Starting Five

1. Trust Fall

Watch this video of a fake punt that occurred in the second quarter of Miami’s 41-20 win over Arkansas State last Saturday. This took place in the second quarter, the Red Wolves trailing 20-7. As you can plainly see, it’s 4th-and-5 from the Hurricane 40.

The ball is snapped back to the punter, Luke Ferguson (unseen), and your eyes attempt to follow the ball, which leaves the screen. And so the first time you watch the video you may miss the Arkansas State player who folds his arms across his chest and performs a trust fall.

A few observations:

1). I cannot tell his number, though it seems to be a single digit. I don’t know who he is (Update: Medium Happy intern Jacob Anstey believes the player is Charleston Girley, who is now our second-favorite Girley Man in college football) {Updated Update: Apparently, the player in question was Booker “I Don’t Even Read Her” Mays}

2) If the Miami defense was paying attention, they’d notice that he was technically an interior lineman. You can only have four men in the backfield, and the Red Wolves already have four –the punter, the two up-backs, and the man in motion. That’s why the player is lined up on the line of scrimmage and is hence an ineligible receiver since only the last player on either side of the center who lines up on the line is an eligible receiver. So the Miami linebacker, Thurston Armbrister, should not even be covering him. Work on that, Al Golden.

3. People are calling this “the worst fake punt ever.” I hope I never think like they do. I love the imagination that went into this. Clearly, the trust-fall dude is meant as a distraction. It’s how magicians pull tricks or how crimes get pulled off by con men: Get the victim’s eyes and thoughts on something away from the primary action. I LOVE the offensive coordinator/coach (Walt Bell?) who devised this play.

4) reason people are criticizing the play, I think, is two-fold: 1) It’s different and 2) It didn’t work. But I think the reason it didn’t work –and I cannot wait to hear what Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson says– is that the punter was supposed to throw to the player in motion who went on the wheel route, but the punter geeked out, panicked, and just tossed it to the wrong side of the field. That’s my theory. We’ll find out later.

5) Finally, behind all the lovable goofiness of the play (at least for me), we have what should be a targeting penalty and an automatic ejection. Watch how Armbrister goes head-hunting on the player. I believe this is the reason the targeting rule was created, and the fact that it has been misapplied almost universally since is no reason NOT to employ it here. I hope the ACC looks at this play and punishes Armbrister. This wasn’t a football play; this was all about taking someone out.

2. “AD, DA. DA, AD”

Yes, I just went “Uma, Oprah” on all of this.

So, sorry, but here’s my hard-line thought: Adrian Peterson and “parenting” don’t belong in the same sentence, because a parent is someone who wakes up in the same home as his children. And while I understand that we live in a modern world of divorces and single parents and second marriages, a terrific parent does everything he or she can do to remain in the same town as his children. And it’s not as if finances are a problem in AD’s case.

He apparently has five to seven children by four women. I’m not sure on the details. I’m not sure if he is sure on the details. Let’s be honest here: Adrian Peterson is a man who do what he do because he is more interested in satisfying his carnal desires. And because there are laws and stuff, he must pay child support. Otherwise, good luck with that, ladies.

If you are going to become a parent–and I am not–then your kids become your priority. Because it’s your job not to send awful adults out into society. You must do everything possible to prevent this, and that means love and time and structure and, yes, discipline. I know a lot of parents, both married and divorced. I don’t know a single negligent mom; I do know some dads who are doing C+ jobs at best.

It all goes back to the Wisdom of Rust Cohle: “The kids are the only things that matter, Maggie. They’re the only reason for this whole man-woman drama.”

When it’s all said and done, I’m not so bothered by the fact that AD beat his child as I am that he is not actually being a father to them day in and day out. He’s taking almost zero responsibility for the lives that he has created. That’s what’s despicable.

3. Adulthood: It’s Always Been Dead

So maybe because it was written by a culture maven and because it appeared in the New York Times, and perhaps because it references Huck Finn and some artsy-fartsy intellectual literary critics, lots of people have been praising this A.O. Scott essay on the “Death of Adulthood.”

However, Scott undercuts his own argument by referencing men such as Ben Franklin (and what about Henry the VIIIth? Or even Hamlet? Caligula?). Men have been refusing to grow up for centuries, if not millennia.

You can cite shows such as Mad Men, The Sopranos and Breaking Bad and say that men are refusing to be adults (though I’d argue Walter White, in particular, was inspired to perform his deeds, at least at first, because he wanted to better support his wife and son). And wasn’t the entire previous half season of Mad Men about Don Draper’s realization of his role as dad, which all began the season before with his Hershey’s pitch epiphany? Either way, I can throw Friday Night Lights right back in his face. Did he forget that show? Or was it just conveniently omitted because it didn’t fit his narrative.

Finally, how do you write 4,000 words taking down male maturity in modern pop culture and never once reference Entourage?

4. A Nack For Writing

Today on SI.com, my favorite SI writer of them all, at least in terms of pathos-laden prose, William “Bill” Nack gets some play. And if you have the time, read his bonus piece (that’s what we called them;  now the kids refer to it as “long form”) on Bob Kalsu, an NFL player who died while on active duty in Vietnam (his is the only name of a U.S. professional athlete on the Vietnam wall.

The interview with Ted Keith, whose father, Larry was a terrific writerand then an editor (and quite the engaging personality) at the magazine for decades, is illuminating. One moment that is not included, and it’s one of the many reasons I’ll always love Bill (besides the fact he can pronounce the final paragraph of The Great Gatsby in both English and Spanish and will happily do so on command), is a meeting that took place with all the writers before the Christmas party in 2000. AOL had just acquired Time-Warner and hence, SI, and some publishing boob was brought in to tell us how this brave new world was going to work for all of us.

And Bill just raised his hand and politely asked, “So how many of us are going to be laid off?”

 5. She’s Dowd-y

So allow me to pile on and, as others have done, note that Ann Dowd is not only the actress who plays the leader of the Guilty Remnant in The Leftovers, but was also the sad sack girlfriend of the Yellow King whom we first meet in the season finale of True Detective. Since she’s been killed off in the former, perhaps HBO will bring her back as the replacement for Peter Gregory on Silicon Valley. Or she can become Selina Meyers’ new BFF on Veep.