Welcome to CU Orange

Welcome to everyone who has found this blog. I hope you stop by often and contribute to what we are building.

First, I should answer why a blog and what's this blog about. Pretty simple. This is an outlet for me, a hobby if you will. Why the blog format? A blog is easier to maintain and keep up with than a typical web site. Time is of the essence when you have a 22 month old son. This format allows me flexibility in when to post and what to include in the blog. The additional feature of having a "history" of posts in one place is also nice. Next, what are we about? Mainly college sports, but I'm sure we'll find our way to other subjects along the way, so I can't promise you this will be an all sports blog, but it certainly will be dominated by that theme.

As you can assume by the name we will spend a lot of time focusing on Clemson Tiger sports. Why the name CU Orange? What do you think about when you think of Clemson? Orange. Not the ugly burnt orange of Texas, or the ridiculous orange of Syracuse. Not even the orange of Tennessee. But you think of "Clemson Orange".

However, this will hardly be an all Clemson blog. Living near Austin, Texas gives me a unique perspective on things outside of the "Clemson realm" and will provide me with material and contacts from other programs in this part of the country that I would not otherwise be privy to. So while some may think it's a detriment being this far away from Clemson, the reality is that I see just as many games as anyone else while not being surrounded by the "bandwagoners" and "orange kool-aid drinkers. While most Clemson fans are watching Duke and UNC when the Tigers aren't on, I most likely am seeing a game that involves Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Texas or Oklahoma. Like I said a unique perspective.

Beyond Clemson sports we plan to have our own college football power ranking system. Not a "popularity" type contest, but rather a "power ranking" based on a teams wins and losses and strength of schedule. We will rank the conferences from best to worst using a similar ranking strategy. To that end we have dozens of staffers working on this in the lab at our sprawling worldwide headquarters and are spending hundreds of hours developing this state of the art system - so stay tuned!

We are planning a feature on keeping the "Mouths" honest. You know the mouths that predict one thing or another about football and claim how much they know in June or July. Rarely are they kept honest with a season long tally of their prognostications. Guys like Colin Cowherd of ESPN and Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. If you find others you think we should include in our list please feel free to let us know! We want this to be an interactive blog, not just my ramblings and pontifications.

Colin even has that includes a pick that is sure to irritate Clemson fans, not to mention a prediction on Texas vs. Missouri. Incredibly, he also picks South Carolina to at least cover against LSU.

We have other features in the works and there will be plenty of opinions shared here, too. Please feel free to join our mailing list by sending us an email and letting us know you wish to be notified of updates to the blog.

About now you are probably asking yourself what qualifies me for this endeavor. Let me be clear: I hit six home runs (over the fence) and pitched two no-hitters in one 20 game Little League season. I once intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown in Pee Wee football. I nailed 1 of 8 free throws as a high school senior for a 6-17 team. Enough said.

Thanks, I hope you visit often and share your thoughts frequently!