Christmas came early this year, folks! I have another Across Enemy Lines for you here, this time with Block-C. Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!
1. Andre Ellington's status for the game is uncertain. Will he play? If so, will he be effective? Wouldn't it be pretty risky to play him? Will the Tigers be able to move the ball effectively with Jamie Harper as the featured back?
Ellington will be a game time decision. He has a broken bone in his foot and a strained ligament in his leg. He has been practicing in pads this week, but it's been very limited contact and slow movement. It wouldn't be risky to play Ellington because at this point in the year, what does Clemson have to lose. Bones will heal over the off season and the ligament is just strained. Ultimately, it's up to the player but you always want to protect a player at the end of the day though. We learned that lesson when Bowden soured Willy Korn's throwing arm. Oddly enough, as bad as he's been in the past and still sometimes continues to be Jamie Harper has been doing extremely well and to borrow an expression, "running as if his hair was on fire." He is finally starting to adopt a north/south running mentality and it's paying off big time. He hits his gaps with speed and intensity and is turning into a big, mean, orange destroying machine.
2. Clemson's receivers have really struggled this year. Why has that been the case? Most of them were highly recruited and were expected to do good things.
There are a few things coming into play here. First off, they were severely undersized when they came to campus. Not only that, they're all still pretty damned undersized. Some have not developed up to their full high school star rating.The Tigers are still extremely young in the wide receiving corps and they don't have any leaders in that group yet to get Clemson through this rough spot. Another thing I can point to here is that Jeff Scott is only in his second year at coaching on the collegiate level and it's apparent that he's having trouble. He's a hell of a recruiter but our talent isn't being developed as well as they could be. He's schooled up and very smart in terms of coaching that position but there seems to be a disconnect somewhere. The Tigers had problems with development of our receivers last year as well outside of Jacoby Ford.
Continue after the jump.
3. If you could have any one player on Carolina's roster, which would it be? You can't pick Alshon Jeffery; that's too obvious.
I thought the obvious pick would be Marcus Lattimore. Can you imagine having Andre Ellington AND Lattimore on the same team. That'd be one hell of a two headed beast to contend with. You literally would not have to pass the ball more than five times a game. He really is a certified stud but we all knew that when he was playing for Byrnes. When he gets to be older he's going to be THE premiere running back in the SEC. I'd take him over two Alshon Jeffery's any day because a pass requires more effort and coordination from an offensive unit than a run does.
4. Talk about what this game means to the Clemson fan base. Has the spirit of rivalry been jacked up a bit after last year's result? What would a win mean for Clemson?
This game is really important for the fan base for a variety of different reason. It's not so much that last years result bothers us because you guys are quick to forget that the game was a flip-flopped version of the 2008 outcome. A win would certainly buy this coaching staff a huge amount of vindication and it would somewhat quell the grumblings for now. I'm sure there will be plenty of Clemson fans still griping because for some reason it's all our fan base like to do. A majority of the fan base is pretty butt hurt right now and as one of our readers said it best, "People (Institutions) with class don't air their dirty laundry in public like that." There's no doubt that things need to change around the Athletic Department, but Dabo's not dropping the passes.