THURSDAY NIGHT SPECIAL
Bowden in the Line of Fire

Clemson (3-2) at No. 21 Wake Forest (3-1)
BB&T Field, Winston-Salem, N.C. 7:30 p.m., ESPN
By David Droschak (Posted 10-9-08)

I remember what Mack Brown used to say to me when he was at North Carolina. Coaching football is like dog years Dave, and 10 years is a long time at one school.

Now in his 10th season at Clemson, Tommy Bowden will be walking the long plank tonight in Winston-Salem, trying to avoid a third loss and .500 start in mid-October for a team that had national title dreams. A loss in this game for Bowden would be equivalent to a coaching death sentence at Clemson, a school with a fan-base still yearning and searching for the successful glory days of Danny Ford.

Bowden was a young hot-shot fresh off an undefeated season at Tulane and the son of a coaching legend when he arrived in Death Valley a decade ago. In nine seasons, the Tigers have yet to win an ACC title, 10 games in a season or play in a major bowl game. And it was a 45-17 loss at Wake Forest in 2003 that sent up a red flag to some Clemson supporters that Bowden may not be the correct choice. A 31-27 loss two seasons later on the same field to what was once a lowly Demon Deacon program just intensified the squawking among the orange faithful.

By all accounts, this was supposed to be Bowden’s year, with Harper, Davis and Spiller leading an unstoppable offense that would outscore all comers. Then the Alabama game rolled around to open the season in Atlanta and the Tigers were flat and appeared to be pulling the pig-tails on their kid sister instead of hitting each other in fall camp. A recent home loss to Maryland (the same team that lost 31-0 last weekend to Virginia) left Clemson sitting around for more than 10 days wondering if they would be able to get it together for an intense part of the schedule, that in addition to the Demon Deacons, includes Paul Johnson’s upstart Yellow Jackets, and road games at Boston College and Florida State – outside of Wake Forest the two best defenses in the ACC.

Wake Forest is also coming off an uncharacteristic stinker under Jim Grobe, turning it over six times in a 24-17 home loss to Navy. Accurate QB ace Riley Skinner (above) threw four interceptions, and Grobe told me this past week he and his staff plan to simplify the offense to allow Skinner to think less and react more against the aggressive Tigers’ defense.

Wake Forest, along with Duke, are the only two ACC teams without a 100-yard rushing game, and that stat worries Grobe, but the Demon Deacons are ranked in the nation’s top 30 in four other categories, the Tigers just one. And while Wake Forest did cough the ball up to the Midshipmen, their defense has already forced a whopping 17 turnovers in just four games. Clemson has yet to go a game without at least two turnovers, so this always important segment of the game will be worth watching.

And one more stat about Clemson’s inability to win the “big games.” The Tigers are 1-7 in Thursday night games. The Demon Deacons 3-0, including last year’s 24-21 upset of Florida State.

This would be Grobe’s 50th victory at Wake Forest, a stat that pales in comparison to coaches like Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno, but is somewhat of a minor miracle in Winston-Salem. My thought is Grobe gets it in a close one.

SU Prediction: Wake Forest 24, Clemson 21