#I feel like most of the more relevant moments for him are closer to postgame

[se7ens-oc-heaven]

Man, it's hard clearing out my Switch memory of cutscene pics when I know I have the excuse of keeping them for 'research'......

(And it is 'excuse' bc like. I can look up these scenes online if I really need to....)

[psikes21-blog]

Ten Years Gone

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day Clemson Football changed forever. It was Oct. 13, 2008, and it felt like a normal Monday workday to those of us in the Jervey Athletic Center. Yes, Clemson had suffered a terrible 12-7 defeat at the hands of Wake Forest the previous Thursday night, but a few days had passed since the disappointment. I think many of us could have seen a coaching change coming at the end of the season. But this?

Little did we know, just a few feet away next door in the McFadden building, the football program was about to be turned upside down. Tommy Bowden stepped down and after a short meeting with Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips, a 38-year-old assistant named Dabo Swinney was given the keys to the car as interim head coach.

Other than the man himself — literally the most optimistic thinker I’ve been around — who could’ve predicted the decade that followed?

Swinney, of course, went to work and ultimately won the job. In the years that have followed, he not only restored the program to relevancy, he elevated it to a rarefied air.

I was fortunate to be around Swinney’s program a lot over the past decade, particularly from 2014–16 as one of the team’s media relations contacts. I was blessed to work both National Championship Game appearances and witnessed coach and his players hoisting the College Football Playoff trophy in Tampa. I was in the locker room for many great celebrations -- yes, including the above image where I’m seen on the left filming Swinney whooping it up after winning the 100th game of his career, the 2015 ACC Championship Game over North Carolina.

And while I never formed a close relationship with Swinney, I was afforded several opportunities to be in close proximity to him — media functions at his house, IPTAY Prowl and Growl events, community service opportunities, even the 2016 Heisman Trophy presentation. But one opportunity I’ll never forget was when we went to Bristol, Connecticut in July 2015 as part of the ESPN “Car Wash.” I boarded a charter plane at Oconee County Airport along with Swinney, Athletic Director Dan Radakovich and staffers Nik Conklin and D.J. Gordon.

In recent years, Swinney hadn’t done as many 1-on-1 interviews. This was my chance, I thought. As editor-in-chief of Orange The Experience, I wanted to write an article encapsulating the program’s rise to prominence. We were coming off a fourth straight 10-win season and a dominating win over Oklahoma in the Russell Athletic Bowl. Plus, we knew we’d have a good team in 2015, so the timing was perfect.

It’s fun to look back in retrospect — now 3 1/2 years after that flight — at Swinney’s answers and see how he views those early years of growth in the program. Now, the Tigers have won three straight ACC titles and made three consecutive appearances in the College Football Playoff. Swinney and I talked for about 20 minutes on several topics, mostly about transforming the program into relevancy once again. I could’ve continued the interview for hours, but with the AD and head football coach sitting beside me, I wanted to respect their time. I thought I’d include the full transcript below of my Q&A from that flight.

As expected, and much like what we’ve seen from him in the decade following that fateful day on Oct. 13, 2008, Dabo didn’t disappoint.

Enjoy.

1. I was there at your opening press conference on Oct. 13, 2008 — in your mind what was the biggest thing missing from the program at the time you got the call to be interim head coach?

“To me, the biggest task was to bring everyone together. Clemson felt divided, and there was a ton of negativity all around our program. There was some pain involved. I needed to first get the team to buy in. The guys on the team didn’t come to Clemson for me to be their coach. We wanted to make it a new beginning. We couldn’t do anything about what had happened. We had an opportunity to unite our fan base. But we had to get everyone on the same page and create some positive energy. That was the biggest thing, right out of the gate. We had to do some things to bring the Clemson Family together. That’s where ‘All-In’ came from, that week. That’s when we started Tiger Walk.

“I had no idea what to expect, but I told the team we had six weeks to do things a certain way. I wanted all-in commitment from the players. We were going to do things differently, and we were going to have fun doing it. Some things we did really resonated with the fan base. I had no idea what to expect that first Tiger Walk. It was the only time we ever came the route we took that day. I changed that to go through campus the next week. We came over the hill by the McFadden Building (from Seneca) and it must have been 15,000 people there. The guys on the bus immediately came to life. It was a celebration of Clemson and our players, and embracing the journey that was ahead of us. There were no losers that day. I was proud of our players and fans, by the effort that was put forth. I have really fond memories of that first Tiger Walk.”

2. Looking back, how important was rallying the fan base that week leading up to the Georgia Tech game? Obviously a lot of ideas were set in motion right from the start, and a foundation was established.

“Fear is a motivating thing. I’d never run down The Hill. I’d never been on the bus and come around the stadium. Any time I hire a new coach to this day, I require him to come down The Hill that first home game. Even if it’s a former player. It’s important that everyone understand the magnitude of that moment so you can articulate the message on the recruiting trail. I had seen it done for five years and it always made the hair on my arms stand up, but I had no appreciation for the bus trip around the stadium. I hadn’t seen the stadium from that vantage point.

“That game, I didn’t want to be a blooper. I really don’t remember it. It was so intense, but you could feel the support and unity for the first time in a long time. I felt like people were behind the program again. It brought tears to my eyes walking up to the Rock. It was an emotional week. It was such a privilege and an honor. I don’t remember getting down. I just knew to pick ‘em up and put ‘em down. Don’t fall, don’t get trampled. I got down and was at the 50 and the team was still coming down. It took The Hill for me to experience running a 4.5 forty.”

3. The things you have done with the program — from Tiger Walk to postgame celebrations to all the signage and verbiage you use with the team on a daily basis — where does that come from?

“I coach the team the way I always coached my position. I just have a bigger group. The verbiage comes from my background and the things I believe in. I read and see things that I like. It’s mostly just who I am. I’ve tried to coach the same way I did for 16 years as an assistant.”

4. How instrumental have your hires been for the program in the long term, specifically Coach McCorvey, and some of the Clemson alums that you’ve been able to bring back?

“You truly are only as good as those you surround yourself with. If I have to be there to articulate the message, then I haven’t done a good job. I don’t want to be a bottleneck. I believe in empowering great people. I give them the tools they need to be successful, and hold them accountable. You challenge them and correct things along the way. But my job is more of a servant leader. I’m here to serve the staff. For a young person to be successful, you have to make the right decisions with who you allow in your circle. Who do you choose as a wife?

“I hire everyone in our organization. I don’t let assistant coaches hire their staff. We spend three and a half days each year installing the fundamentals of our program. I install the vision, the core values, and the philosophies — because we all have to be on the same page. The staff has to take that preparation and execute it. The message has to be the same. We’re very fortunate because we’ve built a great staff. Our administrative support and resources are maximized. We’re all on the same page. We hear that reinforced all the time, from coaches and parents. We can’t have gaps, everyone has to understand our purpose. We spend a lot of time reinforcing our culture. You really should focus on your employees. If you do a great job there, they take care of the customers. If the assistant coaches do a great job with the players, it will resonate. It’s a philosophy we have in place, and it’s served us well. We’re different in a lot of ways. At the end of the day, you are who you are and you stick to what you believe in.”

5. The 2010 season was admittedly difficult with so many close games, how did the team manage to turn it around that next season with so many young players?

“Some people see it as a disappointment, but it was one of the best things to happen to our program. You can’t always measure your development or growth by a scoreboard. You may have a great season, but how did you do it? With all my heart, I knew we were in great shape. We lost five games by less than six points. We lost in overtime to Auburn on the road, and they won the National Championship. I saw a team grow closer and care about each other, despite our struggles. We transitioned offensively and had help on the way, but we weren’t quite good enough. We were average in the kicking game. (Chandler) Catanzaro had a tough year, so a lot of things didn’t go our way. But I saw the fruits of our labor taking root through the process.

“I saw the recruiting class not flinch — Stephone Anthony, Sammy Watkins, Grady Jarrett, Charone Peake, Tony Steward. All those guys came to Clemson. We came back the next year and won the ACC, and the rest is history. It’s been a great run ever since.”

6. How critical was validating the ACC title with two 11-win seasons and bowl wins over powerhouses like LSU and Ohio State?

“In three years, we played for two ACC Championships and won it in 2011. Our guys had to learn how to win, though. We were in a BCS bowl for the first time, and our guys didn’t know how to win. We didn’t handle success. We learned how to handle adversity, I saw that. But learning how to win is a huge part of building a program. It (2012 Orange Bowl vs. West Virginia) was a disaster, but if you really study it, the game got away in a total of three minutes on some fluky stuff. It got out of hand. Sometimes you need your butt whipped to be able to grow. But we had 42 freshmen. After the game, everyone was embarrassed and down. I told the team, ‘At the end of the day, we accomplished a lot. We didn’t finish the way we wanted.’ I told the team it wouldn’t be 31 years before we were back at the Orange Bowl. And when we come back, we’d have a different result. We flushed it. We didn’t want to lose sight of the growth we had. We were beat up by the media. We developed some mental toughness from that. We come back, beat LSU in the bowl game, and finish 11-2. The next year, we go back to back 11 wins and face Ohio State. They’re 24-1 under Urban Meyer, and we win the game. We don’t win that game without the experience two years earlier. If you handle adversity the right way, you can build the right kind of culture.

“We’ve beaten Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Ohio State. Our guys suddenly expect to win. The consistency we’ve had is unbelievable. We’ve won 27 straight versus unranked opponents. We’ve established a level of consistency that only two or three teams can match at this point. We have to stay committed to what we believe in.”

7. As you look at this four-year stretch, the record 42 wins, what are you most proud of as coach?

“In six years we’ve had 120 seniors, and 115 of them have a degree. Brandon Thompson just graduated. That’s what I’m most proud of. We’ve developed outstanding men. We’re not perfect, but we have a great group of guys. Eighty-one percent of guys that have gotten a shot to play in the NFL (44 of 55) have made a roster. That speaks to the growth they’ve gotten as a man at Clemson. We’re in the love and serve business, we just happen to coach football. We’ve had great wins and moments, but how are we impacting players’ lives and educating them? People don’t like me saying that, but it means more to me than any win we could ever have.”

[jolteonjordansh]

Thoughts on “The Investigation”

Two more episodes left. Gotta keep it moving.

While I figured (or at the very least was hoping) that X and Y’s postgame would make for its own episode, I didn’t think it would be placed here. Since the poster revealed a bit of information for this series, it was easy to guess what would be the last episode of this series. And ultimately, I know why they chose these positions. But that’s a discussion I will save for the last post. Let’s keep focus here.

I’ll say it right now that I’m a huge sucker for Looker and Emma feels. Even though XY’s main story isn’t very strong for me, the postgame story really surprised me and showed me that Game Freak still had some story-telling talent left... which begs the question of how XY’s story ended up the way it did, but that’s still another topic for another day.

This episode however is definitely one of those that you really can’t fully understand without having played the games. I know that’s just how a lot of these episodes are--they’re meant for the fans, but still most of them try to fill things in. And while “The Investigation” tries to fill in some gaps, it still leaves a lot of questions to be asked for people who have never played XY or experienced the postgame story. This is me nitpicking a bit, but I think considering the episode is about three and a half minutes, they could have used a little more time to make things clearer for the audience who may have never played the postgame or they could have just developed the episode more. It’s a little rushed honestly, even for a Generations episode.

Still, for people who do know the Looker postgame like I do as well as many other followers or people reading this, this episode really delves deeper into the emotional value of the whole postgame story. It’s not really focused on Emma’s crimes as Essentia or Team Flare--it’s all about Emma and Looker and their relationship as sort of adoptive father and daughter. And really, for as short of an episode as it is, that was probably still the best approach to take with that specific length.

Somehow, this episode kind of made me like Mimi and Espurr more in general. I’m not sure why, but I guess seeing it in animated form probably helped. It was able to capture Espurr as more of like a cat than the meme of soulless eyes a lot of the internet knows it for. Her movements, her expressions, her behavior, the sounds she made--they were all very cat-like for a stubby anthropomorphic cat creature.  So to answer: Yes, I screamed too when Emma kicked her. 

The lighting for this episode is really nice--the darkness in the alleyways at night sets the mood and the glows from Poké Balls as well as Emma’s helmet clash well with it. The softness of Looker’s flashbacks also have a really nice warmth to them. It makes you feel pleasant just looking at them. Many of the angles are also really good too, like when Emma is scaling the buildings of Lumiose as Essentia. And honestly, her movements have a sort of... robotic feel to them. I can’t quite place it, but they don’t quite capture a sense of humanity, but this is honestly good in this case since Xerosic (who has no presence in this episode) is supposed to be controlling her with the suit. 

I mentioned Mimi’s expressions are good in this episode, but my God does Looker take the cake with them. The animators put a lot of focus on him and they absolutely nail it. You can see and feel the pain he’s experiencing when he’s troubled over Emma, the pride and joy he feels when he watches over her in his office... it’s honestly really powerful and really gives off the feeling of him as an adoptive father for her. His animation otherwise when he’s moving is just fine. Nothing stands out too much, it just fits right for a man of his age.

Speaking of age, I believe I touched on this on my thoughts for “The Magma Stone”, but I really like how they’ve showed Looker’s age throughout this series. It’s definitely not something like a change of animation directors or style like with Drayden between “The Uprising” and “The Frozen World”, because the way Looker is drawn is still mostly the same, but things like the build of his body, his stature, and his face have all changed to indicate his aging. Compare him from episodes like “The Chase” and “The Legacy”  to shots from this episode and it really shows. I know a few people who didn’t really like his appearance in earlier episodes, but I think his appearance in later episodes are definitely closer to his canon design and his earlier look fits the identity of a sort of rookie cop. Considering the events of XY are about ten or so years apart from RBY, I don’t think his change in appearance is extremely jarring and his aging makes sense. 

With how many episodes Looker has been in, I really want to give some more credit to Kaiji Tang. I honestly wasn’t quite sure about his voice at first, but his voicework has helped develop Looker spectacularly and he really helps make him come alive. I’m not sure if he gradually developed his voice over time as Looker got older as well, but there is a sense of maturity in his performance here compared to earlier episodes without making his voice hugely different. Either way, good job Tang. You really built a great voice for Looker.

As for Emma, I haven’t heard enough of Carrie Keranen before this episode, and Emma didn’t have a whole lot of lines. I think she overall did a good job and fit for the character. My only complaint however--and this is more on the sound director than the voice actor, so nothing on Carrie--is that as Essentia, the voice filter they applied is way too thick. Even now I still can’t really tell what few lines of dialogue she’s saying. I’m really not sure what happened, but they definitely should have lightened up on it because it’s a huge problem when you can’t understand what a voice actor is saying, even when their acting is fine. I get that they were trying to disguise Emma’s voice, but at the same time we hadn’t heard it yet and the filter didn’t need to be as thick as it was.

Still on the subject of sound though, there aren’t many songs I recognized. I only could make out two different renditions of Emma’s theme, but both were really good. There’s actually a couple of quiet moments in this episode, and for one that’s so emotionally focused, it really helps set the tone.

I’m really not sure what else to say about this episode really. On its own, it can leave people lost and confused. But for people who love Looker’s story and loved the XY postgame like I did, then this episode is still a treat. It really nails Looker and Emma’s relationship extremely well. I know one of the biggest complaints about Pokémon Generations is its lack of Pokémon battles, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more. But with the short length of the episodes and how this series is more focused on the stories of Pokémon, I think this episode is still a good one to watch. It definitely tugged at my heartstrings, and I think it was a good episode to end for Looker considering how relevant he was throughout this entire series. I just wish this episode could have touched a little more on the XY postgame in general.

... Now if only Pokémon Generations had actually ended on this episode.