Tigers out to change the underdog theory
By Earl Gault The Herald
(Published October 1? 2003)
CLEMSON -- Clemson football coach Tommy Bowden wasn't surprised when he found out his Tigers are underdogs to Maryland this Saturday in a 3:30 p.m. Atlantic Coast Conference game in College Park, Md.
Odds makers have made the Tigers (3-1, 1-0 ACC) an underdog by 9 1/2 points.
"Nine-and-a-half seems about normal," Bowden said Tuesday morning. "(The players) know. We've been beaten the last two (years) pretty substantially, and we're playing them at home (at Maryland)."
The Tigers have been made an underdog to the Terps (3-2, 0-1 ACC) despite coming off their best effort of the season, a 39-3 pounding of ACC foe Georgia Tech in Atlanta almost two weeks ago.
Maryland has won the past two games over Clemson by an average of 17 1/2 points.
Although the Tigers played extremely well against Georgia Tech, Bowden is sure they won't be overconfident.
"Maryland has had our number the last two years," Bowden said. "Gosh, how could we get overconfident?"
Bowden is also hopeful that last week's open date had a positive effect on the Tigers.
"With what happened at Geo-rgia Tech, I think we learned, from the mental standpoint, on how to approach the open date," Bowden said. "The first thing I told them after the game at Georgia Tech is that we haven't arrived yet. We've just played four games. There's a bunch more left.
"How well the open date affects us from the preparation standpoint, I don't think I can tell until we play Maryland."
Charlie Whitehurst, Clemson's sophomore quarterback, is hoping the Tigers can pick up where they left off in the Georgia Tech game.
"I hope we don't get overconfident. I think that's what hurt Georgia Tech when we played 'em," said Whitehurst, who has averaged 299.0 yards passing in his past three games. "Hopefully, we can take a lesson from them, stay humble. We know we haven't arrived yet."
Whitehurst does see the off-week as having plusses and minuses.
"I enjoyed it just because your body's getting beat down. You've played four games and you've got a couple bumps and bruises," Whitehurst said. "It's kind of nice to work those out and get healthy.
"But it would have also been nice to keep this momentum that we have and continue to play week after week. I like the confidence of this team right now. I hope we don't have some rust to knock off from this bye week."
Clemson wide receiver Airese Currie doesn't believe that the Tigers are about to overlook Maryland.
"We just don't want to do the same thing Georgia Tech did to us," said Currie, who is averaging 6.5 receptions a game, which ranks second in the ACC. "There was a lot of talk that they were overlooking us and they had chalked it up as a win. We don't want to do the same thing with Maryland. We just want to come out focused, play real hard and concentrate on what we have to do this week."
