Cruds break!*

(* Last one of the season. Promise.)

("Better be!" you're saying)

Anyway ...

It's the last weekend of the baseball season, and the Blob is positively giddy. Because it looks like my Pittsburgh Cruds are NOT going to finish last in the NL Central, considering they're six games clear of the even more cruddy St. Louis Cruds, and not even my guys can blow a six-game lead in two days. 

I mean, I don't think they can.

So "Yay!" and "Huzzah!" and "Yippee-ki-yi-ay!" Unless the Marlins beat them twice this weekend, the Cruds are going to finish with either 76 or 77 wins, which would be the most they've won since winning 78 games in 2015.

Also, they're going to finish ahead of both St. Louis (last) and the Boston Red Sox (last in the AL East) for the first time in I can't remember when. In fact, if they take two from the Marlins and the Red Sox lose their last two, the Red Sox and the Cruds will finish with exactly the same number of wins (77).

I think Honus Wagner was still manning third base in Pittsburgh the last time that happened. So that's good, right?

The worst of us

 You'll never go broke betting on some people's ability to be dillsacks. Some people actually thrive on it. It's like breathing air to some people.

And by "some people," I mean "Curt Schilling."

Who ought to be in the Hall of Fame, probably, but isn't because baseball writers are vindictive cusses who don't like dillsacks. Schilling, apparently, is the king of dillsacks. Not only did the writers never much care for him, reportedly, neither did any of his teammates. This is because he's (again, reportedly) a me-first guy of the first order, which is why he's also famously not one of those squishy left-wingers.

But selling out a former teammate?

That's low even for him.

Seems Dillsack Curt went on his podcast the other day and blabbed about Tim Wakefield, whose knuckleball was a nice complement to Schilling's heat on the Red Sox pitching staff. Wakefield has brain cancer. His wife, Stacy, also has cancer. The Red Sox had honored their wishes to keep the news quiet.

Not Dillsack Curt. He told the world.

And now you're saying "Well, maybe he didn't know they wanted to keep it quiet." My response to that is if he knew Wakefield had brain cancer, he also knew the Red Sox were telling people to dummy up about it. It's almost impossible to believe otherwise.

In any event, now it's out there. The Red Sox have requested privacy for the family. I imagine they've also privately requested Curt Schilling's head on a pike atop the Green Monster in Fenway. Word is they're livid, as well they should be.

Dillsackery. It's just what some people do. 

The best of us

 Sometimes you forget, when the headlines commence their screaming. You forget the bad actors out there are the exception and not the rule. You forget, momentarily that the worst among us will always lose to the best among us if you line 'em up head-to-head. 

I'm thinking now of football coaches, and all the years I spent around them.

I'm thinking of the ones who never lost their perspective; who never forgot they were dealing with works in progress and not young men and women in full; who overwhelmingly displayed what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature when it would have been easy not to.

I'm thinking of all those aforementioned years -- just shy of 40 of them -- and how rarely, if ever, I saw what I see in those screaming headlines.

Like, for instance, the knucklehead youth football coach in California (again with the youth coaches!) who was arrested for punching a 14-year-old on the opposing team in the middle of yet another brawl by alleged grownups. 

The coach was 50 years old. It happened in a game between the Perris Panthers and Murrieta Broncos, who were playing for a berth in the Super Bowl.

OK, so they weren't. I just threw that in there because apparently Coach Knucklehead and his fellow knuckleheads thought that's what they were playing for.

And then there's the high school football coach in Brooklyn, Ohio who's no longer a high school football coach, on account of he apparently thought it would be cute to send the Hitler Youth out there instead of a football team.

This brainiac, and his players, repeatedly used "Nazi" as a play-call in a game against Beachwood High School. Beachwood is a suburb of Cleveland that's 90 percent Jewish. Coach Goebbels and his Hitler Youth only stopped using the term when Beachwood threatened to pull its team off the field if they didn't. This did not stop some Brooklyn players from continuing to use the slur, according to a statement about the incident from Beachwood Schools Superintendent Robert Hardis.

Coach Goebbels -- whose legit handle is Tim McFarland -- promptly resigned. And now I'm trying to think of any high school football coach I covered who would have pulled a similar stunt.

Nope. Sorry. Got nothin'.

Instead I'm thinking of Russ Isaacs and Kurt Tippman at Snider High School, and Andy Johns and Chris Svarczkopf out at Bishop Dwenger, and Rick Minnich down at Adams Central. I'm thinking of Leland Etzler at Woodlan and his son, Lee, at Churubusco, and Chris Depew at Garrett and Luke Amstutz at East Noble and Brock Rohrbacher at Leo and the Lindsays at Bishop Luers, and, oh, shoot, all of them, really.

I'm thinking of Lapel High School down by Anderson, and a big man with a gentle soul and a splendidly pastoral name: Woody Fields. We're standing on Lapel's football field, one day at practice. Woody is grinning, a bit sheepishly. This is because he's sporting a freshly coiffed Mohawk.

It seems he and his players had a bet, and Woody lost. The players told him he had to get his head shaved into a Mohawk if Lapel made the playoffs, this being the era of the IHSAA's benighted cluster system. And then the players went out and did it.

Now Woody is grinning, and I'm asking him how he likes his new 'do.

The grin gets wider.

"I wear it with pride," he said.

The best of us wins again.

Karma, cutting two ways

 We all like to believe in karma, because sometimes it's about bad actors getting theirs, and that lives right next door to whatever justice is left in this world. 

We also like to believe in karma because we're natural pessimists (OK, some of us are natural pessimists), and sometimes karma is about bad things happening to good people and, dammit, we KNEW this was gonna happen.

Today the Blob presents you with an example of each.

First we have Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton, who lipped off about his predecessor Nathaniel Hackett, before the season, telling us what a godawful mess he made of the Broncos during his one season at the helm. And how he, Sean Payton, was gonna clean up Dodge now that he was in town.

And then he took his Broncos down to Miami and eviscerated by the Dolphins, 70-20. Nothin' left of 'em but a smoking crater and a few scraps of orange.

I can't think a tiny smile didn't bloom on Nathaniel Hackett's face when he saw that score. Yeah, well, I never got MY ass kicked by 50 points, buddy boy. Karma, baby. It's what's for dinner.

And, as we've noted, sometimes it chokes you in mid-swallow.

For that we go to Atlanta, Ga., where the Chicago Cubs, who have been on the outs with karma for all but one of the last 115 years, did that Cubs thing they do so well again last night. Up 6-0 on the Braves with their playoff hopes hanging in the balance, they futzed around and lost 7-6. And one of the main reasons they lost?

This right here. The ghosts of Leon Durham and Alex Gonzalez possessing Seiya Suzuki and whispering "Come on, dummy. Miss it. Take it from us, it ain't that hard when you're a Cub."

Meaning, of course that karma is karma, and therefore the Cubs are gonna Cub. Every fan of the northsiders knows this in their bones.

Now they're a game behind the Diamondbacks for the last NL wild-card spot with five days left in the season. Yeesh.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 3

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the prolific Blob feature of which critics have said "Stop being so prolific, dammit!". and also "Enough prolific-ness ... prolific-ability ... whatever, already!":

1. Speaking of prolific, it's Tuesday morning and the Dolphins just scored again.

2. "Well, that's just mean." (The Denver Broncos)

3. "Oops, we scored AGAIN!" (The Dolphins, cackling madly)

4. "Woo-hoo! Look who's leading the AFC South!" (The Indianapolis Colts)

5. "Wait ... what?" (The rest of the AFC South)

6. (Also the Baltimore Ravens, beaten at home by the Colts in OT thanks to five Matt Gay field goals, including an NFL record four 50-plus yarders)

7. "Wait, you mean Matt Gay was worth all that money we paid him? Well, gee, I guess we weren't so stupid after all, were we, ya know-it-alls?" (Chris Ballard and Jim Irsay, cackling madly)

8. The Broncos. The Bears. The J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets.

9. Should just quit while they're behind.

10. "And take the Cowboys with you!" (The Arizona Cardinals, cackling madly)

Signature not-a-loss

 Indiana football coach Tom Allen is the luckiest man in 12 states. How awesome was his timing Saturday night, when the Hoosiers lost at home to the Akron Zips at the same time everyone in Indiana was watching Ohio State-Notre Dame?

And by that I mean, even a lot of IU fans were watching Ohio State-Notre Dame.

Lucky Tom's Hoosiers therefore saved their most Hoosierific performance in decades when a lot of heads were turned, so good on them. Saved Lucky Tom a ton of heat for losing to a MAC school that opened the season with a loss to Temple and was 2-10 last ye-

I'm sorry, what was that?

Indiana actually won the game in four overtimes, 29-27? 

Yeah, well ... OK. But if it takes you four overtimes to beat Akron at home, is it really a win? Especially when the only reason it wasn't a loss is because Akron, being Akron, missed a gimme field goal on the final play of regulation that would sent the Zips home winners?

Instead the fans in Memorial Stadium had to suffer through even more cruddy football when they'd already seen enough cruddy football for one night.

Numbers, you say?

Well, how about 474 yards, which is what the Zips put up against an Indiana defense that actually looked pretty stout (i.e.: Very un-Indiana-like) in the opener against Ohio State? Or the two turnovers, 2.7 yards per rush and 3-of-14 third down conversions the Hoosiers perpetrated? Or Tayven Jackson, a week after winning the starting job in IU's 21-14 loss to Louisville, completing just 11 of 26 passes for 190 yards, a touchdown and an interception, and an 8.4 QB rating?

Akron, which came in averaging 18.7 points and 315.1 yards per game, exceeded the former by more than eight points and the latter by 159 yards. They held the football for nine more minutes than Indiana.

Lucky Tom, most people were distracted by Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman deciding he only needed 10 players on the field to stop the Buckeyes as time ran out, which of course the Irish didn't. 

But Lucky Tom's luck only went so far, because enough folks were watching his team soil the game of football that IU social media went bonkers (which of course is the natural state of all social media). Incensed fans were demanding Allen be fired, like, yesterday. One even floated the idea of starting a go-fund-me to buy out his contract.

How far we've come from that frigid day in Madison when Indiana beat Wisconsin and Allen's players were hailing him as the best coach in the country. 

After that, see, Allen's Hoosiers went 2-10 and then 4-8, and they're 2-16 in their last 18 Big Ten games. Throw in Saturday's signature not-a-loss, and, well, the bloom is off that rose.

And, no, we're not talking about the rose that blooms in Pasadena on New Year's Day.

As if.

Analyst for a day

 The Blob was going to wait for its weekly NFL feature to do this, but I'm too excited because OMIGOD TAYLOR SWIFT IS SITTING NEXT TO TRAVIS KELCE'S MOTHER IN ARROWHEAD STADIUM. So I'm going to go straight to the transcript of Taylor as a football fan/analyst for a day.

(Also, it gives me an extra chance to obliquely comment on the Steaming Pile That Walks Like A Football Team, aka the dog-ass Chicago Bears.)

Let's go to the tape from our secret recording device in the Kelce family suite, shall we? 

(All stuff Taylor really said -- or in other words, stuff we completely made up):

"Are the Bears actually trying?"

"Who's No. 1? He looks a lot more confused than our 15 guy. Why is he so confused?"

"OK, so is our 15 guy really this good, or are the Bears just letting him do what he wants because he's in all those commercials?"

"It's 31-0 and not even halftime yet! Goodness, why don't the Bears just catch an early flight home and get back to Chicago at a decent hour?" 

|"OK, so, the Bears AREN'T actually trying. Right?"

"Yay! Travis scored! But it would be more fun if the Bears were trying."

 And last but not least, watching the clock run out on the Chiefs 41-10 win ...

"I feel sorry for the poor Bears. I think I'll write a song about them from their fans' perspective. I'm gonna call it either 'You're Never Ever Ever Getting Your S*** Together', or "Fine, Move Out To Arlington, See If We Care."

Call me crazy

 And now a brand new Blob feature ("No! Not another one!" you're screaming), which might or might not be a one-hit wonder, considering it invites you to do something you've done many times before and surely will many times again.

It's titled "Call Me Crazy," and here's today's edition:

Call me crazy, but I don't think today will be an automatic L for the Indianapolis Colts.

I mean, it should be. They're on the road in Baltimore, they're facing a Ravens team that has Lamar Jackson, and they're still not all that, last week's punishing of woeful Houston notwithstanding. I mean, come on, have you seen the Texans? They're ... not good.

Here's the thing, though: The Colts will be sending out Gardner Minshew at quarterback, having wisely decided to sit Anthony Richardson and his concussion. And Minshew, if not remindful of Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady, is at the very least serviceable and a significant upgrade at this point as a passer.

Here's another thing: The Ravens' casualty list looks like John Bell Hood's after Franklin.*

(* Gratuitous Civil War dork reference. Look it up.)

The Ravens will take their home field missing seven players, including wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., running back Justice Hill, outside linebacker Odefe Oweh, two offensive linemen (tackle Ronnie Stanley and center Tyler Linderbaum) and two defensive backs (corner Marlon Humphrey and safety Marcus Williams).  This does not mean they're the Texans, but it does mean they're not the usual Baltimore Ravens, either.

The Colts, meanwhile, still have Minshew, who was 19-of-23 for 171 yards and a touchdown last week, with a QB rating of 112.1. Also, the Horsies defense has not been awful. Also, Zack Moss gave them something that vaguely resembled a running game, gaining 88 yards and averaging just shy of five yards per carry.

I know, I know. It was the Texans. And the Colts got worked at home by the Jaguars in Week 1. And, well, Lamar Jackson.

But, see, that's why this post is titled Call Me Crazy.

"No problem!" you're saying now.

Figured as much.

Reality 1. Hype 0.

 Dammit, Deion. Didn't anyone ever teach you to duck?

Or, Duck, in this case.

Out to Eugene, Ore., yesterday went America's newest college football  craze, Coach Prime and his spanking new Colorado Buffaloes, and here came exposure in its most painful form. The Oregon Ducks, a bonafide big-boy football team playing bonafide big-boy football, racked the Buffs from stem-to-stern, floor-waxing them 42-6 and revealing the sometimes stark difference between hype and reality.

The hype: That Deion Sanders had transformed Colorado from Alpo to Prime rib in the blink of an eye.

The reality: The new Buffs are a yea better football team than the 1-11 mess from last fall, but they're still a long way from competing with the elites.

They may have a rising star at quarterback in Deion's son Shedeur, but a football team's engine is up front, and up front they're not close to being on an elite level. Oregon rolled through the Buffs for 30 first downs and 522 total yards; Ducks quarterback Bo Nix torched them for 276 yards and three touchdowns -- two of them to wideout Troy Franklin, who ran unimpeded through the Colorado secondary for 126 yards on eight catches.

On the other side of the ball, meanwhile, Oregon allowed barely a sniff of daylight, crushing the Buffs run game (40 yards on 1.6 yards per rush), sacking Shedeur seven times and allowing just 13 first downs -- including just four in the first half, to go with 21 total yards. 

Oregon led 35-0 at the break. The Ducks might have scored 70 if they'd kept the hammer down.

None of this means Sanders and the Buffs can't eventually get to Oregon's level. They very well could, given Deion's ability to attract talent. But what yesterday demonstrated is how long the road is to that level, and how upsetting TCU, beating a mediocre Nebraska team and needing overtime to dispatch winless Colorado State doesn't mean you're remotely close.

Reality. It does hurt sometimes.

O-hi-o

 I love it when coaches lose their ... stuff.

Who can forget Mike Gundy's epic "I'm a man! I'm 40!" rant lo these many years before? Or the all-time champion, Cubs manager Lee Elia's classic "My (bleeping) ass" meltdown, now 40 years old?

There's always something perversely comic when Coach turns into Mt. Vesuvius in public. If you're a witness, the only thing that's scary about it is that you'll burst out laughing before he leaves the room rather then after.

And so to last night, in the wake of that epic rock fight between Ohio State and Notre Dame -- a classic example of old-school slobberknocking that Ohio State won 17-14 on a just-this-side-of-walkoff 1-yard run with a second to play. There may have been a football game in Notre Dame Stadium as good since the USC-Notre Dame Bush Push game 18 years ago, but right now I can't think of any.

At any rate, here came Ohio State coach Ryan Day in the immediate aftermath, channeling his inner Mike Gundy.

First he hollered about something dotty old Lou Holtz said, but didn't enlighten us as to what it was. (Apparently Lou said Notre Dame would win because Ohio State wasn't physical enough in big games). Then he ranted about how tough his team actually was, and finished with some weird s*** about Ohio.

"IT'S ALWAYS BEEN OHIO AGAINST THE WORLD!" he screamed.

Wait ... what?

I'm as big a history dork as they come, but I can't remember a time when Ohio took on the other 49 states all by itself. Or the time brave Ohioans held off hoards of invading Canadians at the Alamo Truckstop on I-90. Or that other time when the country banded together to keep Ohioans Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft and Warren G. Harding out of the White House.

Ohio against the world? Does Woody Hayes tearing up a sideline marker count?

Ohio against itself, maybe. Or Ryan Day against himself.

If you watched you know he did his damnedest to lose to the Notre Dames but was rescued by the sheer grit of his players. They were the ones, after all, who overcame both the Fighting Irish and their coach's occasional knack for being a blockhead.

Start with his decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 at the goal line when he should have taken the gimme field goal in a 0-0 game in which points were clearly going to come dear. Then there were a couple of other fourth-and-1 fails, one of them a bizarre decision with four minutes to play to run wideout Emeka Egbuka on a jet sweep with the Buckeyes half-a-step away from a first down inside the 20.

Ah, but then the Buckeyes got the ball back, first-year starting quarterback Kyle McCord -- growing up right before our eyes -- made two huge throws to convert a fourth down and a third-and-19, and Chip Trayanum bull-rushed his way in off the left side for the W.

To his credit, that play call by Day caught the Irish D leaning the other way.

To be fair, he got a little help from his counterpart, Marcus Freeman, whose team played impeccable defensive football until the very end, when Freeman failed to get an 11th man onto the field for the last two plays and decided not to try.

"We were trying to get a fourth defensive lineman in the game," Freeman said later. "I told him, 'Just stay off, we can't afford a penalty.'"

Ay-yi-yi. Really, Coach?

I guess that means this game will always have a nickname, too, just like the Bush Push.

Call it the Addition Omission game. And, of course, the Day Trippin' game.

Calliiope time in Chi, continued

 Aaaand just when you thought it couldn't get worse around Halas Hall ...

Bring on the pick six!

And by "pick six," I mean the thieves who broke into Soldier Field and intercepted about $100,000 worth of stuff this week, getting away free and clear. Unfortunately for the Bears and their fans, the light-fingered Louie's did not make off with Matt Eberflus' playbook or every available copy of his contract. No, sirree.

What they stole were some riding mowers and John Deere Gators belonging to a contractor, not the stadium or the Bears.

You can make of that what you will. I figure it's just one more Bears L snatched from the jaws of victory -- or at least the jaws of a neatly manicured lawn.

And the thieves?

Gotta be from Arlington, I figure.

A stroll around campus

 The best advice I have to offer these days I offered to an acquaintance of mine this week.

"Get there early," I told him.

"There" being the Notre Dame campus.

The occasion being Ohio State vs. Notre Dame in a great big football game beneath the watchful eye of Touchdown Jesus and the unblinking Eye of network TV and the eyes of a stadium stuffed to the aisles with fervent souls dressed in navy jerseys and other fervent souls dressed in scarlet-and-gray jerseys.

It's a rare-for-this-era meeting of top ten teams in Rockne's joint, and so you might presume I was advising this acquaintance to get there early because the traffic is going to back up to Elkhart. But that's not why.

I was advising him to get there early to ... live the moment.

Wander the campus, which is just beginning to take on its rustic autumn hue. Say hi to Father Sorin and Fair Catch Corby. Count the throwback Montana jerseys and Tim Brown jerseys and, yes, Archie Griffin jerseys; scan the bedsheet exhortations hanging from those ancient casement windows in those ancient fortress-like dorms; check out the gray-haired alums in their monogrammed ND shirts and green scully caps, wallowing in nostalgia beneath a fragrant cloud of grill smoke.

I used to do this every time there was a big football Saturday at Notre Dame, because there is nothing quite like a big football Saturday at Notre Dame -- or at Michigan or Purdue or virtually anywhere else, frankly. But Notre Dame with an Ohio State or a USC or a Florida State coming in, that was next-level stuff.

So I'd get there three hours before the kick and take the elevator to the pressbox and drop off my gear, and then I'd wander the campus for a bit. I'd do that to, yes, live the moment, because soon enough the moment would be gone and the next four hours or so would be about the job at hand.

The moment would be about stopping to recognize how extraordinarily lucky I was to be where I was and to have the job I had, and that I should be properly appreciative even when my laptop blue-screened me on deadline. And to note that there were a whole raft of memories I wouldn't have without my odd little pregame ritual.

One Saturday when the Nebraska Cornhuskers were in and still the Nebraska Cornhuskers, it was coeds strolling around in T-shirts that read Husk This. 

Another Saturday, in the flush unsuspecting early days of Bob Davie's run, it was looking up and seeing a bedsheet reading IN BOB WE TRUST drooping from one of those casement windows.

On several Saturdays I wandered into the Snite Museum of Art, hunkered down in the lee of the stadium, and did some culturing up. Visited the Grotto and all those points of votive light. Counted the visiting-team gear and caught snatches of conversation that confirmed what I often thought: That visitors came here not just in the rooting interest, but as tourists who always wanted to see what all that Rockne/Leahy/Touchdown Jesus business was about.

I trust they found out.

Calliope time in Chi

 So, buddy, you think you've got problems?

At least your address isn't Halas Hall.

Where, yesterday, the Chicago Bears defensive coordinator (Alan Williams) was AWOL for awhile, and then, upon surfacing, resigned two games into the season.

Where, also yesterday, the franchise quarterback who's looking more and more like another franchise mistake said he's getting information overload from the coaches and he needs to just clear his head and go back to being who he is.

Where the Bears are 0-2 and saddled with lousy fashion sense to boot, given that orange clown suit they wore last weekend.

But, hey, it could be worse. They could be playing the Chiefs in Arrowhead on Sunday.

Oh ... wait ...

Yikes. What a mess. It's like someone decided to make "Cocaine Bear II: The Mauling Of Matt Eberflus."

Who's the head coach of the Bears, of course, but maybe not for long. His DC has seen enough. His QB1, Justin Fields, is essentially saying "Screw this game plan stuff, I'm gonna tuck it and run." And the very week the DC quits, the Bears have to figure out how to stop Patrick Mahomes.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be surprised if Eberflus didn't call shotgun and ride off into the sunset with Alan Williams.

Fields is getting a fair amount of heat for throwing the Bears coaching staff under the bus, but like most such narratives that one's being overblown, If you listen to what he said yesterday, it sounds like he's blaming himself as much as anyone for not being able to process what's being thrown at him. Hence the talk about needing to get back to being who he is,

He has a point, frankly. To the Blob's untrained eye, it looks like the Bears are trying too hard to make a traditional pocket QB out of him, when that's not his game. The designed runs with which Fields had initial success have virtually disappeared from the Bears offense. Those need to come back, at least to an extent. As Fields says, they need to let him be him.

In the meantime, dial up some circus calliope music and listen to it. No soundtrack for these Bears is complete without it.

Score one for Deion

 Say what you want about Deion Sanders and his sunglasses and his brashness and the outside-the-box way he's turned a garbage scow football program at Colorado into an unbeaten dreadnought virtually overnight. All those fans rushing the field in Boulder these days aren't going to hear you anyway.

The football program has gone from crickets to the Beatles in just a few months, and even if you've grown sick already of hearing about Coach Prime, it's a wondrous transformation. And you know what?

The guy who pulled it off, look-at-me though he is, has his priorities straight. Proof of this came in his weekly presser yesterday, when he took up for Colorado State defensive back Henry Blackburn.

In case you've been asleep under your rock for the last few days, Blackburn is the guy who knocked Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter Jr. out of the game Sautrday with one of the egregious dirty hits you're ever likely to see. The play was over, the ball was on the ground, and Blackburn absolutely trucked Hunter anyway. 

America being the nation of asshats it seems to have become, Blackburn began getting death threats shortly thereafter. And Deion went out of his way to call bullshite on that.

"Henry Blackburn is a good player who played a phenomenal game," he said. "He made a tremendous hit on Travis on the sideline. You could call it dirt, you could call it 'He was just playing the game of football.' But whatever it was, it does not constitute that he should be receiving death threats.

"That this is still a young man trying to make it in life ... He does not deserve a death threat over a game."

Score one for Deion. Or another one, as the case may be.

The old brawl game

In my 68 years on this planet, I've been to three NFL games as a fan. You couldn't pay me to go to another.

And that's not just because you'd HAVE to pay me, because otherwise I couldn't afford to venture into the land of the $16 beer.

It's because I'd like to live a few more years with all my teeth. Or live a few more years, period.

I'm sure Dale Mooney of New Hampshire wanted the same thing, but it won't happen. That's because he died after getting punched twice in the head Sunday at the Dolphins-Patriots game in Gillette Stadium. 

According to witnesses, Mooney, a 53-year-old Patriots fan, went over to the next section to engage a Dolphins fan. A fight ensued, and Mooney got the worst of it. There's a possibility alcohol might have been involved.

I say that because it's the only answer I have to the question "Why would a 53-year-old man go out of his way to get in a fistfight at a football game?"

Anyway, now he's dead for the stupidest reason ever, and you're damn right they should charge the guy who hit him with manslaughter. And while they're at it, charge the degenerates who stood there filming the whole thing instead of trying to break it up.

Meanwhile, in another part of the NFL-verse, a brawl erupted between Jets and Cowboys fans in the concourse at the Jerry Dome. Blood speckled the floor when it was done.

What a charming image for the Shield. Maybe the league should feature it in its next promo video.

The NFL; It's a BLOODY good time!

Look. The issue here is not that someone finally died in one of these fights, because sooner or later it was destined to happen. It's that the league seems helpless to put a stop to it.

 Mooney's death, after all, is only the most extreme example of what has become an every-week occurrence. It's become the old joke about hockey: I went to a drunken brawl the other day and an NFL game broke out. It is, frankly, the natural result of mixing booze, testosterone and the simmering resentment that seems to permeate our entire society these days (and which is deliberately stoked by our wonderful political class, natch).

And you know the worst part?

We can't even say anymore that if the league doesn't get a handle on this, someone's going to die, Because someone just did.

A few brief thoughts about NFL Week 2

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the injury-prone Blob feature of which critics have said "Geez, you're hurt AGAIN!", and also "Dammit, stay in the pocket with these stupid posts!":

1. "Wow, look at Anthony Richardson run!" (Colts fans, after Richardson ran for two touchdowns in the first six minutes of a 31-20 win over the Texans)

2. "Why does he run so much? Doesn't he know he's gonna get hurt?" (Also Colts fans, after Richardson was concussed on his second touchdown run)

3. "See, this is why running backs aren't worth the money. 'Cause they get hurt a lot." (Some people, after the Browns' Nick Chubb went down with a season-ending knee injury in a 26-22 loss to the Steelers)

4. "See, this is why running backs want to get paid. 'Cause they get hurt a lot." (Other people)

5. Speaking of injury, how 'bout those 0-2 Bengals?

6. "The injury was last week when we got charbroiled by the Browns. This week was the insult to injury. Get it right." (Bengals fans)

7. "Hey, what about us? We're waaay more hurt than any of you guys! We're 0-2 for the first time since Belichick last smiled! That's 22 years to you and me, kids!" (Patriots fans)

8. "Oh, waaah. Lookit US! We're 0-2, our franchise quarterback is starting to remind us of Bobby Douglass, and they made us wear orange clown suits with orange helmets this week! No wonder Tampa Bay racked our asses!" (Bears fans)

9. Meanwhile, in other news, the Cowboys floor-waxed the Jets 30-10. They're 2-0, they've outscored the opposition 70-10, and their fans are talking s*** again about the Super Bowl.

10. "Yeah, well, but we didn't have Aaron!" (Jets fans, after this loss and every other loss for the rest of the season)

Seismic events

 Whoa. Did you feel that?

I'm not sure, but I think it was the ground shifting beneath our feet.

I think it might have been a disturbance in the Force.

I know it was a MAC school beating another Power 5 ... and the cruddiest team in baseball ascending to the heights while another bunch of Cruds threatened its own ascension ... and a domination interrupted just when we thought it was impossible.

All of that happened over the weekend, and if you missed it, well, sometimes seismic events do pass unnoticed. But for heaven's sake, you should have felt the shudder of FOUR of them.

The first was the Ohio University Bobcats of the Mid-American Conference taking down Iowa State of the Big 12 on Saturday, 10-7. So neener-neener-neener you Power 5 schmucks, and remember again the lesson: Never sleep on the MAC.

The second seismic shimmy was the Baltimore Orioles clinching a playoff berth just two years after losing 110, 108 and 115 games in a three-year stretch between 2018 and 2021. The O's are 93-56 right now, leading Tampa Bay by two games at the top of the AL East. This means, with 13 games left in the season, there's a decent chance they could get to 100 wins. 

Which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

Also pretty amazing, and our third rumble of the weekend, is the Pittsburgh Pirates -- my very own Cruds! -- sitting three-and-a-half games clear of the cellar in the NL East, and looking more and more like a team destined to finish in the rarified air of fourth place. This is because the St. Louis Cardinals have shockingly sublet  Crudville themselves, standing at 66-83 to the Cruds' 70-80 as of this morning.

And our fourth and perhaps most notable turning of the earth?

Red Bull's Max Verstappen did not win the Singapore Grand Prix.

In fact, Red Bull didn't win it.

In fact, Verstappen and Sergio Perez, his Red Bull teammate, finished fifth and eighth -- which made it the first time all season a Red Bull driver not only didn't win, but didn't even make the podium.

Your winner was Carlos Sainz and Ferrari, a big ol' drink in a generally thirsty season for the Scuderia. Lando Norris of McLaren was second, and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes rounded out the podium.

No word on whether or not the ground actually did tremble beneath them.

Inevitability strikes again

 The problem with the modern NFL is the hits keep comin', and they are not love taps. They are like blows with a sledghammer, or maybe an 18-wheeler hauling ass down a two-mile grade.

Thus, guys get hurt.

Thus, Anthony Richardson got hurt yesterday, in just second NFL start, while scoring his second touchdown of the day in what would ultimately be a 31-20 victory for the Indianapolis Colts over the sorry Houston Texans.

He went off after being concussed on a 15-yard sprint to the house barely six minutes into the game, his head bouncing off the turf like a Superball. Off he went, on came Gardner Minshew, and now the discussion begins about whether or not Richardson's next-level physical gifts are as much curse as blessing.

There will always be the temptation with him to design packages that make use of his legs as well as his arm, because when a guy is bigger than some linebackers (6-4, 244 pounds) and faster than most, why wouldn't you take advantage of that? Especially when his arm is a powerful scattergun still trying to become something more accurate.

But, again, it's the NFL. The hits are going to keep coming. And guys who occasionally tuck it and run, even if they're really good at it, are going to be the recipient of those hits.

And so, in Week 1, Richardson scuffed up a knee and an ankle.

And in Week 2, he suffered a concussion.

And, yeah, he ran for 35 yards and two touchdowns in three carries before he left the game, giving the Colts a 14-0 head start. The good with the bad, you might say. 

How much the latter outweighs the former will define the season for the Horseshoes. Call it inevitable.

Where we live now

 In the country where we live now, a college campus (North Carolina) gets locked down twice in two weeks because some meathead decided to show up on campus packing heat.

In the country where we live now, news organizations in American cities have a new feature: Shooting Of The Day.

In the country where we live now, in one of the cities referenced above, players and spectators at a high school football game flee the field when they hear what they think is gunfire -- only to have police discover it was merely homecoming fireworks.

That happened last night in Indianapolis, at Ben Davis High School. The fact everyone there immediately thought gunfire when they heard some loud bangs speaks volumes about where Indianapolis is as a city, where every city is as a city, where we are as a country.

Fireworks used to just sound like fireworks. Now they sound like gunfire, because gunfire has become the musical score of  too many daily lives in America. It's a musical score as familiar to us now as the theme from "Star Wars", and what it too often precedes is blood and maiming and heartache and funerals, so many damn funerals.

In the country where we live now, some people think this is just America being America. Some people think the Second Amendment guarantees it, that what some people would call anarchy is merely freedom, that the country we live in now is the country our founders envisioned.

And woe betide anyone who disagrees.

The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Grisham, did just that recently, and now she is paying the price for her heresy. Disgusted by a spate of recent shootings in Albuquerque,  she declared a public health emergency and imposed a temporary ban on carrying firearms within the city.

Well, that got the Second Amendment zealots going, of course. They declared that she was violating the Second Amendment scriptures about the right to bear arms. The usual  usual political suspects called her a dictator, shouted tyranny, hollered that she should resign or be removed from office or, I don't know, clapped in irons or something. They falsely accused her of banning gun ownership, although she didn't; her ban merely said you couldn't carry them on the street for a certain period of time.

Eventually a federal judge got involved and issued a restraining order. And so yesterday, Grisham backed down and amended her ban, restricting firearms carry only in public parks and playgrounds.

The zealots won't like that, either, of course. But it makes their argument that she grossly overstepped a bit harder to make.

And you know what?

She probably did overstep initially, at least from a legal standpoint. But not because she's a dictator or her administration tyrannical or any of the other overheated rhetoric coming from the usual suspects.

Sounds more to me like she was fed up with the country where we live now. Sounds to me like she had had it up to here with Shootings Of The Day, and regular lockdowns on our college campuses, and fireworks being mistaken for gunfire at a high school football game because gunfire is where the mind just naturally goes now in calibrated America.

In the country where we live now, you're insane if you're not right there with her at this point. And if you think the answer is more calibration, not less.

That ol' disrespect card

 Deion Sanders' son Shilo has your Excellent Question for this morning, and don't ever tell me college kids don't see the world as clearly as the rest of us. They can, for instance, watch a guy punch himself in the face and wonder what that's all about.

The specific guy we're talking about here is Colorado State football coach Jay Norvell.

Shilo's response was to ask why guys like Norvell keep doing this.

By "this", he meant make it easy for Deion to pull out the disrespect card again, which he doesn't frequently no matter how he has to stretch it out of shape. Last weekend, for instance, Colorado knocked the stuffing out of Nebraska, and Deion's other son -- the Buffaloes star quarterback Shedeur -- said it was because Nebraska coach Matt Rhule disrespected his pops and stood on the Buffs logo at midfield during warmup.

This was pretty thin stuff, but then the disrespect card draws sustenance from thin stuff all the time. Sometimes comically thin stuff.

The latest?

Norvell, whose Rams play Colorado tomorrow in the traditional rivalry game, said he thought it was disrespectful of Deion not to take off his hat and shades during news conferences.

"When I talk to grownups, I take my har and glasses off. That's what my mother taught me," Norvell said on his weekly radio show.

And, OK, so that's some pretty thin stuff, not to mention a bit silly, not to mention plain dumb. Because of course Deion and ran with it. 

"Now he's messing with my mama," Deion said on video this week. "It was just gonna be a good game and they done messed around and made it personal. I'm minding my own business watching some film, trying to get ready, trying to get out here and be the best coach that I could be, and I look up and I read some bull junk that they said about us, once again."

So now the disrespect card is out once more. And once more it's disrespect largely manufactured by and allegedly disrespected.

First off: Norvell never said a word about Deion's mama. He said a word about his mama.

Second off: In other parts of the interview to which he referred, he praised the job Sanders has done in Boulder, and especially praised Shedeur Sanders for playing "at a very high level" and presenting Colorado State with the major task of slowing him down.

Of course, then he laid down HIS disrespect card.

"Our kids came out of those (ESPN College Gameday) interviews really with a chip on their shoulder," Norvell said. "They're tired of all that stuff. They really are tired of it."

Presumably, what he meant was his players are tired of hearing about Colorado and how the Buffs always seem to feel disrespected. In other words, they feel disrespected by the fact the Buffs feel disrespected.

I know. Makes my head spin, too.

When over is truly over

 Look, no one wants to see Colin Kaepernick's fairy tale come true more than me. I'm a sucker for fairy tales like everyone's a sucker for 'em. Maybe more so, because as a retired member of the sportswriting clan I can tell you we're all just rubes looking for the pea under the shell when it comes to heartwarming tales of redemption.

Despite what you may have heard about us.

But I read now that Kap's agent has reached out to the New York Jets, and I put my head in my hands. Yes, the Jets need a QB now that God so cruelly teased them with Aaron Rodgers before blowing up his Achilles four snaps into the season. This means Zach Wilson the Sequel, and heaven knows Jets fans saw enough of the original.

But Colin Kaepernick?

Might as well dust off Joe Willie and suit him up again.

I say this because it's been seven years since Kap took an NFL snap, and seven years is like seventy in quarterback years. And Kap was a backup even then, before he got run out of the league for being too public about black people winding up dead when they shouldn't have in encounters with police.

Knelt for the national anthem, that was his crime. Didn't drop trou and moon the flag. Didn't spit on The Troops or piss on Francis Scott Key's picture. Just knelt silently.

Lotta NFL fans didn't like that, even though more than several routinely hit the head or scratch their asses or continue chatting during the anthem. Which means they weren't really all mad about Kaepernick "disrespecting America" like they said, but about why he was doing it. Hell, if he'd been protesting gun laws or Mexican illegals, they might have been applauding him.

But Kap's protest wasn't politically correct, at least with the NFL power base. So he was blackballed. And that was simply wrong.

In a perfect world -- a fairy tale world -- that means the Jets would sign Kap and he'd lead them to the Super Bowl, and all of us in the sportswriting clan would be absolutely writing the hell out of it.

But after seven years away from the game?

Not gonna happen. Couldn't possibly happen. The Packers will dig up Bart Starr and start him Sunday against the Falcons first. Ditto the Washington Commanders and Sammy Baugh.

No, sir. Unfortunately, Kap's just another guy channeling John Blutarski these days.

Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing's over until we decide it is!

Yeah, um, about that, Kap.

Dude. It's over.

'Bye, guy

 And now, from the Blob's Good Things Come To Those Who Wait file ...

Luis Rubiales, the galactic tool who was president of the Spanish soccer federation, announced his resignation over the weekend.

This a few weeks after he got up in front of his own federation's general assembly and defiantly, and repeatedly, said he'd never resign on account of Spanish women's star Jenni Hernandez was lying about him forcing a kiss on her after Hernandez and Co. won the World Cup.

This after his federation backed him to the hilt, essentially calling Hernandez a liar/

This after every woman who won the Cup for Spain said they'd never play for the national team again if Rubiales (and his pet coach, Jorge Vilda, whom the women despised) wasn't gone.

This after the federation, still backing Rubiales' play, responded by saying the women had an "obligation" to play for the national team, even though they don't.

All the Blob has to say about this is stuff happens.

Stuff like the women's boycott. Stuff like protests breaking out all over in support of Hernandez. Stuff like even players for the men's national side speaking out, saying the federation's actions were unacceptable.

Public pressure can be a terrible, fascist, despicable thing when used by the unscrupulous to mislead and incite the uninformed. Or it can be a good thing.

This is the latter, because first Vilda was fired and now Rubiales has stepped down, and the Spanish fed's misogynist leanings have been both exposed and routed. And it happened largely because of massive public pressure.

I don't know how you score that. But the Blob scores it a W for simple decency.

Today in dumb ideas

Well, lookie here. Another idea whose time is dumb.

Saw the other day that college hoops journo Seth Davis is reporting that Fox Sports is angling  to bring us yet another men's basketball tournament, this one including all the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 schools that didn't make the real tournament. It would be played in Las Vegas in late March.

I can't tell you how eagerly I await this. Oh, wait, I don't.

I mean, we already have the NIT for those teams that didn't make the real tournament. No one watches it that I know of. Yet somehow Fox thinks there's a burgeoning Losers Backet market out there that's fairly hungering for more losers?

We already tried this years ago with the blessedly short-lived Collegiate Commissioners Association tournament, which teams that didn't make the real tournament were required to play. Its most famous moment was when Bob Knight got teed up one year and said "It's a consolation tournament and we got consolation officials."

(Hat tip to Friend of the Blob Andrew Smith for that nugget)

But, hey. Recycling is what we do in America, even if it's recycling dumb ideas. In that spirit, as a public service, the Blob humbly offers a few possible marketing brands for this particular dumb idea:

1. The Little Dance.

2. March Meh-ness.

3. One Shiner Moment.

4. The Street Sixteen ... the Grateful Eight ... the Vinyl Four ...

And last but not least ...

5. Leftoverpalooza!

A few brief thoughts about NFL Week 1

 And now the long-dreaded, er, awaited return of The NFL In So Many Words, the dreaded, er, extolled Blob feature of which critics have said "Aieee!", and also "God hates us.":

1. "God hates us." (Bears fans, after Don Majkowski or Jerry Tagge or some other random Packers quarterback -- Jordan Love was his name this time -- pounded the goo out of the Bears like usual, 38-20.)

2. "God hates us worse." (Jets fans, after Aaron Rodgers went down with a possible torn achilles FOUR PLAYS INTO THE SEASON, absolutely the most Jets thing ever)

3. "OK, so maybe not." (Also Jets fans, after Zach Wilson -- Zach Wilson! -- pulls the Jets out of a 10-point hole to beat the Bills in overtime)

4. "Think God's mad at YOU? We got ball-peened by the Browns!" (The Bengals, after Joe Burrow laid a  big fat ostrich egg in the Battle of Ohio in a 24-3 loss)

5. "Finally! God hates someone worse than us!" (Lions fans)

6. "Hey! What about us? Didja see what God did to US?" (Giants fans, after sitting in the rain watching the Cowboys remove all their team's vital organs in a 40-0 shutout in the Meadowlands)

7. "God didn't do that. We did. OK, so maybe God's executive assistant Tom Landry helped a little, but still." (The Cowboys)

8. "All we know is, God hates someone else for once, and it's FREAKING AWESOME!" (Lions fans)

9. In other news, God's favorite quarterback, the Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa, carved up the Chargers with the help of God's favorite wide receiver, Tyreek Hill, who caught 11 of Tua's throws for 215 yards and two scores. Also, God's other favorite wide receiver, the Jaguars' Calvin Ridley, caught eight balls for 101 yards and a score in his first game in almost two years)

10. "This is all nonsense. Everyone knows I'm a Coco Gauff fan." (God)

Blue's clues, after one week

 The numbers don't look bad, except for the only one that matters. Let's start with that this morning.

Let's start with Jacksonville 31, Indianapolis 21 and move on quickly on from there, because Jacksonville 31, Indianapolis 21 was about what the more rational among us expected. Ditto the fourth quarter, in which Jacksonville outscored the home team 14-0 and won the game with two touchdowns in the last five minutes.

Travis Etienne got the clincher with 4:08 to play on a 26-yard run garnished with several missed tackles by the Colts. Again, about what the more rational expected.

Anthony Richardson?

The kid did all right, but Colts head coach Shane Steichen wisely didn't ask a lot of him. The game plan for Richardson was very restrained; a few designed runs and a quick-hit passing game that didn't require AR to stretch the field or make a lot of extended reads. 

He finished 24-of-37 for 223 yards and a touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr., who caught eight of Richardson's throws for 97 yards. That worked out to 12.1 yards per catch; all told, Richardson went to nine different receivers for 9.3 yards per reception. Not exactly Air Steichen.

Oh, yeah: Richardson also ran 10 times for 40 yards and another score. And came up limping after his longest run of the day, a 12-yarder.

Turns out it was just a small bruise on his knee, but it was like a small cloud passing over the sun. The more Richardson runs, it seemed to tell us, the more he's likely to get banged up. Especially behind an offensive line that still remains devoid of its mojo, allowing four sacks and coming up empty on that crucial fourth down in the final minute.

The Colts were down 10 at the time, which means Steichen should have taken the field goal and then onside-kicked it. Strategy 101. But an O-line that's being paid what this one can't get less than a yard when it matters?

Revealing stat of the day: The Colts running game averaged 2.5 yards per tote. Their best available option at running back, Deon Jackson, ran 13 times for 14 yards and lost two fumbles. And his backup, rookie Evan Hull, got dinged up.

Conclusion: Jonathan Taylor's bargaining position just got waaay better.

And the Blob's further conclusion?

The Colts are a work in progress. Or just a work.

The progress part remains to be seen.

Stuff they say in East Lansing

 I don't know what they teach up there at Michigan State University, but apparently it isn't learning from one's mistakes. Because they keep finding ways to make the same ones over and over again.

First, they employed a so-called doctor for 20 years who enjoyed sexually molesting some of America's finest women gymnasts.

Now, they've given the football program over to a guy who's being credibly accused of sexual harassment by -- irony of ironies --a woman  who owns a company that tries to raise awareness about sexual misconduct, particularly college athletics.

Her name is Brenda Tracy, and Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker invited to campus to talk to his football players. Then, Tucker alleges, he started hitting on her, sending her gifts, asking if she'd date him, and at one point masturbating during a phone call with her.

Tucker claims the latter was consensual phone sex, which, OK, is still pretty disgusting even if true. In any case, the university suspended him yesterday pending a full hearing.

Here's the kicker: After the 2021 seaso, MSU handed him a gargantuan 10-year extension worth $95 million. Michigan State promptly went 5-7 last year, and the school is still on the hook for $77 million of Tucker's deal.

This is some next-level administrative bungling, and stirs the Blob's notoriously bent powers of imagination to wonder what MSU officials might have said as they stumbled from one dumpster fire to another ...

(Upon hiring Dr. Larry Nassar): "Hey, let's hire Larry Nassar to work with our gymnasts! He's got a sterling reputation!"

(After the first gymnasts accused Nassar of some funky "examinations"): "Oh, my dear, that can't possibly be true! Dr. Nassar has a sterling reputation!"

(After more and more gymnasts started to come forward): "That's nice dear, but, remember, he's got a sterling reputation and you're just a bunch of cutie-pie pixies who are good at tumbling and dismounts and such. So go back to tumbling and dismounts and such and let the grownups worry about Dr. Nassar."

(After the pixies revolted and kept hollering that Nassar was a sicko, and finally he was found guilty of molesting dozens of gymnasts and went to prison): "But he had a sterling reputation!"

(After hiring Mel Tucker as football coach and he went 11-2 and won the Peach Bowl in 2021): "Lookit this guy! I mean, it's only one year, but we should lock him up for the next decade 'cause obviously the Spartans are gonna do this EVERY YEAR!"

(After the Spartans went 5-7 in 2022): "Uhhhh ..."

(After Tracy filed her complaint against him and the university investigated, suspended Tucker and now is faced with possibly eating that huge contract): "Uhhhh ..."

Yeesh. They might grow a lot of stuff up there in East Lansing, for all I know. But they sure can't grow a clue.

Home openers

The Indianapolis Colts kick off their 40th season today with their 40th home opener, and there will be tailgating and lots of No. 15 jerseys (for Anthony Richardson) and No. 28 jerseys (for the absent Jonathan Taylor), and probably a fair number of No. 18s (Peyton) and No. 12s (Andrew), too. Heck, there might even be some random 63s (Jeff Saturday) and 21s (Bob Sanders).

And, of course, there also will be the unreasonable expectations that are the province of all home openers everywhere, from Indianapolis to the Meadowlands to Miami.

What that means are a lot of the jersey-wearers are going to be yea shocked if the Colts don't light up the Jaguars today. Which they probably won't.

What it also means, because 40 is one of those round numbers that tug at the memory, that I'm remembering the first home opener in 1984, and how unreasonable expectation is as long-standing an NFL staple as brats, dogs and the $12 beer.

Lucas Oil Stadium wasn't even a glimmer that day; the Colts' home office was the Hoosier Dome just to the north, now a long-gone ghost. I was there as a credentialed media gnome, along with what seemed like half of Indiana. And what I recall most vividly (speaking of unreasonable expectation) is how clueless we all were.

The fans shook down the thunder from the Hoo-Do's plastic sky at all the wrong times; they hadn't yet learned that you're supposed to make noise when the other team has the ball, not when your team does. There was lots of other naivete aloft as well.

We actually thought Mike Pagel was John Unitas or Bert Jones, for one thing.

Also, Curtis Dickey and Randy McMillan were the best backfield duo since Kiick and Csonka.

Also, the Colts D was meaner than a junkyard dog because it featured a guy named Blaise (Winter) and a guy named Nesby (Glasgow), and how could they not have grown up all snarly because their parents named them Blaise and Nesby?

Plus, look at head coach Frank Kush down there, gnawing on a strand of barbed wire. Thinks he's gonna let 'em lose to the pale candy-assed New York Jets?

Well ...

Well, they did lose to the pale candy-assed New York Jets that day, 23-14. And it wasn't Joe Namath who beat 'em, but some guy named Pat Ryan. And the Colts would go on to lose a bunch more games -- 12 in all, out of 16 -- and Frank Kush would be fired before it was over, and it would be three more seasons before the Colts would see the high side of .500.

But you know what?

On that day, it didn't really matter. Because a real live NFL team was playing a home game in Indianapolis, and there was wonder enough in that.

Almost as much wonder as the way 40 years have flown by since.

Tide, rolled

 With just under four minutes left in Tuscaloosa, Ala., last night, Nick Saban's kingdom started to drain itself of red. The residents of Bryant-Denny Stadium -- resplendent in their Derrick Henry jerseys or Jalen Hurts jerseys or, I don't know, Richard Todd jerseys, maybe -- began to head for the exits, first in a trickle and then in a flood.

Roll, Tide, indeed.

And, OK, so that was mean. But out on the field, the Tide was Rollin', though not in the direction 'Bama Nation was accustomed to seeing. They were Rollin' downhill towards an L, with another of college football's corporate giants doing the pushing.

Final score in the mighty clash of titan and used-to-be titan: Texas 34, Alabama 24.

Score when the loyalists began surrendering the field: Also 34-24.

Plenty of time for the Tide to mount a comeback, as they'd already done once Saturday evening. Down 13-6 at the half, they'd rallied to take 16-13 lead at the end of three quarters.

But then Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers threw a touchdown pass to Adonai Mitchell 55 seconds into the fourth quarter, and Jonathon Brooks ran five yards for another score, and then Ewers threw another touchdown pass to Mitchell, his third of the night. And the 'Bama faithful, either quitters or astute readers of the prevailing momentum -- you choose -- had seen enough.

And what did it all mean?

Hard tellin'.

You could say it means Saban's grip on the top rung of college football has finally loosened, but some folks said that the year Johnny Manziel shocked him in Tuscaloosa and 'Bama went on to win the national title anyway. So ... maybe not.

And Texas?

Last night was the biggest road win for the used-to-be titans in close to 15 years, which might or might not mean the Longhorns are back to being their old high-falutin' selves. But we've heard this refrain coming out of Austin before, only to see the Longhorns lose to, I don't know, Baylor or someone. So ... again, maybe not.

All I know is how the Roll Tide delegation voted last night.

With its feet.

Purdue 1, Hardest Part 0

 A funny thing happened to Ryan Walters and the Purdue Boilermakers yesterday. They went to a football game and a NASCAR race broke out.

I say this because the Boilers and Virginia Tech got chased off the field by lightning down in Blacksburg, Va., and they didn't come back for five-and-a-half hours. This was reminiscent of some of NASCAR's epic weather delays, which have sometimes stretched the Daytona 500 (and, once, the Brickyard 400) into day-long sit-arounds that began in early afternoon and didn't end until far into the night.

Get it in it takes all night: You want a mantra for the American stock-car boys, that's traditionally been it. (Unless it was "Surely we can squeeze another corporate sponsor into this deal. Here, Chase Elliott, let us slap this Goody's Headache Powders sticker on your helmet visor. It's small, you can see around it.")

Anyway, "Get it in if it takes all night" was what happened in Blacksburg. A noon start turned into an 8 p.m. or so finish after lightning and four inches of rain -- yes, you read that right -- turned Tech's football stadium into an Olympic swimming venue.  

The good news for Purdue was good things came to those who waited. Much, much later, Hudson Card threw for 248, ran for a score and set a record in the individual medley (OK, so not really), and the Boilers outlasted Tech 24-17 to give Walters his first W as a head coach.

Then, in the postgame, Walters resisted the obvious by not quoting Tom Petty.

The waaaaiiiting is the hardest part ...

Strange night in the Apple

 Last night in New York, 19-year-old Coco Gauff became the first American teenager to reach the U.S. Open finals since Serena Williams more than two decades ago, beating Karolina Muchova 6-4, 7-5 in the semis to earn a spot against Aryna Sabalenka, 2023's Australian Open champ.

That was the normal part of the evening's festivities. 

This being the Big Apple, there was also a weird part, to paraphrase Mac Davis in "North Dallas Forty."

Start with an environmental protest that halted the Gauff-Muchova match for almost an hour. Then there was the match itself, which featured an astounding 40-shot rally that Gauff won to force an equally astounding sixth match point. 

Six turned out to be the charm, as Gauff finished off Muchova in a match she likely thought was never going to end. And not just because of the six match points.

There was also the 50 minutes it took officials to remove a protester from the stands.

It took them 50 minutes because (and I am not making this up) he'd glued his bare feet to the concrete floor. I don't know how they got him free, but I'm told it did NOT involve taking a chainsaw to his ankles.

"Foot fault!" a security guard sang out as he fired up the old McCullough, provoking loud guffawing from the crowd ...

OK. So, no.

Wouldn't have been proper tennis etiquette, for one thing. Also, tennis crowds do not guffaw, even in New York.

In any event, play resumed, Gauff survived, and now her 19-year-old self is in the finals. And if you combine that with the fact Sabalenka needed three sets to subdue another American, Madison Keys, in the other semifinal ... and yet another American, Ben Shelton, plays in the men's semis today after beating yet ANOTHER American, Frances Tiafoe, in the quarters ... 

Well. All that talk we've been hearing about an American resurgence in tennis seems not to be just talk. And that's a good thing for both 'Murica and tennis.

Strange nights in the Apple notwithstanding.

Roarin'

 Got a friend from Detroit who posts one of two images on his social media in the fall, depending on what his chronically doomstruck Detroit Lions do on any given Sunday.

If they lose, which has been often, he posts a photo of Bobby Layne, the last quarterback to win an NFL title for the Lions and the namesake of the fabled (at least in Detroit) Curse of Bobby Layne.

If they win, which has been not nearly so often, he posts a photo of cornbread with the caption "Cornbread for everyone!" or something similar.

In my mind's eye this morning, I see pans and pans of cornbread on my friend's social, mountains of cornbread, steaming hot and melt-y with butter.

I say this because his Lions marched into Kansas City last night and -- on national TV in the kickoff game to the NFL season -- did not Lions it up. The Blob was fearful that was going to happen, because the Lions are the Lions and everyone was pumping them full of unaccustomed air, and it would been customarily Lions-ish for deflate all that by going into Arrowhead and falling flat on their faces against Patrick Mahomes and the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs.

But they didn't!

In fact, they beat Mahomes and the Chiefs, 21-20!

("Why are you using exclamation points?" you're asking now)

I don't know. Just seemed appropriate, given everything.

Anyway, the Lions won, and head coach Dan Campbell showed off his big brass grapes by running a fake punt on his own 17-yard line early on. It was a dumb thing to do, but he got away with it, and it set a tone.

The rest was Jared Goff passing passably enough and Bears refugee David Montgomery running passably enough, and a rookie DB named Brian Branch taking an interception 50 yards to the house. The last time a Lions rook did something that noteworthy, his name was Lem Barney, and it was Green Bay legend Bart Starr he was pick-sixing -- 56 years ago.

The Lions also beat the defending Super Bowl champs that day, by the way. Harmonic convergence.

Anyway, what was revealed is that the Lions might actually not be the Lions this year, if you know what I mean. Also, Mahomes is not Mahomes without his trusty sidekick Travis Kelce, who sat this one out with an iffy knee. 

Besides the pick six, his wideouts dropped passes like they thought they were Indianapolis Colts.  When a Lions fourth-down pass failed at midfield and Mahomes got the ball back with 2:30 to play, it was his receivers who betrayed him: Kadarius Toney dropped a potential 20-yard gain, Skyy dropped another ball, and the O-line got called for holding, erasing a deep ball that actually was caught.

Meanwhile, Goff was an efficient 22-of-35 for 253 yards and a score. He was sacked only once.

And the Lions won!

Sorry, Those exclamation points, they creep up on ya.

Dream stealers

 The rules are clear and the penalties severe.

- Former IHSAA commissioner Gene Cato

Oh, if only that were so, Gene, wherever you are in the heavens above. If only that were so.

I covered high school sports in Indiana for 40 years, and in that time I heard Gene's famous quote more times than I can count. It was intended to illustrate the IHSAA's strict adherence to fair play and intolerance for the shenanigans that were the enemy of fair play. Unfortunately the reality has always been far more complicated.

Which is to say, the rules are only clear to the IHSAA, and far more malleable than Gene let on. And if the penalties are indeed severe, they can also be thoughtless, and the very antithesis of fair play.

Black-and-white adherence to black-and-white rules only works when there are no shades of gray. And, buddy, life is every shade of gray you can imagine.

Don't know if you've read this, or if the paywall will allow you to, but down in Indianapolis one of the best journalists in the state -- Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star -- posted a meticulously reported story about an extremely gray situation at Indian Creek High School in tiny Trafalgar. It's an ugly story that involves the IHSAA and its rulebook, school administrators, and  a petty old boy network that protects its own at the expense of the kids whose interests it allegedly serves.

You can read it here, if the paywall lets you. If not, allow the Blob to give you the Reader's Digest condensed version. 

It's all about a pretty good high school linebacker named Kohlton Scoggan, who dreamed of perhaps getting a small-college football scholly so he could afford to go to school. He was a member in good standing of Indian Creek's football team until one of the assistant coaches got caught sending creepy Snapchat messages to Scoggan's 15-yer-old sister. After the family quite understandably took out a restraining order against this garden slug, Scoggan was suddenly persona non grata.

According to the family and some of Scoggan's teammates, the head football coach started trying to smear the kid, to the point of coercing some team members to sign statements accusing Scoggan of destroying a mailbox. He apparently didn't do it -- his teammates were making light of his fallen status by basically joking "I bet Scoggan did it" -- and even the school agreed.

Yet it added fuel to a situation that had become untenable. And so, in February, Scoggan transferred to Greenwood for his senior year.

Indian Creek officials immediately contested his football eligibility. Despite the obvious pettiness of this, the IHSAA backed the school's play and declared him ineligible for football. The rules are clear, remember?

Except ...

Except, not really.

As the Blob noted, there's always been a certain capriciousness to that hallowed rulebook, especially where student transfers are concerned. I remember a particular instance from decades back where a standout girl swimmer at Anderson High School transferred to Carmel, allegedly because her dad had taken another job. It was only the purest coincidence that she was transferring to a high school with the state's best girls swim team.

The IHSAA said okey-dokey to that.

It told Kholton Scoggan to take a flying leap, even though the circumstances practically screamed for a little discretion. Not to say compassion.

Apparently, however, that's not in the IHSAA rulebook. Nor, apparently, is it in the hearts of the alleged educators at Indian Creek High School, who contested the kid's eligibility to begin with out of what seems nothing more than childish spite. 

Trying to steal a kid's dream instead of helping it come true: Half my family members were educators, and yet somehow I don't remember that being part of their job description. Perhaps I was misinformed.

Instead, I'm left only with Gene Cato.

The rules are clear, and the penalties severe.

Well. At least he got the second part right.

Up goes the curtain

 The monolithic presence that is the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League returns tomorrow night, not to leave us alone until February. That's a lot of Hank Williams Jr. or Carrie Underwood or whoever's doing the Sunday/Monday/Thursday night bumper music to wade through, not to mention several truckloads of over-analysis and over-analysis of the over-analysis.

And don't forget the usual doomsaying when someone who looked like a Super Bowl contender in August starts 0-2.

Thursday it begins with the Chiefs and the Lions on national TV, and I hope for the sake of all long-suffering Lions fans their boys don't Lions it up like usual. Lots of folks in lots of places are jacked up about the Honolulu-blue-and-silver, apparently having forgotten that the chronically "meh" Jared Goff is still their quarterback, and that they were 9-8 and not 11-6 or 12-5 or something like that,

Anyway, here's to 'em. Show America you've got what they say you've got, Kittens.

Some other thoughts:

* Speaking of hype, here's to the Noo Yawk Jets, too. Their delusional fan base, along with plenty of delusional TV poodles, think this could be their year now that 69-year-old Aaron Rodgers is helming the offense. They've got Dalvin Cook and Breece Hall in the backfield! They've got 2022 rookie sensation Garrett Wilson at wideout! They've got Aaron Bleeping Rodgers!

(And OK, he's only 39, not 69. The point -- that he's left a lot of tread on the road in almost 20 years as an NFL quarterback -- pertains.)

Anyway, serious people are seriously considering the Jets as a possible Super Bowl team, forgetting they're still the Jets. They'll lose twice to the Patriots because they always lose to the Patriots. The Bills and Josh Allen are still around, and the Dolphins figure to not be a doormat. And that's just in the division.

And don't even try to convince me that if the Jets do the Jets thing and lose a game or two they shouldn't, Old Man Aaron won't start shouting at clouds again.  And the New York media will give him the world's largest bullhorn with which to do so.

I see crushing disappointment ahead for the wearers of the green. But, of course, they're Jets fans, so they're used to that.

* Speaking of the Chiefs, the inclination here is to simply pencil in Patrick Mahomes and Co. for Super Sunday and be done with it. But the injury bug has already bitten them -- Travis Kelce went down with a hyper-extended knee the other day -- and if you believe in omens and portents as fervently as the Blob does, that's not a good one.

Also, Chris Jones, the anchor of their D, is still in holdout mode.

So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that even though they're the best organization in football right now, this will not be their year.

* And speaking of predictions ...

Here are a few more. Clip and save for future ridicule:

* The Bills will go 13-4 or 14-3, win the AFC East and flame out in the playoffs again.

* Russell Wilson will resume being Russell Wilson even though that mean Sean Payton won’t let him hang with his personal trainer.

* Justin Fields will be much better, the Bears will be much better, but all that means is they'll go 8-9 or 9-8 and fight with the Packers for last in the NFC North.

* Speaking of the Packers, Jordan Love will be OK but not great, and all of Green Bay will complain because he's not an all-timer like the previous two guys - forgetting how unbelievably lucky they were to get two all-timers in a row.

* Dallas will be Dallas. Which is to say, no Supe for you, Cowboys fans.

* Minnesota will be Minnesota. Which is to say, no Supe for you, either, Vikings fans -- although they'll manage to win the NFC North again despite the prevailing sentiment that their time is done.

* In San Francisco, Brock Purdy will not be another Tom Brady after all. But he won't be Cindy Brady, either, and the Niners will get to the Super Bowl this time.

* Where they'll face the Bengals, who'll go on a tear once they get Joe Burrow back.

All for now.

Wading into the revenue stream

 The Blob holds no particular brief for Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh, who's a trifle slippery and sometimes has too nodding an acquaintance with the truth. It's why the NCAA's on his case and he's sitting out a three-game suspension levied by his university, which hopes it will soften the inevitable blow.

But sometimes the man does have a clear eye. Maybe the clearest.

Last week he got up at his weekly presser and essentially presented a white paper on the current NIL/transfer portal mess, which the NCAA brought on itself. The suits and academics who run the show there couldn't bring themselves to simply declare their workforce a workforce, so they introduced a stopgap measure that would allow the workforce to cut its own financial deals.

Thus, the NIL. Thus, college football and basketball can still maintain the fiction of the student-athlete, and the myth of academic purity that comes with it.

Harbaugh said last week that won't fly.

He said, and not for the first time, that universities and athletic conference should cut the bullspit and institute revenue sharing.

"The current status quo is unacceptable, and won't survive," Harbaugh said. "In my opinion, when we capitalize on the talent, we should pay the talent for their contributions to the bottom line."

Abso-effin'-lutely. Every word.

Seismic conference realignment has forever shattered the illusion big-boy college football and basketball are anything but professional corporate enterprises, so enough with that noise. It's Big Ten Inc. and SEC Inc. and ACC Inc. now, driven by the same imperatives that drive Microsoft or Amazon or Dow Chemical. 

What we've seen the last couple years -- the SEC raiding the Big 12 for its two signature brands (Texas and Oklahoma); the Big Ten initiating a hostile takeover of the Pac-12 -- is nothing more than mergers and acquisitions. It's AT&T swallowing Time-Warner, Google gobbling up Android, Disney scooping Pixar/Marvel.

The ACC, meanwhile, just voted to add SMU and Pac-12 refugees Cal and Stanford, thereby rendering its very name (Atlantic Coast Conference) as obsolete as the Model T.

All of this is about cashing in on the TV money that flows like water and generates billions for the Big Ten, the SEC, the Big 12, the ACC. And all of it the conferences and universities keep because ... well, because revenue sharing with the "student-athletes" who are the product the teevees are buying would mean the end of the fantasy.

But, again, that fantasy died a long time ago. It died the first time one of the big football or basketball schools paid Coach eight, nine, ten million a year just to coach football or basketball. It died the moment they decided Coach was not faculty who actually taught classes (as coaches used to back in the day), but the CEO of an enterprise wholly separate from the university's academic mission.

And if that's what you are, you should operate accordingly. Acknowledge your workforce is a workforce, and pay it accordingly.

Harbaugh, who coached in the NFL and thus understands how corporations work, sees that perhaps clearer than most. Which is why he sees through the sham to the reality.

Enough with the NIL dodge, he says. If you're gonna quack like a duck, be a duck.

Damn skippy.

Rooting disinterest

 I am what you might call an ecumenical college football fan.

By that I mean I love college football, but not necessarily specifically. I went to a MAC school (Ball State) that's occasionally good, sometimes really good, but mostly a shade of beige that blends in well with the autumn palette. Once in awhile the Cardinals will jump up and beat Indiana, but given Indiana's own gridiron history that's not exactly like summiting Everest.

Frankly it's more fun when the Cards tattoo Central Michigan, those schlubs from Mount Pleasant..

Anyway, when I watch college football, it's usually without a rooting interest. Upsets are especially pleasant, but one's no more pleasant than another. And I watch rivalry games as much for what has gone before as for what happens that day, history dork that I am.

However.

However, last night I did have a rooting interest. Or an anti-rooting interest, if you prefer.

I watched No. 5 LSU and No. 8 Florida State hoping to see both teams lose.

I wanted to see LSU lose because I wanted to see Brian Kelly lose. I wanted to see him lose because he's a big phony who denied his way out of South Bend right up until he left South Bend in a cloud of peeling rubber. Told his Notre Dame players (who came there to play for Notre Dame, but also for Brian Kelly) this, essentially: Hey, it's been great, but I'm outta here. Have a great life, because you know I will, seeing how LSU is paying me a hella wad.

Now, I'm not particularly a Notre Dame fan (again, that ecumenical thing). But the way Kelly dropped it like a hot rock as soon as LSU batted its eyes at him rubbed me the wrong way.

And Florida State?

I wanted the Seminoles to crash and burn because of the way they flapped their gums this summer about how they'd gotten too big for their sad little conference. They hadn't done squadoosh in six years, but last season they went 10-4 and suddenly they were swaggering around like Bobby Bowden was back from the dead and it was the 1990s again.

They needed a bigger wedge of the pie, FSU's president said, or the ACC could kiss 'em goodbye. They were, after all, Florida State. They were a brand. Clemson regularly pounded lumps on 'em and Notre Dame, too, a lot of years, but never mind that. They weren't the Seminoles.

You can see why I wanted to see the Seminoles get their arses handed to 'em, too.

Well, you know what happened. Brian Kelly and LSU went down like the Hindenburg, which was more than OK. But it was the Seminoles who torched 'em, 45-24, and that left me thinking "Oh, crap, now they're really gonna run their mouths."

In fairness, they looked damned good, and like all teams these days who look damned good the transfer portal has been kind to them. Jordan Travis threw for 342 yards and four scores, and 226 of those yards and three of those scores came from Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson, who caught 16 balls between them. 

Coleman's a refugee from Michigan State. Wilson came to Tallahassee by way of Arizona State. So it goes.

And so it went last night, with the corresponding mix of emotion. Watching Kelly get trounced on national TV was all kinds of fun. Watching Florida State do the trouncing, not so much.

But you know what?

Give me a mix of emotion over no emotion any day.

Prime's time

 Oh, hell, let Deion Sanders gloat all he wants. He earned it yesterday.

That was, after all, a great big howdy-do to Great Big College Football yesterday, taking the Colorado Buffaloes down to TCU and strapping a 45-42 loss on a team that played in the national championship game last year. It was the biggest W folks in Boulder had seen in several epochs, and proof (at least for now) that Coach Prime isn't just sequins and glitter and over-the-top branding.

So, yeah, let him say I told ya so. You can even let him say it over and over and over, the way he did yesterday in the posrgame.

However.

However, let's also acknowledge its disingenuousness.

Deion had a right to tell us making his kid his starting quarterback wasn't nepotism after all, because the kid (Shedeur Sanders) threw for 510 yards and four touchdowns on 38-of-47 passing, setting the school record for passing yards in a game in his very first start. Travis Hunter, playing both ways, caught 11 of Shedeur's throws for 119 yards and had an interception as defense.

Coach Prime, who brought both players with him from HBCU Jackson State, crowed that, see, he told you his Jackson State guys could play at any level you threw at 'em.

However.

However, it should be noted that Hunter was the No. 2 recruit in the country in 2022 and turned down Florida State to play for Deion at Jackson State. So it wasn't like he was your typical Jackson State recruit.

Same with Shedeur, who was a four-star recruit coming out of high school. Same with a whole pile of other Colorado kids, hardly any of whom played for the 1-10 dumpsite that stunk up Boulder last year.

Fact is, that Colorado team is effectively gone. The one that took the field in Fort Worth yesterday was brand new, because Coach Prime brought in 86 new players -- all of them way better players, presumably.

So, yeah, let the man gloat. But pull the reins on the hype a bit.

I know. Too late.

A different kind of same-old

 Saturday afternoon, and I'm watching Indiana assume the position for its usual racking from the Ohio State Buckeyes, and ... wait, what?

Is that an IU guy blasting an Ohio State running back into next Wednesday?

Is that another IU guy taking down another Ohio State running back behind the line of scrimmage?

Is that yet another IU guy swatting down a slant pass seemingly destined for six?

"Dang, there's 44 (Aaron Casey) in Ohio State's backfield again!" I'm saying. "He should rent a condo."

Then I'm looking at the score, which says Ohio State 10, Indiana 3 as halftime approaches. Then I'm wondering if that's an actual defense I'm seeing on the Indiana side, because I've never seen one and thus am not quite sure.

Well ... it is. I think. We'll see.

All I know is this was a different Indiana team I was watching yesterday (thanks, transfer portal!), and also the same Indiana team. Which is to say the defense gave Ohio State fits for awhile instead of fits of laughter like usual, but the Hoosiers lost anyway, 23-3.

But at least they lost differently.

Back in the day, see, Indiana could score points in bunches in its good years, but they'd lose anyway because the defense gave up points in bushel baskets. Yesterday all that was reversed.

The Indiana D was aggressive, it stuck people, it was nasty until the Buckeyes wore it down, Casey had a whole season in one day, making nine solo tackles, 11 total and one tackle for loss. The Hoosiers held all-world wideout Marvin Harrison to just two catches for 18 yards, and had five tackles for loss.

The offense, meanwhile ...

Well. The offense looked as if it couldn't have moved the football against thin air.

IU coach Tom Allen started Brendan Sorsby at quarterback, yanked him after two impotent series for Tayven Jackson, and generally gave every evidence that he doesn't really have a starting quarterback. Maybe that's why naming his starter was a gametime decision.

Jackson was marginally better than Sorsby, but only marginally. In the end, the Hoosiers huffed out just eight first downs and 153 total yards, were 4-15 on third down and 0-2 on fourth, and averaged just 2.2 yards on the ground. Simple forward motion ought to get you 2.2 yards a carry, but, nah.

So to sum up: The defense gave the offense a chance for once instead of the other way around. But the offense said (again), nah.

I don't know if this means we'll see the usual Indiana this fall, only wearing its clothes backward. I'm betting yeah, but I was betting Purdue wouldn't give up 39 points to Fresno State yesterday and lose its home opener 39-35. So what do I know.

A few collegiate thoughts

 I knew the first full weekend of college football had commenced because the air coming in the windows last night was September-cool, and on my TV screen something that looked vaguely like a Big Ten game was happening.

It was Nebraska vs. Minnesota wallowing around up there in Minneapolis, and, man, it was as beige you can get. I think Minnesota won, 13-10. Everyone who watched it lost, because, as is usually the case on Labor Day weekend, the football was ... well, not what it will be come October.

But, hey: College football is college football. And now that it's back in full, here are a few Blobby thoughts to get the holiday weekend started:

* My Ball State Cardinals open at Kentucky of the SEC, part one of the administration's plot to kill the football team in the womb. That's because next week the Cardinals travel to Athens, Ga., to play the top-ranked and back-to-back national champion Georgia Bulldogs.

And here we thought live sacrifices went out with the Aztecs.

Of course, there's always the chance this is the Blob's natural pessimism talking, and the Cardinals put a brave fight tomorrow and next Saturday. And maybe half the team does not wind up on the disabled list with old rival Indiana State coming to Muncie in week three.

In any event. that guarantee-game money should fatten the athletic budget in fine style. Tennis and field hockey and the rest of the "non-revenue" sports thank you for your service, gentlemen.

* Speaking of live sacrifices, Indiana opens the season in Bloomington tomorrow against an Ohio State team that's apparently as Ohio State-y as ever. 

There's been the usual quantity of happy talk out of Bloomington this offseason about how nasty and get-after-it the Indiana defense will be and how the transfer portal -- which brought quarterback Tayven Jackson and nine defensive linemen to town, among others -- has been extremely generous. I guess we'll see.

The Blob's pessimism suspects what we'll see is something like Ohio State 35, Indiana 10. But, you know, that's just me.

*  In West Lafayette, Purdue unveils the Ryan Walters Era in Ross-Ade against Fresno State, and we'll see if the happy talk coming out of Boilerville this offseason is justified, too. Walters has installed the defensive system that gave opponents fits at Illinois last year, and Quarterback U. has Texas transfer Hudson Card all ready to plug into Aidan O'Connell's old spot, and running back Devin Mockobee is ready for more after a breakout redshirt freshman year. 

(For what it's worth, I like Purdue's prospects better than Indiana's at this point. But, again, that's just me.)

And last but not least ...

* Up in Ann Arbor, meanwhile, Michigan takes on East Carolina in the Big House, the first of three games head coach Jim Harbaugh has to sit out thanks to a self-imposed university suspension. It's the cringe-mode strategy schools always employ when the NCAA's about to drop the hammer on a misbehaving coach and they're trying to soften the blow.

Of course, it's no kind of penalty at all. The three games Harbaugh will have to sit out are lunch items: East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green. Fielding Yost could hang up Ws in those three games, and he's been dead for 77 years.

Some punishment phase, UM.