*The judges will also accept “The Last Subpoena” (not ours), “The Back Nein”, “World’s Worst Dockers Ad,” “Eight Men Out… On A Hole With A-Hole,” “They’re Literally Standing In A Swamp”
We don’t know what more needs to be written—no one here brought golf clubs, not even a putter— but things must be pretty mad for Mohammed to go to the mountain (i.e., D.C.) as opposed to the other way around. If you’re keeping score, half the minions here have hands on hips as if to indicate, “Maybe all of our lies and grifting won’t be able to get us out of this pickle. Our last hope is a GOP win in 2024 followed by a pardon.”
Wilson, Cast Away
It might have been a Hall of Fame career. Maybe it is, anyway. But after last night’s debacle in the stadium he called home for 10 seasons, Russell Wilson’s legacy may be that of the innocent victim of two of the worst coaching decisions anyone can recall. Last night, with his new team, the Denver Broncos, trailing his former squad, the Seattle Seahawks, 17-16 with just under one minute to play, Wilson’s offense faced a 4th-and-5 from the Seahawk 47. Of course you don’t punt. You go for it, right? I mean, it’s a 64-yard field goal try and this is the new QB you paid $160 Mil for.
The Broncos sent the field goal unit onto the field. Wide left. Final score: Seahawks 17, Broncos 16.
Couple this with Darren Bevell’s slant pass on 2nd-and-goal from the 1 in Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, and Wilson must feel absolutely as if he’s playing against more than just the opposing defense.
Contrarian opinion: the Bronco kicker, Brandon McManus, had already connected on FGs of 30, 40 and 26 yards and was thus the game’s leading scorer. Go with the hot foot.
Trout-standing Effort
If it feels as if Angel-in-the-outfield Mike Trout has missed half the season, well, he’s only missed one-third of the season. But he still has blasted 35 home runs (third-best in the majors), boosted by one in each of the past seven games. The MLB record is one in eight consecutive games. Couple this with his former Angel teammate Albert Pujols’ recent homer surge—he’s now just three shy of 700 and no one from July’s home run derby has hit more since that night than Albert—and Aaron Judge’s chase of Roger Maris is only the third-most intriguing home run chase of the month.
By the way, if you’re scoring at home, three of the greatest players of this century—Trout, Pujols and Shohei Ohtani—have combined for zero playoff wins as Los Angeles Angels, a streak that will be extended this season. Baseball’s just different.
The Sarver is Down
BREAKING NEWS: The NBA has suspended Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver for one year for, among other things, using the N-word FIVE TIMES (I have to wonder how many times Chris Paul uses the N-word per day). So the going rate is 2 months, 6 days per N-word? Okay. Good to know. Sarver should really appeal his suspension to the AIA (inside joke for Phoenicians). No word yet on whether the NBA will appoint Blake Masters interim owner.
The Runaways
When the invasion of Ukraine began—fittingly, just a day or two after the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics from Beijing (this had all been mapped out between Putin and Xi)—Russia had everything tilted in its favor with one major exception: a righteous cause. So here we are, seven months later and Russian soldiers are fleeing for their lives. And who can blame them? They know that their cause and their leader are corrupt and who wants to give his life for that?
We’d find it very funny if the bully (Russia/Putin) started whining if Ukraine’s military crossed over into Russia and started kicking ass. If I were Zelensky, and I’m not, I’d mount some offensives and inflict some pain on the Russkies, telling them, “We’ll stop when you hand over Vladimir Putin.” Of course Putin would pull a Hitler (suicide) before he allowed that to happen, but that would be a suitable outcome. Vladimir Putin needs to be punished for this war.
We only watched Tide-Texas this weekend (and parts of Notre Dame’s failed Marshall Plan), so we’ll keep it relatively brief. Thanks to all of you who accepted the invitation to contribute via PayPal (trumansparks88@gmail.com) last week. Very kind of you.
An Early Frost
Scott Frost, wow. If anyone seemed a better fit to return to his alma mater than Frost once did, that’s only because you went to school in Ann Arbor. Frost was Nebraska’s golden boy, a Wood River native who returned home after one season at Stanford and then played quarterback on the Huskers’ national championship team. In 2016 he led UCF to a 13-0 record (and, if you live in Orlando, a national championship). It seemed destiny that Frost would restore NU to greatness.
It was not to be. Frost departs Lincoln and his alma mater with a 16-31 record (.340), the worst mark since Bill Jennings went 15-34-1 (.310) between 1957-61. After that came Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne, a 36-year reign of dominance that included five national championships and ZERO losing seasons. None. That’s an almost impossible standard to live up to.
We can talk about all the reasons it went wrong (one is below) or about $7.5 million Nebraska is costing itself by not waiting until Oct. 1 to can Frost, but we’ll just focus on the fact that Frost took UCF to a 13-0 season in 2016, that he was smack dab in the midst of the most fertile recruiting ground in the country (Orlando) and that his school’s student body was among the top three largest in the country. Not to mention that Miami, FSU and UF were all down. If there were ever bright neon signs telling you to stay, well, I don’t know what else Frost needed to see. He was the king of Orlando’s other Magic Kingdom and he lacked the foresight to see it. We understand the gravitational pull of “grand old ivy,” but in this instance Frost would have been better off heeding the lyrics of Steely Dan: “And I’m never going back to my old school.”
One more thing: As kooky as Jim Harbaugh can occasionally seem, he does seem to connect with his players. The kooky actually works for him. I never sensed that Frost jibed with his players. Maybe he did, but from afar it did not seem as if he did. And it’s odd, because Harbaugh actually had the better NFL career. If anyone would seem to be entitled to have the bigger ego, to be more aloof, it would be Coach Khaki.
Austin Powers
I’m not telling you anything you do not already know or believe: college football yeans for more games such as Alabama at Texas. We fans desire 1) big boy matchups 2) between intersectional schools that 3) take place on campus.
I’m sure Nick wasn’t thrilled with playing this game, but everyone else was. And the contest lived up to the hype, as Texas nearly pulled it off, 20-19. If Sark had a chance to do it over, you’d hope he’d have taken a few more chances after that beauty pass route tree put the Longhorns deep in Bama territory late. The Horns settled for a field goal, gaining zero yards on three plays. It’s series such as that where you’ve got to establish your identity as a team. Channel your inner Chris Petersen, if you have one.
One thing to take note of: this was a body clock game for Bama. Playing in unfamiliar territory, as a true road team, with an 11 a.m. body clock (and local) kickoff. And Bama commits more penalties than it ever has under Saban while receivers drop multiple catchable balls from Bryce Young, who looked every bit the worthy defending Heisman winner. What we’re trying to say is, Look upon your future, USC and UCLA, and remember, you’re going to be venturing much farther but without as much talent.
Finally, about that terrible call in the end zone: it for sure was never targeting. It was never even roughing the passer. Technically, Young was still not down. If anything, to us, it was intentional grounding, which should have resulted in a safety. Texas got burned.
Quarterback-pedaling
Texas and Notre Dame, two of the biggest names in college football, both lose their starting QBs to similar injuries. The Longhorns lose Quinn Ewers for at least September while the Irish lost Tyler Buchner for the entire season. How to evaluate? Well, if you’re Texas, you now have TWO losses to Alabama in which you lost your starter in the first half (the only two losses in school history to Bama of the 10 games played). We’ll never know if the Burnt Orange could have beaten the Crimson Tide with Ewers on Saturday, but they still only lost by a point. That’s as much a reflection of how much Bama has backslid the past couple of seasons as it is Texas’ resurgence. But give UT credit: they held their own on both lines. Not sure if Texas is back, but they’re no longer soft.
Ralph sent this after Ewers’ beauty throw to Xavier Worthy, but just before the hit from Dallas Turner…
The Irish loss is more devastating. Buchner was really Notre Dame’s most potent weapon as a runner and, even though he didn’t have a great passing game (two picks, one a pick-six), he is a weapon. Drew Pyne is a 5’11” gamer type from New Canaan (that’s where NBC Sports executives live; not where NBC Sports featured athletes are supposed to hail from), Conn. Pyne looked okay in limited duty versus Wisconsin last September, but now he must run an ND offense whose line has looked inept thus far (the season’s biggest mystery as the Irish are supposed to have both the beef and the perfect O-line coach) and whose running backs are not about to make anyone forget Karen Williams. Tight end Michael Mayer and sophomore wideout Lorenzo Styles: those are your two weapons.
By the way, Styles’ 54-yard reception on the first play of the season is still more than twice the distance of any other Notre Dame offensive play this season.
To think that the Irish were beating Oklahoma State 28-7 in the first half of the Fiesta Bowl, Freeman’s coaching debut, on New Year’s Day.
When Did Terry Bowden Become Jiminy Glick?
Congratulations to @CoachTBowden on the 1st home win of the season for @ULM_FB this week familiar territory for him in Tuscaloosa. He’ll pick up a nice 7 figure check for the school and hopefully keep his roster healthy for @SunBelt play. 👍🏈 pic.twitter.com/P4tI3dSO1X
Why are we mentioning baseball’s decision to ban the shift beginning next season in a college football column? Because the two are related. For the record, we’re not fans of the shift, but we are even less fans of outlawing it. Sports competition is about more than simply physical talent. It’s also about strategy and cunning and using your brain (as is war, by the way; ask Mr. Zelensky or the army who won the American Revolution).
Between 1973-1988, 13 of the 16 Heisman Trophy winners were running backs. The other three were Doug Flutie (unicorn), Vinny Testaverde (legit NFL QB) and Tim Brown (great player but also a symbol of Not Dame’s resurgence). Heisman winners were talented running backs who played for great teams that had superior beef on the O-line, too. Then about 1989 this fella named John Jenkins at Houston develops a wide-open offense where five-wide is in vogue (he may have taken it from Mouse Davis when he was the USFL Houston Gamblers; not sure).
Anyway, no one had ever played big-time football going four wide, much less five wide. Suddenly, running backs were not winning Heisman Trophies very much. Suddenly, scores and records at Houston were just plain silly, as Ander Ware won a Heisman and David Klingler probably should have. People didn’t take these scores or QB passing records seriously; just as people refused to accept the Tampa Bay Rays’ shifts when they started employing them.
An empty backfield: we’re not in the Seventies or Eighties any more
But you know what? Now everyone in college football, including Nick Saban, uses three-, four- and five-wide sets. Most teams pass more than they run, or at least just as much. No one cares who the nation’s leading rusher is anymore, as it has little to do with how successful a team is. Spreading the field wide was the antidote for teams with less talent to offset the superior interior beef that the best schools had. And it was so successful that it forced everyone to adapt.
Now, you may prefer the days of the “heavy-legged backs,” as Frank Broyles described them. You may long for Bo Jackson and Marcus Dupree, and we get it. But Jenkins was not breaking any existing rules; neither was Joe Maddon. Both men were innovators (as was Gen. George Washington) who realized that, by fighting the traditional way, they stood little chance of success. However, by operating within the rules but outside traditional means, they all found success. So why would you want to punish anyone for that? It’s downright un-American. If Washington had fought that way, we’d all be speaking English now. Wait. Well, you know what I mean.
The idea that baseball needs to protect a certain type of player (the pull-hitting slugger) is another way of saying it must penalize a hitter who can beat the shift. In other words, baseball is creating a new rule to protect the status uo. That, to us, is not only just wrong. It’s un-American.
union
Get Back, Nebraska (and you too, OU and A&M)
Perhaps there’s zero connection to Saturday’s failures in College Station and Lincoln, where schools that already departed to a pair of the two real power conferences of the future (B1G, SEC) lost at home to Group of 5 schools: A&M to App. State and Nebraska to Georgia Southern. But then again, maybe there is connection.
Our advice, and no one will take it, because short-term $$$ always trumps long-term vision with college presidents: the Big 12 desperately needs to get the band back together. Consider, if you will, a conference consisting of these dozen schools: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Christian, Texas Tech, Texas A&M. Would you be intrigued by that conference? I sure as heck would.
Plus, this conference meets my No. 1 standard: geographic integrity. The farthest two campuses from one another are probably Ames and College Station, which is still less than 1,000 miles. Not a weekend road trip, but almost every other game is. You’ve got no fewer than four blue-blood schools on this list and then at least three to five others who’ll give anyone a scare on any given Saturday.
Now, as we all know, the Huskers started this avalanche in 2011 when they fled to the Big Ten. The following year they advanced to the B1G Championship Game, where Wisconsin waxed them, 70-31. Nebraska has not come close since and in fact the school’s record since the day before that game is 63-63. Their new mascot should be a two-headed coin.
The Aggies followed suit a year later, going the SEC in 2012. Since then Aggie alums DudePerfect have been much sharper. The school whose helmet spells out “ATM” has been exactly that for its coaching staff, but the Aggies have only advanced to the SEC Championship Game… we’re adding up the figures… zero times. Six different schools have advanced to the SEC championship game in the past decade, including fellow Big 12 refugee Mizzou, but A&M has not.
School presidents, ADs and Twitter stans can talk all day about how the decision to take a larger TV payout by joining a more mega conference has benefited their school, but I’m a fan. I don’t care about your balance sheet. I care about your W-L record. And none of these schools—sorry, Joel, “brands”—have improved themselves by abandoning the Big 12. Not to mention that it has hurt college football. Now Oklahoma and Texas are going to join the SEC. That’s great for Greg Sankey. It’s not great for OU or Texas fans, especially since we’re still only allowing two schools to compete in the SEC championship game.
The Big 12, much like David S. Pumpkins, was “it’s own thing.” And that was just fine. They should have left well enough alone. I don’t know how many years or even decades of mediocrity it’s going to take before they finally have that epiphany. But you heard it here first (and I’ve been preaching it on Twitter for a decade now).
This Is Why College GameDay Is Headed To Boone, N.C., Next Saturday
What good is a sideline reporter if they are unable to provide any meaningful update on an injured quarterback’s status on the biggest game of the day? We know it isn’t easy, but this is Job 1 if you are Jenny Taft (and yes, we love Jenny, too). You’ve got to be plugged in with the medical staffs at both schools and maybe you need a producer who tells you not to leave the locker room door, or even to follow along if a player as important as the starting quarterback is taken to a hospital…If you knew that Joe Flacco threw 59 passes for the New York Jets on Sunday and Joe Namath threw 59 passes for the New York Jets in 1971… Is Dan Mullen doing it for you over on ESPN? He’s not doing it for me thus far… Why did GameDay wait until after Week 1 to announce the Pat MacAfee reunion? And why must Lee Corso spend all season looking over his shoulder?…
It’s not that the B.S. entered the transfer portal; it’s more like our institution chose not to renew our scholarship. So we’re taking it here. This is hardly a compendium of all the weekend’s games, as we only sat down to watch a few. It’s merely a smattering. And while this is free, you are welcome to submit a PayPal donation (trumansparks88@gmail.com) if you wish (my total revenue won’t be much different, considering what I was being paid) and, as always, to sound off in the comments and remind me that I wrote “Hawkeyes” when I meant to write “Cyclones,” or any other gaffes you notice.
Welcome back, College Football
Klatt Klapback
The conference realignment changes we've seen this offseason are good for the future of the sport.@JoelKlatt breaks down the current state of college football and its ever-changing conferences ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/SyiQNGL2a0
Pardon us as we deconstruct Fox’s Joel Klatt’s argument here from his show that aired in the middle of last week. From the top…
0:37 “This (conference realignment) was inevitable.” Okay, Joel, care to tell us why? Joel goes on to explain that “BRANDS” like Oklahoma and Texas and USC and UCLA needed to look out for themselves because they were carrying their respective conferences (Big 12, Pac-12) and if they wanted to compete with SEC or B1G TV money, they had to align with one of the two. Fair enough, but what are these schools sacrificing by making these moves? I’d argue a lot (see: Nebraska football). But Joel never address the potential downside (hope you like that cross-country trip to play Maryland and Rutgers, USC men’s tennis).
Moreover, Joel never mentions that these maneuvers are not only greatly beneficial to his employer, Fox Sports, but may even have been influenced by it.
1:48 “Like you’d have to be buried under a rock to not understand that” i.e. If you disagree with my central point, you’re an idiot. Way to win over the contrarian side. It’s a moment such as this that explains the vast gulf between Klatt and Kirk (and let’s face it, Fox hired Klatt to be its own blond Herbie doll). Instead of attempting to at least meet a potentially opposing view halfway, Klatt simply says that anyone who disagrees with his premise is buried under a rock.
1:57 “So, this was somewhat inevitable.” Actually, it wasn’t. Joel’s basically saying that a school such as USC needs to have greater overall revenue in order to compete against the Michigans and Alabamas of the world. Except that it doesn’t. Ask Clemson. The Tigers don’t have an SEC deal but they’ve carved up their own niche in their own conference and they’r doing quite well, thank you. I’d argue, and last I looked I’m not buried under a rock, that a USC has the No. 1 metropolitan area in the USA (New York City has more people but fewer football players), with outstanding weather and near the fastest growing population centers in the USA (Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, etc.) and that USC would be better off planting its flag in Hollywood and claiming to be King of the West. The Trojans might not get as sweet of a TV deal, per se, but there are a number of intangible factors that would ultimately be to its advantage and, at the end of the day, winning national championships or at least coming close behooves a school—sorry, a brand— more than a conference TV deal in a conference your school has no geographic or traditional connection to. Again, see Nebraska. Joel also fails to mention that USC and UCLA are going to have four road trips to the Midwest or East coast each season (closest possible foe: Nebraska, which is still nearly half a continent away) and in odd-numbered years, USC will have five. FIVE major road trips. Of course Lincoln Riley and Chip Kelly will downplay this and will probably note how Oregon went back to Columbus and beat Ohio State last fall, but there’s quite a difference between one major road trip per season and more than one per month. Not to mention them SoCal boys playing in that November weather. It’s going to add up to more losses, which is going to add up to less of a chance to factor into a playoff, which is going to lead to fan apathy, not to mention that USC fans may get stoked for that Ann Arbor trip but who’s traveling back to Illinois or Purdue?
2:10 to 3:10 “The evolution of college football” treatise. Joel’s lecture on how conferences have evolved is accurate, but again, he fails to note that not all evolution has been for the best. There’s a lot of us who miss the Southwest Conference. There’s a lot that’s been lost by not having an annual Nebraska-Oklahoma game (Big 8) or an annual Texas-Texas A&M game (SWC). So, just because it has “evolved<” dues not mean all changes were beneficial. Not to mention that USC and UCLA joining the B1G is an entirely different beast since there’s not even a passing nod to geographic sanity. Look at it this way: Boston College and Miami both play in the ACC, and we can take note of what a distant road trip game that is when they play. Do you realize that Miami to Boston is CLOSER than ANY B1G road trip USC/UCLA will be playing once it jumps conferences? Look at a map, Joel.
Play of the day: Georgia freshman Malaki Starks’ INT in the first half of his first college game was special
3:55 “I think this wringing of hands like, ‘Oh, this is destroying the sport!’, that’s not really the case.” Once again, if you disagree with Joel, you’re an idiot. And once again, Joel fails to present what contrarian arguments might exist. We could go on for hours discussing why conference realignment is not fan-friendly. Is Texas A&M better for college football fans (esp. those in Texas) or is better for A&M (in the short term)? Was UConn jumping out of the Big East for football beneficial to the school’s true marquee teams, its men’s and women’s hoops squads? Hell no. Would college football be far better off if schools remained in their regions so that West Virginia was playing Pitt and Penn State annually as opposed to Baylor and TCU? I certainly think so. But again, Joel chooses not to address any opposing view and while he does say that these moves are made for “financial security and stability, which are related,” there’s no shortage of arguments I can make that demonstrate that selling your football soul for a TV deal may not in the long run be beneficial. Yet another example: Penn State, which was more of a powerhouse before it joined the B1G.
4:10 “I understand that it’s not easy for some, I understand that it’s not palatable” Pardon my take here, but as Joel was saying this I was picturing President DeSantis, in his first State of the Union speech, GOP-splaining why the end of democracy was “inevitable” and that while he understands that fascism “is not easy for some” that this is the way forward.
4:45 “Right now I would argue, and most would argue that are involved in the sport, that it’s never been better” Translation: a bunch of us who have a dedicated financial interest in college football’s success want you to know that college football has never been better. Right off the bat, this is like having the CEO of Fortune 500 company on as a guest on CNBC and asking him how his company’s doing. Do you really expect Joel to mention that attendance at games is down, that the length of games is creeping up toward four hours, that fans, while most understand that players have earned more rights and money, aren’t exactly crazy about how the transfer portal is like watching your single mom rotate through boyfriends (“Hey, who’s that strange guy coming out of mom’s room?”)?
4:58 Joel goes off on how great college football is and how it’s never been better, sounding not unlike Beck Bennett’s impersonation Vin Diesel waxing poetic about “the mooo-vies.”
6:18 “You’ve got two clear leaders now, in the SEC and the Big Ten, and they’re going to be able to fix some of these issues” Are they? When Joel says the SEC and the B1G, what you as the fan should hear are “ESPN and Fox.” Basically, because no one was ever in charge of college football, they stepped in and took over. And this is the point that someone with seven minutes of air should’ve been making in the first place. ESPN and Fox look at the tremendous numbers the NFL garners and their wonks and consultants decide, We’re gonna model college football after the NFL: the SEC and B1G will be the NFC and AFC and everyone else drops out; we’ll expand the playoff to 12 teams, because look at the crazy numbers NFL playoff games do; by siphoning off the Oregon States and Virginia Techs of college football, that’s more money for the big dogs. Will all of these changes ultimately be palatable to the college football fan? Remains to be seen. For this particular college football fan, who always embraced the idiosyncratic nature of the sport, the weirdness, it will not be. But for someone such as Joel, who stands to personally earn a lot more as Fox and ESPN work to transform college football into Saturday NFL, it will be.
*****
Hey, old dudes who run everything, you watching the #BackyardBrawl? Make all the money you want, but please…PLEASE…make sure the games that matter are still played. It is a crime that we were denied this game for more than a decade.
The “old dudes who run everything” sign his paycheck. Yes, we need more Backyard Brawl (maybe some time after Sept. 1, too). Appreciate Ryan going public with this, but I hope he appreciates that the Mouse being around and taking charge the past 25 years is why games like this have vanished.
Direct From Donald Trump’s Playbook*
*Who cares if it’s illegal? Let’s see if it works…
It’s just about unprecedented to attempt a punt after you cross the line of scrimmage, so how can we be sure it’s a penalty if we’ve never seen a flag? If you’re the S.C. State coaches, you appeal to the refs to appoint a Special Master to decide if the play should stand.
Irish Redux
Similarities between Marcus Freeman’s first two games as Notre Dame coach:
–both opponents had initial OSU
–both games played in a state that begins and ends with same vowel
–Irish led at halftime and in fact for more than half the contest
–Irish shut down in second half, scoring 7 points in the Fiesta Bowl and 0 last Saturday
–Irish fail to rush for 100 yards as a team
–Irish lost
Things will improve this Saturday versus Marshall. By the way, had you forgotten (I had) that Jack Coan threw for 509 yards and five TDs in that Fiesta Bowl defeat to Oklahoma State? Coan, waived by the Indy Colts last week, is currently a free agent.
The Fansville Postman Always Rings Twice
She was with this guy…
Did you also notice that Hot Mom from Fansville was seated on the couch next to not her husband, but rather FacePaint Dude, when she admonishes him for “fansplaining?” They sure seemed like a couple, no? But that’s not the guy she was with the first few seasons. As one tweep suggested, perhaps she too has entered the transfer portal.
…but has she moved on to him? Or maybe they’re siblings? We need to know!
Ye Olde Testament
Jim Harbaugh’s “biblical” quip from earlier in the week was unavoidable, so props to College GameDay’s Rece Davis for dropping in “exegesis” (“a critical explanation of scripture”) on the discussion and even more props to Lee Corso, who bluntly explained that the Good Book had nothing to do with Harbaugh’s quarterback conundrum, but rather the transfer portal did. If he wants to keep Mc-Squared in Ann Arborh, he needs to find playing time for both Cade McNamara and J.J. McCarthy. This strategy (alternating starters) works for the CSU’s and Hawaii’s on the schedule; the real test comes when Michigan State arrives and when the MGoBlues visit Columbus…
Mark Jones-ing
“An indecorous, ignominious start” to describe how Colorado State began at Michigan. Indecorous or ignominious, but why provide a surfeit of sesquipedalian terms?
*****
“Starting classes, to learn the system… maybe not in that order”
–ESPN’s Sean McDonough, dropping a truth bomb while discussing why so many incoming frosh at Georgia start at the beginning of spring semester last January. By the way, the pioneer of this practice of entering college right after Christmas was none other than former Georgia QB Eric Zeier.
The B.S. Wonders…
… Why didn’t Katie George ask Florida State’s Mike Norvell, moments after his fourth-and-goal gambit failed just before halftime, what led him to eschew an easy field goal and go for the points?… A TCM Wonders moment: Why do they call the film Across The Pacific if almost the entire 1942 movie starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet (yes, the same crew from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon) takes place on a freighter sailing from Halifax to the Panama Canal?… Would early September games in California draw better if kickoff happened at dusk? Glances at the Rose Bowl, Coliseum, San Diego State’s and Stanford’s crowds showed plenty more vacant seats than people? Then again, when Arizona is the best visitor of the four, what should you expect?… Anyone got a bead 6’7″ on how tall 6’7″ FSU wide receiver 6’7″ Johnny Wilson 6’7″ is?… If you heard ESPN’s Dustin Fox refer to Ohio State’s offense as “our offense” during the waning moments of the TCU-Colorado game? Fox was a four-year starter for the Buckeyes, so we’ll let it slide—this time… Have you ever seen a school score 40 points in the fourth quarter and lose, as App. State did against North Carolina on Saturday? That game was 2014 Bahamas Bowl-crazy… How many years until we get a televised national high school football championship? Four teams, each representing a distinct region, as opposed to an overall Top 4. If you can do it with the Little League World Series, it’s bizarre that no one has thought to do it with high school football yet. Or maybe they have, but have yet to execute it for reasons unbeknownst to us…. Hear us out: a Bon Jovi tribute band that plays bluegrass instruments: Banjovi…. If you heard that Bo Nix’s wife is named Izzy Smoke? The best new name in college football belongs to a WAG! And yes, to think that when he was back at Auburn he was a teammate of Smoke Monday while dating Izzy Smoke. So that if she’d chosen another Tiger, she could be Izzy Smoke-Monday, which would have been glorious…. If like me, you’re old enough to remember when the last thing you wanted to be in sports was “the goat?”…
There was so much scoring in the final quarter of App State-UNC that it broke espn.com’s Scoring Summary
Tennis Detour (If Chris Fowler Can Take One, Why Can’t We?)
Um, maybe not
Chris Fowler took few moments to post a Serena Williams tribute in which he said, “Let’s focus for a few minutes on the legacy she leaves, which will never be equaled, the towering achievements that will never be equaled…” Okay, let’s focus on that and let’s wonder how and why this narrative overtook tennis and sports in the past fortnight. If Serena is your all-time favorite tennis player, or even just all-time favorite women’s tennis player (or athlete), that’s cool. If you consider her to be the greatest women’s tennis player ever, that’s also cool. But here’s the thing: it’s HIGHLY debatable.
–Let’s look at grand slams, which seem for most to be the gold-standard of tennis summit metrics. Serena won 23, which is one fewer than Margaret Court and one more than Steffi Graf. Now, if you want to dismiss Court’s court accomplishments because she played mostly before the Open era, fine. Then can I not dismiss Serena’s accomplishment because she played in TWENTY-SIX more Grand Slams than Steffi and yet only won one more? Or can I note that Steffi’s contemporaries included Martina Navratilova and Monica Seles, among others, while Serena dealt mostly with her sister and Maria Sharapova?
–You wanna go by singles titles in general? Serena (73) is in SEVENTH place behind Court (192), Martina (167), Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Steffi Graf, Yvonne Goolagong and Suzanne Lenglen.
— Best single-season win % . She’s one of seven who went undefeated in a year, but Graf won more games in her perfect year, as did Court and Mo Connolly.
–Consecutive matches won streak? She’s not in the top ten for the longest unbeaten streak.
— Career win %? She’s in seventh place (85.15%), behind Lenglen (98%), Helen Wills, Court, Evert, Graf and Navratilova.
Is she the most successful hard-court player? Yes, she has the most titles on hard courts. Is she the most successful non-white player? Absolutely. Did she come from the furthest point away to begin to where she rose to? Well, if you saw King Richard you’d say yes, but Martina came from an East Bloc country in the midst of the Cold War, and she’d probably have a few points to make on that front.
Do you want to argue that Serena could beat any of these women in their primes? Go ahead, but having seen Martina and Steffi at their best, I’m not so sure that’s true.
Point being, it’s cool to celebrate Serena’s career without dismissing all of those who preceded her. Particularly when the empirical evidence shows that these narratives that no one else will ever equal what she has done is patently false. Recency bias has a tendency to cloud judgments.
Timing Is Everything
Just as ESPN’s Dave Flemming was saying “They don’t have any classic pass rushers on this Arkansas team” in the fourth quarter off their game versus Cincinnati, a Hog rusher strip-sacked the Bearcat QB and Arkansas recovered. Flemming may be correct, but still, that was funny.
More On Fowler
Fowler endured a forgettable first half in Columbus, as he called, “TOUCHDOWN!” on an Ohio State end zone pass that fell incomplete and then later wondered, “Is that an interception?” on what would turn out to be the most balletic catch of the game (by former Notre Dame walk-on Matt Salerno). He’s probably hyper-aware of both errors and likely a little salty that anyone would be calling it out. But it comes with the territory.
Granted, Fowler was probably watching this live as opposed to on the monitor (which is one reason execs argue that broadcasters could call just as good a game from their basements and save the networks tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses), and his view was probably obstructed by the OSU bench. Still, this is why you wait until you know. Fowler called this game on Saturday and then then Medvedev-Krygios match from the U.S. Open on Sunday, but that’s something he does by choice. No one is compelling him to do this. So, at least here, pulling double-duty is no excuse to be less than terrific at either. This has always been an ego thing for Fowler, and he has the friends in high places at Bristol to pull it off. He’s a solid announcer and a very astute individual when it comes to storing info. But there’s almost no one outside of Bristol who thinks that he’s the top broadcaster at ESPN in football and I’m sure some diehard tennis fans have preferred announcers (we don’t know enough to say). But mistakes such as Saturday’s in Columbus give rise to the notion that it’s not really about serving the best interests of the viewer. Sean McDonough is flat-out better calling a game, for starters.
ABC had an overall bad game to open its prime-time season. Not once but twice did they cut to a shot of a Notre Dame assistant when Fowler/Herbie were discussing them, and both times the camera zeroed in on the wrong coach. That’s obviously not the booth’s fault. You have to be better than that.
FSU-LSU
The injury to Maason Smith doesn't look good. He's on crutches and had tears running down his face. pic.twitter.com/yvE6okMTAy
Now this was a wonderfully flawed game, which is to say a paragon of a college football game. You had a bizarre injury (Maason Smith tore his ACL celebrating a tackle early in the first quarter; you’ll never convince me that FieldTurf does not cause more ACL injuries; the body thinks it’s cutting/landing on grass, which has a little more give, and fails to brace properly. It’s like when you think you’ve got one more step and you’re actually at the bottom of the landing and you land differently), you had a PERFECTLY executed flea flicker, you had two muffed punts, you had the snake-pit escape for LSU when the Seminoles die the only possible thing wrong you could do to let the Tigers off the mat, you had the heroic 99-yard touchdown drive, and then then you had the blocked PAT. Honestly, if LSU special teams coach Brian Polian was not told to clean out his office after Sunday night, he never will be.
Anyway, all of it was magnificent. It felt like a bowl game. Now, we don’t know why they felt the need to hand out a trophy for a non-conference game with no history, but hey, it’s college football. One man’s old oaken bucket is another’s Louisiana Classic trophy.
Also, in case you think that all we do is criticize, let’s throw some props to the producer who put together the Jared Verse package, including his plays when he was at Albany. It’s incredible that in this day of constant scouting, of team sites, of data, that it took an FSU assistant tuning into a Syracuse-Albany game to unearth a gem (wait, isn’t that tampering?) who morphed into the top playmaker on FSU’s defense.
Finally…
Things are hunky and dory right now at Clemson in terms of the quarterback situation, but if you witnessed Cade Klubnick’s inaugural college series, there may be a QB controversy in the offing. Remember, the Kelly Bryant/Trevor Lawrence problem reared its ugly head when the Tigers made an early non-conference visit to College Station. Clemson doesn’t have a game like that this season, really has no challenging road contest until it visits South Bend in November. But if the offense stalls under D.J. Uiagalelei, Klubnick’s gonna get his shot, and you have to wonder whether both will be there next season. Has D.J. really looked impressive enough to this point in his career to go pro? He either keeps the starting job all year and jumps to the NFL or he loses his spot and transfers, is our prediction.
Finally, finally…
The Bad Beat on the Hawaii over was one for the time capsule. As SVP and Stanford Steve pointed out, you really did not have to put money on the day’s last game and stay up until 4 a.m. just to watch the Rainbow Warriors (we know; we don’t care) fail on four rushing attempts from inside the 3 and thus fail to get the over (and if they’d even just kicked a field goal… they trailed by, like, 25 points, who cares how they scored?). Just a brutal defeat if you took the 67.5 over on a game that ended with 66 points.
MH staff reacts to learning the playoff will be expanded to 12 schools
It Goes To Twelve
Move over, Nigel “It Goes To 11” Tufnel. There’s a new extreme in town. The college football presents (i.e. the NCAA for college football, because there’s still not technically a Division I FBS NCAA championship) just announced that the college football postseason will be trebled (maybe our hed should’ve been “Treble Makers?”, but that’s too much Pitch Perfect for one week)in terms of schools (or, as Joel Klatt would say, “brands”), from four to 12.
They say that this will definitely begin in 2026, but could happen earlier. The bet here? 2024.
So, yes, we’ve never been a fan of any change to college football away from the core ethos that made it so magical: the idea that on any given Saturday in any podunk college town the best team in the sport could see its championship run terminated. Some people hate that; we love it. College football used to only sometimes reward the best team, but it always rewarded the most consistent team.
With a four-team playoff, we saw utter stagnation. It was basically four schools—Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Ohio State—and then it was everyone else. Those four schools represent 14 of the 16 national championship game finalists since the four-team playoff began in 2014. If it was supposed to promote more diversity, it in fact did the opposite. Will expanding the playoff only promote even more hegemony? It would be difficult to build upon that 7/8ths number, or 87.5% for just four schools.
What it will do, however, is make “regular season” games less impactful. It will also make third-year players who are about to go in the first or second rounds of the NFL draft seriously wonder if they want to put their bodies through up to three more games, against only top-flight competition, before heading to the ‘bine.
Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences. Meanwhile, college football was never broke. It’s a shame they always seem to wanting to fix it.
Medium Happy’s 10-year anniversary came and went last month (8/16), but perhaps it’s all for the best. Our editorial staff was otherwise engaged with a story for SI that should be coming out within a few weeks. So we’ll wade back into this exercise, though, slowly at first.
Fake Newsweek
The above is not an actual Time magazine cover. Someone from within the Trump (Crime) Organization had these made up in 2009 (one can only fathom who!) and copies of such were framed and placed prominently at Donald Trump’s five golf resorts. It’s just the sort of stunt that Banana Republicans pull: prop up our political strongman, whether it’s true or not.
All of which is to say that when the FBI released that photo of the Top Secret files strewn about in Mar-A-Lago, it was interesting that there was a cover of a Time magazine with Trump on front also in the photo. That, we would imagine, was hardly an accident. Maybe they just wanted MAGA to connect the stolen files with the TFG and a picture can be especially powerful, particularly for people of lesser intelligence. Yes, I said it.
Was channel surfing last week and the end of Pitch Perfect 2 was showing, so we stopped. As you may already know, the MH editorial staff considers Pitch Perfect to be one of the all-time rewatchable films and, looking back, it should have without question been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. If it loses to Argo, we can live with that. But we all know which movie we’d be able to watch 10 times. Anyway, the song that closes out PP2 is “Crazy Youngsters,” which is instantly addictive. We’d never thought that much about it, but so catchy is the song, and such a remarkable voice doth the singer possess, that we thought we’d delve deeper.
And what did we find (which you may already have known)? The song was both written and recorded by Ester Dean, who played one of the Bellas in the original film. She plays Cynthia-Rose, or if it’s easier, the black one (who’s also the lesbian one… killing two songbirds with one stone). Dig deeper, and it turns out Dean was raised by a single mom in Tulsa, the youngest of five, but she found music and songwriting as her way out. She moved to Atlanta with $500 and well, the success story began to write itself. Dean also wrote Katy Perry’s “Firework” and three singles for Rihanna. Dean has earned the nickname “The Song Factory,” and it’s funny: she was easily, looking back on it now, the most accomplished member of the PP cast when they assembled. You’d never know it.
Two more items: 1) Every time I watch PP I hear a new joke, or at least remember it, for the first time. Last night, when it aired: “The Minstrel Cycles.” Countless good lines in this film. 2) Also, the next time you watch PP, and you will, pay attention to the three Asians who barge in on Beca and Jesse as they’re watching The Breakfast Club. Two are females, and at least one is her roomie. But there’s a dude, who never speaks. I can swear it’s the same guy who plays “The Quant” in The Big Short. That actor’s name is Stanley Wong. Now, I could be wrong (there’s no acting credit on PP’s IMDB page). And I was not about to suggest this on Twitter and be canceled as being the middle-aged white guy who thinks all Asians look the same. But, the next time you see PP, tell me what you think.
Around The Horns
If you don’t like baseball and you don’t like this, what will it take to make you happy? Love Mr. and Mrs. Met jamming along. The song, “Narco,” was written in part by our man in black here, Timmy Trumpet, an Aussie musician. Diaz had been using it as his entrance tune, but this is the first time TT had been there to serenade him in person. We’d love to see this become a thing. Have The Cult or Metallica playing some reliever on in the postseason. Baseball is supposed to be competitive, but it’s always also supposed to be fun.
If you’re Mets closer Edwin Diaz, how do you not come in and strike out the side? It looks and sounds like a pretty special summer to be a Mets fan. By the way, this is all taking place just a few hundred yards away from the U.S. Open. Queens, baby!
