If you came here to read about the ODU game, today’s Monday Thoughts is going to be a letdown for you. I don’t think I’ve ever been less interested in a game. Okay, the 13-10 squeaker over Rutgers in the 2012 Russell Athletic Bowl pegs the needle here, I admit. But a year from now, when you ask me about this ODU game, I doubt I’ll even remember the score, much less anything that happened in it.

From the moment the final cannon blast from Skipper put a bow on this one, I was thinking about Clemson. The Hokies have done a good job with the first four games of the season, and everything from an 8 p.m. start time to an ESPN Gameday appearance has fallen into place, and the stage is set for arguably the biggest game in Lane Stadium since 2005. We’ve been building up to this since Will Grier’s last pass fell to the turf in FedExField a few weeks ago. Now it’s here.

It’s easy to get super-excited about this upcoming Clemson game, and to get so worked up that you wind up tearing up your dinner roll like Joe Joe the Idiot Circus Boy, until you’ve made a mess of things. But I’m about to write several thousand words about this Clemson game that will keep you from going all Chris Farley on us.

Granted, I’m not telling you not to go bananas on Saturday night. (That double-negative means you should go bananas, if you’re so inclined.) But what I will counsel you to do, regardless of the result Saturday night, is put this game in its proper context.

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