Sunday, Oct. 05, 2008

Great expectations, disappointment for Tigers

As the Tigers and their fans try to cope with another disappointing loss, the question remains why it happens every season

CLEMSON — To think what Clemson fans might have avoided had Tommy Bowden been the one seeing red.

How close were the Tigers to having a new coach this season, thus avoiding the annual hot-seat speculation amid another season of ups and downs?

It is believed Linda Bowden had bought the outfit she planned to wear to her husband’s introductory news conference at Arkansas in December.

Instead, Clemson administrators signed off on a buyout-clause demand that led Bowden to agree to a four-year contract extension.

The irony is that the deal was showcased as an endorsement for Bowden’s job security.

“The reason we gave him that contract was to get over the hump, quite frankly,” athletics director Terry Don Phillips said two weeks before the season. “There are no ifs, ands or buts about that.”

But there were no questions that Clemson’s 20-17 home collapse to Maryland last weekend was significant. It was a loss that took on added meaning because of the Tigers’ track record under Bowden.

While the Tigers’ 1-1 ACC record does not put their goals out of reach, the Maryland defeat rekindled fan skepticism about whether this season would be any different than the team’s string of close-but-no-cigar attempts to win the school’s first conference title since 1991.

The defining losses of the 10-season Bowden era have been a mixed bag of cause and effect, yet there has seemed one common thread:

To the Tigers have been unable to handle prosperity.

“It’s disheartening that we lost another game we felt like we should have won,” senior receiver Tyler Grisham said.

The past three seasons, Clemson has been ranked in the preseason (2006, 2004, 2001), it has finished unranked.

Conversely, the past three seasons the Tigers have ended in the top 25 (2007, 2005, 2003), they began unranked.

Only in Bowden’s second season (2000) did Clemson remain in the poll from start (No. 17) to finish (No. 16). And that year spawned Bowden’s reputation for an annual loss to a team the Tigers were favored to beat.

In 2000, the Tigers began 8-0 and rose to No. 5 before stumbling to unranked Georgia Tech at home, 31-28. They dropped two of their final three, with both losses coming against top-10 teams.

After climbing to No. 13 the next year, the Tigers were obliterated 38-3 at home by unranked North Carolina and lost three of their next four.

A 40-point loss to unranked Texas Tech in the 2002 Tangerine Bowl lit the hot-seat flames for Bowden that peaked with a 45-17 meltdown at unranked Wake Forest in 2003, which left Clemson with a 5-4 record after beginning the season ranked 22nd.

In 2004, the Tigers salvaged a 1-4 start by winning their next four. But following a dramatic overtime triumph at No. 11 Miami, the Tigers lost 16-13 at Duke — the Blue Devils’ last win against a Division I opponent until 2007.

The ACC title game was in Clemson’s grasp in 2006, but the Tigers followed a humiliating beatdown at Virginia Tech with a 13-12 home loss to Maryland that cost it the Atlantic Division title.

Finally, a 13th-ranked Tigers team that entered averaging 35.6 points a game were upset 13-3 last year at unranked Georgia Tech. Again, Clemson fell a win short of earning a berth in the conference championship game.

Bowden contends his defeats reflect no more of a pattern than any other team’s.

“That’s the way it is with most teams,” he said. “Southern Cal. Ohio State. Usually all of them lose to a team that they shouldn’t have. LSU lost to Kentucky (last year).

“I wish I could win them all. But Maryland’s a good team that gives full scholarships.”

In 10 seasons, ranked teams under Bowden have lost seven times at home to unranked opponents. Each of the past five seasons, a ranked Clemson team has lost to an unranked opponent.

In fact, Clemson’s past 11 losses have come to underdogs, dating to 2005. The Tigers have been favored in every game since the 2006 opener against Florida State.

That trend probably will end this week, when the Tigers travel to No. 25 Wake Forest for a nationally televised Thursday night contest.

The Demon Deacons (3-1, 1-0 ACC) figure to be the favorite to win the Atlantic Division, so a victory would vault Clemson back into the picture because of its tiebreaker advantages.

On the other hand, a loss would render the Tigers’ title hopes remote, at best. The Alabama debacle might have set the tone for a Clemson’s demise, but the Maryland loss would get the blame for inflicting the heavy damage.

Bowden said he could not compare his disappointment with one loss to another.

“I get sick physically when I lose,” he said. “All losses hurt.”

In terms of his future, though, the latest one could hurt the most.No ifs, ands or buts.