Starting Five

1. College GameDay: Hong Kong?

“Police, Protesters Clash.” Why can’t rebellion be fashion forward?

These people are not assembling to see whether Lee Corso dons an elephant head or a Confederate mask, nor are they demanding the ouster of Dave Brandon. No, they just want democracy and for Beijing to not have veto power over who may be a chief executive candidate in the 2017 election (that was a recently passed edict in China).

Meanwhile, GameDay will make its first pilgrimage to the quaint Southern town of Oxford, Miss., where the celebrity picker almost certainly will not be this guy. Word is that it will be Katy Perry, who did not attend Ole Miss, but who definitely has the look and will be in between tour stops in Memphis and Dallas. You have to think she’ll be pulling for the Tigers, which is going to make picking the LSU-Auburn game problematic.

2. Oregon Bows Out

Highly entertaining game in Eugene last night, in which the second-ranked Ducks allowed 28 second-half points to an unranked team, surrendered a 3rd-and-20 conversion in the game’s final five minutes (on a counter play), and committed a dumb excessive celebration penalty after stopping Arizona on the next series (thus giving the Wildcats an automatic first down, enabling them to score the go-ahead and game-winning touchdown).

It was the type of moment that gives the producers of First Ache and Around the Whorin’ a woody. Do we condemn the referees for not looking the other way when Duck defensive lineman Tony Washington celebrated his sack by running toward midfield and performing a bow toward his bench? Or do we remind people that rules exist to be enforced and that doing so at the most inconvenient of times reinforces the idea that structure trumps special interests? Rules and sentiment don’t mix.

I feel for Washington this morning (usually a Washington who dooms the Huskies is clad in purple…not pink), but it’s either his fault for knowing a rule and ignoring it or the Duck coaches’ fault for failing to properly discipline their players. Either way, there’s a line that gets crossed between exuberance and self-glorification and Washington kinda crossed it. And whether or not you or I have a problem with that isn’t the point; the point is that there’s a rule against behaving that way.

Do I sound like a hard-liner? Good.

And if I want to be an even bigger jerk, I might note that the finish of this other game last night also saw referees chiming in with enforcing a rule and completely altering the outcome of the game. Of course, you may say, that was an easy call. He fumbled the ball before he reached the goal line. Yeah, but we all knew he was going to score, if not there then on the following play. So, should some rules matter more than others? That’s up to you. But it’s not up to the referees.

Also, by the way, I think it’s okay to be against both breast cancer and football teams wearing pink on their uniforms. Heart disease kills more people each year than breast cancer, and lung cancer kills more men as well as more women than does breast cancer. Which does not mean that breast cancer isn’t an insidious and deadly disease with a high mortality rate. I’m just wondering if heart disease and lung cancer have their own colors (they probably do; I just don’t feel like Googling it).

By the way, the Wildcats are now 5-0 and have beaten the No. 2 team in the country on their lawn. Let’s see where the AP voters have them come Sunday.

3. Stiff-Arming the Worthy

Listen, I like the Heisman Trophy. I like the Heisman Pundit. I just wonder how come they cannot have their act together as well as the good people who are in charge of the Grange Award.

For example, yesterday the Heisman folks unveiled, and long overdue, a splashy and renovated web site (Heisman.com). And as part of the site they identified, one month into the season, 14 “Aspirants.” 

Not five. Not ten. No, fourteen. That’s quite a few players, 14. I mean, you should have room for a few quarterbacks (Kenny Hill, Everett Golson, Marcus Mariota…check), a couple of running backs (Todd Gurley, Ameer Abdullah…check) perhaps a wide receiver (Amari Cooper…check) maybe even a defensive player (Let’s not go overboard).

Two players not on the list, after four to five games or at the bare minimum one-third of the season? Indiana’s Tevin Coleman, who happens to be the nation’s leading rusher at 172.8 yards per game, and Washington State’s Connor Halliday, who happens to be the nation’s leading passer at 463.6 yards per game.

Maybe if they played in Power 5 conferences.

We wondered about the omission of Coleman and went to a knowledgeable source for an explanation.

“I’m pretty sure he could be on the list if Indiana contacted the Heisman people and insisted,” our friend The Heisman Pundit (a.k.a. Chris Huston) tells us in a Medium Happy exclusive (“Ooooooh! Who’s cool, now?”). “Note there is an Army RB on it.

“But he is relatively unknown and plays for a bad team. That could change if he’s still leading nation in rushing by game 8 or so. In general you have to be pretty special to be a candidate from a team like Indiana. Not sure he fits the bill, but it’s early.”

4. He’s DVR-ing Michigan-Rutgers?

“When are we getting married?” 

      “Soon as I retire, sweetheart.”

“How soon?”

Wondering if conversations between The Captain, 40, and the Direct TV Genie, 24, such as these occurred the past few months. And then when Clooney went ahead and got married last weekend, well…is Derek Jeter getting married to Hannah Davis tomorrow?

All we know is that No. 2 is headed to swanky Oheka Castle on Long Island’s North Shore for an affair on Saturday where he is to be honored, per TMZSports.com. Jeter played shortstop just eight days ago but only DH’ed over the weekend in Boston. When he stops playing the field, he –I’m already sorry–really stops playing the field.

5. Sorry Not Sorry?

Yesterday the Tallahassee Democrat accepted the resignation of staffer Natalie Pierre, who had a pretty significant beat: the Florida State football team. It seems Natalie plagiarized the work of a freelance writer — you be the judge — and then chose to resign.

On her website Pierre uses the hed “I Am Sincerely Sorry” but then writes:

“…I was informed that words that were not my own were published in the Democrat and on Tallahassee.com with my byline. While I did not intentionally plagiarize another journalist’s work, I take full responsibility.”

I was informed? As if she didn’t know she was plagiarizing the other writer, Tim Linafelt?

And how do you unintentionally plagiarize someone else’s work?

Was this just an error of the unconsciousness?

Granted, the “current climate of the newsroom” seems rather demoralizing, but welcome to 21st century print journalism. But if Pierre had not resigned, wouldn’t she have just been fired? And if she didn’t do anything wrong, why is she sincerely sorry? Is she asking us to believe that this was just an accident, like maybe, you know, walking out of a Publix with some unpurchased crab legs?

Reserves

Wonderful profile of Jim Harbaugh by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham...

Remote Patrol

Mulaney 

FOX Sunday 9 p.m.

You know how much I love John Mulaney, but I fear this Time review hits the nail squarely on the head. It’s what I thought when I had the chance to watch a taping of the show as part of the live studio audience (a dreadful experience, by the way, no matter the program; I took flight after four hours and felt like Andy Dufresne swimming through the pipe).

As noted when I profiled him for Newsweek last spring, Mulaney, 32, is an avowed student of classic sitcoms. He actually used to go to a Chicago museum of TV and radio as a junior high lad and devour old episodes of sitcoms made before he was born. He’s an inherently funny, insightful and charming guy. And so smart. In a recent bit he wonders why big-name actors are needed to voice the roles in high-budget animated kids’ movies, then mimics a five year-old: “Ooh, it has Mark Ruffalo. I loved him in You Can Count on Me.”

(That’s exactly why I love Mulaney.)

Anyway, I don’t know how Mulaney the sitcom will do. What I saw lacked an original voice –ironic, since Mulaney’s is. And, yes, you’re going to call it “watered-down Seinfeld.” The best part of the show is the relationship between Mulaney and Martin Short. They should focus on that. The rest of it is fairly disposable. Instead of being more like Seinfeld, maybe it should be more like The Odd Couple.

There’s a great moment in The Tender Bar, produced by another insanely talented man, JR Moehringer, in which JR is a high school senior trying to write his application essay for Yale. After a number of high-fallutin’ but uninspired iterations, his mom sits him down and reminds him, “You’re a very talented writer. Stop trying to write like someone else. Just write like yourself.”

Find your voice. Here’s hoping Mulaney does soon. He’s too talented not to succeed.