Starting Five

The Fighting Irish will not have the best player whose name begins with an “O'” on Saturday. That’s Nick O’Leary, who looks like the grandson of The Most Interesting Man in the World, as opposed to Jack Nicklaus’

1. Here It Comes

Considering that top-ranked Florida State is playing a school named in honor of the Virgin Mother (*), Seminole quarterback Jameis Winston’s table-top declaration of a few weeks’ back is even more inflammatory.

Unbeaten (6-0) and fifth-ranked (too high, IMO) Notre Dame visits Tallahassee on Saturday for the first time since 2002, when the Irish entered Doak Campbell Stadium with a 7-0 record and a No. 6 ranking. The Noles came in at No. 11 and the Irish came away with a decisive 34-24 win…before forgetting to show up the next week against Boston College.

Anyway, more people will compare this contest to the one in South Bend in 1993, when FSU was No. 1 and the Irish were No. 2. Notre Dame won that game, too, 31-24, and they also lost at home to Boston College the following week.

Which may be why the Irish wisely scheduled “Bye” for next Saturday.

I should note that of the two programs, it is Florida State and not Notre Dame that can boast the Rhodes Scholar (Myron “Honor” Rolle). I’ll also note, as I did on Twitter this a.m., that a perusal of the 2012 (most recent) grad rates of the Top 5 schools yields the following:
1. Mississippi State, 62% 2. Florida State, 56%, 3. Ole Miss, 54% 4. Baylor, 62% 5. Notre Dame, 97%.

Should that even matter when assessing college football programs? You decide.

* There are many who consider this as factual as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

2. The Bucks Stop Here

Only once in 61 outs on the PBR circuit has Bushwacker been ridden for a qualified (8 seconds) ride.

That’s Bushwacker, the greatest bucking bull there ever was. He retires soon, in Las Vegas, at the Pro Bull Riders World Finals later this month. I wrote a story on him and the sport in general for this week’s Newsweek.

One item that failed to make the story but that I’d love to note here: In PBR they have a red button –it’s an actual red button, and it never got a dinner– near the exit area for the riders. If anyone –the rider himself or one of the other riders–believes that the four judges erred, for example, they failed to see that the rider did in fact remain aboard the bull for eight seconds, they may press that button. It’s the equivalent to the NFL’s challenge flag.

But here is where it gets interesting. Again, anyone involved with the event (not fans or media, obviously) may press that red button. And if they’re right, yes, the call gets overturned. But if they’re WRONG…they must pay a $500 fine. How awesome is that? Can we get that for the NFL and MLB?

By the way, a shout-out to the PBR P.R. peeps Hillary Herskowitz, who doggedly pursued me to pursue this story, and Jordan Johnson, who is the first P.R. person I’ve ever run across who also sang the National Anthem –and killed it– at the event. Great people, both.

3. You’re Meat

Last night’s Season 5 premiere gave us the boxcar willies.

“You’re either the cattle or you’re the butcher,” was the theme of last night’s Season 5 premiere of The Walking Dead. If, like me, you tried watching this while flipping between Mulaney, where they discussed the episiotomy (“I’ll tear her a new one”), you probably were not in the mood to be carnivorous for awhile.

A few thoughts: 1) How much better a show would TWD be if it had Game of Thrones’ budget? We’re five seasons in and production values/locations suggest the budget is slightly larger than that of Blair Witch Project. Yes, the zombies rock, but basically it’s a bunch of protagonists wandering in the woods trying to avoid danger. Imagine if they could take us other places –Are there zombie cows roaming the Great Plains, for example? 2) Lauren Cohan’s wardrobe suggests she ain’t missing many yoga classes. She keeps getting more toned, and the outfits more skimpy, with each season. 3) At a certain point, Did you not think to yourself, We all better hope cows never develop opposable thumbs, l because they are going to be rightfully pissed. The only non-vegetarian they may spare is Temple Grandin. 4) Mulaney was better this week, but his best work of the weekend was helping out (writing entirely?) the return sketch for Stephon on SNL. The “doorman who high-fives children of divorce” line was classic. 5) I’d argue the funnier former SNL writer on air last night was Conan O’Brien, who killed on Talking Dead. He compared the supervisor at Terminus to an annoying hipster Starbucks manager. 6) The best sketch on SNL last Saturday was this. Find the truth and keep it simple and you have funny.

Remember: Mulaney’s kid sis is now an SNL writer. He’s still intimately involved with the show. Okay, I’ll shut up about Mulaney now.

4. No Limits in Austin

Charlie Strong instantly booted 9 bands from this lineup for violation of unspecified team rules.

The festival, which took place the past two weekends in Texas’ state capital, is called “Austin City Limits” after the greatest show in the history of PBS. But look at all those bands. If you were unable to find a hotel room, I think I know why.

5. Cover Me

Talib, the force behind Denver’s “(Cover the) Spread Defense”

The Denver Broncos’ Aqib Talib is not only good at covering wide receivers; he’s excellent at covering favorites. Denver was a 10-point favorite at the Jets yesterday and had a 7-point lead and the ball with less than :90 to play. The Jets were out of timeouts. Somewhat curiously, Denver passed incomplete on third down from near midfield where a run would’ve meant they’d be punting the ball to Rex Ryan (in his final season as Jet coach) and his team with about :20 to play.

Instead, Denver passes incomplete. The Jets get a well-punted ball at their own 3 with about a minute to play. On first down, Geno Smith is sacked, almost for a safety (9 points), but the refs down the ball at the one-foot line. On the following play Smith tosses a pick to Talib, who falls down near the 30, but is not touched, so he gets up and returns it for a TD. Broncos 31, Jets 17.

Apparently, a certain well-known boxer is an even bigger Aqib Talib fan this morning.

Starting Five

Clearly, there’s no interest in Gurley as a marketable commodity at the college level

1. The Daily Harrumph: Gone Gurley

It’s not about vilifying a college athlete whose value to his school, to CBS and ESPN, to Mike Slive and the SEC, and to Nike, is worth millions if not ten times that for taking a little money under the table for his autograph. Really, it isn’t.

It’s about someone who, by donning the uniform and in particular donning the captain’s “C” is making it clear that he wants to participate in this game. And, like any game, it has rules. And you don’t get to a la carte the rules.

So Todd Gurley, our preseason and midseason favorite for The Grange Award, will now sit out the Missouri game if not more. The good news is, there’s no character clause for the Grange. The bad news is, I’ve got to hear athletes’ rights-without-conditions pundits wax profound the next few days. That’s fine, I’m sure they’re even more sick of listening to me.

I do have one more item to add, though: Did you ever notice that as soon as a privilege is extended to someone, it isn’t long before they consider it an inalienable right? I found it amusing this morning when Phillip Daniels, father of Frozen Fiver DaVaris Daniels, weighed in on players’ rights by tweeting: “Not saying college athletes need to be paid like the professional athletes but give them something or at least let them use their brand!”

So what will I do with a free weekend in Athens?

You can make that argument. You can also argue that Notre Dame is saving Phillip Daniels $200,000 by offering his son the opportunity to receive an education at a Top 20 academic institution. And maybe, just maybe, Mr. Daniels could see it within himself to give his son a few dollars’ spending money seeing as how much money his son, in conjunction with Notre Dame, is saving him.

Aye, but there’s the rub. Big-time football players have been getting full-ride scholarships for so long that many of them don’t even consider it a privilege. Or a huge financial windfall. Maybe they or their parents don’t even value what that degree means. I don’t know. I’m just the guy who will be the pain in the ass (shocker) reminding people to walk it back when they say college athletes deserve to get paid.

2. You’re Screwed, Marshall

The Utes went 12-0 in 2008 and were denied a shot at the national championship. It turns out a “playoff” would have screwed them just the same.

For years I heard how unfair the BCS was and it was often cited, by paid college football pundits who were clearly in favor of a playoff (because not a few of them are also hopelessly in love with March Madness and feel that college football would be better off imitating that model), that schools such as Utah in 2004 (11-0) or Boise State in 2006 (12-0) or TCU in 2010 (12-0), etc., were being unfairly marginalized by the BCS.

How, the pundits wondered, could you purport to have a fair system of determining a champion if you exclude an undefeated team from the championship game? To which I always replied, “You’re right. No unbeaten should be excluded and in such years, and only in such years, when we have that situation, there should be a four-team playoff.”

Well, guess what happened. A four-team playoff came about –not because of anything I said, but rather because John Skipper and Mike Slive and Larry Scott and a few very other POWERFUL men associated with college football’s windfall saw the value in adding two extra meaningful games in January. Voila!

And so the next step was to sell it to the audience as, “We hear your plea.”

And then yesterday, in Dallas, a few of the more respected names in college football punditry and reportage gathered and, per the Playoff Selection Committee, were tasked to choose a playoff four from the 2008 season. And so these men and woman (ESPN’s Heather Dinich) gathered and chose a final four: Florida, Oklahoma, Texas (which earlier in the season beat Oklahoma) and USC.

Four fantastic, worthy teams. Each of which had one defeat before bowl season. The 2008 season was one of the best in recent memory (Michael Crabtree’s TD catch, anyone?) and you can make a valid argument that those were the four best teams.

But what about Utah? The Utes were 12-0. They got slighted, then were given a lovely parting gift of playing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, and promptly rolled Tide.

But yesterday’s Mock Selection Committee, composed entirely of media who would not be predisposed to lean toward the Power Five (while the actual Selection Committee will be), still chose to exclude Utah. So, I mean, what’s the point? Other than having a playoff for playoff’s sake.

And so here sits 5-0 Marshall, and I hope the Thundering Herd know that winning the next seven or eight games in a row still won’t get them to the final four. But they can enjoy reading all the wonderful and enlightening pieces that were written explaining to us what a tough job the Selection Committee will have.

Instead of spending six hours on this, the Mock Selection Committee would’ve been better served sharpening knives and learning how to split hairs. Because that’s what this is going to come down to, anyway. There’s no objective means to separate four from five. All we do know for sure is that the oligarchy will be preserved, and none of the writers who attended yesterday’s session, at least to my knowledge, have shared that truth with us.

By the way, have you noticed how much more ornery I am lately? I have. I have, like, at least 36% more orn than I normally do. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I should consult a physician if this orn last for more than four hours.

3. Worlds Apart

Even Willy Wonka is trolling Journey? How about “Stone In Love” or “Still They Ride” or “Girl Can’t Help It?”

So the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, a.k.a. Jann Wenner’s personal totem of inflated self-importance, released a list of 15 acts that were nominated for induction into the Hall for 2015. Some of those acts are worthy (Lou Reed without a doubt; same for Kraftwerk and The Spinners), but none of those acts are Journey, a band that committed the heinous crime of never being cool while recording a number of infectiously popular hits.

Rock-and-roll is supposed to be a refuge for the freaks and geeks, the outcasts (and Outkast) and even the losers (get lucky sometimes). But the folks at Rolling Stone, i.e. Wenner, have long seemed to have a stick up their asses if any band seemed not to be authentic enough for their tastes.

Also not nominated….again. Damone is still trying to unload a pair of tickets to Friday’s concert

There are Journey songs that I loathe (“Separate Ways”) come to mind. But you can’t just totally treat a band that wrote “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Stone In Love” (this may be my favorite video…Can I nominate these dudes, Jann?) as if they are the 2008 Utah football team, can you? Pardon me while I ask the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Mock Selection Committee.

4. Subway Showtime

You board the L train in Williamsburg at the Bedford stop bound for Manhattan or at First Avenue in Manhattan headed in the opposite direction. Either way, there’s a decent amount of time between stops as your train literally travels beneath the East River. Which makes you a rapt audience.

Three to four to even five young men, usually black, spring from nowhere and in a cheery voice announce, “Showtime! Showtime! Showtime!” One of them produces a boom box and clicks it on. And the next thing you know, the rails of the car become a jungle gym.

For what it’s worth, I attempted the grab-the-top bars-and-flip maneuver successfully last night. There may have been alcohol involved.

Chris Rock used to say that every father’s duty was to keep his daughter “off the pole.” He never said anything about sons.

5. Off the Hooks

Who was I talking to recently about Jan Hooks? I said that in my opinion she was the prettiest female cast member in Saturday Night Live history. Anyway, Hooks, 57, passed away last night. She was a strong female cast member –if not a Cecily Strong female cast member–who did her best work when the excellent Phil Hartman, who also left the mortal stage far too soon, was in a scene with her.

Starting Five

Actually, yes, we ARE ready to play ‘The Feud.’

1. Fleetwood Mac Attack

If not the best-selling album of all time, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours must be the best-selling misspelled album of all time. The legendary 1977 record has sold more than 45 million copies, but the coed quintet had not toured live with all five members since 1998, as Christine McVie (who sings lead on such classics as “Don’t Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun”) had retired to the English countryside.\

I always liked McVie. To draw an analogy from another musical remnant of that era, WKRP in Cincinnati, I always saw her as the Bailey to Stevie Nicks’ Jennifer. Anyway, Fleetwood Mac launched a U.S. tour, I believe, earlier this week at Madison Square Garden.

Bailey, would you like to play Quarters?

How do I know FM (has there ever been another band played as much on FM whose initials are FM?) are pros? Look at this tour schedule. They tackle the northeast in autumn, when it’s still pretty, then they head west as the weather deteriorates. You’re no idiot, Lindsay Buckingham.

This morning the band played four songs on Today (“The Chain”, “Little Lies,” “Gypsy,” and “Go Your Own Way”) and I stood in the crowd with a couple of family members to watch. (When my niece phoned her grandma, a.k.a. Phyllis, and told her we weren’t wearing jackets, there was an audible gasp; in her mind it’s always 31 degrees and muggy, as in someone’s about to mug you, in NYC).

Pro tip for next time: You can watch the band rehearse at around 6 a.m. and then not have to stand with as many people later. Also, the songs are not performed live. Each song was performed a few minutes earlier than it actually aired. “The Chain,” for example, aired at about 8:20 a.m. but the band played it at 7:52 a.m. I may be the only one who cares about such minutiae.

2. Nontroversy Alert

Stauskas is definitely flasthing the twin “W’s” here

You ever notice how white people who have the least exposure to other ethnicities on a daily basis are the most up in arms when someone makes a racial comment –which is not the same as a racist comment? Yesterday ESPN’s Colin Cowherd said the following:

“By the way, African-American men do not watch hockey. I have seen the numbers. I can tell you every sport who watches it. Even among men. Racial differences. Ethnicity differences. African-American men don’t watch hockey. They do watch at a higher percentage basketball. It’s OK. Neither is good, neither is bad. It’s OK.”

Regardless of what you may think of Cowherd, he’s correct in a general sense. Can I find a black man who loves the NHL besides P.K. Subban’s dad? Yes. But, from a demographic sense, is Cowherd accurate here? Yes. So why are some people so upset.

Also, on Sunday night Sacramento King rookie guard Nik Stauskas –who is not only white, he’s Canadian— said, “”I understand that I’m a rookie and I’m white, so people (i.e., opposing players) are going to attack me at all times. Just coming out there in the game, I felt it right away.”

Apparently, this bothered some people. Because some people, who didn’t grow up playing in AAU leagues against mostly black competition, and in D-I hoops against mostly black competition, understands the racial dynamics of big-time basketball less than Chauncey does in his ivory tower.

Children, please. Or maybe Stauskas was just reacting to these comments by Jason Whitlock. 

3. Stephen & Harry & Lloyd

I like this. On November 7 comes the release of The Theory of Everything, which is the story of the life of physicist Stephen Hawking, who wrote a bestseller that no one has ever read from start to finish (except perhaps my work station neighbor, Alex Nazaryan).

One week later, November 14, comes Dumb and Dumber To with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprising their roles as Lloyd and Harry.

My guess is that the latter will earn more at the box office while the former will be nominated, if not win, Best Oscar. It’s the Tropic Thunder theory of “Never go full retard” on display. TToE is sort of  A Beautiful Mind meets Good Will Hunting meets The Sessions, and what Oscar voter will be able to resist that?

Still, wouldn’t this be a terrific double feature?

4. Who Needs Air?

Wouldn’t it be ironic if THIS were the antidote to Ebola?

It was The Hollies who sang, “All I need is the air that I breathe” (they also sang this, which we’ve featured on MH before; and this; the Hollies may be the MH house band), a song whose melody may or may not have been pilfered by Radiohead a few decades later.

So what? Well, yesterday the Center for Disease Control admitted that, you know, maybe that deadly virus known as Ebola is an airborne virus. Which means, like, um, it’s not just contracted by having sex with chimpanzees. So you can catch Ebola even if you’re not monkeying around (thank you, thank you).

Well, have fun with that medical profession. A person enters the ER with Ebola-like symptoms and Dr. RosenRosen and Nurse Ratchet are just supposed to treat him? Yeah, nobody panic.

NBC News has hired Debbie Downer as its new Chief Medical Correspondent

October: it’s Ebola Awareness month, even if you never intended it to be.

5. Mountain, Biker

“I must have made a wrong turn somewhere”

That’s mountain biker Danny McCaskill, a native of the magical Isle of Skye in Scotland, a the precipice of well, everything, on his native isle. This video is beyond Paul Carr level of mind-blowing. Most of us would be too afraid to walk the spots McCaskill cycles here. Can this win an Oscar? Shouldn’t it? Here’s an interview with the director, Stu Thomson.

The video has received 12 million views since it went on-line. If only McCaskill had capped off his two-wheeled climb to the top with a Harlem Shake.

Starting Five

“I love advertising because I love lying…”

1. “Having Said That…”

Remember when everyone simply assumed that Larry David was the mean one of the duo and that Jerry Seinfeld was so unfailingly nice (“How could anybody not like you?”). Well, maybe Jerry was always just as “mean,” and maybe what mean really means is honest. Which does not always sit well with people, especially when the arrows of candor are pointed at them.

So here’s Seinfeld accepting a Clio award on October 1 and then absolutely eviscerating the chosen profession of his audience. The only other place you’ll find commentary both this candid and caustic right now is on Last Week Tonight. I’m glad for Jerry that he is enjoying semi-retirement; but we need his voice.

A sample of his speech: “I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy.” 

And they cheered. Classic!

2. The Kid Stays In the Picture

Coltrane and Hawke: Same time, next year?

Props to Ellar Coltrane, who spent more time start-to-finish working on a film (Boyhood) than Tom Cruise did for Eyes Wide Shut. The film’s second half is so much better than its first half, and Ethan Hawke, whom you go into the film expecting to be the typical deadbeat dad, may be the most likable and just plain decent character. He explodes all your preconceptions.

As you know, the film was shot over 12 years, at about two weeks per year. The filmmaker, native  Texan Richard Linklater, never overtly informs the audience about time passages, so it’s fun to watch how Coltrane’s Mason ages, via changes in hair style and a rapid growth spurt.

Coltane and Hawke: The film’s best scenes occur when it’s just the two of them.

The final scene takes place in Big Bend National Park, and I loved it because you have to think, as my friend Chris Corbellini noted in his MH review, that Linklater began the project all those years ago with this final scene in mind. One reason it struck a chord with me is that perhaps my favorite movie –definitely my favorite sleeper film–is Fandango, which is also an entirely-in-Texas film whose climactic scene also takes place in Big Bend. The only difference is that in Boyhood, the characters are in their first day at college, while in Fandango they’ve just graduated.

But, the themes are nearly identical. I know that Linklater is roughly my age and that he is a lover of all things film and Texas, so this correlation cannot be coincidence. Can it?

3. Something About Sports…

America, for your own safety, would you please stop trying to fake-punt versus Miami? Thank you…

I wrote like, what, 2,000 words this morning on the previous weekend in college football. So as soon as it’s posted on Newsweek.com I will link to it here. Thanks. In the mean time, enjoy this clip that will exorcise the ghosts of Joel Williams and Derek Brown, former Irish tight ends who were not as successful at the end of games in that very same corner.

4. Reverend Camden!?!

I know what you’re thinking: Where’s his left hand?

This is sad.

TMZ had reportedly obtained ($$$$) audio of actor Stephen Collins confessing to his estranged wife, actress Faye Grant, that he molested and exposed himself to at least three young girls.

I will confess that I didn’t watch Seventh Heaven without wondering whether, at the time, Jessica Biel was 18. Oh, like you’re going to judge me. I always thought it would’ve been cool if the Camdens had relocated to Starrs Hollow. I think Jess and Mary Camden would’ve made a rockin’ couple.

5. Flash, But Not In the Pan

What a terrific food server he’d make

The critics appear to be agog over The Flash, the new CW series about the world’s fastest man, according to D.C. Comics. The Flash was my favorite superhero as a boy because I didn’t want to root for the big favorites and I appreciate promptness, which it would seem The Flash would have down.

Anyway, please watch it. Our man Barry Allen/The Flash, the man with the lightning bolt on his suit, is played by Grant Gustin, who used to be on Glee as Sebastian. And one of his mentors, Harrison Wells, is played by our friend Tom Cavanagh, who is too good of an actor to have been away from the screen for this long. Tom suffers from Austin Murphyism, a dreaded condition in which one never ages and remains eternally fit. It’s dreadful.

Please tune in: The CW, 8 p.m. (Yaaaaaayyyyyy).

Remote Patrol

Dodgers at Cardinals

Game 4, NLDS

Fox Sports 1         5 p.m.

The most celebrated Carpenter since Karen (you thought I was going to go with Joseph?)

Are the Cardinals really going to usher out the Dodgers, and quite unceremoniously, for the second consecutive year? Yasiel Puig, who tripled and scored LA’s only run last night but who has also struck out seven times in the past two games, has been benched. Clayton Kershaw, who for the first time in 68 starts failed to hold a lead when staked to four runs (the Dodgers led 6-1 entering the 6th inning in Game 1), will start on three days’ rest. And St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter, the All-Scrappy Player poster boy player of the 2014 postseason thus far, has homered in three consecutive games.

Nothing in the Dodgers’ makeup the past two seasons suggests they’ll rise to the occasion today. If you remember last year’s NLCS between the two, the Cards ambushed Kershaw for seven runs in four innings, his worst outing of the season, in the Game 6 clincher in St. Louis. This smells similar.

And yet in Kershaw the Dodgers have the best (regular season) starter since Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax on the mound for them.  He just happens to be 0-3 with a 7.23 ERA lifetime as a starter in the NLDS.

Red state. Blue State. White ball. Color me intrigued.