Remember having about baseball. Maybe it’s just that it’s been so long that we’ve had a team play as clean and consistent as this one. Even the 2016 team that was a national seed didn’t feel like this. We have a lineup of guys who battle. And Bellanger has whipped this pitching staff in to something I did not think they could be.

Worst fears have now been confirmed as true and its continuing. FBI has revoked security clearances of whistleblowers, fired some of them and doing it unabashedly. This is after the one anonymous whistleblower in the first Trump impeachment being treated like the pope. This is bizarro world but our looney libs think all is well. The dems in the hearings were disgraceful.

ACC on verge of splintering
By: Pat Forde - Sports Illustrated

As speculation and rank rumor roiled outside the meeting rooms of the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Fla., this week, there was discussion among Atlantic Coast Conference leaders about doing what comes naturally amid realignment drama: putting out a statement of unity among the league members.

The ACC punted on that idea, a small triumph for honesty in an inherently dishonest process.

“We’re not unified,” is how one ACC source explains it. “We’re unified until someone offers a school more to go somewhere else. Everyone is going to grab it.”

This is your current ACC status: situationally and temporarily unified, with all parties trying to make the best of the current arrangement while eyeing the exit doors. At least they’re upfront about it.

In the every-school-for-itself world of college athletics, where there is no such thing as enough money, the ACC and Pac-12 currently are embroiled in bicoastal uncertainty. The Pac-12’s situation has been more public, having already been plundered by the Big Ten with the soon-to-be exodus of USC and UCLA and trying to now keep the rest of its 10-school cohort intact. The ACC’s instability has been percolating for quite some time before fully bubbling to the surface this week in what could be described as a high-stakes, seven-on-seven scrimmage.

Sports Illustrated reported Monday that half the 14 football-playing ACC schools had met in various combinations to discuss potential exit strategies for richer pastures. The seven with the wandering eye: Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech. The seven on the other side: Boston College, Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Wake Forest.

Lawyers for the potential Wandering Seven had examined the league’s grant of rights agreement, which runs through 2036, looking for loopholes. Locked into a long-term ESPN contract that stagnates revenue growth, they either want out or want a path to increased cash. Clemson and Florida State had made the most noise about it publicly, but this week we learned how much company they have.

The seven-on-seven split apparently came as news to some of the league members, which made for some interesting meeting room dynamics Monday. In comments to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock used the words “blindsided” and “shock” for those who were uninformed, adding, “These jobs are hard enough without something knocking you upside the head.”

The positive fallout from this blindsiding: It got everyone’s agenda out in the open and led to what all parties described as candid conversations. Everyone in the ACC should have exited Amelia Island with a whole lot less guesswork about where their colleagues stand.

Particularly, these meetings helped clear a path toward uneven revenue distribution. That sounds ominous in terms of conference harmony, but a performance-based shift away from equal slices of the revenue pie is workable. If your school succeeds at a College Football Playoff level in football and the NCAA tournament level in men’s basketball, it makes more money than those who do not.

That’s an easier way to build a consensus than by declaring that the most TV-friendly brands should get bigger shares. Winning your way to more money seems like a merit-based concept most schools can get behind.

“This provided some urgency to speed up conversations about the way we do revenue sharing,” an ACC source says. “If you set expectations and people know what the rules are, nobody can say it’s unfair.”

How much money are we talking about? Maybe $10 million a year for the high achievers in football. That’s not insignificant, of course, especially in a time of name, image and likeness payouts for players and increased outlays for athlete-first things, like mental health, nutrition and academic support. But it’s also not enough to eliminate the chasm between what the Big Ten and SEC will soon be making and what the ACC schools continue to make within their endless ESPN contract.

Commissioner Jim Phillips has been tasked with fixing something that looks damn near unfixable. (And which he inherited from former commissioner John Swofford.) While looking for creative solutions, Phillips is also trying to remind his membership that money isn’t everything when it comes to competitive excellence.

“I feel really good about the future of the ACC, I do,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve got to close that gap, for sure. But at the end of the day, how much [revenue] do you need to be a national champion in football or basketball and our other sports? Do you have to be at the top level? Do you have to spend the most to be the best? I don’t know that there has been an equation that has connected the two. It’s certainly helpful and it certainly allows you a better chance.”

The two schools that might not be listening to that message are the two that have dominated the conference in football for the last decade-plus: Clemson and Florida State. They’ve combined to win 11 of the past 12 ACC titles and three national championships in that time (two for the Tigers, one for the Seminoles). Those two, along with Miami, are the bedrock football schools in the league and could simply be an SEC invitation away from challenging that ACC grant of rights.

If it comes to that, there are two potential outcomes: The schools risk financial ruin to get out of the league and fail in what assuredly would be a massive legal battle or they win and the fault lines split the ACC in half. The league diaspora would be scooped up by the Big Ten, SEC and likely the Big 12, with perhaps a Big East football reincarnation that brings the northeast schools back together. In short, all hell would break loose.

That’s why the stakes in this ACC seven-on-seven scrimmage are so high. At least now, after some honest exchanges at a beach resort in Florida, everyone in the league knows where they stand and where their brethren stand. Situationally and temporarily unified.

North Carolina (33-19, 14-12) vs. #6 CLEMSON (37-17, 18-10)
Tonight
6:00 p.m. ET
Clemson, South Carolina (Doug Kingsmore Stadium)
ESPN3.com - ACCNX

STARTING PITCHERS
• Friday - RHP Jake Knapp (UNC) vs. RHP Austin Gordon (CLEM)
• Saturday - TBA (UNC) vs. LHP Caden Grice (CLEM)

Game Book/Preview/Stats/History, etc (lengthy PDF): https://clemsontigers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/05-17NorthCarolina.pdf

First come, first served . Can't be in both stadiums at the same time. Message me with an email address and I will transfer immediately. The ladies have their moxie back - see if they can keep it up with likely improved pitching, Enjoy!

Anyone having to cancel plans last minute?

Looking for 2 by chance.

National Labor Relations Board files complaint for unfair labor practices vs. NCAA, Pac-12, USC​

By: Dan Murphy - ESPN.com

A legal battle that would open the door for some college athletes to form unions took an expected, yet significant step forward Thursday when the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the NCAA, the Pac-12 and USC for unfair labor practices.

Those three parties will argue against lawyers from the NLRB in a hearing scheduled for Nov. 7. The hearing is the next step in one of several mounting challenges to the NCAA's fundamental belief that college athletes are not employees and thus should not be paid directly for their athletic performance.

"The conduct of USC, the Pac-12 conference, and the NCAA, as joint employers, deprives their players of their statutory right to organize and to join together to improve their working and playing conditions if they wish to do so," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. "Our aim is to ensure that these players, as workers like any other, can fully and freely exercise their rights."

If athletes -- this complaint applies only to football, men's basketball and women's basketball players -- are viewed as employees under the National Labor Relations Act, they would have the ability to organize and collectively bargain against schools for a larger share of the billions of dollars of revenue generated by college sports each year as well as other workplace protections.

The NCAA has been firm in its stance that college athletes should not be employees of their schools. Several leaders from the association, conference and schools have lobbied Congress in recent months to create a federal law that defines college athletes as non-employees.

The NCAA believes making athletes into employees could lead to a system where athletes could be fired for poor performance and create complications for international athletes as well Title IX compliance, according to the organization's senior VP of external affairs, Tim Buckley. He said in a statement Thursday that the NCAA believes its rules need to be updated, but that employee status was not the right solution.

"The complaint issued by the region today appears to be driven by a political agenda and is the wrong way to help student-athletes succeed," Buckley said. "...The Association believes student-athletes, school leaders and the people's representatives in Congress are best fit to make such wide-ranging changes to college sports."

In a statement, the Pac-12 said the NLRB's "allegations are completely at odds with decades of established law and, more importantly, if accepted by the NLRB and the courts, would have a profound and negative impact on college sports and the many student-athletes in our Conference."

If the administrative law judge who oversees November's hearing finds that the NCAA, Pac-12 and USC have violated labor practices, the decision would almost certainly lead to an appeal that would require the NLRB's board to decide if football and basketball players qualify as employees. Because of the nature of the complaint, the board would not be able to opt out of issuing an opinion on athletes' employee status as it did in 2015, when Northwestern football players sought the right to form a union.

The complaint against USC, Pac-12 and the NCAA was filed in February 2022 by the National College Players Association, an advocacy group that was involved in pushing states to write the legislation that forced the NCAA to change its policies on players making money from name, image and likeness deals.

"While disappointing, this complaint is neither new nor surprising; it simply perpetuates a position that the National Labor Relations Board erroneously staked out many months ago, and which would significantly undermine the educational experiences of our student-athletes," USC said in a statement.

NCPA founder Ramogi Huma said Thursday that they believe this process will prove athletes are entitled to all the rights and protections of employees in America.

"FBS football players and NCAA Division I men's and women's basketball players, the majority of whom are Black, are exploited physically and economically by NCAA sports," Huma said in a statement. "One of the reasons this injustice continues to plague all athletes in these sports nationwide is because NCAA sports has denied them rights under labor law."

The decision by Abruzzo's staff to pursue all three groups as joint employers creates the possibility that all college athletes could be granted the right to unionize as a result of this case. The NLRB doesn't have jurisdiction over public universities, so the courts would need to determine that conferences and the NCAA act as an employer in order for their decision to apply to all schools competing in college sports.

Every CLEMSON polo now in stock at The Tiger Fan Shop HERE!


https://clemson.rivals.com/news/the-40-most-consequential-recruits-of-the-dabo-swinney-era-part-10-1

all of a sudden the same user name and password i've used for many years no longer works. i tried the chat thing and got no response sent multiple emails and got no response . point me in the right direction to get this fixed please

I'd encourage everyone to chip in a few bucks for this young man's defense.

Since it's been ages ago and lots of new additions and upgrades to housing, does anyone have an opinion on these 3 options my my son?

Shoeboxes ( didn't realize they're coed now)

Highrises ( Byrnes, Lever, Manning)

McCabe, Mickel, Holmes ( Suites)

Mauldin is available too but I can't wrap my head around my son staying in an old football dorm with some of the things I know happened when I was there in the 80's. LOL kidding of course and the location is great I guess.

So all of the Johnstone housing is gone or revamped? Are those the Gressette, Cribb and Deschamps dorms for honors?

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From our South Carolina site at Rivals.com:

Here for three days. What are best places for lunch and dinner? I prefer local restaurant. Thx

Pretty cool article! Didn’t realize the severity of the pain that she was having.

ADULTS in florida now have to get the government's permission to get gender affirming care.

The Florida law, known as Senate Bill 254, requires transgender adults to obtain written consent on a form adopted by the Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine - two oversight boards whose members are appointed by the governor and have already taken steps to restrict transgender care under DeSantis.

I know we have occasional threads about this perma project. And some on here seem to have some real insight on what is actually going on with it. What is the latest projection for completion? I drive this stretch at 4Am and 3 to 4PM which should both be prime times for workers be out there in mass but they almost never are. Usually there will be about 10 people working, usually pouring the middle wall around mile marker 92 or so. And the rest of the stretch of barricades has zero activity. When I ride to Columbia I'm amazed how much faster the widening is going between Newberry and Columbia on 26. There are so many workers on that project they look like ants.

At least they did go ahead and open the section on 85 from the Broad River to the NC line but they seem years and years away on the remaining section given the lack of resources thrown at it. I get sick of Columbia and Charleston Projects getting all the priority. Our politicians from the upstate must be hacks into getting plugged into the good ole boy political network.

Was incredible RB

NO. 16 SEED CLEMSON (46-9) VS. UNCG (37-20)​

GAME SETUPS

• 🆚 Opponent: UNCG
• 🗓 Date/Time: Friday, May 19 • 3 p.m.
• 📍 Venue: McWhorter Stadium • Clemson, S.C.
• 📺 Watch: ESPNU
• 📊 Stats: Live Stats
• 📻 Listen: WCCP FM • ONLINE

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Clemson: Roster | Schedule | Game Notes (PDF) | Clemson Regional Guide
PREVIEW

• No. 10/10 Clemson takes a 46-9 overall record into the opening game of the 2023 Clemson Regional against UNCG.
• The Tigers are the No. 16 national seed and were selected to host in back-to-back seasons after being the No. 10 seed in 2022. The Tigers welcome Auburn, Cal State Fullerton and UNCG to McWhorter Stadium.
• The Tigers have outscored opponents 331-88 in games this season, including run-ruling 15 opponents.
• Clemson has 435 hits through 55 games, including posting 81 doubles and 70 home runs.
• The Tigers’ pitching staff is posting a 1.33 ERA through 352 innings of work and struck out a combined 300 batters.
• The Tigers are 5-2 in NCAA Regional appearances after being the No. 2 seed in the Tuscaloosa Regional in 2021 with a 2-2 record and going a perfect 3-0 in 2022.
• Last season, Clemson swept its regionals that included run-ruling both UNCW and Louisiana to clinch a 1-0 victory against Auburn.

VS. UNCG

• Clemson holds a 2-1 overall record against the Spartans, including taking two games earlier this season at the Clemson Classic.
• The Tigers took game one, 3-0, before concluding the tournament with a 6-1 win in game two.
• Clemson finished with 20 hits between the two games, including Valerie Cagle and Aby Vieira both hitting five, while McKenzie Clark and Arielle Oda finished with four each.
• Cagle and Millie Thompson each started a game in the circle. Both finished with eight strikeouts in their respective performances.

@nmerritt11 per your request. Go Tigers!!

They’re definitely beating us once this year. Just hope it’s not the ACC title game .

Member when we were supposed to have portal acquisitions? I member .

The Clemson Nike Zoom Pegasus 39 shoe is back ON SALE again at The Tiger Fan Shop HERE ($78.29)!

More marked-down Clemson apparel is available this weekend at The Tiger Fan Shop HERE! (over 370 items)

According to the Post and Courier, lot 10 will become a 2000 space parking garage if approved by the administration in July.