A couple things from this last week's Prowl & Growl in Charlotte:
Dabo:
Nothing really new out of Dabo. Said he loves the 1st unit on O & D and that we can line up tomorrow and beat anybody. Said there is plenty of talented depth, but inexperienced, and that is the challenge. Said Deshaun could have practiced this spring with no problems since they don't hit the QB anyway. But he decided to do something different with him and had him behind every single play with him [Dabo] calling plays, dissecting the defense and breaking each play down. He said it was really awesome.
He emphasized graduating 111 of 118 players. He emphasized that while being the 8th pick in the NFL Draft, Beasley was the first player taken with a degree. He emphasized building a culture who expects to win - how when he got to Clemson, nobody within the team expected to beat the good teams. Now the team expects to win every game they play....and they know they can beat anybody in the country. Said recruiting against the SEC is no longer an issue. Said when he took over, he told TDP we need to get out there and play people to change the perception of the Clemson and the ACC. He said beating good teams like Auburn, UGA, LSU, tOSU, Oklahoma has helped. He said now it is just a matter of getting kids in for a visit.
Brownell:
Brownell was great as usual. Every player he has coached at Clemson has left with a degree except for KJ. He has lost his leading scorer ever year. He explained how important attendance at the games are - that unlike football who gets 80K no matter who they play b/c people show up to watch Clemson - they get 4K for Citadel and 9K for UNC because people show up to watch Duke, UNC, etc... He said we need people to show up consistently to watch Clemson. He said last year was tough because of the loss of KJ (which we don't have the talent and depth to replace those types of losses yet) and his two best player were freshman and sophomores (Blossingame and Grantham). He like this year with those guys a year older and Holmes coming in. Thinks Nnoko will be good his SR year and need to get scoring from the 2G...Ajukwa and/or DeVoe. Getting facilities that can compete with better schools in the conference is a huge deal and we need attendance in GVille this year.
IMO, I felt like he was disappointed to some extent with some of the fan base - at least their perception of were the program currently stands, and of course the lack of attendance. Emphasized that we played the ACC regular season champ (UVA); ACC Tourney champ (ND) and National Champ (Duke); have gone 18-18 in conference the last two years and Clemson has not done that in a long time; won 4 straight ACC games for the first time since the 90's (I think) and the fans perceive the program pretty negatively. He said he doesn't feel like we are that far away from being a very good team - He emphasized that our stars are young (Grantham and Blossingame) - and in order to compete in our conference, we have to have matured players who are upper class men like ND had this year.
We'll see.
DRAD:
I talked with DRad on the side for about 15 minutes regarding the COA stuff going on; and the CFB playoffs.
Regarding the playoffs, he said has been possibly one of the greatest (if not the greatest) experiences, both professionally and personally, of his life. He said that you must really be prepared when you step into the room to debate - and everybody does a great job of preparing. I asked how heated the debate was between the pro-tOSU members and he pro-TCU members last year. He said that nobody was standing on tables screaming, but there were some strong opinions both ways - and it all turned out [with tOSU winning] positively for them.
Regarding the COA:
The short version of the story is that the Power 5 schools originally discussed a 'set dollar' amount to give to each athlete. However,the non-Power 5 schools were not happy, and of course some were going to have trouble affording it - therefore, lawsuits were filed to prevent the set dollar amount from happening - which are currently pending as we speak. As of now, it would be considered collusion if they were to offer a set dollar amount.
So they had to go back find another way - the only metric they could use at the moment was the cost of attendance metric; which is an academic metric, calculated by the university and has been used for years in order to give perspective students a realistic "total cost" to attend the university. Each school has cost of attendance on their website for prospective students to get an idea of how much it would actually cost to attend the university (room, board, tutition, travel home a few times per year, food, etc...). This was never intended to be used by athletics or for athletics purposes. However, it is the only metrics they can use at the moment because all schools calculate this already - and the lawsuits prevent any new metrics from being created at the moment. Some schools, such as research schools like GT, skew the number lower to not effect research money given to the university by the state - so the number itself goes far beyond athletics. This is why they can't change the number; it would affect the entire university..and possibly negatively in many ways.
Unfortunately, he made it sound like we are stuck with this metrics until the lawsuits are all settled - which of course has no time table.
Anyway, just thought I would pass that info along.
Dabo:
Nothing really new out of Dabo. Said he loves the 1st unit on O & D and that we can line up tomorrow and beat anybody. Said there is plenty of talented depth, but inexperienced, and that is the challenge. Said Deshaun could have practiced this spring with no problems since they don't hit the QB anyway. But he decided to do something different with him and had him behind every single play with him [Dabo] calling plays, dissecting the defense and breaking each play down. He said it was really awesome.
He emphasized graduating 111 of 118 players. He emphasized that while being the 8th pick in the NFL Draft, Beasley was the first player taken with a degree. He emphasized building a culture who expects to win - how when he got to Clemson, nobody within the team expected to beat the good teams. Now the team expects to win every game they play....and they know they can beat anybody in the country. Said recruiting against the SEC is no longer an issue. Said when he took over, he told TDP we need to get out there and play people to change the perception of the Clemson and the ACC. He said beating good teams like Auburn, UGA, LSU, tOSU, Oklahoma has helped. He said now it is just a matter of getting kids in for a visit.
Brownell:
Brownell was great as usual. Every player he has coached at Clemson has left with a degree except for KJ. He has lost his leading scorer ever year. He explained how important attendance at the games are - that unlike football who gets 80K no matter who they play b/c people show up to watch Clemson - they get 4K for Citadel and 9K for UNC because people show up to watch Duke, UNC, etc... He said we need people to show up consistently to watch Clemson. He said last year was tough because of the loss of KJ (which we don't have the talent and depth to replace those types of losses yet) and his two best player were freshman and sophomores (Blossingame and Grantham). He like this year with those guys a year older and Holmes coming in. Thinks Nnoko will be good his SR year and need to get scoring from the 2G...Ajukwa and/or DeVoe. Getting facilities that can compete with better schools in the conference is a huge deal and we need attendance in GVille this year.
IMO, I felt like he was disappointed to some extent with some of the fan base - at least their perception of were the program currently stands, and of course the lack of attendance. Emphasized that we played the ACC regular season champ (UVA); ACC Tourney champ (ND) and National Champ (Duke); have gone 18-18 in conference the last two years and Clemson has not done that in a long time; won 4 straight ACC games for the first time since the 90's (I think) and the fans perceive the program pretty negatively. He said he doesn't feel like we are that far away from being a very good team - He emphasized that our stars are young (Grantham and Blossingame) - and in order to compete in our conference, we have to have matured players who are upper class men like ND had this year.
We'll see.
DRAD:
I talked with DRad on the side for about 15 minutes regarding the COA stuff going on; and the CFB playoffs.
Regarding the playoffs, he said has been possibly one of the greatest (if not the greatest) experiences, both professionally and personally, of his life. He said that you must really be prepared when you step into the room to debate - and everybody does a great job of preparing. I asked how heated the debate was between the pro-tOSU members and he pro-TCU members last year. He said that nobody was standing on tables screaming, but there were some strong opinions both ways - and it all turned out [with tOSU winning] positively for them.
Regarding the COA:
The short version of the story is that the Power 5 schools originally discussed a 'set dollar' amount to give to each athlete. However,the non-Power 5 schools were not happy, and of course some were going to have trouble affording it - therefore, lawsuits were filed to prevent the set dollar amount from happening - which are currently pending as we speak. As of now, it would be considered collusion if they were to offer a set dollar amount.
So they had to go back find another way - the only metric they could use at the moment was the cost of attendance metric; which is an academic metric, calculated by the university and has been used for years in order to give perspective students a realistic "total cost" to attend the university. Each school has cost of attendance on their website for prospective students to get an idea of how much it would actually cost to attend the university (room, board, tutition, travel home a few times per year, food, etc...). This was never intended to be used by athletics or for athletics purposes. However, it is the only metrics they can use at the moment because all schools calculate this already - and the lawsuits prevent any new metrics from being created at the moment. Some schools, such as research schools like GT, skew the number lower to not effect research money given to the university by the state - so the number itself goes far beyond athletics. This is why they can't change the number; it would affect the entire university..and possibly negatively in many ways.
Unfortunately, he made it sound like we are stuck with this metrics until the lawsuits are all settled - which of course has no time table.
Anyway, just thought I would pass that info along.
