A-portaling we will go

Big fan of comeuppance that it is, the Blob loves him some transfer portal-ing. Few things are more satisfying than watching arrogant institutions get hoist by their own petard -- and the transfer portal is Exhibit A for that in college football.

It's introduced utter chaos into the whole money-grubbing mess, and there's a measure of hilarity in that. After all, it's not every day you see a business go from operating like a plantation ("You are to remain the property of Big Deal U. until WE say you can leave") to complete anarchy ("Aw, hell, go wherever you want whenever you want") in a virtual blink of the eye.

(Also, every time the Blob hears the words "transfer portal", it sees this. Scratch a Blob, find a Trekkie.) 

In any event, the latest portal-ing adventure involves Notre Dame, and in particular Notre Dame's starting quarterback. His name is Drew Pyne, and he lost the job to Tyler Buchner in the preseason and then won it back and kept it after Buchner was injured. All Notre Dame did after that was reel off eight wins in nine games.

Drew Pyne didn't win those games for the Irish, mind you. But he did nothing to lose them, either.

Now he's entering the portal, even though the Blob suspects it was no sure thing he wouldn't have beaten out a healthy Buchner for the job in 2023. This means he won't be playing in whatever bowl game the Irish draw, which is a big deal only to fossils like the Blob.

I mean, let's face it. Here in the Days of Chaos, every postseason game except for three is just a cash-grab exhibition for the schools that didn't make the College Football Playoff. Even the Rose Bowl is likely to get an also-also-ran after Ohio State backs into the CFP thanks to USC blowing it in the Pac-12 championship.

But enough about that. More intriguing is what Pyne entering the portal suggests about Notre Dame and the portal.

Which is that Pyne bailing hints he caught wind of the Irish going portal fishing for their own defector QB.

This sounds more logical than Pyne leaving simply because he might have to beat out Tyler Buchner again. Sounds more like Marcus Freeman either has some disgruntled quarterback on the hook, or he's actively looking for one. 

It's the Days of Chaos, after all. Working the transfer portal is a required skill set for any successful head coach now.

Something else we fossils need to get used to.

Your upset kinda-alert for today ...

... which is another way of saying, this is not where the Blob boldly predicts a mammoth Purdue upset in the Big Ten championship game tonight.

This is where the Blob says it wouldn't be the first time it happened. 

As Adam Rittenberg of ESPN points out here, the reason why the Boilermakers have occasionally been nicknamed the Spoilermakers is because Purdue has an eerie habit of ruining expectations/assumptions on the football field. It's in the Boilers DNA. you might say. So don't go into tonight thinking Michigan's a lock to drop a 45-14 extinction event on the Purdues or anything.

This is not to say it won't happen. It's not to say you won't be able to switch over to "NCIS: New Orleans" reruns at the end of the third quarter. It's just to say it's not a lock.

The assumption is Purdue does not live in the same neighborhood as unbeaten Michigan, especially after the way the Wolverines annihilated archrival (and equally unbeaten) Ohio State in Columbus last weekend. But a couple of things you might want to consider:'

1. Purdue's been a much bigger underdog than 17 points and won. So maybe the Boilers have Michigan right where they want them.

2. Michigan whipped Ohio State largely because the Buckeyes chose to employ an utterly foolish defensive scheme. They basically told the Wolverines "Go deep on us all you want. We won't mind." And even at that, it was a four-point game going into the fourth quarter.

3. Utah 47, USC 24.

That was the score of the Pac-12 title game last night, a game everyone in America assumed USC was going to win. But USC quarterback  Caleb Williams plinked a hammy in the first quarter, Trojans coach Lincoln Riley unaccountably let him play on even though he could barely move by the second half, and the Utes laid a 30-7 lamination on Tommy Trojan in the second half.

This undoubtedly came as a shock to all the social media folks who were already looking forward to USC vs. Georgia after the Trojans jumped out to a 17-3 lead. And who were assuring us all there was NO WAY IN HELL Utah, which earlier handed USC its only loss, could beat the Trojans twice.

Um, well ...

Well, if Jim Harbaugh's as smart as he seems to have gotten this year, he's no doubt made his Wolverines very aware of all that. As has Purdue coach Jeff Brohm with his Boilers.

And so, tee it up.

And take Purdue and the points. Just a suggestion.

Apples, meet oranges

OK, so I wasn't going to say any more about this, but then LeBron James had to speak up. And now I feel compelled to once more point out a few things, most of which should be obvious.

What Lebron said the other day, see, is he was disappointed media types didn't ask him about Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and a 65-year-old photograph, when they were all asking him about Kyrie Irving's little foray into anti-semitism.

I suppose the implication was that the media's reaction was about race, and how society always seems to bang on people of color while letting white folks off the hook.

Now, I've got no beef with LeBron. I think the guy's done a ton of good with the platform he has as the greatest basketball player of his generation. I'd even agree that there are lots of people out there -- a dismaying number, frankly -- who do react differently when it's a black person we're talking about as opposed to a white person. That's just the plain truth.

Problem is, this particular situation is a lousy example of that. Or no example at all.

First off, Kyrie Irving re-posting tired anti-semitic tropes happened, like, yesterday. It's current events. And it involves a prominent current NBA player who happens to have been a teammate of LeBron's. So of course the media asked LeBron about it.

That photo of Jerry Jones?

It was taken in 1957. Jerry Jones was a kid. And all he's doing in the photo is standing at the back of a crowd watching some good old boys harass six black students who are trying to integrate a high school in Little Rock, Ark.

Lots of folks who should know better think this means Jones, who's freaking 80 years old now, is a racist who hasn't changed a bit since he was 14 or 15 years old, even though almost every single person on the face of the earth does. So they think he should publicly denounce racism based on a 65-year-old photo in which he's committing no other offense than rubbernecking.

Sometimes I despair for America.

Look. I don't know much, but I do know that in the 65 years between that photo and today, Jerry Jones likely has denounced racism dozens of times over -- if not in word, then in deed. And if he'd been screaming at those black kids or waving a baseball bat at them or suggestively dangling a noose in front of them with an evil grin, then he'd have some 'splainin to do. Sixty-five years or not.

But he wasn't doing any of that. And so what exactly do people want from him?

Gee, guys, I'm sorry I grew up in Little Rock in the 1950s, and I'm sorry I happened to be there that day 65 years ago, and I'm sorry I got caught rubbernecking because I was a dumb kid who just wanted to see what was going on, like any other dumb kid. I now realize that rubbernecking is racism, and I denounce it.

Something like that? Seriously?

Point is, Kyrie and Jerry Jones are apples and oranges, and that's as clear as a winter's night. I'm disappointed LeBron can't see the difference in context. I'm disappointed a lot of folks can't see that.

Yeesh. Sometimes I REALLY despair for America.

Hoosier (and more) rising

 OK. So now we know know, I guess.

Now what was promised in recruiting, and hinted at in wins over Whatsamattu U. and Measly Tech and the like, has come to fruition, and it was the students who figured it out first. They're the ones who camped out overnight in the rain and plunging temperatures to get into the Hall. They're the ones who knew, with this Indiana team on the national stage for the first time, that this Indiana team was going to send lordly North Carolina back to Chapel Hill in sandwich bags.

And so it came to pass, not to get all Biblical or anything.

Before a howling mob dressed like a Midwestern blizzard -- it was white-out night in the Hall -- the 10th-ranked Hoosiers snowed in a Tar Heels team that was ranked No. 1 a couple of weeks ago, and that still has major components from the team that reached the national championship game in April. The final was 77-65. and it wasn't that close.

The Hoosiers won with marquee nights from Trace Jackson-Davis (21 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, four blocks), Xavier Johnson (20 points, eight rebounds, four assists), Jalen Hood-Schifino (14 points, six boards, two assists and a steal) and Trey Galloway (11 points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal). They won with floor burns and stubbornness on the defensive end, holding Carolina to 34 percent shooting and 5-of-18 from the 3-point arc. 

Indiana teams have been ranked in the top ten before in the long years since Saint Bob the Knight, but somehow it always felt like a con when they were. This feels different, and not just because Mike Woodson has brought back gumption and pride to a program that has too often played like it was Just Another Basketball Program in the last two decades (because too often it was). This feels different because it feels legit.

And do you know the best part?

That a couple of hours north in West Lafayette, there's another legit basketball team. It wears black-and-gold and it doesn't like Indiana at all.

Last week that basketball team, your Purdue Boilermakers, simply dismantled two snobbish elites (Gonzaga and Duke) and another perennially robust basketball school (West Virginia), and last night they went down to Tallahassee and beat Florida State by 10. Zach Edey (25 points, eight boards) did more Zach Edey things. Freshman point guard Braden Smith (13 points, nine rebounds, seven assists) had another For God's Sake Why Didn't We Recruit This Kid night. And the Boilers went to 7-0 on the season, same as Indiana.

Purdue is No. 5 in the latest ESPN poll. Indiana, as noted, is 10th. It's the first time both schools have been ranked in the top ten since 1998.

Knight was still at IU then. Gene Keady was still at Purdue. So, you know, the glory days, basically.

Now?

Now tell me those days aren't back. And rejoice when you can't.

Oh, and one other thing.

Circle February 4 on your calendar. 

That's when Purdue heads south to Bloomington to play IU. And a rivalry becomes a Rivalry again.

One for the team

Alrighty then, Netherlands. Bring your Hans Brinker asses over here and get you some.

We're feeling feisty, we Americans, because Our Boys beat Iran yesterday 1-0, and you should have seen how they did it. With guts. With style. With the most supreme of sacrifices.

Which is to say, Christian Pulisic scored in the 38th minute, splitting two defenders in the box to side-kick a header cross past the Iranian keeper. 

After which he crashed into said keeper, um, ballsack-first.

He left the game with what was called a pelvic contusion, the official medical term for getting kneed in the twigs and berries. It doesn't get much more sacrificial than that, boys and girls. Pulisic not only took one for the team, he took two for the team, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, after that the U.S. side played to protect the lead, which of course led to a number of narrow escapes in the last 20 minutes or so. The Blob does not understand this strategy, but the Blob makes no claim to any advanced knowledge of soccer/futbol. Perhaps this was USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter doing the prudent thing, the logical thing, the advanced-knowledge thing.

In any event, he made the right moves again, and now it's on to the round of 16 match with the Dutch on Saturday. The Blob lost track of Clockwork Orange about the time the late Johan Cruyff retired, and now Robin Van Persie and Arjan Robben have hung it up, too. So I got nothin' on the Hans Brinkers. 

But as far as I know, none of them took a nutshot to advance his team to the knockout rounds, so the U.S. has that going for it. Latest word from Pulisic is he says he'll be ready on Saturday, don't you doubt it.

Wouldn't wanna be you, Netherlands.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 12

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the perpetually irritating Blob feature of which critics have said "Damn, it's so irritating!", and also "Gaaah! I can't stop ITCHING!":

1. "Yay! The Steelers AND the Colts on Monday Night Football ..." (America)

2. "... sucks just as hard as we thought it would!" (Also America)

3. "Is this game ever gonna START?" (America at halftime)

4. "Whatta you mean? Matt Ryan already has a Matt Ryan hat trick -- a fumble, an interception and a sack!" (Colts fans)

5. Meanwhile, in New York, the Chicago Bears lose 31-10 to the awful Jets as a beat-up Justin Fields doesn't play.

6. Instead, a less beat-up Trevor Siemian plays after the Bears initially consider playing backup-backup QB Nathan Peterman.

7. "What? Nathan Peterman's still in the league??" (America)

8. "YES I'M STILL HERE BITCHES! DEAL WITH IT!" (Nathan Peterman)

9. Back in Indy, it's now Tuesday morning.

10. And the Colts finally made a first down.

Boiler (going) up

 I don't know where the Purdue men's basketball team will be ranked when they roll out the new polls this week. But I doubt it will begin with a "2".

Unless it IS "2". Or perhaps even "1."

Doubt that will happen, because the Boilermakers, ranked 24th going into the Phil Knight Legacy tournament, aren't going to make that astounding a leap. You could argue they should, but the logistics of the polls don't allow for it.

What the Boilers did, see, was go out to Portland, Ore., and win the whole deal.

Along the way, they obliterated West Virginia by 12, No. 6 Gonzaga by 18 and No. 8 Duke by 19.

Which is to say, this is some team Matt Painter has put together, the earliness of the returns notwithstanding.

The two freshman guards (Braden Smith and Homestead grad Fletcher Loyer) have been better than perhaps even Painter could have dreamed. Smith, lightly recruited by everyone but Painter, has emerged as the spiritual descendant of Scott Skiles at the point, fierce and and fearless and with court sense beyond his years. And Loyer has shown signs he's going to spend the next four years knocking down open threes.

Throw in Brandon Newman and Caleb Furst and Ethan Morton and Mason Gillis, and you've got a team with balance and poise. And we haven't even mentioned 7-4 center Zach Edey, the Project That Walks Like A Man.

Who you can now call the best low-blocks big man in the nation without sounding like an utter homer.

All them were present and accounted for as Purdue punished all comers over the weekend, including their presumed betters. This does not mean the Boilers aren't going to lay an egg or two in the next months; the season is long, roadies in the Big Ten are notoriously brutal, and everyone has off nights in the December-January-February slog. But they're not going to lay as many as the prognosticators presumed.

And with Indiana riding high behind All-American Trace Jackson-Davis and its own pair of stickout freshmen (Malik Reneau and Jalen Hood-Schifino), the IU-Purdue rivalry seems about to become epic again.

Can't wait. 

(Update: Purdue didn’t land at 1 or 2. But the Boilers did jump from No. 24 to No. 5.)