Wake up, shitheads! Time for you to get up, swallow 15 Advil, put your pants back on, and stagger home like the dirty, filthy people you are. Here are the bowl games you’ll need to nurse that hangover…

11AM Outback Bowl: South Carolina vs. Iowa (ESPN)
This is the one you’ll watch because nothing else is on and you just want the pain to subside.

1PM Capital One Bowl: Georgia vs. Michigan State (ABC disguised as ESPN)
Formerly the Citrus Bowl. As Steve Spurrier once said, you can’t spell Capital One Bowl without UGA! Or at least the A.

1PM Gator Bowl: Nebraska vs. Clemson (CBS)

4:30PM Rose Bowl: Penn State vs. USC (ABC disguised as ESPN)
Joe Paterno will be, once again, coaching from the booth. This way, you don’t have to see the colostomy bag.

8:30PM Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati (FOX)
Jesus, this is the fucking Orange Bowl? Shouldn’t this be the Papajohns.com Bowl? Miami/Nebraska this ain’t. But hey, it’s New Year’s Day, and you’re one step away from grim death, so any real football will do now, won’t it?

Consider the comment section below your all day Hugh Johnson project. So sit back, mix up a Bloody Mary, find the greasiest breakfast you can, and enjoy the day. Happy 2009, gang.

Consider the following: Clemson has not won an ACC title since 1991. The coach then was Ken Hatfield. Prior to Hatfield Clemson won five conference titles and their only national championship under Danny Ford. Things have really gone downhill since Ford was forced out at Clemson in 1990. Some would argue that Ford was successful because he cheated, but he was cleared by the NCAA of those allegations. Which probably means he has money and a good legal team. Regardless Clemson has won 18 conference championships in the ACC, plays in front of 80,000 fans, and has a fairly fertile recruiting base given their location. But that location is also surrounded by other large programs: Georgia, Florida State, South Carolina (arguably), Tennessee, and now, with Butch Davis, North Carolina. So where does Clemson really rank in the college football pecking order? It's not a top 25 job. But where does it rank between 25 and 40? And who can they get to replace Bowden?

One early candidate? How about Tommy Tuberville? Auburn fans are ready to kill him after losing to Arkansas and the failed Tony Franklin experiment. Not to mention the fact that Nick Saban has now arrived in Alabama to receive sainthood and Auburn has never showed great loyalty to Tubs. Leave Auburn after winning six (and potentially 7 in a row) over Alabama, and you'll probably become an even better coach in retrospect. Meanwhile you could take over a talented Clemson team in a weakened ACC and probably win a championship in the next three years. Could Clemson switch one Tommy for another one? If they don't go after Tuberville, then they shouldn't look much farther than Vandy's Bobby Johnson—a proven winner in the state at Furman, who is a hell of a coach and has managed to win in the SEC. Anyway, there's a couple of names to think about as theses coaching messes/searches play out.

Meanwhile, at least Tommy Bowden got a 2007 raise from Clemson after flirting with the Arkansas job. Maybe he should have left Clemson then. Because, for a variety of reasons, Clemson fans have never warmed to him. After snatching his job from onrushing defeat, time after time, at long last Wake Forest took him down. Clemson probably acted now because if they hadn't Bowden would have found a way to pull out another 8 or 9 win season before things were all said and done—his team opened as favorites over Georgia Tech. In the end 8 or 9 wins wouldn't cut it at Clemson. We'll see whether someone else can get above that hurdle.

Bowden fired at Clemson after 3-3 start [ESPN]

Meanwhile Jim Grobe and Wake Forest try to rebound from a 24-17 loss to Navy that knocked them from the ranks of the unbeaten. Unlike Bowden, Grobe has actually won an ACC Title (2006 victory over Georgia Tech) and in the past two years has taken Wake from a perpetual doormat to the BCS. In 2006 Grobe was the national coach of the year. Wake is coming off back-to-back 11-3 and 9-4 campaigns, and a win over Clemson would go a long way towards ensuring that the 2008 campaign is going to be as successful as the past two seasons. But danger looms in the Clemson Tigers— a team that's probably as unpredictable as any team in college football over the past decade. Knock off Clemson and Wake remains the only undefeated team in the Atlantic Division. What's more they'd have the tiebreaks over Florida State and Clemson, meaning they'd probably only have to get to 5-3 (6-2 at most) to advance to another ACC Title Game.

Don't you get the feeling that Clemson fans are going to look back on the past five years of the ACC—a time when Miami and Florida State are both as impotent as they'll ever be—and wonder how the hell they didn't manage to win a single ACC Title? This is the kind of failure that becomes even more grating the more years that pass. Because Miami and Florida State aren't going to be this bad forever. Meanwhile, Clemson keeps plodding along. Here comes another chance at staying alive in the ACC race. Beat Wake and you've made the inevitable late-season collapse even more painful. Lose now, and Bowden's gone forever. Right? Choose wisely Clemson fans, choose wisely.

"I actually ran into Julio in the spring recruiting. I said hello to him. I said, 'Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you at the end of August.' And then he got out and got in his Escalade and drove off. That’s serious. And then I went over and watched (Alabama freshman) Burton Scott at Vigor High School at the track over there, and Burton Scott was running around. He went and got in his Escalade out at track practice and drove off. So I’m familiar with those two guys."

Koenning now says he was joking. Right. Jokes often contain the phrase, "That's serious." At least Alabama has a sterling record when it comes to NCAA compliance.

Tiger Tracks [Charleston Post and Courier]

Why, you ask, is a young and strapping (just ask my mom) Canadian man writing a Clemson Tigers football preview? Because I'm better than you, that's why. So shall we get down to business, I think we shall?

The Clemson Tigers have a lot of pressure on them this year, they play in South Carolina, a state where going 1-3 against ranked opponents last season and not winning a bowl game since 2006 just don't fly.

(Seriously look at their flag, are they muslim? I thought they still had the confederate thing going on.)

Regardless, the purple and orange have re-up'd their head coach Tommy Bowden for another 4 years but if Clemson doesn't live up to at least SOME of their lofty expectations this year Bowden may be looking for work elsewhere. So as the AP preseason poll have the Tigers ranked 9th lets take a look at what's good and what's bad down in Pickens County.

GOOD:
-Cullen Harper: a 6'4 220 lb beer swillin' (only a guess), football throwin' machine. Harper was money last year, throwing 27 touchdowns to only 6 interceptions. As Harper goes through his senior season he should complete his maturation process and maybe, possibly, conceivably could become a candidate for the Heisman if not a 1st round draft pick in next year's NFL draft, maybe. He would have to perform better against ranked opponents (Harper threw 3 of his 6 INTs against ranked opponents in 07) but when you face facts Harper is the best quarterback in the ACC, fo sho.

-Senior James Davis and Junior CJ Spiller running the ball: Sharing the rock has been a staple of good college football teams in the past, Ronnie Brown and Cadillac Williams come to mind. Put quite simply, Davis and Spiller are expected to tear shit up this year. It would not be a surprise to see Spiller and Davis each reach 1000 yards on the ground. Last year they came close with Davis putting up 1064 yards and Spiller coming close with 768 yards. Not only that but 20 pounds separates this tandem so we can't call them "Thunder and Lightning", thank god because I'm so sick of that nickname for running back duos, I much prefer "Moose and Squirrel" and hope to enter it to the football lexicon soon.

BAD:

The law: The Clemson Tigers, like many other ACC football teams, are having a pickle of a time trying to keep their players out of the clink. Case in point; DeAndre McDaniel may face time for assault and battery charges laid against him by a female Clemson student, I heard something about a pillow case over the head but these are just rumors people. McDaniels did recently agree to do PTI, not Tony and Wilbon but what's called a "pre-trial intervention". According to the Charleston Post and Courier the PTI would involve getting McDaniel "…to deal with his frustration without pounding on someone." Oh irony, is there anything you cannot make hilarious?

-The offensive line: Bottom line is this; Tommy Bowden may start up to 3 freshmen on the O-line, yikes. The ACC is renowned for pumping out some of the best defensive linemen in the country and having these young'ns try and stop the front line of Miami, Florida State or Virginia Tech could get ugly. Lets move to audio-visual stimulation.

Imagine the cheerleader is Cullen Harper, the piece of paper is the Clemson O-line and the players are, well, players. It may look something like this:

I never get sick of that.

-Death Valley: We, as college football fans, cannot allow multiple stadiums to have the same nicknames. LSU and Clemson need to play each other for the right to call their stadium Death Valley, this must happen.

UGLY:-
Wendy's: I was told I would get a paragraph to bash someone or something or some such. So I choose Wendy's. I know their square burgers are the envy of the fast food world but Wendy is a fickle bitch. Why is it that everytime Ms. Wendy comes out with a new and delicious sandwich she only takes it away from those who love it after a month? Most recently many of my burger eating chums lamented the loss of the Spicy Baconator. To me, a Wendy's vet, it was nothing new. Oh, I remember the days of the Wild Mountain Chicken Sandwich and how she snatched that away from our hands. Wendy stop playing with our grease covered hearts!

-Spurrier:

He's just checking if he remembered to wipe…mmm the smell of failure