With Saturday’s loss to Boston College, my Cavaliers are officially out of the running for a bowl game. Even if we win our last two contests (doubtful) we still won’t reach that magical six-win threshold that might put us in the EagleBank Bowl. Once again, I’ll be home for the holidays. Sigh.

What else can really be said? When the defense is on point, the offense can’t make it happen. We held the Eagles to a measly fourteen points, but the offense had ZERO points. Special teams and defense scored all ten points. Chris Cook gets a gold star for his pick six, and even if Robert Randolph had made that forty-some yarder, it wouldn’t have won the game. He should ask Bobby Bowden about “wide right” some time.

According to Coach Jeezy: “We left 10 special teams points out there today that we could have had. Clearly that would have been the difference in the game. Those kind of points get forgotten but they are the kind of points that change scoreboards. Leaving those points out there had more effect on the game than the final few plays did. ”

Um, okay Coach. What about the offense? What about the fact that the offense can’t put a single point on the board?

Le offense was simply sad. Sad, sad, sad. From dropped passes, to silly mistakes, to poor decision making, we continually found ways to shoot ourselves in the foot. Dropped passes this late in the season? UNCONTESTED dropped passes? Seriously? Each WR should be required to catch 1,000 balls every day in practice before they are allowed to go eat dinner. Best way to motivate college guys: withhold food.

Speaking of food, someone needs to feed Perry Jones some alligator meat. Fast. If he is going to be playing RB, he needs to toughen up. He may be quick, but he is also small. If he wants to break through, he needs to run harder. Are we starting to see why he wasn’t as heavily recruited out of high school?

I will say that Jameel Sewell did well this weekend. His first day of practice in the last TWO WEEKS was Thursday. Maybe he should take time off every week? My one gripe is that he still makes questionable decisions under pressure. On his lone interception, he was flushed from the pocket. He had about 10 yards of daylight in front of him AND a wide-open Joe Torchia. Instead of finding his TE or just running for the first down, Sewell looked desperately for Vic Hall, and underthrew him for an INT. If only his brain worked better under fire…

All in all, this was one of the more questionably officiated games I’ve seen this season. Our defense was close to QB David Shinskie all game, but with all of the illegal holding going on we only sacked him once. Some of the pass-interference calls on us were a little iffy as well. Finally, to top it all off, we were given a questionable spot at the end of the game on that 4th an 1. The ball was spotted, and then an official ran out and moved it back. Really? Isn’t that what replay is for? Speaking of replay, our game was on ESPN 360 rather than a televised station, which makes a huge difference when it comes to reviewing plays. 360 only has two cameras, whereas even Raycom has 6, including a camera on the goal line. There wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the call. However, if the ball hadn’t been moved back by the official, there wouldn’t have been enough evidence to overturn that either.

Football is a game of inches, and we came up inches short. The lesson learned from all of this: DON’T EVER PUT THE GAME IN THE HANDS OF THE OFFICIALS.

Robert Randolph said it best: “We are going to have to rally here for the last two games, but we can count on the fact that everyone in that locker room desperately wants to win. We still have pride to play for, but more than that, it’s about playing for your teammates.”

I was immensely proud of our fans on Saturday. It was only a crowd of 44,000 and change, but they were behind the team the whole way. The stadium sounded much louder than that. Mostly everyone stayed until the very end. We want our team to do well. We care about them, but there is only so much we can take as a fanbase before something has to give.

Hopefully we will have a ton of support two weeks from now for the last home game against Tech. I dislike them a lot.

Clemson this week: a Heisman hopeful and a super loud stadium full of crazy fans. Make sure you all vote for CJ Spiller for Heisman. We all want an ACC player to bring the trophy home!