I usually don't post articles but I like these so much, I posted them, thoughts....

Mickey Plyler's Blog

A New Outlook
In the last 48 hours I have had four different people ask me, "How are we gonna do this year?" or ‘Do you think 8-4 sounds right?"
The real answer is I have no idea and no one else does either. I can ask Tommy Bowden but he doesn’t know. I could ask Kirk Herbstreit but he doesn’t know. Phil Steele, Chris Fowler, Pete Yanity and even Tim Bourrett can’t know.

We all can guess but in the end we don’t know.

I have done the radio show for over nine years now and every year I make a prediction. In every year but one I have come within one win or one loss to predicting Clemson and South Carolina’s record. However, I really have never really known.
You do it too. You and your friends go through the season and predict wins and losses. I hate to break the news to you but you and your friends don’t know either.

The fact is that we can’t know but it sure is fun trying to think that we do.

However, on Monday I heard a new, refreshing idea. Each year my college roommate and I go over each game and predict wins and losses for each game. When his wife hears us she rips us. "You guys are going to screw it up!" she says each time he hears us.
We even do it in mid-season. We do it after each game in fact. We always go back and re-evaluate after each game. Usually we are too optimistic privately and too pessimistic publically. After a tough loss we try to convince each other that the team can turn it around and after a big win we try to convince each other that this is the year.

Last year was perhaps the worst. The Boston College game was hard to swallow but James Davis’ run in the last two minutes in Tallahassee gave us hope. The season was back on and we were back in the conference title hunt. After the Georgia Tech we knew it was going to happen. BCS here we come. You know the rest though. We were wrong again.

This leads me to the conversation I had with my college roommate yesterday. I tried to ask him the usual questions but he did not take the bait. I asked him even more of the usual questions like "who will be the quarterback?" But he never took the bait. He has changed and he almost convinced me to do the same.

David Goudelock had the misfortune of being my college roommate for three years but all was not lost as he lettered in football a couple of times despite being a walk-on. He understands the game because he played it at a very high level. He played offense, defense and special teams at Clemson. He played for Coach Ford and Coach Hatfield and several other assistants who have gone on to do well in the game.
But Monday he threw me a curve. Goudelock explained his new strategy.

Mickey-"How are we going to do this year?"
Goudelock "I don’t know but I have zero expectations."

Mickey-"So you don’t expect much from this team?"
Goudelock-"It’s not that at all. I think this is a talented team. But I am not going to have any expectations going into the season."

Mickey-‘What?"
Goudelock-"You know we do this every year. Every year I think this is the year. Some years I put an 8-4 record as the measuring stick. Others I say this is a 10-2 team. I set myself up for disappointment so often so this year I am not going to have any expectations going into the year. Every year I read Phil Steele’s magazine and all of the others only to get too high or too excited. This year I am not going to get too far ahead of myself. This year I am going into the Florida State game on Labor Day without any pre-conceived notions.

After picking myself of off the floor I decided to switch gears to somehow get Goudelock back in the game.
Mickey-"So who do you think will be the starting quarterback?"
Goudelock-"I don’t know. "

Mickey-"You think Korn will play a lot against FSU?"
Goudelock-"I don’t know. I am not going to play this game either. I am going to go to the game and watch and if Harper plays I will pull for him and if Korn plays I will pull for him.

Mickey-"You are serious about this."
Goudelock-"You should try it."

In theory that would be nice but I can’t do it. The radio show would not be as entertaining. Personally I would go crazy. I have to have a release and predicting the rest of the season gives me hope.

Everyone does it though. If you think Clemson fans have a monopoly on this you are dead wrong. How many times has South Carolina won the national championship in August?

I go to message boards of all of the ACC and SEC teams and I have come to this conclusion:

I wish I could buy each team at what they worth and sell them for what each team’s fans think they are worth. The last three seasons the ACC has had five teams that have won at least 10 games in a season. Virginia Tech did it three times, Wake Forest did it once and Boston College did it once. I bet more than half of the teams in the league had fans that thought this was their 10-2 season.
A few weeks ago in the blog I gave the advice to those that want to predict your season. I said count on one loss per year that you were not expecting. But now I have new advice: Don’t have any expectations. Just go to the game and pull for your team. Sounds simply enough but we all know it is easier said than done.

http://www.tigernet.com/blogs/plyler/entry/20070703