Our Tigers had a great start to the season with a 3-0 dismantling of a capable Penn State squad. Nittany Lions started on the front foot for the opening 10-15 minutes, but once we found ourselves in the game, it was over pretty quickly.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are good. Amazing what Coach Noonan does. We lost four key components off last year’s national title team and, man, it doesn’t look like we lost a step.
Disclaimer: yes, it was just one game. I’m not crowning us, but we are good.
We played 21 players in the opener, with nearly half of our shots (5 of 12) coming from substitutes – including the brace from Yoshi. Only three players played the full ’90 – Andema, Titus Sandy Jr. and Lundegard.
On Titus, this is his fifth season at Clemson. He didn’t play as a true freshman, played 23 total minutes in 2021 season before starting seven games in 2022, however only playing in 11 total games. He played in just 14 games last year.
He’s played a total of 1,034 minutes at Clemson. And was tasked with replacing Papa Mar Boye at CB. Reading the tea leaves of social media posts, Titus was showing up a good bit, which led me to believe that he was going to have a role this year, just didn’t realize it was CB. But kudos to Titus for sticking it out – many others would have transferred out.
I could write a lot more on some of the other players, obviously, but I’m not trying to make this a “Soccer Insider” length. Maybe will highlight a player in each game post this season.
On to Uof, which we play on Friday at 7 pm at Stone Stadium in Columbia. Wish I wasn’t going out of town for Labor Day Weekend, as I would make the short drive over from Sumter, but alas, I will have to follow from afar (hopefully).
Uof comes in at 1-1-0 after demolishing Winthrop 7-1 and tying North Florida 2-2. Certainly that 7-1 scoreline catches your eye, no matter who you are playing. A little context on that: Uof scored its first two goals in the span of 78 seconds around the 20th minute, then Winthrop got a straight red card to go a man down in the 28th minute.
The last five goals came with a man up and, you’d have to think, a less enthused Winthrop team.
Uof looked to have UNF beat as they were up 2-0 in the 80th minute, but gave up a goal at the 81:00 mark and at 84:08 to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory. One odd stat from this game: 15 shots between the two teams, just one save that came in the 20th minute. UNF, by the way, lost 4-0 to Virginia Tech in their opener.
Ethan Ballek is off to a great start for Uof with two goals and two assists. Ballek is a transfer from VT (like our Yoshi) and had just two goals and an assist all of last year for them. He was captain of Real Colorado’s MLS next squad and led them in goals for two seasons.
Their goalie – Filip Versterre – is a freshman from Denmark. He’s played every minute this season so far, but has given up more goals (3) than he has saves (2).
For those that have followed Clemson soccer in the past, we know what we will see on Friday. Don’t get anything twisted, we are the better team, but Uof will make us work for goals. While I almost appreciated Penn State trying to play us straight up, Uof will park a cockaboose and look very disinterested at going forward aggressively.
In the last 10 games of this series, Clemson has won the last nine and Uof hasn’t scored since 2019. We beat the crap out of them in Clemson (odd years), but at Stone Stadium, they are a game bunch usually. Average score in Columbia has been 1.8-0.6 in last five games there.
I won’t be shocked to see much of the same, but getting to three-plus goals won’t surprise me. But I would love to see the shutout streak of 438-minutes, 33-seconds extend another 90 minutes!
Around the conference, the ACC is off to a 17-5-4 start. Denver – a sneaky good program – is 2-0-0 against the ACC with wins over Cal and No. 5 Stanford (our next opponent after Uof). They moved from receiving votes into the Top 10 in the United Coaches Poll.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are good. Amazing what Coach Noonan does. We lost four key components off last year’s national title team and, man, it doesn’t look like we lost a step.
Disclaimer: yes, it was just one game. I’m not crowning us, but we are good.
We played 21 players in the opener, with nearly half of our shots (5 of 12) coming from substitutes – including the brace from Yoshi. Only three players played the full ’90 – Andema, Titus Sandy Jr. and Lundegard.
On Titus, this is his fifth season at Clemson. He didn’t play as a true freshman, played 23 total minutes in 2021 season before starting seven games in 2022, however only playing in 11 total games. He played in just 14 games last year.
He’s played a total of 1,034 minutes at Clemson. And was tasked with replacing Papa Mar Boye at CB. Reading the tea leaves of social media posts, Titus was showing up a good bit, which led me to believe that he was going to have a role this year, just didn’t realize it was CB. But kudos to Titus for sticking it out – many others would have transferred out.
I could write a lot more on some of the other players, obviously, but I’m not trying to make this a “Soccer Insider” length. Maybe will highlight a player in each game post this season.
On to Uof, which we play on Friday at 7 pm at Stone Stadium in Columbia. Wish I wasn’t going out of town for Labor Day Weekend, as I would make the short drive over from Sumter, but alas, I will have to follow from afar (hopefully).
Uof comes in at 1-1-0 after demolishing Winthrop 7-1 and tying North Florida 2-2. Certainly that 7-1 scoreline catches your eye, no matter who you are playing. A little context on that: Uof scored its first two goals in the span of 78 seconds around the 20th minute, then Winthrop got a straight red card to go a man down in the 28th minute.
The last five goals came with a man up and, you’d have to think, a less enthused Winthrop team.
Uof looked to have UNF beat as they were up 2-0 in the 80th minute, but gave up a goal at the 81:00 mark and at 84:08 to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory. One odd stat from this game: 15 shots between the two teams, just one save that came in the 20th minute. UNF, by the way, lost 4-0 to Virginia Tech in their opener.
Ethan Ballek is off to a great start for Uof with two goals and two assists. Ballek is a transfer from VT (like our Yoshi) and had just two goals and an assist all of last year for them. He was captain of Real Colorado’s MLS next squad and led them in goals for two seasons.
Their goalie – Filip Versterre – is a freshman from Denmark. He’s played every minute this season so far, but has given up more goals (3) than he has saves (2).
For those that have followed Clemson soccer in the past, we know what we will see on Friday. Don’t get anything twisted, we are the better team, but Uof will make us work for goals. While I almost appreciated Penn State trying to play us straight up, Uof will park a cockaboose and look very disinterested at going forward aggressively.
In the last 10 games of this series, Clemson has won the last nine and Uof hasn’t scored since 2019. We beat the crap out of them in Clemson (odd years), but at Stone Stadium, they are a game bunch usually. Average score in Columbia has been 1.8-0.6 in last five games there.
I won’t be shocked to see much of the same, but getting to three-plus goals won’t surprise me. But I would love to see the shutout streak of 438-minutes, 33-seconds extend another 90 minutes!
Around the conference, the ACC is off to a 17-5-4 start. Denver – a sneaky good program – is 2-0-0 against the ACC with wins over Cal and No. 5 Stanford (our next opponent after Uof). They moved from receiving votes into the Top 10 in the United Coaches Poll.
