The AntiBowden

Tommy Bowden Post Game Interview

I'm not in the mood to make a long post today, but here are a couple of quotes of interest:

Question: Talk about CJ's run late in the game for you, assuming that role, one that James Davis normally has.

Tommy Bowden: "Well, that was probably just his time. Andre Powell rolls them in that rotation. It was just CJ's time to go. He was really greased up and hot and made some impressive tackle to tackle runs, and they had gotten a little fatigued. They had been on the field a good bit."

Why did James Davis even come back to Clemson? As I said last year, it's only going to hurt his NFL prospects. Hell he might not even get drafted if he continues getting the number of touches he's getting. Why does Tommy Bowden like to crap all over his Senior runningbacks so much?

Question: Talk about your third down defense. They seemed to convert a lot of those for first downs.

Tommy Bowden: "It's probably the worst thing we're doing now in our first three games. We've got to do a better job of getting off the field. We held them to one touchdown, but again, first down just changes field position. We've got to be more productive there. I'm sure we'll work hard on it. Seems to be all three games we've played, we don't rise to the occasion on third down. We've got to find someone to make a play."

While this answer might seem pretty vanilla, it's easy to see how Tommy is trying to shift as much blame as he can over to the defensive side of the ball. He might even be setting up his defensive coordinator to be fired at the end of the year. Why do I say that? Bowden knew Koennig's defense was a "bend but don't break" style when he hired him. Those defenses, by definition, give up first downs and don't dominate the field position battle. They let the other team move the ball but don't let them get it into the end zone. So why now, all of the sudden, does Tommy say "it's probably the worst thing we're doing?" Blame shifting.

This is the most interesting exchange of the whole interview:

Question: Talk about a couple of questionable decisions Cullen made today.

Tommy Bowden: "The first one, the snap would be one. My point was to him on the run, third-down-and two, lower your shoulder and try to get it. We're not real good on third-and-two, but lower your shoulder and get me to six inches or a foot. Give me something to work with. I'm sure he'd do them over again if he could."

Question: Even with a sore shoulder, you'd want him to lower it and try to get the first down on the short run?

Tommy Bowden: "Yeah, lower your shoulder. We've got another quarterback. Lower it and go win a conference game. Take the sore one, lower it, run over him and get us close to it. Make them both sore."

Damn. I mean... damn. I feel sorry for Cullen. Bowden is too much of a chicken shit to actually make a coaching decision and pull Harper outright, so he's going to try and get him injured, so there is no decision to make, and the fans all go crazy because their Lord and Savior Willy Korn will be the quarterback. Boy oh boy. Actually, it's probably more likely that Bowden will put in Korn in the midst of our next debacle (probably Wake, maybe even Maryland) and he will be the starter from that point forward. Harper will get all of the blame, just like Simmons did.

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Posted by Tom on Sunday, September 14, 2008 | Permalink