It's Monday morning and ESPN hasn't made anymore baseless and incorrect allegations about South Carolina's defensive end. On their Gameday show, the hosts stated Clowney did not ride on the team bus to Arkansas, and then they debated just how much of a prima donna he is for not riding. Who knows what you can infer from such little information, but in this case the information was false. Clowney was on the bus. To Gameday's credit, they corrected the error when they discovered it, and they corrected it on air.
Such has been the coverage of Jadeveon Clowney. The rumor of Clowney's absence from the bus may have begun as a joke, but any scintilla of information, verified or not, is news about #7. Here's what Clowney actually did.
He endured criticism all week without firing back. When it was time for him to talk, he met the cameras and answered all questions candidly and in good spirits. He spent the week getting treatment for his injury multiple times a day. He rode the bus with the team. Before the game he fired up his teammates. During the game he encouraged them.
As for his play during the game itself, he was great. He only registered on tackle, and if you base your opinion of him on the boxscore, you may be unimpressed. If you watched, you saw he was disruptive. Arkansas had to change everything about its gameplan to account for him, and their offense suffered as a result. Clowney was all over the field chasing plays and pressuring passes. He did everything that could have been expected of him, and the team's defensive stats show that.
