Clemson Football: Stanford Won't Silence Me!

Welcome back to your favorite article on the interweb!

This one is coming out a little later than usual, and this time it's not because of my penchant for procrastination. Stanford tried to silence me on Friday in what I can only assume was a targeted, weather-based attack on the Southeast to prevent this article from seeing the light of day. Thanks to my father-in-law's advice to always buy the house at the top of the hill, I remain unscathed. They may have put off the hate, but hate, like a loss to Stanford in football, is nothing if not inevitable.

You can disable my power!

You can turn off my internet!

You will never silence the hatred in my heart!

Let's get after it.

I won't lie; it's nice to have some fresh meat (or, in this case, an ethically sourced meat-like substitute) at the conference. Sure, I'll never be short on NC State stuff, but not every ACC team blesses me with a coach like Dave Doeren. However, I am running into a problem. While I hate Stanford in general, I don't hate them specifically. The fact that they have the audacity to stain Death Valley with their presence is enough to make my bile flow, but I need more.

Here are some specific reasons to hate Stanford

No more

Photo by David Madison/Getty Images

Oh, but the Stanford campus is one of the most beautiful in the country!

Sorry, you'll have to miss me on that one. Sure, they have some nice buildings, but to me it's just another ACC campus without more.

While the Stanford team meets with a group of investors via Zoom, Clemson players zoom around on jet skis.

As the Stanford players prepare for board meetings, the only signs on our minds are the wake type.

While half the players on the Cardinal team are worried about their tech startup, they're all worried about starting the boat engine.

We are not the same.

Fantasy football

Christian McCaffrey, and by proxy Stanford, have ruined multiple GOAT Goat seasons.

Is he a freak of nature? Absolute.

Is he a great running back? Yes.

Does he seem like a good guy? As far as I know.

Has he cost me multiple Fantasy Football entries over the years? Also yup.

I don't even think he's hurt right now. He knows I called him first. He knows how smug I was when I typed his name into the group chat, and he punishes me. I understand he recently returned from a German holiday under the guise of seeing a specialist about his calf injury.

I'm sorry, Christian; Are American doctors not good enough for you? What makes you special? You would have to pay specialist prices to talk to a nurse for seven minutes before being pushed out the door like us without any response.

I know he's faking it because I guarantee he'd be 100% in favor of it if I said, Eh, I know he's good, but his injury history is concerning and went in a different direction. He would have dropped four tuddies on my head in week 1, and everyone would have laughed and said, Bro, why didn't you draft C-Mac?

The Cyber ​​Truck

Stanford dropout Elon Musk attended exactly one football game during his time in Palo Alto, and we ended up with the cyber truck.

How else can you explain a vehicle that looks like this?

Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Like Stanford football, it also lacks appeal, but also functionality. I imagine cyber truck owners and Stanford football donors (a perfectly round Venn diagram) spending Saturdays shaking their heads and saying how much I paid for this while they watch the wheels fall off.

Case closed

I would like to welcome Duke to the conference without a basketball team. The ACC's national profile in sports like table tennis, artistic swimming and ultimate frisbee is exponentially better with the Cardinal in the conference. Granted, they haven't won more than four football games since 2019, but they're hot!

Beating Syracuse on the road might be their best win of the last five seasons!

The fact that Stanford and Syracuse played a football game last Saturday in the Atlantic Coast Conference should be all the evidence Clemson needs to let go of the ACC anchor.

Clemson attorney:

Your Honor, a men's gymnastics school from California defeated a lacrosse school from New York in an Atlantic Coast Conference football match last Saturday. This is not a serious conference.

Right:

Can you provide a witness who can confirm that you watched this match?

Clemson attorney:

No sir, we can't. We were able to contact Syracuse Animal Control and would like to introduce you to Mr. Scruffles, one of the seven stray dogs present.

Right:

This is quite unusual.

Clemson attorney:

Sir, I would like to reiterate that a men's gymnastics school from California flew across the country to compete against the men's lacrosse school from New York in a football match played under the banner of a conference in the Southeast. Is it more unusual to have Mr. Put Scruffles on the witness stand?

ACC Lawyer:

Objection!

Your Honor, Stanford is also a dominant force in women's water polo. We object to it being referred to strictly speaking as a Men's Gymnastics School. We would also like to point out that Syracuse has won a Men's Soccer National Championship in 2022!

Right:

I've heard enough, I'm commuting Clemson's ACC Conference punishment. They are free to leave.

Now a serious moment

This is all in good fun, but I know a lot of you haven't had much fun these past few days. Things were a little hairy in Athens for our family, but nothing compared to what people in the mountains are dealing with now.

This is one of those moments when football can provide a brief escape from the crushing reality of a catastrophic natural disaster. I hope you like this article, and if it doesn't, I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

Be careful, stay dry and GO TIGERS!

Sometimes that's the best you can do.