We were just going to roll the defending national champs? In other words, you all thought we were a top 5 or even top 10 team? Two years after barely breaking even?

Any reasonable analysis pointed to Clemson winning that game. The Tigers should have won it and they did. It would have been delusional to think that we were comparable to them at this point in time. One could argue that we have better coaching, but not that we're close on talent and experience. It takes more than great coaching to win against top teams.

Did we have a chance? Of course, but it would have required punching above our weight. The margin of error was razor thin for us. Given that, did anyone think so many young and inexperienced players were going to play flawlessly against an opponent like that? Clemson did not bumble its way into a national championship after all. They know what they're doing over there too.

Plenty of you will probably counter with "yeah, but even the game plan and coaching was bad." Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not one to say. But is it alright for our coaching staff to have an off night? I'll take a coaching staff that has an off night at a rate of once every two seasons any day. They certainly were doing some things right last year and against WVU. Can anyone really say with 100% certainty that this staff is not getting the most out of what they have right now? Can they say that the staff are not in fact over achieving with this group? Is it not possible that our talent and experience levels at this point in time are so low that we had no business beating WVU? That the same team with another staff might have more than one loss right now?

As far as I'm concerned, while I wish we would have won, we acquitted ourselves fairly well. We were a handful of mistakes away from being in a position to pull off an upset. Only Auburn held them to fewer yards than we did and only Louisville put up more yard on them than we did (Auburn, who ran up 482 yards on Missouri and 511 yards against then #24 Mississippi State, only had 117 yards against Clemson).

Normally, I'm nervous about UNC, GT, Pitt, Miami, and occasionally Duke and BC. After Clemson, I no longer am. I'm not saying we're assured wins. But if Tech can just play within itself and avoid too many mistakes, it really should win all of those games. For those saying we're going to have to scratch and claw just to grab a few wins from our remaining opponents, you must experience reality quite a bit differently than I do.