Thread…
1) Let’s take a quick ride in the Wayback Machine to Spring 2011. For reference, here’s what ESPN.com looked like… Doesn’t seem like THAT long ago. Bill Simmons had already made the turn to full-time podcaster. UConn was still annoying.
1) Let’s take a quick ride in the Wayback Machine to Spring 2011. For reference, here’s what ESPN.com looked like… Doesn’t seem like THAT long ago. Bill Simmons had already made the turn to full-time podcaster. UConn was still annoying.
2) So way back then in the spring of 2011, Clemson was coming off a 6-7 season in which it had gone 2-7 vs teams with a winning record. Its head coach was a little known guy with a choir boy haircut and a goofy personality that everyone thought was in WAY over his head.
3) Moreover, the athletics department was hardly a bastion of success. Its revenue for the 2010/11 fiscal year was about $65 — 6th in the ACC alone. Football was not in the top 25 nationally in revenue.
4) Dabo could recruit a little, that was true. Rivals ranked the 2011 class as No. 8 and it included Sammy Watkins, Tony Steward, Stephone Anthony, Eric MacLain and Charone Peake — all 4-star guys.
5) But more than the blue chips, here are the 2/3-star guys Dabo landed that year: Robert Smith, Grady Jarrett, BJ Goodson, Kevin Dodd and Adam Humphreys. That’s a pretty good eye for talent.
6) Still, most of those guys - sans M Bryant and Sammy Watkins — were years away from making an immense impact. FSU was ascendant with new coach Jimbo Fisher and the ACC in general was a dumpster fire with zero national credibility.
7) So this was a program, 8 years ago, that had a few good recruits but was mostly looking for diamonds in the rough. Was middle of the pack in revenue. Had an overmatched head coach. Was below .500 and not competitive vs good teams. And was mediocre in a below avg conference.
8) In the 8 years since then, Clemson has won 10+ games every season. It has won 2 national titles, 5 ACC titles and 8 bowl games, is 14-6 vs the SEC and 97-15 overall. Football revenue is now double the revenue of the entire athletics department in 2011.
9) So, I ask you this: How has Clemson possibly done this? What makes Clemson different from, say, Texas A&M with better resources and recruits? Or Oregon, a faster rising cash cow? Or Tennessee, Texas, USC, Miami or other traditional powers that fell flat?
10) Obviously there’s not 1 answer there. But set aside football, the Xs and Os. Look at Clemson in a macro sense. What’s happened is beyond unlikely and it deserves serious academic study. Because this isn’t anything close to a traditional success story. It’s unique, completely.
11) So look, is there Bama-Clemson fatigue? Sure. Do rivals hate that Clemson gets so much love now? Of course. But step away from the football bias and just look at Clemson like a business. What’s the equivalent?
12) Even the big tech companies - Google, Facebook, Apple - made their riches by dominating nascent markets. Who enters a crowded marketplace with less capital, less talent and no serious backing and dominates this quickly?
13) Anyway, that’s my .02 on all this, which I share not to beat the drum for Clemson but because we should appreciate just how crazy it is that the Tigers are about to host another parade. It’s not just football. There’s an infrastructure built there that’s a model for success.
