments. He said after the loss at N.C. State that he had to convince his guys they belonged in such a game, had to keep them from being almost surprised they were playing a supposedly superior team dead even.

Sunday night we saw some mental lapses late after the Tigers battled back to forge a tie on two occasions. And last night we saw some more of the same. K.J. McDaniels and Rod Hall just sort of froze up on that last possession coming out of the timeout. Brownell wanted one of them to drive, be the aggressor, score or draw a foul. Instead the ball was just passed around on the perimeter, leading to the flailing shot by McDaniels that didn't hit anything. Another miscue came earlier, when Devon Bookert nailed a game-tying 3 with 43 seconds left. Adonis Filer sagged down into the post when he wasn't supposed to, allowing Bookert a reasonably good look.

Regarding the failed final possession, Brownell said this after the game: "Somebody on the perimeter has to put their head down and go make a play. But we're not quite ready for all that."

-- It seemed this could be such an uplifting night after Jordan Roper, out of a timeout, peeled off a screen by Devin Booker, shot-faked and drained a jumper to give Clemson a 57-54 lead with 55 seconds left. But the Tigers just missed too many shots from outside in the second half. They were 0 for 8 from long range in the second half and finished 3 for 16 on the game. With 2:15 left, the Seminoles were sagging on the post and Hall was wide open for a top-of-the-key 3-pointer. He missed it, and when your point guard is unable to hit open shots from the perimeter it's going to be costly at times. It was just the third 3-pointer Hall has attempted this season in 522 minutes.

-- If this were a game not involving Clemson, I'd have turned it off early in the second half and most of you would've too. Not sure what compelled the refs to start calling it so closely, but the game disintegrated into a snail's pace with stoppages seemingly every trip down the court. Booker drew his second and third fouls with 17:50 and 17:35 to go. Landry Nnoko drew his fourth with 17:07 left, and Booker drew his fourth going for an offensive rebound with 9:26 on the clock. That, plus Milton Jennings also suffering from foul trouble, was a huge factor in the game because the Seminoles started attacking inside. That helps explain why FSU shot 52.4 percent in the second half from the field (11 of 21).

-- On Jan. 12, Jennings had a 21-point, 11-rebound night in a win over Virginia and afterward he called it an epiphany for him and said things were going to be different from that point forward. We now have a three-game cross-section to evaluate, and his forecast hasn't come to fruition. He's scored a total of 18 points over that stretch in 89 minutes, shooting 6 for 23. Last night he committed five of his team's 13 turnovers and was 1 for 7 from the field.

"We needed a third scorer tonight," Brownell said. "We couldn't find one."

-- Heck of an effort by Booker, who was really sick yesterday and gutted it out by scoring 15 on 7-of-10 shooting. The problem with his foul trouble, though, was that with Nnoko, Bernard Sullivan and Josh Smith in the game Brownell couldn't run as much of the offensive stuff he runs with his starters in there.

-- Clemson shot 10 of 15 from the line, and two misses ended up being pretty big. Booker couldn't convert a three-point play with 3:57 left and Clemson up three, and Hall missed one of two with 1:41 left and his team up three. On the other end, Florida State made 18 of 20.

-- This team needs some positive reinforcement that only winning can bring, and that's why last night's loss hurt so much. You have a double-digit lead in the second half, and you feel like you should win the game. You have the ball coming out of a timeout in a tie game with 23 seconds left, you feel like you should win the game. Tough defeat. Very tough.

LW

A fresh Aulternative, and links

Yes, this is the guy who's responsible for the latest innovations in football's offensive revolution.

Defining success and failure, and links

These days, short-term memory seems like a requirement for rabid fanhood.

Playing catchup with ACC basketball

One of the problems facing college basketball right now is the unprecedented popularity of college football.

Thoughts on Devin, and basketball

There comes a time when the really good or great players earn the right to be called by their first name, and Devin Booker seems to have reached that point.

Grown-man football

When the cameras panned to A.J. McCarron's girlfriend the other night, the natural reaction from, oh, 99.9 percent of male viewers went something like this:

Daaaaaaaang son!

Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit just happened to be speaking into microphones when they voiced their reactions.

It got a little awkward when Brent and Herbie wouldn't let it go, provoking a period of silence in which their producers probably said something like: "Dudes ... there's a game going on here."

But is it really that big a deal? Big enough to elicit an actual apology from ESPN?

“We always try to capture interesting storylines and the relationship between an Auburn grad who is Miss Alabama and the current Alabama quarterback certainly met that test. However, we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that.”

It doesn't take long for stories like this to crumble into total absurdity, and you just knew it was only a matter of time before news outlets would start quoting people from Mars on the outrage of two men complimenting an attractive woman ... an attractive woman who, in addition to being the girlfriend of a guy who just won back-to-back BCS titles, is a former Miss Alabama contestant.

The New York Times found some journalism professor at Michigan State named Sue Carter who actually said this:

“It’s extraordinarily inappropriate to focus on an individual’s looks. In this instance, the appearance of the quarterback’s girlfriend had no bearing on the outcome of the game. It’s a major personal violation, and it’s so retrograde that it’s embarrassing. I think there’s a generational issue, but it’s incumbent on people practicing in these eras to keep up and this is not a norm.”

And then this:

“I think because sports has been such a male-dominated domain, he obviously felt license and privilege and he’s been able to do that for years. But the masculine aspect of sports is changing.”

The New York Times then managed to find another journalism professor, this one at Alabama:

Even on Alabama’s campus, there were those who felt Musburger went too far.

“Football is a male domain,” said Jennifer Greer, the chairwoman of the journalism department at Alabama. “And the role that women play even in the journalistic respect is in the supportive role, the mom, the hot girlfriend, the sideline reporter. They’re accepted in this world, but in particular roles. It reinforces this stereotype of the hot model girlfriend attached to a quarterback and the maleness of sports that is hard for serious female athletes.”

Goodness gracious. "Even on Alabama's campus, there were those..."

The more fair and accurate introductory paragraph would be: "Though almost no one in Tuscaloosa had a problem with the comments, we found another journalism professor who hates football to give us some quotes criticizing it."

Almost everything about college football coverage is catering to the male demographic. You think it's an accident that the army of camera guys at every game just happens to zoom in on the most attractive women in the stands during breaks in the action?

Katherine Webb didn't seem bothered at all about fulfilling the supposed "hot girlfriend" stereotype. And why would she? According to this article, she had 526 Twitter followers on Dec. 26 and had more than 148,000 on Tuesday. She considers herself a beautiful woman. She has put herself in competitions with other beautiful women. And now she's supposed to be offended because two announcers remark about her beauty on national television?

One of McCarron's teammates, center Barrett Jones, joked Tuesday in an appearance on CNN's "Starting Point" that he was jealous of Webb's sudden fame.

"Where's the love for the actual players?" he joked. "She is certainly very pretty. But I just think Brent needs to share the love a little bit, that's all I'm saying."

That's the right treatment on this issue. Laugh about it and move on.

The only "personal violations" that occurred Monday night occurred on the field, where Alabama violated Notre Dame so personally and thoroughly that announcers had to come up with something to talk about.

LW

Manti Te'o and fantasy football

By now the jaw-dropping craziness of this story is self-evident, so no need to spend time writing about it here.

Basketball's identity

The wins over Virginia and Wake Forest have brought some comfort to Clemson mostly because, well, they're wins and everything looks and feels better when you're winning.

Striking a vocal chord

Brad Brownell says this is the quietest team he's ever coached, and of late one of his prime objectives has been generating more vocal leadership among his players.

Beamer and Bobo, and links

Very interesting that Frank Beamer went to Athens in his attempt to reinvigorate a Virginia Tech offense last seen vomiting all over itself against Rutgers in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

Meanwhile, in Norman...

Still can't get the image out of my head of Bob Stoops and his brother Mike looking totally helpless during the 41-13 Cotton Bowl beatdown at the hands of Texas A&M.

Len Elmore on Milt

Nine times out of 10, fans of a particular team are going to get bent out of shape if a national commentator tears into a player from that team.

Alabama's Dy-Nasty

Credit to ESPN.com for coming up with the best headline of the night (or morning).

RG3's sad story

What a painful afternoon for RG3 (literal pain) and everyone watching (figurative pain) him hobble through a playoff loss to Seattle.

What might have been

In the second quarter of last night's Fiesta Bowl, I couldn't help but think back to Clemson's loss to South Carolina.

Not that anyone wants to relive that, particularly in the immediate afterglow of the epic triumph over LSU. But it did provide a glimpse of what could have been.

There's a good argument to be had in identifying the critical point in Clemson's loss. Was it the second quarter, when the Tigers squandered opportunities to go up two scores? Or was it the second half, when the Gamecocks sucked the life out of the stadium (and out of Clemson's high-powered offense) by holding the ball for an eternity?

In the immediate aftermath, I chose the latter. After thinking about it for a few days, I sided more closely with the former. There's really no right or wrong answer, because both of the developments were monstrous.

Last night provides some strong support for the second-quarter argument. Kansas State was doing exactly what South Carolina did, recovering from an early Oregon blast by methodically chipping away, moving the ball while running clock, and coming up with some stops.

With the score 15-10 in Oregon's favor late in the first half, Kansas State is driving and the clock is ticking and Chip Kelly is feeling almost suffocated at the thought of going into the locker room with just 15 points.

Then Kansas State gets slightly greedy. They try a trick play that results in an incompletion downfield. Then, on the next play, they attempt to throw when Oregon is playing the pass with two deep safeties. Incomplete again.

Those stoppages of the clock end up being huge. Kansas State misses a chip-shot field goal, but Oregon still has a minute to operate. A minute is an eternity with that supercharged offense, and the Ducks zoom down the field for a touchdown that makes it a two-score game at 22-10.

If the half ends on Kansas State's missed field goal and Oregon goes in up just 15-10, is it a different game? We'll never know, but look at what happened when Kansas State came out and took the ball to start the second half. Down 12, they were pushed out of their comfort zone and couldn't be as methodical. They had to press, and Oregon knew they had to press and played their defense schematics accordingly.

What if Clemson goes into the locker room against South Carolina up 21-10 or 24-10 after capitalizing on that cluster of opportunities at midfield? Maybe the Gamecocks take the momentum and win anyway after driving for a score on the first possession of the second half. Because yes, Clemson's linebackers and secondary were that bad in pass coverage that night.

But last night showed us how much different things might have been the night of Nov. 24.

LW

Troubled over Bridgewater

Headline of the day goes to our own PigskinTiger, who threw out the aforementioned on last night's Sugar Bowl game thread.

The bowl aftermath, and links

The drastic difference between a heroic victory and a choke-job defeat usually depends on whom you're rooting for -- or covering.