"Life After The Hit"- Good ESPN piece on Vincent Smith.
Don't want to spoil too much from the article, but Vincent Smith is doing some pretty cool things in the community, including building gardens.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/19698679/amazing-second…
Pretty sure Smith's community activities are oft-discussed around the blog, and that Smith is a board member himself.
I have never understood why the Clowney hit garnered so much acclaim. The helmet came off, cool. A dude who loafed half the time hit a dude he had 8 inches and 80 pounds on because an OL blew an assignment. An astounding football feat it was not.
in 2013. I saw the hit. It was amazing. OLinemen miss blocking assignments all the time... What Clowney did does not happen.
What is your general awareness of the game of football?
for 13 years, throughout college as an Offensive Lineman. Coached at a couple different levels. I've been around.
K great, I played at the college level as well and have done some coaching since.
That means you and I both know that helmets are knocked off all the time.
Smith popping up after the hit is a lot more impressive than Clowney blowing up a man he had damn near 100 pounds on and a free run at. The most impressive part of the play may be that Clowney actually gave effort in run defense for once in college.
Helmet's are SUPPOSED to come off. That's the worst part of the argument on either side.
It's a fact that because of egregious face mask penalties, helmets have been designed to come off.
I personally believe that it was a play that was supposed to be made when Michigan missed the OL blocking assignment...HOWEVER, the highlight doesn't happen with Clowney being Clowney.
90% of guys make a tackle for a loss. Clowney makes it a legendary play.
Just my 2 pennies.
I was at the game as well. While it looked cool, I can promise you that Smith took many hits in his career that hurt a helluva lot more than that one.
...so what WAS the hardest hit you took?
say it was a massive, crushing hit. But the freakish athleticism it takes to do THAT, with a perfect form tackle nonetheless, is incredible. Especially after we were gifted that horrible 4th down spot.
It was a missed block; you can watch highlights of the hit and it's clear nobody picked him up. He then hit Smith the moment the ball got there, and his helmet popped off. Smith still reached for the ball, and with some luck could have even recovered it. It was a cinematic hit, but this hit by Brandon Graham was equally as impressive but was a yard later and Winston is about 50 pounds heavier than Smith, so Winston just went down in a heap and held onto the ball. But I don't see odes to Graham in the media. And guys lose their helmet all the time; perhaps not as dramatically, but that's as much caused by it not being connected properly as the violence of the hit.
It wasn't even that great of a play. Clowney wasn't touched and just ran straight at a 5'6" RB. Anybody in the world could have done that.
Clowney had probably 100lbs on him too. It would be equivalent to me blowing up some Pop Warner kid.
Doesn't this statement cover most offensive plays from ~2008-2014? I mean, c'mon man, at least try to narrow the focus a little bit! :)
(*Casts a disapproving glance at the left side of the offensive line*)
Dude don't be dumb. If that same play had happened to an OSU RB you'd be posting a GIF of it every day on here
Interesting theory
We do indeed have a similar play. The Frank Clark hit on Braxton Miller from the 2012 game.
was anything spectacular by what Clowney did. It happened to be a huge hit that knocked his helmet off. Hits like that will always make highlight reels and just the mention of it and people know what your talking about. That is why it has garnered so much attention.
Smith is building community gardens? I wonder if he has ever considered posting here to tell us about it.
But seriously, what a great human being. That guy is a winner.
Coach Hoke's second year should have been all we needed to realize he really could not manage a game/entire football team. Yet, we let that drag on for two more seasons.
That 8-5 team would have been 12-1 under a competent staff. It also could have easily been 7-6 as we really had no business winning that Northwestern contest before Tree's miracle snag.
We had no business trying to turn Denard into a dropback QB against Iowa for three quarters in 2011.
Yeah that game sucked. Both losses in 2011 were really frustrating, and so were some of the wins.
we were not getting Harbugh after two years of Hoke. Goes to show you DB really screwed up by wanting Harbaugh come to him and kiss the ring...how different things could have been had Harbaugh gotten here for the 2011 season.
Nice article. Great story.
As for "Clowney sliced through the line of scrimmage...." it was a missed block and a free shot at Vincent. More should be said about how tough Vincent was.
A missed block resulting in a free shot on a much smaller runner. I don't see how that play could have ended any different. That's kind of the massive elephant in the room that some folks will always ignore.
Why don't they do a piece on how he was the first, and only I believe, Michigan player to rush, pass, and catch a TD in a single game vs Minny in 2011??? Mr. Smith, would love to hear your thoughts on that game.
Although what Vincent Smith is doing right now is ultimately more noteworthy, I do think it still should be mentioned more often that after the Clowney hit, Smith got right back up and could've played the next down had we retained the possession. (Also no one on the planet would've held on to the football after a blindside hit by that large of a human being)
Get off my lawn
People saying the hit wasn't great are ridiculous. Plus when you factor in that it came directly after a completely bullshit spot and first down that favored Michigan and resulted in a turnover that probably won the game for south carolina it was a pretty big deal.
We came back and scored a TD after this to take the lead with a few minutes to go in the game. A busted coverage in the last minute somewhere between a young Kovacs and I believe freshman Jarrod Wilson (before he became "boring" Jarrod Wilson), is what lost the game.
Important in game =/= historically impressive. Most hits in any "Greatest football hits" YouTube montage are more impressive than a 6'6 270 DE hitting a 5'8 180 RB. Given the context of the play, anything less than a big collision from Clowney would have been weird. Calling Clowney's hit "The Hit" when discussing all of college football (as opposed to just SC football history) is ludicrous.
Want to see an impressive hit? Go to 0:18 mark of the video below. Watch 225lb Kam Chancellor absolutely obliterate 250lb Vernon Davis. Both running, Chancellor is same height, 25lbs lighter. I don't get jazzed up for a dude that should smoke a smaller dude actually smoking said dude. When an evenly matched or smaller player lays the lumber, that is impressive.
Of course context matters. Neither Desmond Howards or Charles Woodsons punt return td's featured crazy returns, they just mattered a ton yet both are remembered outside of just Michigan history for being great punt returns.
Still makes me cringe.
What I would consider more impressive than Clowney running at you fully unblocked on a full head of steam is that you got up right afterwards and looked like you laughed it off.
Pretty sure that hit would kill just about everyone else on this board.
Ha, this might be the most on-point thing I've ever read online :) To your point though, I definitely SHOULD NOT have saw it from your view, I most definitely would've died.