Posted on Sun, Jul. 30, 2006ITS SELF-PROCLAIMED “BCS Summer” is over, and Clemson is about to learn whether it can compete with the big boys.
Or CBS’s “Two and a Half Men,” to be exact.
With a remotely successful season this year, the Tigers could land on Monday Night Football in 2007.
ACC commissioner John Swofford announced last week that the Miami-Florida State game will not be held on Labor Day night next year for the first time in four years, leaving the conference and ABC with a major hole in its season kickoff package.
Swofford guaranteed that an ACC game will fill the slot, and given the league’s willingness to pimp its second-tier teams on ESPN’s Thursday night lineup, the conference will unquestionably do everything in its power to ensure that happens.
From its perspective, Clemson would appear an ideal fit.
Aside from pitting FSU or Miami against a powerhouse from another conference — and both coaches recently spoke wearily about enduring yet another high-stakes opener — the ACC’s options seem few and far between.
Based on this season’s projections, only one other team, Virginia Tech, could potentially justify inclusion.
If Clemson can manage to finish this upcoming season with a top-25 ranking, it would offer a combination of quality products — relative name recognition (coach Tommy Bowden) and star power (tailbacks James Davis and C.J. Spiller) .
Not to mention, the Tigers would be available.
Clemson has conveniently avoiding releasing specifics about its 2007 opener for several reasons.
Among them: The ACC does not finalize the schedule order of conference games until January, so the Tigers would not know of their new date for a while.
And school officials say releasing a premature schedule that gets changed later would needlessly upset fans who have already made plans for those weekends.
Clemson has previously announced three of its four non-conference games with tentatively scheduled dates: Sept. 8 against Louisiana-Monroe, Sept. 15 against Temple and Nov. 24 at USC.
But don’t expect the Temple game to happen — the Owls recently booked Connecticut to replace the Tigers on the docket — and Clemson remains tight-lipped about its two remaining opponents.
Considering the Tigers and FSU prefer to square off early in the season to avoid the possible drama of having a Bowden family member on the hot seat — be it Tommy, FSU coach Bobby, or one of Tommy’s brothers, beleaguered Seminoles offensive coordinator Jeff — even throwing the Bowden Bowl on primetime makes sense.
That is not to suggest Clemson will eagerly embrace any of these speculative scenarios.
As treasured as the 1 p.m. Saturday start time is to both school and followers, the prospect of a late Monday night would invariably sap some of the festivity from the Tigers’ blue-collar clientele.
Plus there’s no way the coaching staff would want a high-caliber opener when player personnel is taken into account.
Clemson will head into its 2007 opener with a green quarterback — probably either this year’s No. 2, then-junior Cullen Harper, or touted incoming freshman Willy Korn — as well as an entirely overhauled offensive line if junior left tackle Barry Richardson bolts for the NFL.
That’s putting the remodeled cart before the horse.
But for a program seeking to raise its social status, the Labor Day game is an attainable long-term goal that would validate Clemson’s jump from annual trendy pick to accepted ACC contender and boost the Tigers to that perceived next level.
“That game is like Monday Night Football,” Bobby Bowden said. “You’ve got the whole country. ... Everybody wants that night.”
“The exposure and recruiting and P.R., you can’t get enough money to buy that much P.R.”
Or turn it down.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/sports/15155937.htm
