Q&A with Chili formerly of Block-C

Chili is the co-creator of the now-defunct Danny Ford Is God and Block-C blogs and continues to pine about blogging though he himself chose to end his own site. He is a Clemson grad, architect, and stand-up comedian living in Shanghai. For insight into the brittle psyche of a Clemson fan, and good laughs follow him at @DannyFordIsGod.

1. With only a third of the season over Tajh Boyd already has 15 touchdowns under his belt. He's got a big arm, is extremely accurate and can carry the ball on both designed and improvised plays. OK, I am done doling out praise. What are some of the things Boyd does bad, or are there some situations where he has the ball in his hands and you're on the edge of your seat?

Boyd is still young and relatively inexperienced. Last week Boyd had a bonehead play where as he was falling to the ground well behind the LOS, instead of taking the down for a big loss of yards he sort of half flicked the ball up in the air like an errant booger only to have it gobbled up for a pick-six by an FSU defensive lineman.

He still occasionally floats the ball out there to double coverage or in situations where he shouldn't. I always thought he had great promise as a QB, and still does, but we should also remember that Clemson's young receivers, especially Sammy Watkins, are pretty disgusting and could make any QB look better.

You mentioned Boyd's scrambling ability and, while he's more mobile than some of our past QBs, he still has a ways to go to make that a really viable part of the offense. Also, my man needs to learn to slide. He prefers to sort of flop to the ground and take a big pop from a d-lineman. No. Stop. Bad Tajh.

2. Two years ago Clemson won the ACC Atlantic, last season the Tigers finished 6-7. This year, at 4-0, the Clemson has already knocked off the defending national champions and the ACC favorites. What are some reasons for the turnaround and who are some of the lesser known, let's label them roll players, who have stepped up.

The main reason for the turnaround is the injection of the high-tempo offense of Chad Morris. This has been covered pretty well in the media, so I won't go too into it here, but suffice to say it is a massive sea change from last year's anemic offense. The lesser known players behind Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins are the offensive linemen, who have stepped it up after some paddy-cake-ass performances to open the season. There have been injuries there, but guys like Dalton Freeman have been consistent and provided leadership and other football clichés. Phillip Price, a former walk-on tight end, has started at left offensive tackle every game this season and also deserves a nod.

3. Clemson's offense has been putting big numbers up on the scoreboard, but their defense has been letting up enough points to keep the games close. Is the defense under performing, or going into the season were they expected to give up some scores? What do they need to do to get better?

I think the defense is underperforming just a little bit. We knew coming into the season that they'd have some issues in the secondary and also miss Da'Quan Bowers' presence up front, but maybe the young recruits at linebacker could be more of a factor (read: any at all) than they are now. Clemson still will give up chunk plays, and I expect teams to throw the ball down the field to try and take advantage of this. If they can be more aware of these kinds of plays it could go a long way, obviously.

4. The phrase "Fuck Clemson" was coined, as well as popularized, by the good folks at EDSBS. Is the average, non Internet dwelling Clemson fan aware of this meme? Can I expect a negative response when shouting it at crowds on Saturday, or a "Hey, I get that joke" look?

Nobody outside of internet dwelling Clemson fans are aware of that meme, and I don't know how many who do live their life on the net are really aware of it as EDSBS doesn't seem to use it all that much anymore. I'm really glad you asked this question though, because it's something I've thought of for a while. Not the EDSBS case specifically, but using that as an incident being indicative of a larger media narrative of guys like Doyel and Forde shitting on Clemson for fun.

National media and blogs who cover the CFB world have been really turned off by Clemson (I mean this in a coverage and general opinion standpoint, not from an assessment of our abilities standpoint) and it's simply because CU is not reliable. By that I mean that they make their bread and butter off of predicting seasons and games. Clemson has simply been extremely difficult to predict for anyone, even those of us sort of in the bubble. Therefore, people who go out on a limb for Clemson often end up looking like dicks, and instead of just shrugging their shoulders they take it out on the Tigers. It's not us, it's them. Well, it IS us, but Clemson's roller-coaster ride seasons are our own albatross, so for other people to take it out on us with memes like "fuck Clemson," well, hey, fuck you WE are the ones who have to deal with this shit.

The only consistent narrative they can drum up for Clemson is that the Tigers will self-sabotage, or "Clemson themselves" as The Solid Verbal guys like to say. CU doesn't do this that much more egregiously than do other middling teams, it's just easier to describe them like so.

5. Has 8-Ball the Tiger gotten help for his problem yet?

via Box from this week's mascot mock

I don't talk about that guy anymore. Fuck that guy. We've reached out to him all we can, it's up to him to work the steps if and when he wants to.

6. OK enough fun, what's your prediction for Saturday's game and what are your expectations for the rest of the season?

I think Clemson's offense has a slight edge on VT's defense, but I think the Tech offense should match up pretty well with the Clemson D. I think CU keeps it close, but this one goes 37-30 VT. I think Clemson drops this one, the GT game, and the Sakerlina games to finish out a respectable campaign.