Da Prediction*

 (*Sort of)

By which I mean, I don't know who's going to win the big monster mash between unbeaten, top-ranked Ohio State and unbeaten, second-ranked Indiana tonight in Lucas Oil Stadium. My gut tells me it'll be the Buckeyes, on account of no one in college football has more pure talent stacked up and down the depth chart.

So, sorry, Indiana. You can take solace in my track record in these matters, which is sort of like Germany's record in world wars (to shamelessly steal from the late, great Dan Jenkins).

Anyway, when I mean my prediction is only a sorta prediction, it's because predicting who wins is not what it's about. It's about predicting what happens if the Hoosiers actually do pull off the upset.

I figure two a number of things will happen:

1. The people who've been saying all season Indiana is a total fraud because, well, it's Indiana and Indiana can't possibly be this good at football, are going to say,"Well, they only really had to prepare for one game all season."

2. After which they'll say, "Well, Ohio State wasn't really that good. I mean, who did they play? Michigan? Please."

3. After which they'll also say, "So, you know, once again, Indiana hasn't really been tested. Why, just wait'll (choose one) Georgia/Ole Miss/Texas Tech/Texas A&M/Oregon gets hold of the Hoosiers. They'll come apart like the polyester Armani knockoff they are."

4. After which someone will surely say, "Um, the Hoosiers already beat Oregon. By 10. In Eugene."

5. After which the people who've been saying all season Indiana is a total fraud because, well, it's Indiana and Indiana can't possibly be this good at football will say, "Yeah, well, Oregon's overrated, too. And the Ducks had an off day. And ... and ... AND NOTRE DAME'S A FRAUD, TOO, HOW CAN MIAMI NOT BE RANKED AHEAD OF THE IRISH ON ACCOUNT OF THE 'CANES DESTROYED THEM BY THREE POINTS BACK IN AUGUST??"

Of course, should Indiana lose tonight -- especially if it loses big -- none of the above will apply, except the Notre Dame stuff. Although the gloating will surely be disgusting.

Please, God. Spare us.

The Chair 2 ...

 ... and, like most sequels, it wasn't as good as the original.

The original, of course, starred the late Robert Montgomery Knight in one of his most iconic roles, Angry Seating Dude. In that one, he sailed an orange molded plastic chair across the Assembly Hall floor in the middle of a game against archrival Purdue, prompting his immediate rejection and unleashing 40 years of chair jokes, memes and even a dependable laugh line from Knight himself, who puckishly said he was only trying to provide seating for a little old lady.

The sequel?

Well, it happened last night up in Wisconsin, where Green Bay lost another college basketball game to Robert Morris, and another basketball coach threw another chair. This time it was Doug Gottlieb, former ESPN yakker and now the head coach of Green Bay, which stands 4-6 on the season after going 4-28 in Gottlieb's first year.

Last night, his Phoenix were sailing toward a W when, with a smidge fewer than four minutes to play, everything came part like wet single-ply. Down 11 with 3:54 left, Robert Morris rallied to cut the lead to two with 35.7 seconds left, forced a 10-second violation and splashed a three-ball to take the lead, then won it on a layup with 2.4 seconds showing after Green Bay tied the game with a free throw.

An understandably annoyed Gottlieb stalked off the floor, spied a blameless chair in the entryway and threw it against the wall.

Voila. "Chair 2."

And, look, even though it didn't have the dramatic je ne sais quoi of the original, it did raise awareness about an issue vital to ... well, at least a couple people, maybe: Furniture abuse in college basketball. 

Of course, you can say two incidents in four decades isn't much of an issue, but even one abused chair is too many. This is why Gottlieb needs to be severely punished for his actions, and Green Bay needs to institute a Chair Abuse Awareness Program with funding from, I don't know, Barcalounger or La-Z Boy or someone.

"OK, now you're just being silly, Mr. Blob," you're saying now.

Perhaps. But I bet that chair doesn't think so.

Green Bay was up by 11 with 3:54 left in the game before Robert Morris launched a late rally. With its lead cut to two with 35.7 seconds to go, Green Bay was called for a 10-second violation when it couldn't advance the ball past midcourt. After Robert Morris hit a go-ahead 3 and Green Bay went 1-of-2 from the free throw line to tie the score, Nikolaos Chitikoudis scored the winning layup for Robert Morris with 2.4 seconds to play.

A real boy after all

 Chatted the other night with an IU basketball fan about Zach Edey, who of course played for Purdue and would therefore seem to be, on general principle, an object of ridicule for said fan.

Surprisingly, he agreed that Edey was pretty damn good after all, and not just tall like his detractors always said.

"Yeah, he's a better Uwe Blab with better hands," the IU fan said at one point, after I mentioned that among Edey's skills was a pair of quality mitts.

Which of course got us reminiscing about Uwe's legendarily bad hands, which -- as the IU fan pointed out -- didn't keep him from playing in the NBA for several years.

Five years, to be exact. With the Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. Averaged 2.1 points and 1.8 rebounds. I looked it up.

Zach Edey, it must be said, is faring a bit better than that.

Twenty-two games into the season he's averaging a modest double-double for the Memphis Grizzlies -- 14.2 points and 11.6 rebounds per, on astounding 67.1 percent shooting. And in his last three games, he's quietly put together some sit-up-and-take-notice numbers.

Against San Antonio two nights ago: 19 points, 15 rebounds and a block.

Against Sacramento two nights before that: 32 points, 17 rebounds and five blocks.

Against the Clippers last Friday: Just five points, but 19 boards, a couple of assists and three more blocks.

He is, in other words, exactly what some of us (OK, so me) figured he would be: An effective, sneaky-mobile low-blocks presence in a league that still occasionally needs one.

No, he's never going to a big scorer, because it's not a back-to-the-basket league anymore. But neither the Grizzlies nor anyone else expected him to be. He is, rather, exactly what the Grizzlies were looking for when they took him with the ninth pick in the 2024 NBA draft, shocking the gurus who figured he'd be lucky to go in the first round:

A rebounder. A rim protector. A reliable inside option on those occasions when you need an inside option.

But of course, he's just tall.

And he has no skills.

And he's waaay too much the big galoot to ever make a ripple in the NBA.

Well. Look out there now, as Zach Edey one-hands a pass that's headed out of bounds and cashes the layup. What do you see?

Me, I see a ripple or two. And a real boy after all.

An oldie but oldie

 (In which the Blob again strays from the friendly confines of Sportsball World. You know the drill.)

I knew it was December again when I waded into the social media muck Monday, and there was President Donald John "Legbreaker" Trump standing in front of a Christmas tree in the White House. He was declaring victory in the War on Christmas.

OK, so that's not what he actually said. What he actually said was, "We're saying Merry Christmas again!"

This came as something of a surprise to normal humans (and also to me) who were unaware we'd ever stopped saying Merry Christmas. Or that a War on Christmas was being waged right under our noses amid all those public displays of Christmas trees and Christmas wreaths and lighted Nativity scenes, and Christmas carols playing softly over the sound system at your local Malls-R-Us.

Nonetheless, it's with an admirable bullheadedness that those of a certain ideological bent insist there is a War on Christmas in America, and by extension a war on Christianity. This is because somewhere in America someone won't let them put a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn. Or that somewhere else in America someone is saying "Happy holidays!' at this very moment, recognizing that there are more religious observances this time of year than just Christmas.

This amounts to religious persecution, as far as those folks are concerned. It's the encroachment on American society (going on for years now!) of evil diversity -- even though the founders baked such diversity into our national tradition with a little something called the First Amendment.

It guarantees freedom of religion. It guarantees no particular religion will be instituted as the official religion of the state. It means, yes, Catholics and Protestants and Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists have the same access to the same right.

Recognizing that is not persecution, no matter how badly a certain species of Christian wishes it were. And no matter how silly (and tiresome) the overwhelming dominance of Christianity in America renders their imagined War on Christmas.

It's an oldie but oldie, that stuff. Makes you want to ask the Certain Species when it's going to get some new material.

The Certain Species does, however, make up a sizeable chunk of Fearless Leader's base, and he's smart enough to pander to it. And so there he was, saying it was OK for a President to say Merry Christmas again -- the implication being his heathen Democratic predecessors refused to do so.

Well. Except for the dozens and dozens of times Barack and Michelle Obama, both Christians, said it every year at this time.

And except for the dozens and dozens of times Fearless Leader's predecessor Joe Biden -- a practicing Roman Catholic -- said it, too.

The stubborn notion that both routinely snubbed what Fearless Leader bravely does not was exposed years ago, when Slate magazine put out a one-minute video compilation of Obama saying "Merry Christmas" 17 times. Alas, this was offset by Joe Biden opening his remarks at last year's White House Christmas tree lighting by saying, "Happy holidays, everyone!"

Just kidding.

What he actually said was, "Merry Christmas, everyone! Merry Christmas."

Wow. Not once, but twice.

The War on Christmas never sounded more fanciful.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 13

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature with a surprise prize inside just waiting to jump out and say "Surprise!", and of which critics have said "Sinking to new lows is never a surprise with you," and also, "You jump out and say 'Surprise!', Imma surprise you by jumping on your face":

1. "Surprise!" (The Carolina Panthers, who jumped out and surprised the Super Bowl-bound Los Angeles Rams, causing the previously un-surpriseable Matthew Stafford to throw two picks in a 31-28 loss)

2. "What th-?" (Rams fans who came up with "Super Bowl-bound Rams" thing)

3. "Surprise!" (Joe Burrow, who jumped out, back into the Bengals lineup, to surprise the  Ravens so much they turned it over five times in a 32-14 loss)

4. "What th-? We thought we were facing 80-year-old Joe Flacco again!" (The Ravens)

5. "Surpri- OK, so almost surprise!" (The Commanders, who surprised the high-riding Broncos enough to force overtime before losing 27-26)

6. "I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack!" (The Broncos)

7. "Surpri- OK, so not really." (The surging Texans, who beat the spiraling Colts, who've now lost three of their last four games)

8. Meanwhile, the Bears took down the Eagles 24-15, their fifth straight win and ninth in their last 10 games.

9. "Surprise, bleeping bleepers!" (The Bears)

10. "Double surprise!" (Bears coach Ben Johnson, tearing off his shirt in the locker room afterward and dancing around bare-chested*)

(* - No, really. He did.)

Decisions, decisions, Part Deux

 The shoe finally dropped yesterday in Oxford, Miss., and, well, it went almost exactly the way everyone expected it would.

To wit:

1. Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin took the money and ran to LSU.

2. And, being Lane Kiffin, he was a total douchecanoe about it.

What he did was tell his staff if they wanted to follow him to LSU, they'd best be on the plane to Baton Rouge or he'd leave them behind. This was an attempt to carry out his rumored threat that if he wasn't allowed to coach the Rebels in the College Football Playoff, he'd take his entire staff with him and leave the team and community he professed to love high and dry.

Then he released an official statement that was a masterwork of obfuscation, blaming Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter for not allowing him to stick around for the CFP. And making it sound like he, Lane Kiffin, was the hero in the whole deal for standing by his players.

"My request ... was denied by Keith Carter despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance," the statement read.

In other words: I WANTED to stand by my guys for another minute or two, but the AD wouldn't let me. 

In further other words: Therefore I am throwing him under the bus, driving over him, then backing up to do it again. Even though he revived my faltering career by hiring me when a lot of others wouldn't.

There are words to describe such breathtaking ingratitude, but most I can't repeat here. This is a PG-13 Blob, after all.

Suffice it to say it was nuclear level self-absorption for Kiffin to think Ole Miss would allow him to coach the Rebels in the CFP after he'd already told them he was abandoning them. And not just abandoning them, but abandoning them for a conference rival.

(Somewhere in suburbia. A typical middle class neighorhood.)

Suburban Dad: "Honey, I'm home! And guess what? I'm leaving you for the 25-year-old stripper who lives next door!"

Suburban Mom: "Pack your bags and get out then, mister."

Dad: "Aw, come on. Don't be that way. Think about Junior. Can I still take him on our big fishing trip this weekend? The kid is really looking forward to it, and I'd like to be there for him one last time before I ditch his ass."

Mom: "What?? NO."

Dad: "Well, OK. But he'll be really disappointed when I tell him you wouldn't let him go."

Which of course makes Mom the bad guy.

Which of course means she has to patch things up with her son while Dad hits the bricks with Trudi Kazootie.

Which of course is precisely what Kiffin is doing to Ole Miss.

And, look, it's not as if we didn't know already that loyalty is as obsolete as the rotary phone in the age of NIL and ungoverned transfer portal. But somehow when people wring their hands over the perceived crumbling of college athletics, it's always the athletes who get tagged as faithless carpetbaggers. Yet all they're doing is exactly what Coach Slobberknocker has been doing for decades.

Jumping schools for a chunkier payday, or more exposure, or a better situation. Being a me-first guy even as he preaches teamwork and family and all-for-one, one-for-all. Being the rankest of hypocrites when he bemoans how the kids are just in it for themselves these days.  

I never want to hear that again from anyone. 

Especially if "anyone" is named Lane Kiffin.

For the life of Lem

 A body ought to know by now not to believe everything he or she reads on the internet. Even the good stuff, like Xtwitter posts by Abe Lincoln such as "Fourscore and seven years ago McClellan finally moved his ass", and also, "Jeff Davis has the IQ of a hamster and he smells like one too!"

And speaking of people who are dead ...

Here's someone who isn't: Lem Barney.

If you grew up watching the NFL in the 1960s, you know who Lem Barney is. He's the shutdown corner and return specialist who played on a lot of mediocre Detroit Lions teams during that era -- teams whose quarterbacks went by names like Bill Munson and Milt Plum, and whose best players (aside from Barney) went by names like Mel Farr and Altie Taylor and Charlie Sanders.

In his 10-year career, Barney was the NFL's Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1967, played in seven Pro Bowls and was All-Pro twice. In 1992, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Which is why the HOF put out the sad news Saturday that Lem Barney was dead at the age of 80. Other media sites on the 'net quickly picked it up, including Sports Illustrated, NBC and even the NFL's official website.

Problem was, like the old man in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Lem Barney wasn't dead yet.

His family confirmed that he was, in fact, very much alive, and they were not happy about the HOF reporting otherwise. In fact, it's fair to say they were supremely pissed.

"My brother is fine,"  his sister, Verina Carter, told Tony Paul of the Detroit News. "I don't know where this (expletive) is coming from."

I do. It's the (expletive) internet.

Where I just ran across an Xtwitter denial from a certain A. Lincoln.

"I never said Jeff Davis had the IQ of a hamster," Lincoln posted. "That was one of those parody accounts.

"I said he had the IQ of a gerbil. Get it right, people."