Never enough

 Saw a story the other day in USA Today and something called Saturday Tradition that both amused and perplexed me. Although perplexed probably won in overtime.

It was a piece about how the SEC and Big Ten were thinking of launching an SEC-Big Ten football series, much like college buckets has the Big Ten-ACC Challenge/Showdown/Early Season Soiree and similar Challenges/Showdowns/Early Season Soirees. The driving force behind the idea is, of course, TV money, seeing how three early SEC-Big Ten matchups this season were ratings blockbusters.

According to USA Today/Saturday Tradition, that got the boardroom suits in both conferences thinking, gee, maybe we should expand this little dealio. After all, who wouldn't be intrigued by an Illinois-Missouri Border War? Or an IU-Kentucky Not-Basketball-But-We-Still-Don't-Like-Each-Other Bowl? Or an Egghead Bowl between Northwestern and Vanderbilt?

Why, you could schedule six or eight such matchups -- even as many as 12 to 16 -- and everyone would still have room for eight or nine conferences games and even the annual pencil-in W against Directional Hyphen Tech State.

The idea, if it could be worked out, is that it would "boost revenue capabilities" according to the Saturday Tradition headline.

This is where the Blob gets amused/perplexed.

"Boost revenue capabilities"?

Since when do the Big Ten and SEC need to do that?

They're both already doing the backstroke in wads of cash, thanks to the revenue generated by their Big Ten and SEC networks and their various other TV rights deals. Isn't boosting revenue why they collectively blew up the entire college football landscape? Didn't the Big Ten destroy its footprint because it wanted the lucrative East Coast and West Coast TV markets, which is why Rutgers and Maryland and UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington are "Big Ten" schools now?

And you think the SEC murdered the old Big 12 (and before that, the old SWC) because it thought Texas burnt orange was a cool color? Hell, no. It gobbled up Texas because Texas is one of the most lucrative properties in college athletics. And it pirated Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas because A) it could, and B) those schools all added more to the pile.

It was always about money, never anything else, and now the Big Ten and SEC have box seats atop an Everest of it. And somehow it's still not enough.

We used to call this what it is -- greed -- until it became politically incorrect in some circles to utter the word. Now we call it "boosting revenue capabilities" and "increasing market share."

It's still just greed, though. Pure, grasping, Montgomery-Burns-summoning-the-hounds greed.

Spin it any old way you like.

A perhaps revealing moment

 Hey, we all know what the wise guys thought. They told us enough times.

What they told us was there was no room in the NBA anymore for a low-blocks big man like, oh, you know, two-time college player of the year Zach Edey from Purdue.

They said Edey was a big 7-4 galoot who was just a garbage collector around the rim and had a shooting range of approximately two feet. Said no big in the Association played that way anymore, that the best of them played out on the floor and handled the rock and could knock down the three when the opportunity presented itself.

Edey was a late first-rounder at best, they said. More likely a second-rounder.

And then ...

And then the Memphis Grizzlies made Edey their guy with the ninth pick in the 2024 NBA draft.

And the wise guys, or more than a few of them, wondered what on earth the Griz were thinking, reiterating all the big-galoot stuff.

And then ...

And then, the other night.

Preseason game against the Pacers. Edey back home in Indiana. An evening that perhaps, or perhaps not, revealed the Grizzlies had not in fact lost their minds by taking Edey so high.

Zach Edey played 19 minutes, see. He scored 23 points in those 19 minutes. And he cleaned nine rebounds off the glass while he was doing it.

Again, perhaps that proves something, and perhaps it doesn't. It was, after all, only a preseason game.

But this is not the NFL, where preseason games are as useless as the appendix. In the NBA, they're warmups for the real thing, which you kinda need when your regular season spans entire epochs of human history. Also, NBA rosters are 12 guys, not the 70 or 80 NFL teams bring to their early preseason games.

In other words, Edey wasn't doing it the other night against fifth-string linebackers who are about to be cut. He was doing it against a lot of the same people he'll see all season.

Make of that what you will.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 6

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature that never changes except when it changes, and of which critics have said "How about making like a tree and leaving for a change?", and also, "I got a pocketful of change for ya if you just go away":

1. "Gah! We suck again!" (Cowboys fans, after the Lions flame-broiled the Pokes 47-9 in Dallas)

2. "Hooray, we don't!" (Lions fans)

3. Meanwhile, the Patriots!

4. Swapped out Jacoby Brissett for rookie Drake Maye at quarterback. Still lost.

5. "Drake Maye, Doris Day, Earl Grey. Doesn't much matter without Bill-ay." (Patriots fans)

6. (Bill-ay Belichick chuckles, orders more drinks on the beach with his 27-year-old girlfriend)

7. In other news, the Colts beat the Titans (again!). The Browns lost, the Panthers lost, the Giants lost, the Jets lost (even with Aaron Rodgers!). The officiating was standup comedy (eternally!).

8. "Look, guys, we're 4-2!" (The Falcons, the Bears, the Buccaneers)

9. "We were 2-0 once! Well, we were!" (The Saints, who fell to 2-4 after being car-washed at home by the Bucs, 51-27)

10.  "Gah! We suck again!" (Cowboys fans, still)

Da Bearz! (Maybe)

 The Chicago Bears pureed the Jacksonville Jaguars 35-16 over in London yesterday, and Caleb Williams looked like the quarterback Chicago hasn't had since Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern. And now the predictable is happening in the Windblown City.

The citizenry is turning into all those fat guys in that old "Da Bearz" SNL skit.

If Caleb Williams fought Superman, who would win?

Caleb Williams!

If you made one team out of the Lombardi Packers, the Chuck Noll Steelers and the Bill Walsh 49ers, and they played Da Bearz, who would win?

Da Bearz!

That sort of thing.

And, OK, sure, there's likely plenty of skepticism out there. But the fan base is all revved up. Even the Chicago media is in on it, with columnists columnizing that Caleb Williams is the elite quarterback Chicagoans have been waiting for since great-grandpa was storming the beaches of Normandy and Sid Luckman was whupping various Giants, Eagles and Lions.

This is because the kid completed 23-of-29 throws yesterday for 226 yards and four touchdowns, and when he had to run he ran for 56 yards and averaged 14 yards per tote.

It's because the Bears are 4-2 now and have won their last three games by a combined score of 95-44. 

It's because the Bears look like a real football team with a real quarterback, and it's just possible that's what they really are.

So I guess now is the time for the Blob to do what the Blob does best.

Stick a pin in some kid's balloon. Burst a bubble or two. Conjure rain just in time for the parade. All that.

Yes, I am That Guy. I'm the driver's ed instructor who was always telling you to SLOW THE (BLEEP) DOWN. I'm the party pooper, the buzz killer, the responsible one holding onto the back of your coat when you tried to rush headlong off the cliff.

I'm the guy who's saying, yes, the Bears are getting better every week, and Caleb Williams is getting better every week, and maybe he is the long-awaited golden child. But a couple of things must be said.

One, two of the Bears victories in their three-game win streak have come against the two worst teams in the NFL.

Two ... well, have you seen the Bears schedule from mid-November on?

Yes, it's OK to feel good about the last three games, but Jacksonville is 1-5 and the Jags only W came at home against the Indianapolis Colts, who never win in Jacksonville. And the Carolina Panthers, whom the Bears pole-axed last week, are also 1-5 and are giving up a tick under 34 points per game.

I'm not trying to feng anyone's shui here. I'm just pointing out that the Bears haven't exactly been beating up on the Lombardi Packers, the Noll Steelers or the Walsh 49ers.

Also, I've gotten a look at the schedule. And, ye gods, what a gauntlet from the week before Thanksgiving on.

Between Nov. 17 and Dec. 22, here's who the Bears play: The Packers, the Vikings, the Lions, the 49ers, the Vikings again and the Lions again. That's four teams with a current combined record of 16-6. And if you throw out the Niners, it's 13-3.

I'm guessing that's where we find out who these Bears really are. 

Da Bearz? Or just, you know, the Bears?

Proof of life

 In the end, maybe it was just a numerology thing.

Purdue was playing a guy wearing 3 at quarterback, but then he got hurt. That handed the ball to a guy wearing 15, who was offered up as a live sacrifice to No. 23 Illinois in Champaign.

Except.

Except you know who else wore 15 at Purdue?

Drew Brees wore 15.

Mike Phipps wore 15.

I don't hold with much anymore in this world, but I think young Ryan Browne might have been channeling both yesterday for the Cradle of Quarterbacks.

All the live sacrifice did was steal some of that Notre Dame business, even though the Purdues lost in the end. He woke up the echoes, is what Browne did. Threw for 297 yards and three touchdowns on 18-of-26 passing. Pulled it down 17 times and rambled for 116 more yards. Cracked open some daylight for beleaguered running back Devin Mockobee, who crashed for 103 yards and another score on just 11 touches.

For one almost glorious afternoon, in other words, Purdue looked like an actual football team. The corpse Wisconsin embalmed 52-6 and Notre Dame humiliated 66-7 showed proof of life. Yeah, the Boilers lost again, because not even Browne/Brees/Phipps could make their DBs faster or their O-line block better. But it came down to one play, in overtime, against a ranked team on the road. 

That play was the last play, Purdue down 50-49 in overtime. Ryan Walters went for the two-point conversion and the win rather than another OT, and, please, no howling from the peanut gallery. You go for the win on the road. Always. Football 101.

You especially do that if you're Purdue, and you haven't been within a light year of a W in over a month. So Walters dialed up a rollout for Browne, and the O-line leaked again, and Browne got buried. 

Now, you can question why Walters didn't elect to just give the ball to Mockobee on that play, seeing how he was averaging almost a first down a carry. But Illinois was going to hit him with the entire state if Mockobee got the mail. Even Abe Lincoln would have been involved.

And so, the rollout. Everything else in the fourth quarter and OT had worked for Purdue -- in including a two-point conversion -- so why not that?

The Boilers were down 40-28, and then they scored. And then they pulled off an onside kick. And then they scored again, running the clock down to under a minute before they did.  

That made it 41-40, Purdue. The aforementioned two-point conversion made it 43-40. All Illinois could reasonably hope to do was tie it to force OT.

Of course, the Illini did. It looked like curtains for them when the Boilers sacked quarterback Luke Altmyer, and then they almost sacked him again. But Altmyer got away and chucked it far downfield, where it was caught close enough for Illini kicker David Olano to cash a sand-wedge field goal and send it to OT.

That set up a hell of a finish on a hell of a weekend for college football. Arizona State knocked off No. 16 Utah. Alabama almost lost again when South Carolina recovered an onside kick, but an interception saved the Tide, 27-25. USC almost got No. 4 Penn State in L.A., but the Nittany Lions survived 33-30 in overtime. 

No. 8 Tennessee beat unranked Florida in OT. No. 13  LSU beat No 9 Ole Miss in OT. No. 1 Texas blew out Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry game. And of course No. 3 Oregon clipped No. 2 Ohio State 32-31 in the big showdown in Eugene.

The Blob hates the term "instant classic," but that one was an instant classic. I think the lead changed hands eleventy-hundred times. Neither team ever led by more than a touchdown. In the end, you could reasonably say only the clock was the difference, because Ohio State was driving when it ran out of seconds.

For Purdue, the difference was one last failed play. Coaches love to say there's no such thing as a moral victory, but one last failed play gives Walters a lot more to build on than one last note of the national anthem.

Which is where Purdue has commenced failing too many times this season.

The carryover

 You heard it, of course. You always do when women's sports are the topic du jour, and it always comes from the same crowd.

We're talking about the WNBA, of course.

We're talking about Caitlin Clark, and how she made the WNBA appointment viewing in a way it had never before been, and how Same Crowd sneered that only she could have raised the profile of such a lousy product.

"Wait'll Caitlin loses in the playoffs," went the refrain, or something like it. "No one will be watching this trash."

Except ...

Except Caitlin's been out of the picture for awhile now. And a whole lot of folks are still watching.

According to Sports Media Watch, which tracks these things, almost a million-and-a-half viewers tuned in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, even though it was up against the NFL Thursday night game and Yankees-Royals in the ALDS. It was the most-watched Game 1 of the finals in league history, and the most-watched finals game, period, in 21 years.

And, yeah, more eyeballs were on Clark whenever she played. But even after she and the Indiana Fever lost in the first round, the playoffs have attracted more eyeballs this year in comparison to years past.

So clearly everyone who tuned in to watch Caitlin Clark saw something compelling besides just her. They got a look at the women's game itself, and they liked what they saw.

Call that the Caitlin Carryover if you like. But call it also a W for a league that deserves that and more.

Life, imitating ... well, you know

 ... in which the Blob begs your indulgence to make a brief detour into the muck-encrusted hellhole of American politics, seeing how there's a presidential election coming up in about three weeks.

Let's start with this: I am a devoted Stephen King fan.

Been one of his Constant Readers since I picked up a copy of "'Salem's Lot" almost 50 years ago, and it scared me so bad it gave me the heebie-jeebies to read it alone at night in my apartment. It also reeled me in completely, and now I've read a good chunk of everything he's churned out since.

Fast forward to the other day, when King observed that he unknowingly made Donald Trump a character in one of this books four decades ago, before anyone outside New York had barely heard of him. The book was "The Dead Zone." King named the would-be Trump character Greg Stillson, a raving demagogue with a cult-like following who was so outlandish you suspected King deliberately crafted him as a cartoon.

Well. Not so much, apparently.

Now the cartoon is very real, in a way King admits he never dreamed possible. And that makes him far more scary than any dark invention the Master of Horror has ever dreamed up.

That hit home a week or so ago, when Trump was spouting his usual nonsense up in Michigan and said this: "If I return to office I will cut electricity and energy prices by half within my first year!"

Something about that rang a bell. And then it dawned on me: It sounded very much like a line King had Greg Stillson say while on the campaign trail.

From "The Dead Zone," second paragraph, page 289 in the paperback edition:

"Third board!" Stillson roared. "... We're gonna have clean air and we're gonna have clean water and we're gonna have it in SIX MONTHS!"

Stillson as Trump. Trump as Stillson. Same tone, same loony promises, almost exactly the same rhythm and wording, 44 years apart.

If that doesn't make you shiver a little, you're a better man or woman than me. Or perhaps your mind doesn't run the same wild channels mine does.

Consider that a blessing, if so. Trust me.