Academic powerhouses are flexing unusual muscle on the college football gridiron this year, as teams like Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Duke (wait … what?) are all off to surprisingly strong starts despite requiring their football players to be semi-literate.
This “Revenge of the Nerds” theory is front-and-center in an excellent NCAA early season review written by ESPN’s Pat Forde.
In addition to delving into the unusual success of these traditional brainiac doormats, Forde also lists the perpetually underachieving Clempsun Tigers as his “Dud of the Month.”
From Forde’s column:
From preseason No. 9 to unranked and 3-2, the Tigers have cemented their reputation as serial underachievers. The season-opening rout against Alabama looks a bit more understandable now, given the way the Tide have played — but to bookend the month with a home loss to Maryland is classic Tommy Bowden. Clemson must feel especially pleased with itself for giving Bowden a contract extension after he flirted with Arkansas in December. What will it be this year, Music City or Chick-fil-A?
Mind-blowing stat of the month: Clemson has been favored in each of its past 11 losses. In the Tigers’ past 34 games, they have been underdogs only three times, all of them against Florida State and Tommy’s dad, Bobby Bowden. Clemson won all three times. Start the family collusion investigation!
Ahhhh … Just reading that makes us all warm inside.
Anyway, perhaps the best part of Forde’s column is this randomly-inserted image of British actress Gemma Atkinson …
Why is it in there?
“Why not” is our guess … as well as our editorial policy.
