By now we know that Clemson isn't exactly going to sneak up on anyone this year, even after losing as many great players as they did from last season.
The presence of the guy on the far right has the Tigers squarely on the national radar, and Matt Brown of Sports on Earth says the biggest fall-camp question of college football centers on No. 4:
1. Is Deshaun Watson back to 100 percent?
With Clemson replacing much of its defense and Florida State replacing everybody, the ACC is widely seen as the conference mostly likely to be left out of this year's playoff. The health of Watson could change that.
Watson is the most talented quarterback in college football, coming off a brilliant freshman season -- when he was actually on the field. He tore his ACL in November, and after playing well in a win over South Carolina on his injured knee, he underwent surgery in December, missing the Tigers' bowl game.
On Tuesday, he returned to the practice field, wearing a knee brace.
"I guess so," Watson said when asked if he was 100 percent, according to ESPN. "I can't really tell if I'm 100 or not, but I feel good. They cleared me to play, so I'm just out there helping my team out."
There are numerous issues for Watson to deal with: Offensive coordinator Chad Morris is now the head coach at SMU, last year's run game was hit-or-miss and only one starter returns to the offensive line after left tackle Isaiah Battle entered the supplemental draft. Throw in the loss of six of the team's top eight tacklers, including Vic Beasley, Stephone Anthony and Grady Jarrett, and maybe Clemson should be focused on competing for a playoff bid in 2016, not this fall.
Still, overcoming all those potential issues is a lot easier if Watson is healthy and on the field. Remember, he had a higher passer rating and average yards per attempt than Marcus Mariota in his eight appearances as a true freshman. If Watson is healthy, Clemson might be the best team in the ACC, and any power conference champion has a chance to be in the playoff discussion.
A few Friday links:
-- Well it looks like Nick Saban isn't going to give 5 stars to the unauthorized book that was written about his life.
How's Nick Saban feel about the Nick Saban book?
He's not real happy with it, the timing of its release or much else about it. Ending his news conference Thursday, Saban wanted to make a statement about the unauthorized biography released Tuesday.
Saban's voice got louder as he spoke passionately.
"I just want everybody to know that I'm opposed to an unauthorized biography on anybody," Saban said. "If some person that you don't even know (is) trying to profit by your story or someone else's story."
Got into a back-and-forth with USA Today's Dan Wolken on this. He suggested Saban needs to be briefed on the First Amendment, that people have been writing unauthorized biographies since the beginning of time.
I don't see how this is a First Amendment issue at all, unless we're talking about Saban exercising his right to say he thinks the book stinks. To my knowledge, he's not trying to throw the guy in jail. He's just saying he's opposed to someone writing the story of his life without his consent. There's nothing wrong with that.
-- Gene Chizik is using an elementary approach to rebuild North Carolina's defense.
Long before he was Gene Chizik, the up-and-coming defensive coordinator turned national championship-winning head coach, he was Gene Chizik the third-grade teacher, an ex-football player teaching math and science and whatever else to 8 and 9 year olds.
Chizik, the defensive coordinator at North Carolina, stood on the Tar Heels’ practice fields Thursday morning about 10 when he shouted, “All right, all right – let’s go, let’s go!” Players sprinted past and Chizik exchanged small talk with them and another practice began – another opportunity to teach.
The challenge ahead of Chizik is daunting. He is charged with turning the Tar Heels’ defense, which was among the worst in school history a season ago and among the worst in the nation, into a competent unit and then, the hope is, into something much more formidable.
And all these years later, after coaching stops at Central Florida and Texas and Iowa State and two at Auburn, where Chizik coached the Tigers to a national championship in 2010, he still draws from his experience at Bauder Elementary in Seminole, Fla. The school gave Chizik his first job after he graduated from Florida in 1985.
As it turns out, teaching third grade isn’t so different from teaching a 4-3 defense, Chizik said. One might be more complex than the other, but teaching is teaching, and Chizik is using an elementary approach – day by day, lesson by lesson, one building block on top of the other – to rebuild the Tar Heels’ defense.
“Really and truly, how you break things down to a third-grader, you just move up a few years and it’s how you break them down to a college guy,” Chizik said Thursday after the Tar Heels’ fourth practice of the preseason. “It’s all the same.”
-- At MMQ, interesting contrast betwen the media that covers Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota.
1. I think the coolest aspect of The MMQB training camp tour is its successive nature. Visiting teams back-to-back (to back-to-back….) reveals some interesting contrasts. Take, for instance, a 24-hour span during which we saw Jameis Winston’s Buccaneers and Marcus Mariota’s Titans. Winston’s three interceptions certainly juxtaposed Mariota’s clean, fluid session. I won’t make grand assumptions on that tiny sample size, but I was struck by what happened afterward. Winston, the No. 1 pick, gets swarmed by nearly two dozen reporters and a handful of camera crews jostling for position. His interceptions become headlines, tweeted about incessantly. Winston is monitored closely by Buccaneers employees. In Nashville, meanwhile, there are only a handful of local reporters. Mariota answers questions, coolly, and moseys around his own locker room without interruption.
-- And we close with a jam session featuring some names you might recognize:
LW
