Tommy Bowden:Just shut-up!!!

I was shocked to see Tommy Bowden make the comments he made to reporters in a seemingly condecending tone concerning the Clemson football program. This was a school that gave Bowden several contract extensions, bonuses, and pay raises over a ten year period without getting one single ACC title in return for their generousity. For ten years Clemson's administration defended and supported Bowden and now he has turned on a school that believed in him alot more than anybody else in the country did.

Bowden was an up-and-down coach at Clemson. He constantly underachieved. Look at his record. In 2001 Clemson was a preseason Top 15 team and they finished 7-5 with a GREAT(um,um, lump in my throat)Humanitarian Bowl victory in Boise, Idaho over POWERHOUSE Louisana Tech. In 2002 Clemson was preseason 4th in the ACC and they finished 6th. In 2004 the Tigers were picked to win the ACC and were ranked in the Top 15 to start the season, but finished with a 6-5 record including an embarrassing loss to Duke and a terrible brawl with their arch rival South Carolina to end the season. In 2006 the tigers were once again favored to win the ACC and after starting 7-1 they folded and finished 8-5 including an ugly bowl loss to a below average Kentucky team. In 2008 Clemson began the season ranked number nine nationally before being utterly destroyed by an unranked Alabama team 34-10 in Atlanta and losing to both Wake Forest and Maryland in ugly fashion.

Bowden's own comments at an event to raise money for North Alabama University were telling "We have always turned things around". Well Tommy that is the problem. You shouldn't have had to turn things around. If you were a better coach you would have had your team ready for the 3 games you lost at Wake Forest, the game you lost at Duke, the games you blew against Maryland, the games you blew against Virginia, and the embarrassing loss the program sufferred against UNC on homecoming in 2001. Bowden, this program had to constantly "TURN THINGS AROUND" and in so doing never could accomplish what it should have. You lived off of the emotion of winning 3 games to end a season and victories over South Carolina and so in lied the problem. You should have never had to win 3 straight games just to become bowl eligible.

You are a lucky man Tommy. You lasted ten years at one of the ten greatest programs in the history of the South and you never won a championship. Hell, you didn't even win a division title. That would have never been tolerated at LSU, Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Tennessee or Florida. Heck even programs without the recent or overall tradition of Clemson like Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, North Carolina, NC State, East Carolina, Kentucky, South Florida, Central Florida and Southern Miss would not tolerate such failures for ten years. Division 1-AA programs like App. State and Furman would fire their coach before he coached that long without a title. Other coaches with far better resumes have been fired or forced out at schools.

One of Bowden's constant arguments about the success of his program was the grades and graduation of players. Hum, maybe I am missing something, but don't the players take the test and go to class? Don't the players have to go to Vickery Hall? Players are suppossed to do well in school. They are STUDENT-ATHLETES. That should be a given with any coach, especially a coach at Clemson that has the benefit of one of the top five athletic academic centers in all of college sports.

Tommy, you made millions of dollars and constantly under performed as a coach. You even received 3.5 Million dollars when you were forced out. Not a bad parting gift from a school that you didn't really take to the next level. You also got to put both of your kids through Clemson for practically FREE with the money you received.

Clemson gave you pay raises, and extensions while such programs wih far less talent like Wake Forest and Boston College were playing for ACC Championships and Orange Bowl berths. You were bragging up Music City Bowl, and Champs Sports Bowl berths. You had FAR SUPERIOR talent than both of those schools, but their coaches were some how good enough to win, while you were good enough to win a little less than needed. Simply put "YOU FAILED!!!"

Clemson has given you so much and yet this is what they get in return, A SMACK IN THE FACE OR A KICK TO THE GROIN. No man that preaches about God should so rudely treat people that have constantly bent over backwards to defend and help him. You never again deserve to walk the sidelines of a major college football program only to stab them in the back as well.