Eberflushed

 Well, that didn't take long.

If you had Friday in the great Matt Eberflus Gets Flushed lottery, congratulations. You had some extra cash to spread around as you ventured out to Walmart for a gallon of milk, got caught in a firefight over a 90-inch TV and wound up in the emergency room after eating someone's elbow.

Black Friday ain't called that just for funsies, you know.

Certainly it was the blackest of Fridays for Eberflus, who became the Chicago Bears ex-coach less than 24 hours after overseeing the dumbest use of 30 seconds since a ShamWow ad starring that Vince guy. Botching a shot at upending the mighty Detroit Lions in the most in the most spectacularly numbskulled way possible was bad enough, but that it happened in front of the entire country on Thanksgiving Day was took much even for the Bears.

You've seen the lowlights by now: Down 23-20, the Bears had arrived at the Detroit 25 with 43 seconds to play and plenty of time to take shots at the W.  But then Bears stuff began to happen. 

First, a Caleb Williams pass to the Detroit 13 was wiped out by a penalty.

Then, Williams was sacked.

Then, with two downs, a timeout and 30 seconds still on the clock, Eberflus and Co. somehow forgot about the timeout they had, fiddle-farted around as the clock raced toward zero, and finally got off a snap with just six seconds showing.

Williams pass fell incomplete as the clock ran out, and the Lions were 11-1 for the first time in their history.

Today's multiple choice quiz: What were the Bears doing at the end for 24 of the 30 seconds they had left?

A. Debating who would win if Superman fought Lions coach Dan Campbell.

B. Discussing the relative merits/drawbacks of green energy.

C. Comparing the boss-ness of today's cars versus, say, a 1969 Pontiac GTO with a Hurst shifter and Ram Air IV engine.

A football team with its head screwed on straight easily would have gotten off three or four plays with 30 seconds and a timeout to do so. But, nah. These were the Eberflus Bears, who instead did the most Eberflus Bears thing ever.

After which the Bears did the most un-Bears-like thing ever: Fire a head coach in mid-season.

The Bears had never before done that, not once in their long, long existence. They hadn't  done it when they were still the Decatur Staleys and wore those leather hats with the earflaps. They hadn't even done it when Jim Dooley was the coach and the Bears covered themselves in gory by going 1-13.

That was in 1969. Dooley not only was still the Bears coach when the season ended, he was still the Bears coach the next season. The Bears kept him around until 1971, when he was finally fired after a second consecutive 6-8 season.

So, yeah, Matt Eberflus made history yesterday. He was so bad not even the Bears could keep him around for another whole season.

Probably not something he'll want to add to his resume, though.

Same IU. Different day.

There are two ways you can look at what happened to your Indiana men's basketball team in the Bahamas yesterday, which was basically the basketball version of falling asleep on a beach in the Bahamas and waking up with an epic sunburn:

You can look at it and say, "The hell was that, Indiana?"

Or you can look at it and say, "No, really, the hell was THAT?"

That was a rump-roasting, is what it was. Also a lamination, a floor-waxing, Wile-E.-Coyote-getting-run-over-by-an-Acme-truck.

The final was unranked Louisville 89, No. 14 Indiana 61, and that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was Louisville's first-year coach, Pat Kelsey, easing off the throttle the way you would against some Hyphen Directional Tech State.

With seven minutes to play.

With seven minutes to play, see, Kelsey began clearing his bench. This is because Louisville led by 38 points at the time. Had Kelsey decided not to let the Hoosiers up easy, the Cardinals might have won by 50.

As it was, it was still the worst loss by a ranked Indiana team against an unranked team in 70 years. according to Stathead. And why was that?

Because Mike Woodson's Hoosiers, who landed the No. 2 transfer portal class during the offseason, still played like Mike Woodson's Hoosiers.

Which is to say, the new guys still performed all of Indiana's old tricks. They were inexcusably careless with the basketball, turning it over a staggering 23 times. They guarded the perimeter the way Sgt. Schultz used to guard Colonel Hogan, resulting in 10 Louisville3-pointers. And they couldn't throw it in the ocean on their end, missing 13 of their 20 threes and shooting 33 percent overall.

The Hoosiers imported backcourt studs Myles Rice from Washington State and Kanaan Carlyle from Stanford to remedy a lot of this, but the remedy looked like the same old malady against Louisville. Among the three of them, Rice, Carlyle and Trey Galloway shot 1-for-15 and turned it over nine times while managing just two combined assists. Galloway in particular was wretched, going scoreless with one rebound, zero assists and two turnovers in 20 listless minutes.

And now?

Now the Hoosiers get No. 3 Gonzaga, which was upset in its game at the  Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis.

(No, really. That's the name of the tournament. You think I could make that up?)

In any case, what this means is it's not likely to get much better before it gets worse. And that means the heat is going to cranked up that much more for Woodson, who was already under fire from Indiana's perpetually crabby fan base because his boys don't, you know, play like Bob Knight's boys used to. Or like the fan base seems to remember they did.

Now, if you wanted to cut Woody some slack, you could say for all the talent he imported this year, talent isn't team. Presumably it's going to take awhile for that to happen, for the new guys and the old guys to become that one fist coaches love to talk about. So the inclination among the less rabid is to give it a few more weeks and then see what Woodson's team looks like.

However.

However, it should be noted that Louisville turned over nearly its entire roster this offseason, and has a new coach besides. And unfamiliarity with one another didn't stop the Cardinals from functioning like a machine at both ends. 

Therefore ...

Therefore, this dreary assessment: SIUDD.

Same IU. Different day.

The value of a Bucket

 So, OK, then. Tenth.

Tenth in this week's College Football Playoff rankings; 11th seed in the latest projected bracket. Still in, despite the fevered conspiracy theories of people like, oh, I don't know, me, for instance.

I was convinced the CFP had it in for your Indiana Hoosiers, that a millisecond after they walked out of Columbus with a 38-15 loss to Ohio State the pollsters would kick them out of the party. But, nah. Apparently whoever runs this deal doesn't hate the interlopers from Bloomington that much.

Tenth, they dropped Indiana to. Which seems just about right.

Know what else seems about right?

That the Old Oaken Bucket suddenly is more than just an unglamorous trophy fought over by a pair of in-state rivals who, let's face it, have their own share of un-glamour in their football histories.

But Indiana is 10-1 now and Purdue is 1-10, and, if the CFP playoff doesn't exactly hang in the balance, it's right around the corner from hanging in the balance. Should Purdue jump up and get after it against its most bitter rival, it could ruin IU's precarious hold on a playoff spot. 

An 11 seed, after all, lives next door to a 12 seed. And a 12 seed lives next door to an out-in-the-cold seed.

Think Purdue wouldn't want to make that happen? 

Think Indiana doesn't want to lay the wood to the Boilermakers because, well, they're the Boilermakers, but also because it needs style points to stay inside the CFP rope?

There was a lot of yapping about the CFP expanding from four to 12 teams this season, and as usual a fair amount of it was negative. But now the season is wrapping up, and look what a 12-team field has done for college football.

It's made more games involving more teams mean something. That's what it's done.

Certainly it's added value to an old oaken bucket, and a touch of drama to what promises to be singularly undramatic. By every conceivable metric, Indiana should be able to name its score against the hapless Boilers, but what if Purdue decides to put up a fight? How blowout-y a blowout will it take for Indiana not to slip again?

Will 40-7 do it? Or 50-14? Or, God forbid, what if it's only 42-20 or something?

I suspect it won't be, because IU coach Curt Cignetti does not seem like a man who lets 'em up easy. If he could drop 75 or 100 on Purdue, he'd do it. Especially with what's at stake here.

I'm gonna say that doesn't happen. I'm gonna say IU wins 52-7, 55-10, something like that. Enough, presumably, to keep those teams crowding the Hoosiers' bumper -- a two-loss Clemson team, perhaps, or (God forbid) even three-loss Alabama -- from overtaking them. 

Anyway ... we'll see. And won't the seeing make Saturday worth the while?

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 12

 And now a Thanksgiving week edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the grateful Blob feature of which critics have said "I'd be grateful if you'd shut up already", and also "I'd be grateful for a rocket we could load this into and shoot it into the sun":

1. "Hey, look! We won a game! Thank you, football gods!" (Cowboys fans)

2. "Let's see 'em keep us out of the Super Bowl NOW!" (Also Cowboys fans)

3. It's Tuesday morning and Saquon Barkley just ran off tackle for another 23 yards against the Rams.

4. "OK, you can stop now!"  (The Rams, gashed by Barkley for 255 yards in a 37-20 loss to Barkley's Eagles)

5. "'Preciate it!" (Also the Rams, after Barkley said, "Oh, wait, it's Tuesday" and finally stopped)

6. "Thank you, football gods!" (Daniel Jones, who no longer is a quarterback for the sorry 2-9 Giants, who were embarrassed 30-7 at home by the Buccaneers)

7. (Also Gardner Minshew, who broke his collarbone in a 29-19 loss to Denver and now no longer has to quarterback the sorry 2-9 Raiders)

8. Meanwhile, the Browns!

9. Are thankful for snow, lovely snow, 'cause without it they never would have beaten the Steelers, on account of the Browns are sorry and the Steelers are not.*

10. (*According to Steelers wide receiver George Pickens, anyway)

Uniform-ity

 Watched a bit of the Colts-Lions game yesterday, and of course the Colts lost. The final score was 24-6 -- about right for a game between a "meh" team, and a team circumstantial evidence suggests is the best in professional football right now.

But the crabby old guy who lives inside me suggests there might have been something more esoteric involved in the outcome.

"You're gonna wear THAT?" he said, as the teams lined up for the opening kickoff. "No wonder you're going to lose this game."

Crabby Old Guy's comments were directed at the Colts, who broke out alternate uniforms for the occasion. Head-to-toe blue, to be specific, with black helmets.

The head-to-toe blue Crabby Old Guy could live with. The black helmets, however ...

"The Colts should never wear black helmets," he crabbed. "Never, ever, ever, ever."

This of course is a recurring theme for C.O.G., but it's not a blanket condemnation. The alternate uni thing has been around for awhile now, and C.O.G. gets that its purpose is to widen the revenue stream. He even thinks some of the alternates are sorta cool.

The Bears, for instance, broke out their 1930s Bronko Nagurski line -- orange stripes on the helmets, old-timey socks and jerseys -- for their game Sunday with the Vikings. These being the Matt Eberflus Bears, of course, the throwback duds didn't infuse them with Bronko Power. They still jacked around and lost per usual.

C.O.G. also has no quarrel with the unis Army and Navy unveil every year for what's annually the most iconic rivalry game in college football. This year, for instance, Navy is honoring its Jolly Rogers fighter squadron with helmets designed to look like flight helmets. Pretty awesome.

On the other hand ...

On the other hand, the crabby old guy who lives inside me thinks Oregon should maybe think about wearing the same uniform combination more than twice a season, just for  branding's sake. And he has a few thoughts about what Notre Dame should do with the unis it showed up wearing for its Shamrock Series tilt vs. Army in Yankee Stadium Saturday night.

My suggestion: Make a bonfire out of them. And the sooner the better.

Those things were awful, and not just because the gold lame numbers and stripes didn't go well with charcoal gray. Elton John can pull off gold lame, but a storied football team, not so much. Saturday night's all right for fighting, indeed.

The main problem, however, was that between the gold lame and the ancient gothic typeface, you couldn't read the numbers. This drives the ink-stained wretches who occupy press boxes batty. Or at least it always did me.

(The worst: The trend toward outlined white-on-white, black-on-black or dark-primary-colors-on-black jersey numbers. If I weren't opposed to capital punishment, I'd say whoever thought those were a good idea should ride the lightning. But I'll settle for life without parole.)

Anyway, I felt deeply for anyone who was covering Army-Notre Dame. Of course, I got that N.D.'s duds were a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Four Horsemen game immortalized by Grantland Rice ("Outlined against a blue-gray October sky ..."), and that practicality will always take a backseat to Notre Dame's fervent embrace of its football hagiography. But good grief, people.

"Somebody should do jail time," Crabby Old Guy observed Saturday night, trying to tell if that was a gold lame 78 or a gothic 76.

I bet even Granny Rice would agree.

Things we know now

 So, alrighty, then. Ohio State is better.

But we knew that, right?

Yesterday the Buckeyes were better on offense, better on defense, better on special teams. To the tune of 38-15 -- a certified, can't-spin-it rump-roasting -- they were better. 

But we knew that.

Would have been a brighter day for Indiana if the Hoosiers hadn't turned it over in the red zone, or given up a back-breaking 79-yard punt return by Caleb Downs that put Curt Cignetti's team down two scores three minutes into the second half. Would have been a brighter day if the Buckeyes hadn't all but shut down Kurtis Rourke, and all but silenced IU's gaudy offense.

But they did. Rourke passed for 68 yards. The Hoosiers ran for 85 more. That's a measly 153 total yards if you're keeping score at home.

And the Hoosiers lost. Lost big.

Because they did, the people who vote in the College Football Playoff poll will have all the excuse they need today to push Indiana, with its tissue-y strength of schedule, down the elevator shaft and out of the playoff.

We know that, too.

What saves Indiana, or might save it, is some other stuff that happened yesterday. Ole Miss, ranked ninth, jacked around and lost to Florida. Alabama, ranked seventh, was floor-waxed by Oklahoma, 24-3, and now has three losses. Both of those schools were playoff-bound until yesterday.

Elsewhere, Colorado lost at Kansas, so the Buffaloes won't be moving up. Neither will BYU, which lost for the second straight week after starting the season 9-0. Neither will Texas A&M, upended in four overtimes by Auburn.

So that helps. A little. Maybe.

On the other hand, maybe nothing helps. Maybe Indiana goes on next week and beats a sorry Purdue team briskly about the neck and head with the Old Oaken Bucket, and it won't matter.

Maybe an 11-1 Big Ten team gets left out of the CFP anyway. It would be absurd on its face, an absolute howler, but it could happen.

One more thing we know.

No ties need apply

 Once-beaten, sixth-ranked Notre Dame meets unbeaten, 19th-ranked Army in Yankee Stadium tonight, and you know the ghosts are gonna be walkin'. How could they not, considering Notre Dame-Army goes back to the beginning of time?

And so that chill whisper in the air will not just be late November leaving its calling card, but Knute Rockne making up stories about the Gipper the way he did against Army in '28. The Four Horsemen will be outlined against Touchdown Jesus or whatever, same as in the '24 meeting. And Johnny Lujack, Leon Hart, Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard will be out and about, reliving the epic 0-0 tie in '46.

Me?

I have a vivid imagination, as you can no doubt tell from the above.

Regardless, I don't think the Irish vs. the Black Knights of the Hudson will be the epic it ought to be, even if it is their highest-profile meeting in seven or eight decades. I don't think it will be the absolute paving the Irish laid on then-unbeaten Navy a few weeks back, but I do think Notre Dame will win comfortably.

Of course, this does not keep me from kinda-sorta wishing for another 0-0 tie, just for the sake of historical convergence. I mean, that would be cool, right?

"Absolutely not," says Notre Dame.

"No freakin' way," says Army.

"What are you, nuts?" says NBC, and Domer Nation, and every member of West Point's long gray line stretching back to Lee and Grant and Custer 'n' them.

Aw, gee. You guys are no fun at all.