Bowled over

 OK, OK, O-kay, Georgia. You've made your point.

You've shown the Committee you should have been in the College Football Playoff after all.

You've shown what a poser Florida State was, except it wasn't really "Florida State" you were playing but "Understudy Florida State."

You've also shown, inadvertently, how money-grubbing I-got-mine-ism has ruined the bowl system, reducing even big deals like the Orange Bowl to mere afterthoughts.

Because you know what?

Georgia 63, Florida State 3 will not get the Bulldogs into the CFP. Hell, Georgia 163, Florida State 3 would not have. The voters already decided that, same as they did in the old days. This is because college football figured a few years back it needed an undisputed national champion -- a nifty bit of cover for what it really needed, which was Even More Cash on top of the Himalayas of cash in which it was already wallowing.

Thus, the BCS. Thus, its successor, the CFP.

Which is just another gushing revenue stream, when you get down to the nut of it. It's more TV rights money for college football, more money for the four lucky participants, more money, period. Who cares if it renders meaningless every bowl game outside the CFP velvet rope -- including the Orange Bowl, no matter how robustly Georgia tattooed what essentially was a Florida State practice squad?

The Seminoles were missing 27 players for last night's debacle through injury, opt-outs or the transfer portal. The ones who were left clearly didn't give a tinker's damn about being there, because in Tallahassee they're still all butt-hurt over being left out of the Big Cashapalooza.

Win the Orange Bowl? Lose the Orange Bowl? Skip the Orange Bowl to safeguard one's future earnings? Who cared?

Only Georgia cared.  And that was only because the Bulldogs wanted to make an ultimately empty statement.

(A possibly relevant aside: One of the funniest takes coming out of last night was that the opt-outs are ruining the bowls because "all these kids care about today is money." As if that's not true of everyone in college football these days -- including all the coaches who for decades have been bailing on their team's bowl games because some bigger, richer school hired them away for, gee, more money. Grownups lead by example. And if that's the example you're setting, why wouldn't the kids follow suit?)

College football's solution to this cluster-oo is to expand the playoff to 12 teams next year, which means a few more bowl games with some relevance. The rest still will be what they are now, and thus still will be plagued by opt-outs. But at least the Orange Bowl (and several other major bowls) won't see another clown show like last night.

Me?

I think college football was a hell of a lot more fun when polls decided the national champ based on what happened on New Year's Day. That's when all the heavyweights played, and it was a day-long narrative that sometimes ended with a clear-cut champeen and sometimes didn't -- which was part of the fun, frankly.

"Damn, you're old," you're saying now.

Well, yeah. But at least I'm not opting out on it.

Making their cases

 The first thing you can say about Notre Dame 40, Oregon State 8 in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl yesterday is that sure was a waste of perfectly good Frosted Flakes they dumped on Marcus Freeman's head when it was done.

The second thing you can say is that sure was a flying-color exit exam for Freeman's quarterback, Steve Angeli.

I say "exit exam" because Notre Dame has gone out of its way to tell the kid he isn't wanted, not once but twice. First the Irish brought in Sam Hartman from Wake Forest to play in front of him; now it's Riley Leonard from Duke. 

I'm just guessing here, but I bet there was a little NIL jingle involved in luring Leonard. And I bet that jingle wasn't so Notre Dame can tell Leonard "Hey, guess what? You're gonna be Steve Angeli's backup!"

So, yeah, what Angeli did yesterday -- 14-of-18 passing for 232 yards and three sixes in his first start -- clearly was his audition for the transfer portal. Because I can't imagine why he wouldn't be hitting it up at this point. 

Quarterbacks who can play a bit are always valued commodities in this brave new world of college football, where everyone's pretty much a perpetual free agent. So good on Angeli if he de-materializes in South Bend and materializes somewhere they'll actually let him play a bit.

If so, he'll be following the path taken by many before him, including a kid named Kyle McCord. All he did this year for Ohio State was go 11-1, throw for 3,170 yards and 24 touchdowns with just six picks, and put up the seventh highest QBR in the nation. But all he heard from the perpetually aggrieved Buckeye fan base was a lot of bitching and moaning because dammit he isn't C.J. Stroud.

So when the season ended, he jumped into the transfer portal faster than Captain Kirk beaming down to that planet with the green belly dancers. Now he's at Syracuse, where yesterday he no doubt enjoyed watching the Cotton Bowl.

Ohio State, see, lost 14-3 to Missouri. McCord's replacement, Lincoln Kienholz, completed just 6-of-17 passes for 86 yards. Together, he and Devin Brown were 10-of-24 for 106 yards, as the Buckeyes wheezed out just 12 first downs and 203 total yards. 

The 14-3 loss marked the first time in head coach Ryan Day's six seasons the Buckeyes offense failed to score a touchdown.

(Quick cut to McCord, sitting on his couch: "How you like me NOW, bitches?")

OK. So probably not.

McCord, in fact, was probably rooting for his former teammates, if not his former teammates' dopey fans. In any event, he was the second quarterback to make a case for himself yesterday.

Steve Angeli on the field. And Kyle McCord, in absentia.

Not dead yet

 Really, Joe Flacco is feeling much better.

Maybe you haven't been paying much attention, what with this being the holidays and all, but Joe Flacco quarterbacked the Cleveland Browns to another victory last night. Flacco, who is 88 years old and uses a wheelchair, threw three touchdown passes as the Brownies went to 11-5 and clinched the playoffs by whupping the eminently whup-able New York Jets, 37-20.

"Hey, wait a minute," you're saying now. "Joe Flacco's not 88 years old!"

OK, I lied. He's actually 68.

Oops, lied again. He's 58.

Darn it! Lied again!

No, really, he's actually only 38. But he was ou of football until the Browns snapped him up on November 20 after Deshaun Watson went down for the season.

All he's done since is lead the Browns to four wins in five starts, as Cleveland now has a four-game winning streak and has secured a postseason berth. In each of those four wins, Flacco has thrown for more than 300 yards and at least two touchdowns. He now has 13 touchdown passes in just five games.

Not bad for a guy in a wheelchair.

"Stop it!" you're saying.

OK, OK. He's not in a wheelchair. And he's not dead, either, which is what the Blob quipped on another platform when the Browns signed him. He really is feeling much better.

Better than the four teams that have lost to him, that is.

Today in eating

 ... in which the Kansas State Wildcats beat the North Carolina State Wolfpack 28-19 in the inaugural Pop Tarts Bowl, and then got to EAT THE MASCOT.

Check it out. Is this not the highlight of the All Them Others Bowl Season, or what?

Money deal

 The funniest thing you're going to hear this week is not Nikki Haley being absurdly wrong about the Civil War, but Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton trying to explain why he's benching Russell Wilson without explaining why he's benching Russell Wilson.

It's not because Payton wants to see what backup Jarrett Stidham has to offer, in case you were wondering. That's Payton's spin, and if you believe it I've got some sweet oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you.

I mean ...

Yes, we think Jarrett Stidham is the guy to turn around our sluggish offense these last two games. He's Jarrett Stidham, for God's sake! Guy played in TWO WHOLE GAMES for the Patriots back before they went to shite! He has two career starts, six career touchdown passes and seven career interceptions! How could he NOT be an upgrade from a guy who -- let's see -- has thrown for 43,653 yards and 334 touchdowns in his career?

That's about how it sounded. Not even kidding.

No, the truth is, Payton's benching the admittedly aging Wilson because last year the Broncos agreed, without anyone holding a gun to their heads, to pay him $242.6 million over five years. Now they're on the hook for $39 million next year whether Wilson plays or not, plus (and here's the important part) an additional $37 million if he gets hurt in the last two games and can't pass a March physical.

There's not much chance Wilson will suffer an injury sitting on the bench, unless it's a bad high-ego sprain. So that's why the Broncos are benching him, and will likely try to trade or release him before June 1-- after which Russ will cost them $85 mill in dead money.

All that other stuff Sean Payton said?

Yeah, um, no. The Broncos have been wallowing around a bit on offense this season, but it's not because of Russell Wilson. He's in the top ten in the league in touchdowns and passer rating, having thrown 26 sixes versus just eight picks. And his 66.4 percent completion percentage is actually almost two points higher than his career average.

That's a significant bounce-back from last year, when Wilson played miserably for a miserable team.

The straight skinny?

The Broncos are benching Wilson because they don't want to pay him.

Twelve months ago they made an incredibly stupid deal, and now they want to renege on that deal. It's as simple and uncomplicated as that.

"If they didn't want to pay me, why did they agree to pay me?" Russ must be wondering about now.

A question for which he'll likely never get a satisfactory answer.

It's all the girl's fault

 Someday Taylor Swift will write a song about all this.

She'll write a song about how she fell in love with a football player, and then the football player started playing not was well as he used to, and then his TEAM lost to the RAIDERS, for God's sake, and everyone will BLAME THE GIRL.

The title of the song will be "Blame The Girl."

It will be quite bitter in tone, as Taylor's songs oftentimes tend to be. It will also talk about what shite-y creatures men are, another frequent Taylor theme.

This time, however, Taylor will be right.

Men are shite-y creatures sometimes. Also really stupid, even in areas where they're allegedly not stupid.

Seen the latest, after Raiders 20, Chiefs 14?

Two guys who used to play pro football, and another guy who claims to know a lot about it, were blaming the Chiefs' and Travis Kelce's recent struggles on Kelce's celebrity girlfriend, Taylor Swift.

A handful of wingnuts on social media, who hate Taylor anyway because, oh my God, she's encouraging her fans to register to vote (How un-American!), are chiming in with the same take -- i.e., TAYLOR SWIFT RUINS EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES.

The three guys on TV, meanwhile, are Michael Irvin, Keyshawn Johnson and former sportswriter/current blowhard Skip Bayless. They were Taylor-bashing to a fare-thee-well after the Chiefs' Christmas Day loss, partly because they're misogynist jerks and partly because ... well, they're apparently not very bright.

Allow me to point out a few things to them:

1. Taylor Swift is not the one dropping passes out there.

2. Taylor Swift is not the one who left Patrick Mahomes with a bunch of remainder-bin wide receivers, which is why they keep dropping passes out there.

3. Taylor Swift is not the one double- and sometimes triple-teaming her boyfriend on virtually every snap, because he's the only reliable receiving option Mahomes has left.

4., 5. and 6. Taylor Swift is not the one who hired Matt Nagy as the Chiefs offensive coordinator when Eric Bienemy left; not the one who gave Mahomes an offensive line that can't block a sunbeam; not the one who made Mahomes throw that awful pick six on Christmas, and tried to force a few other off-brand throws because his wideouts simply couldn't get separation.

All of the above is why the Chiefs lost on Christmas. All of the above is why they're slumping, having lost five of their last eight games.

Look. When the Chiefs began their southward turn, I was the first one to make a Yoko Ono joke about Taylor Swift. But I wasn't serious. It was a joke. I didn't for a second believe she was the reason the Chiefs were falling apart, or that she'd become such a distraction the Chiefs didn't look like the Chiefs anymore.

(A word about distraction: It's the most nonsense word in sports. It's what teams and/or the people who cover them use as an excuse when they poop the bed. As if, in the Chiefs case, Marques Valdez-Scantling was thinking OMIGOD TRAVIS IS DATING TAYLOR SWIFT! right before he dropped a pass. Please.)

Truth is, football players have been dating/marrying celebrity squeezes for decades -- anyone remember Joe Namath steppin' out with Raquel Welch back in the '60s? -- without it having any visible effect on their performance. It's the height of silliness to seriously suggest otherwise.

Although ...

Although the camera did catch Mahomes saying "Call the f***in' play!" at one point the other day, apparently indirectly addressing his OC Nagy.

But Michael, Keyshawn and Skip know the real story, by golly.

Come on, Taylor. Get on the stick.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 16

 And now week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the hope-dashing Blob feature of which critics have said "Oh, great, now he's dashing our hopes, too! And at Christmas!", and also, "Bring your head over here and I'll show you some dashing!":

1. "Hey, look, we're somehow STILL in the playoff hunt!" (The "meh" Colts, after getting ball-peened by the equally "meh" Falcons)

2. "But you just got ball-peened by the FALCONS, for God's sake!" (Colts Nation)

3. "Yeah, but ..." (The Colts)

4. 'THE FALCONS!" (Colts Nation)

5. Meanwhile, the Chiefs!

6. Lost at home, on Christmas Day, to the Raiders, who hadn't beaten them since, I don't know, Daryle Lamonica was the Raiders quarterback.

7. "Hey, at least we play in a garbage division, so we're still in the playoff hunt!" (The Chiefs)

8. "Yeah, leave my boyfriend's team alone!" (Taylor Swift, resplendent in a Santa hat with Travis Kelce's number on it)

9. In other news,  the Cowboys Cowboy-ed it up again ... the Bengals ("We're in the playoff hunt, too!") forgot they had a game this week and got crushed by the previously hapless Steelers ... the Ravens paved San Francisco with Brock Purdy and the 49ers ... and, in a rare moment of hope undashed, the Lions clinched their first division title in 30 years.

10. "Yeah, b*tches! Suck on THAT!" (The Lions, presumably)

Happy Merry Christmas Holidays

 Christmas season again, and you know what that means, Blobophiles. It means a brief pause, if you will, for those of us who do so to observe the birth of a Prince of Peace whose grace transcends the madness of all kings and wanna-be kings.

Which is to say: Happy Merry Christmas Holidays, everyone. Health and good fortune and every other blessing to you and yours from the Blob, which occasionally can be less glib than usual if it really tries.

This being Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve being the province of such things, here's the Blob's annual message, courtesy of Charles Dickens, a crotchety geezer and a few not-quite-random spirits:

"Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him."

Merry Christmas.

Of Dollar Generals and such

Money may or may not be the root of all evil, but it sure seems to hang out a lot with some of evil's lesser kin. You know, like greed, self-interest and market forces largely driven by greed and self-interest.

Which brings us to big-time college athletics, in particular football.

Where the other day Florida State  voted to sue its own conference, the ACC, claiming the conference has mishandled its multimedia agreements and thereby messed up its member schools' ability to make money. 

Also, the conference's lame reputation KEPT US OUT OF THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF. Also, the ACC is EXTORTING US FOR $130 MILLION TO LEAVE THE CONFERENCE.

Sorry. Didn't mean to yell. I was just articulating what Florida State is no doubt thinking, even if the school didn't phrase it exactly that way.

What FSU wants, see, is out, and they don't want to have to pay $130 million as an exit fee. Either that, or they want more money from the ACC's various media deals. So this really is all about greed and self-interest, even if FSU tried to cover itself by pretending to speak for all the ACC schools.

Don't be fooled. This is about Florida State and no one else but Florida State. Think the board in Tallahassee gives a tinker's damn about getting, say, Wake Forest a bigger slice of the ACC pie?

Nah. And you know what?

This is about money for the ACC, too, which explains the horse-choker exit fee. It's about money for the Big Ten and SEC  as they go about raiding other conferences for bigger revenue streams. And it's about money for the Big Ten in particular as it puts a chunk of its basketball games on Peacock, forcing fans to pay for yet another streaming service if they want to watch all their teams' games.

But ... but ... it's only five bucks or so a month!, the Big Ten says.

But ... but ... you're already making them pay for the Big Ten Network!, the Blob would reply. How much is enough for you guys?

How much, indeed?

Folks around the country get all wound up about the transfer portal and NIL that have college athletes shopping themselves to the highest bidder, and it has become quite the mess. But, gee, where do you think they learned it from?

Couldn't possibly be their coaches doing the same thing, could it? Or the major conferences shaking down fans for every last dollar they can possibly squeeze out of them?

Why, of course not.

(He said, with all due sarcasm)

Look. This is all about greed and self-interest, from everybody, and no use pretending otherwise. The day when a stud hoss chose a school, played there four years and got a college degree out of it is as dead as disco. Now the degree's at best an afterthought, for both the kid and the school. 

It's about the money the school can make if its NIL pile is big enough to deliver a national title or two. And it's about the extra couple million or so that will mean for Coach Slobberknocker.

Who, if the extra couple million or so isn't forthcoming, will take off for, I don't know, LSU or someplace. Where, if he wins enough, they might start calling him the General.

The Dollar General, that is.

A Christmas wish

 (Letter that recently arrived at the North Pole, postmarked A Ranch In Texas):

Dear Santa,

Consider this my official Christmas wish list, big guy, and it's a pretty simple one. There's really only one thing I want.

I want you to swing me a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

And before you say "That doesn't sound so simple!", let me tell you I do have some baseball experience. In fact, I pitched for 27 years in the major leagues. Won me some games, too -- like, 324 of 'em. Pitched in 807 games, started 773 of  'em, and (here's a stat for you) finished 222.

That's right, oh jolly fat man. Two-hundred twenty-two CGs, baby -- baseball lingo for "complete games." Who pitches complete games anymore? Man, they're as extinct as pay phones and Battle of the Network Stars.

 Now, I suppose this is where I gotta say I'm 76 years old now. Haven't pitched in the bigs in 30 years. But I still throw a bit, and darned if my arm doesn't still have some juice in it. Gotta be worth a mill a year or so to the Trolley Dodgers.

I mean, have you seen the way they're  throwing dough around these days? Back in my day you had a lot of owners who threw nickels around like manhole covers, but not these guys. Heck, the Dodgers don't even bother with nickels anymore; they light their cigars with C-notes and use thousand-dollar bills for scrap paper. I know you've got a lot on your plate right now, Nick, but have you seen what they've done lately?

Landed themselves the best player in baseball right now, Shohei Ohtani, and it only cost them $700  million over 10 years. Seven hundred million. Ten years. Shoot, back in my day, you could buy an entire team for that much -- maybe two if one of 'em was the Rangers back in the early '70s. Man, did they suck.

But you know the most amazing thing about the Ohtani deal?

The Dodgers weren't done.

The other day they signed Japanese pitching star Yoshinobu Yamamato to a 12-year, $325-million deal. Twelve years! For a pitcher who could blow out his ulnar bi-lateral whatchucallit at any time. And who hasn't thrown a pitch in the majors yet!

My point is, if the Dodgers have that much money falling out of their pockets, they could let a little of it fall my way. Hey, I'd be a bargain. I figure at 76 I don't have but five more good years left in this chicken wing. So no 10-year, 12-year pacts for me. And like I said, I'd work cheap. 

So how about it, big guy? You gonna be my Scott Boras, or do I have to throw a heater at your head?

Warmest regards,

Nolan Ryan

Locker room talk

 There are cameras everywhere now. We all know this, right?

So maybe North Carolina State football coach Dave Doeren should be a bit more, um, circumspect the next time he addresses the troops after a big win. Especially when it's a win over an in-state rival you've been dominating lately.

In case you missed it, Doeren's Wolfpack knocked off North Carolina last month in the final game of the season for both schools.

Afterward, a cameraman from the ACC Network caught Doeren saying this: "It's been 1,460 days since those pieces of s*** beat us."

Needless to say, this didn't sit well with North Carolina coach Mack Brown, who was still annoyed by it at his national signing day presser yesterday.

"I thought it was classless," Brown said, among other things. "... you don't call kids a piece of s***."

He's right, of course. Doeren knows he's right, too, which is why he called Brown to apologize after the video clip got out.

However.

However, allow me to chuckle a bit at the outrage coming out of Chapel Hill and elsewhere.

See, back before there were cameras everywhere, what Doeren said, or something like it, probably got said in a whole lot of locker rooms before or after a rivalry game. Think Bo or Woody never said anything derogatory about Ohio State/Michigan? Hell, Woody wouldn't even utter the word "Michigan" in the run-up to the game -- and that was in public.

What do you suppose he was saying behind closed doors? Especially when, asked why he went for two after the last touchdown in Ohio State's 50-14 beatdown in 1968, he famously replied "Because they wouldn't let me go for three"?

Similarly, Bob Knight, also quite famously, was known to despise Illinois when Lou Henson was there, because he thought it was a dirty program. That was common knowledge. Think Knight, of all people, restrained himself in the locker room before playing the Illini, and didn't utter a few discouraging (and likely profane) words about their program?

And as for Purdue ...

Well. Publicly, Knight once dressed a live donkey in Purdue gear and brought him on his weekly coach's show. What do you suppose he said in private?

 Enmity between rivals is hardly a shameful thing except when it's carried too far, and sometimes it has been. But a coach defaming a bitter rival in the privacy of the locker room? That's dog-bites-man stuff.

Except, of course, when someone catches it on camera. And these days, that's pretty much all the time.

Word to the wise, Coach Doeren.

Un-Magical Mystery Tour

 OK, so, you figure 'em out. I'm done tryin'.

You figure out how a basketball team that left its heart and guts and various other vital organs on the floor against No. 2 Kansas can come out, three days later, and be down 15 in the second half to a mid-major.

You figure out where Kel'el Ware disappeared to, and what sort of milk carton we should have looked at to find Malik Reneau, and why nobody can make a three. You figure out why this team -- which looked like an NCAA Tournament team three days ago -- needed a partial block by Reneau at the buzzer to salvage the W last night.

Indiana 69, Morehead State 68. That was your final from Assembly Hall.

Survive and advance, meet survive and regress.

How near a thing was it?

Well, if Anthony Walker doesn't emerge from the mists of sporadic playing time to drop 18 points on the Moreheads (and where the hell did that come from?), Indiana loses this one. And by a lot.

It loses because it missed 13 of 16 attempts from beyond the arc, and missed 38 of  63 shots overall, and got braziered for 30 points by a 6-5 guard named Jordan Lathon -- which was four points more than his previous season high of 26.

Which he put up against ... Northern Iowa.

These Hoosiers, man. Might be the only team in America that suffers a letdown after a loss.

And, yeah, OK, 75-71 to Kansas didn't feel like loss, at least not completely. Conversely, last night didn't feel in any way like a win. It felt like a loss in drag. A drag-win.

I don't know what Mike Woodson had to say about that. But I know what Bob Knight would have said: The wrong team won.

In any case, the Hoosiers are 8-3 now, and still don't have a resume W. And they still continue to amaze, though not in a good way. 

Ware, the bulwark of this team so far this season, had zero points in the first half last night. Zee. Ro. He finished with 10 points and six boards -- five-and-a-half points and three-and-a-half rebounds below his season averages.

Meanwhile, Gabe Cupps and C.J. Gunn, alleged shooters, were a combined 0-for-3 from three and 2-for-7 overall. Everyone else seemed to follow their lead.

Against Morehead State.

Who, in Indiana's defense, came in 8-3 with a veteran lineup featuring seven seniors. And it's not like Indiana is the only Big Ten that's struggling right now. Maryland barely scraped by Nicholls State last night. Michigan is a .500 basketball team. Michigan State lost at home to James Madison, lost at Nebraska and is 6-5. So is Iowa.

Except for Purdue and maybe Wisconsin, the Big Ten as whole looks to be down this year. Considerably.

Still ...

Still, Indiana needed Reneau getting a desperate finger on Lathon's last shot to escape an Ohio Valley Conference school. And so the Hoosier Mystery Tour goes on, and it ain't exactly Magical.

Next up is North Alabama, another mid-major, a .500 basketball team coming to Assembly Hall. The Blob's prediction: Indiana blows out the Lions by 30.

The Un-Magical Mystery Tour practically demands it.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 15

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the incorrigibly vacillating Blob feature of which critics have said "Incorrigibly what?", and also "Vasoline? What does Vasoline have to do with anything?":

1. "Oh, so that's what vacillating means!" (America, after vacillating from "This is the Cowboys year!" to "OK, so maybe not" in the wake of their 31-10 no-show against the Bills)

2. "Look what the Colts did to the Steelers!" (Colts fans)

3. "Oh, wait, it was the Steelers." (Also Colts fans)

4. "Hey, maybe we're not so bad!" (Bears fans, after they thoroughly trounced the Lions a week ago)

4. "Fire Eberflus! Trade Justin Fields!" (Bears fans a week later, after losing to Joe Flacco -- Joe Flacco! -- and the Browns)

5. Meanwhile, the Lions!

6. Lose by two touchdowns to the Bears, then dismantle the surging Broncos.

7. "It's all falling apart! No, wait, it's not!" (Lions fans)

8. "It's all falling apart! No, wait it's not! No, wait it is!" (Eagles fans, after slumping Philly gives up a touchdown pass with 28 seconds to play to snatch a 20-17 loss to the Seahawks from the jaws of victory)

9. "Hey, at least we still suck!" (The Jets, after averaging 1.9 yards per play in a 30-0 loss to the Dolphins)

10. "So do we!" (The Steelers, the Patriots, the Giants, the Cardinals)

Message delivered

 Pssst. Hey, America. Coupla guys here have a message for you.

Their names are Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer, and that message is ...

Hmm. How do you translate a big, fat raspberry into English?

Because that's what Smith and Loyer gave you, America, after hearing all week that Purdue's guards weren't this and Purdue's guards weren't that, and Zach Edey would have to score a million points, block a gazillion shots and Windex the glass a goo-gob of times for No. 3Purdue to have a chance against No. 1 Arizona.

 That's because Arizona's guards were just too good. It's because Loyer, Smith and Co. couldn't guard them. It's because they wouldn't be able to score because 'Zona's guards would be all over them like stink on dog-doo.

That's what you said, right, America? All you wise guys out there with your Xs and your Os and your revealed wisdom?

Well ...

Let us examine what happened Saturday in Indianapolis, shall we?

Let's review No. 3 Purdue taking down the No. 1 team by eight, 92-84, and how the Purdues dominated most of the day, and how Big Zach went for 22 points and nine rebounds, which if my math is right was a goodly ways away from a gazillion points and goo-gobs of rebounds. Let's review, mostly, what those overmatched guards Smith and Loyer managed to do.

Smith went for 26 points, four rebounds, two assists and three steals.

Loyer put up 27 points, a rebound, three assists and four steals.

Together, the two of them knocked down 9 of 16 from the 3-point arc. Along with Purdue's other starting guard, Lance Jones, they outscored Arizona's three starting guards -- Caleb Love, Pelle Larsson and Kylan Boswell -- 62-45.  And they protected the basketball better, too, turning it over six times to the Kansas trio's eight.

So I guess you know where you can stick your revealed wisdom, wise guys. I hear the sun never shines there.

Now, to be sure, Smith and Loyer are not going to go for 53 every night, or flush nine-of-16 from arc. Loyer in particular is still notoriously streaky on the offensive end, and occasionally a liability on the defensive end.

But they are also yea better than the version we saw last season, when both were still learning that the college game was not high school. And the addition of Jones gives the Purdue backcourt a dose of quicks it didn't have last year, which no doubt has something to do as well with Smith's and Loyer's improved performance.

In other words: This team is not just Big Zach 'n' Them Others. It's better than last year's team because of that. How much better, we won't know until March.

Which of course is what it invariably comes down to in West Lafayette. And everywhere else besides.

Moral something

 You can haul the what-ifs out of storage, because the guys in cream-and-crimson found a home for them yesterday. There's your positive in the wake of No. 2 Kansas 75, Your Indiana Hoosiers 71.

Your positive is closing your eyes and seeing Trey Galloway's final three with 20  seconds showing skim the iron unblessed, over and over. It's seeing Kel'el Ware just ... barely ... missing corralling a a crucial loose ball as it crossed the end line. It's an eight-point lead at halftime, a 13-point lead with 15 minutes to play, a lead still with four-and-a-half to play.

What if Galloway's three had bedded down? What if Ware's a micro-second quicker on that loose ball? What if Indiana doesn't run out of gas down the stretch and that lead doesn't dissolve into No. 2 Kansas 75, Your Indiana Hoosiers 71.

Altogether now, Hoosier Nation, which showed up in force to turn Assembly Hall into Assembly Hell for the visitors from the plains: Dammit. Dammit!

And, yeah, let the geezer brigade grumble and snarl that Mike Woodson's raised a team without a killer instinct, that by God ol' Bobby's Hoosiers knew how to close the deal when it had a team on the ropes. Let 'em shake their heads and mourn that back in the day no one would take an ounce of hope from a loss, for God's sake.

I get that sentiment, being a geezer myself. But if you were waiting to see if this team was as cold in the belly and around the heart as it's looked so far this season, you at least got an answer to that question yesterday.

That answer was (Bleep) no. You want fire in the belly and a show of heart? Here it is, (bleepers).

This is a team, remember, that got crushed by both of the top-shelf fives it had played prior to Saturday. UConn beat it by 20. Auburn destroyed it by 28 a week ago. It was a team whose guards couldn't guard at one end and couldn't throw it in the ocean from a cruise ship at the other. It was a team with two reliable inside players and not a lot else, a team that flat-out quit in that debacle a week ago.

Well. Yesterday, that team outhustled, outrebounded and out-fought Kansas. It outrebounded the Jayhawks 33-31. Galloway, Reneau and McKenzie Mgbako were 6-of-12 from the 3-point arc. And a week after Auburn braziered IU's perimeter D with 14 threes, Kansas managed to make just 6-of-18 tries. A 52.4 percent shooting team overall coming in, the Jayhawks shot ten percentage points below that (26-of-61) as the Hoosiers got up in their grills more often than not.

It wasn't enough, unfortunately. In the end 14 turnovers and 33 percent shooting in the second half undid all the good work. But at least for once there was an abundance of good work to be undone.

Moral victories are just losses dressed up in their Sunday best. But this was at least a moral something.

And that was something. Right?

Welcome to "Serve and Volley: The Generations"

 I love it when OGs and CGs (Current Guys) get into generational beefs. Mainly because you can't really resolve them to anyone's satisfaction.

And so I give you Nick Kyrgios vs. Boris Becker, brash Current Tennis Guy and Old School Tennis Guy, who got into a war of words last week because of something Kyrgios told The Athletic.

What Kyrgios said was, today's tennis players would mop the court with OGs like Becker, squeegee the mop dry and then mop the court with them again.

"The game was so slow then," Kyrgios said. "I’ve watched Boris Becker and I’m not saying they weren’t good in their time, but to say that they would be just as good now, it’s absurd.

“A big serve back then was like 197 to 200 KM/H. People like me, we serve 220 consistently, to corners. It’s a whole different ball game."

To which he added "Neener-neener-neener." OK, he didn't, but I bet he was thinking it.

This prompted the expected OG response from Becker, something along the lines of "What does this punk know about anything?" And so on, and so on.

What the Blob says about this is it's nearly pointless, and thus hugely unfair, to compare athletes from different generations. You have to factor in so many variables -- training methods, facilities, equipment, scheduling, even playing styles -- that judging one generation against another comes down to mere supposition. Empirical evidence to support one opinion or another becomes almost impossible to find.

Of course, we all have our prejudices, and as an OG, I readily confess to mine. And so what I'd say to Kyrgios is, yeah, what does this punk know about anything?

What I'd say to Nick is, of course the game was slower then. That's because no one in Becker's era -- and I'm talking the era of Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, et al -- were wielding those trampolines players wield now. 

Connors used the fabled Wilson T-2000, one of the worst racquets ever made (I know because I had one once). Borg and McEnroe and a whole lot of others were armed with wooden racquets that look like relics from the Battle of Hastings today. And of course the racquet heads were microscopic compared to today's; think the square mileage of Lichtenstein versus the square mileage of, say, Russia.

Hand Kyrgios one of those antiques and see if he can still deliver a 220 KM/H serve to the corners. Good luck with that, bud.

I'm thinking if you gave the OG greats from Becker's day everything Kyrgios and the CGs have now, no one would be mopping the court with them. McEnroe, for instance, not only was playing with that tiny little wooden thing, he used to joke that he trained on Haagen-Dazs. Can you imagine Kyrgios or Nadal or Federer or Djokovic saying that?

I can't.

I also can't imagine anyone will ever be able to win this debate.

But ain't it fun tryin'?

Let's go bowlin'!

 Today is December 16, and you know what that means, Blobophiles. It's Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl Day!

Which officially kicks off the holiday bowl season, one of the Blob's favorite times of the year. This is because there are an estimated 9,000 bowl games now, almost all of which are totally irrelevant. And who doesn't need a bit more irrelevancy in his or her life?

So, yes, today is the Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl, and also the Cricket Celebration Bowl, the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, the Starco Brands L.A. Bowl, the Myrtle Beach Bowl, the Isleta New Mexico Bowl and of course the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl.

Which is annually one of the Blob's favorites,  just for the contradiction it presents. I mean, if the Independence Bowl were truly Independent, why would it need a corporate sponsor?

Anyway, this year Radiance Technologies, which I'm assuming has something to do with really bright lights and a lot of robots and microchips and such, gives us Cal and Texas Tech. This promises to be an intriguing matchup between two powerhouse .500 teams. Who will finish the season 7-6, and who 6-7? I can't wait to find out.

"But Mr. Blob," you're saying. "What about the avocado whatchamicallit?

Well, the Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl ("Because Avocados From Mexico will Cure what ails ya!" is the Blob's suggested motto) features the Mid-American Conference champions, the Miami (O.)  Redhawks, against Appalachian State. Miami is 11-2 and just made a paper wad out of favored Toledo in the MAC title game; App State is 8-5 but favored because App State is always really good.

I'm picking Miami because I went to a MAC school (Ball State), and we MACsters have to stick togethee.

Elsewhere, meanwhile, it's UCLA and Boise State in the Starco Brands L.A. Bowl; New Mexico State and Fresno State in the Isleta New Mexico Bowl; Jacksonville State and Louisiana Not-LSU-The-Other-Louisiana in the R&L Carriers Bowl; Georgia Southern and Ohio Not-Ohio-State-The-Other-Ohio in the Myrtle Beach Bowl; and Howard and Florida A&M in the Cricket Celebration Bowl.

I really don't care about any of those games, except perhaps the latter one. Mainly that's because Howard's in it, and Howard was founded by a Civil War General (Oliver Otis Howard), and as a card-carrying Civil War nerd I'm required to root for the Civil War guy.

Anyway, here we go with bowl season. Enjoy.

And may the Radiance be with you.

Big George

 There are some things you don't know, Kids Of Today, hard as that is for you to believe. Allow the Blob to fill you in on one in this morning.

Once upon a time, see, there was this high school kid.

He stood 6-foot-8 and lived right down the street from 240 or so pounds.

He had muscles on his muscles, and he played football so well the coach at Michigan State once came down from East Lansing to try to persuade him to play for Sparty.

But this high school kid chose basketball instead. And he was really, really good at it.

And if right now you're waving your hand in the air, acting like you know who I'm talking about, let me say right here that, no, it's not LeBron James.

It's George McGinnis. Who died this week at 73 after suffering a massive heart attack, and who was LeBron long before there ever was a LeBron.

He was built the same, he had game the same, but he came along in the late 1960s, when no one had ever seen anything remotely like him. At Washington High School in Indianapolis, he won a state title on an undefeated team and was named Indiana's Mr. Basketball. In his only season as a sophomore at Indiana (freshmen weren't allowed to play then), he averaged 30 points and a shade under 15 rebounds and led the Big Ten in both categories, something no sophomore had ever done.

Then he jumped to the old ABA, where he led the Indiana Pacers to two ABA titles and was the league MVP in 1975, when all he did was average 29.8 points, 14.3 boards and 6.2 assists per game.

He was the best player in the ABA whose name wasn't Julius Erving. And when the ABA dissolved and the Pacers were absorbed into the NBA, he wound up playing with Dr. J in Philadelphia, where the 76ers were an early precursor to all the Super Friends teams we see today.

That Big George was also a kind, humble soul who married his high school sweetheart and stayed married to her until he lost her to cancer in 2019 is just gilding the lily. Fact is, he was one of those athletes around whom legends grow like corn in a hot summer.

Some of them were true. Some of them, Bunyanesque, were only sort of true. 

I never got to meet Big George in person, which, given all the stories flowing like a mountain spring from those who knew him, was my loss. I did see him one time, back in 1971 when I was a junior in high school.

I was in Bloomington for a model United Nations with some other kids from my history class, and one day two of us played hooky and went to see Indiana play Iowa. This was in the pre-Assembly Hall days, when the Hoosiers were still playing in the old fieldhouse. If memory serves (and it double-faults more than not these days), McGinnis was coming off the floor at halftime and my buddy yelled "McGinnis!" and he looked up and my buddy snapped his picture.

My memento of that day, oddly, was football-related. At point we turned around, and there sitting at one end of the floor was IU's then-football coach, John Pont. I got his autograph on the back of my official Model UN nametag. Kept it in my wallet for years until it literally fell apart.

Anyway, that's my only George McGinnis story. It ain't much, but it's all I've got.

A better story -- the best, really -- comes from two years earlier, in 1969, when Big George was Mr. Basketball. It sounds like those aforementioned Bunyanesque half-fables, only this one actually happened.

In the first game of the Indiana All-Stars annual home-and-home with the Kentucky All-Stars. McGinnis went for 23 points and 14 rebounds. It was only an average game for him, and afterward one Kentucky player made the mistake of saying out loud that he wasn't all that impressed.

So you know what Big George did the next week?

He scored 53 points.

And ripped down 30 rebounds.

I don't know what that certain Kentucky player said after that. But I can guess.

Something along the lines of "Oh. OK", I'm guessing.

Which I'm also guessing might be the response from the Kids Of Today who sneer at the players of McGinnis' era, saying they were all just a bunch of -- what's the term they use? -- plumbers. 

Go back and watch some clips of Big George. Check out how he played. Check out, mostly, how the guy was built -- like the proverbial brick house, only encased in titanium.

Yeah, boy. Some plumber.

And some loss here in Indiana, where our basketball Mt. Rushmore is suddenly missing a piece.

Ball games

 Sometimes we just assume we're dealing with grownups, out here in Sportsball World. And very often we are.

But there are a lot of inner 8-year-olds running around in the world of games, which I suppose makes sense because, well, they're games -- kids games, when you get right down to it. And so the inner 8-year-olds occasionally take over.

Today's example: Last night in Milwaukee the Bucks and Indiana Pacers played an NBA game, and a playground dispute broke out.

What happened was, Giannis Antetokounmpo set off a franchise-record 64-point bomb on the Pacers, as the Bucks rolled Indiana 140-126. Afterward, because it's not every night even Giannis drops 64 on someone, he went looking for the game ball as a memento.

Surprise! 

The Pacers, it seems, had already taken it as a memento for Oscar Tshiebwe, who scored his first NBA point last night. A scuffle in the corridor outside the Pacers locker room ensued after Giannis went scurrying off to retrieve the ball, with a lot of yelling and shouting and general scuffling and the like.

I wasn't there, but I've been around for a few playground disputes in my time. So I imagine the Reader's Digest condensed version went something like this:

"Gimme my ball!"

"No! It's our ball!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-UH. This is MY gym, and that ball is MY property!"

"Too bad! Finders keepers, bud!"

"I'm callin' my dad!"

"Go ahead! I'll hide this ball where he'll NEVER find it!"

And then Giannis bursts into tears, or something.

In any case, later on Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, which frankly it probably was. But here's my question -- and it's a real question, because I honestly don't know:

Aren't entire racks of basketballs present for every NBA game?

And how often do more than one of those basketballs get used in a game? 

I'm guessing it does occasionally happen, although I don't know if it happened last night. But if it did, then technically there was more than one game ball available. And if it didn't ...

Well, I still don't quite get all the fuss. I say Giannis gets the game ball -- it was a franchise record, and he set it in the franchise's home arena -- and the Bucks give the Pacers another ball to give to Tshiebwe. He's still getting a ball from that night as a memento, so what's the big deal?

Only an 8-year-old would care. 

Which, of course, is the crux of everything here.

Anger mismanagement

 Draymond Green got thrown out of another NBA game last night, this time for backhanding Jusuf Nurkic of the Phoenix Suns in the head. And now I don't know what you do if you're Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

On the one hand, he's not wrong when he says Green's a valuable piece of the Warriors' game, and they need him. He's also not wrong when he says Green needs to learn to "keep his poise and be out there for his teammates."

On the other hand ...

When does it become obvious he's simply incapable of doing that? 

And how long has it been obvious already?

No, I don't know what you do if you're Steve Kerr, but maybe we're edging toward the nuclear option. As in, trade the guy for whatever you can get and move on -- even though Draymond was an unrestricted free agent this past summer and the rumors of him moving on were flying, only to come to naught.

Anyway, it's not as if Draymond doesn't have some miles on him. He's now 33 years old. This is his 12th NBA season. Although there's as yet been little falloff in his production, the law of diminishing returns is surely waiting just offstage.

Especially when the Warriors can't depend on the guy to keep himself on the floor.

Now, Green did apologize for what happened last night, saying he tries to sell fouls by waving his arms around and just happened to catch Nurkic in the noggin. This sounded reasonable, sort of. Draymond always sounds reasonable when the dust settles. That's because he's an intelligent man, except on those occasions when he loses his freaking mind.

And there have simply been too many of those occasions. So what do you do, if you're Steve Kerr? And when are Steph Curry and the rest of the Warriors vets going to step up and publicly demand some accountability from Draymond?

Maybe they've already done that in private, I don't know. Maybe they told him to check his s***, and he got all mad and told them to check their s***, and it blew up into one of those locker room kerfuffles teams like the Warriors are adept at keeping quiet. I mean, Draymond decked teammate Jordan Poole right out in the open in practice once. Who knows what he does behind closed doors?

"Perhaps some anger management therapy might be in order, Mr. Blob," you're saying now.

Yes. And I can just see how that would go.

"Mr. Green, tell us what goes through your mind when you become angry on the basketball cou-"

BLAM!

"Oops, sorry, Doc. I didn't mean to elbow you in the head. I was just stretching and your head accidentally got in the way ..."

Ay-yi-yi.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 14

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the sporadically incredulous Blob feature of which critics have said "I'm just incredulous this abomination has lasted this long!", and also "Incredulous? Hell, I'm absolutely astounded!":

1. "Wait, we let Bailey Zappe beat us? At home? In front of the whole blankety-blank nation??" (Steelers fans, incredulously, after Zappe threw three touchdown passes and the 2-10 Patriots beat the Steelers on Thursday Night Football, 21-18)

2. "Well, at least it was on Prime. Only a handful of people have Prime, right?" (Also Steelers fans, grasping at teeny-tiny straws)

3. Meanwhile, the Colts!

4. Left its fan base incredulous as it pooped the bed in Cincinnati in a 34-14 loss.

5. "But I thought we were good now!" (The fan base, incredulously)

6. "What th-? You mean we're halfway decent now?" (Bears fans, incredulously, watching Justin Fields 'n' them floor-wax the Lions 28-13)

7. "Oh, no. Does this mean we'll stick with Justin Fields?" (Also Bears fans, fretfully)

8. "Crap! I can't believe we gpt screwed by the refs two weeks in a row!" (Chiefs fans, after a late Travis-Kelce-lateral-to-Kadarious-Toney go-ahead score was called back because Toney lined up offsides  in a home loss to the Bills)

9. "F-word! I can't believe the refs didn't tell Kadarious he was lined up offsides! It's like protocol, man!" (Patrick Mahomes, incredulously)

10. "Wow! I can't believe Kadarious lined up offsides! It's like the first thing they teach you in youth football!" (The rest of America, also incredulously)

Joy and sorrow, in orange-and-black

 The last time I saw Michael Franke, he was throwing stuff at me out of the pressbox

This was a year or so ago, and Michael was already going hand-to-hand with the cancer that finally killed him Sunday at the age of 63. I was sitting just below with my daughter in the 600 section nosebleeds, and suddenly a little rolled-up ball of something (Wrapper? Napkin?) hit me in the back of the head. Plink.

Then another. And another.

Plink. Plink.

"What th-?" I said, and turned around.

And up there was Mike Franke, grinning like he'd just given a hotfoot to the kid in front of him in class.

It was quintessential Michael, the most not-your-ordinary-team-president ever. He could be as serious and correct as any boardroom jockey when he needed to be, but he was also one of the most relentlessly cheerful souls I ever knew. If he was utterly clear-eyed as an executive during a time when minor-league hockey demanded a clear eye, he never failed to divine the humor in virtually any situation.

And, oh, yeah: He and his brothers saved hockey in this hockey town.

It was Michael, David, Stephen, Richard and Bill who stepped in and brought the defunct Flint IHL franchise to the Fort after David Welker moved the original Komets to Albany, N.Y. in the summer of 1990. Within no more than a month, the Komets rode again, original fireball logo and orange-and-black livery and all. And thus a city that hadn't been without minor-league hockey since 1952 would still not be without it, and hasn't been to this day.

This year they're on season No. 72, and Michael Franke was around for 33 of those. It is sad beyond measure he won't be around for any more, at least in the mortal realm.

And so today is for remembering, and for appreciating.

The appreciation is for a man who grew up going to Komet games, playing hockey with a paper wad and those miniature souvenir sticks in the concourse between periods. Because of that, he, and his brothers, didn't just remember the good old days of Komet hockey; they in a very real sense lived them. And it informed everything they did from the moment they brought those dead old Flint Spirits to Fort Wayne.

Thirty-three years erase a lot, but they can't erase the details of that first season, when something like magic happened inside Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. Michael, just 30 years old then and most recently Bob Chase's sidekick in the booth on game nights, handled the business side of things. David took care of the hockey operations. A young Al Sims was the head coach, and the players ...

Well. The names still ring when you touch 'em, don't they?

They were Stephane Beauregard in goal, and Danny Lambert and Brian McKee and Stephane Brochu on the blue line. Lonnie Loach and Scott Gruhl and John Anderson up front. Colin Chin, the local guy; Ian Boyce and Kevin Kaminski, that kamikaze on skates; Steve Fletcher and Bruce Boudreau and Robin Bawa, and Carey Lucyk. 

Somehow they all pulled together for the new/old black and orange, and the entire city went along for the ride. Having almost lost its identity, the hockey town became a hockey town again, filling the Coliseum with orange sound and orange fury, giving birth to the Jungle and a unique cast of characters: Leatherlungs and the Dancing Kid and, of course, Twister.

The highlight came in Indianapolis, Game 7 of the Turner Cup semifinals, the Komets and the Indianapolis Ice slugging it out like the bitter rivals they were. It went to overtime, Beauregard at one end and Jimmy Waite at the other trading miracles between the pipes, until at last Loach ended it with a final leaden-legged rush.

The Komets would fall in six in the finals to a vastly superior Peoria club. But on that night ...

On that night, when it was done, the boards swung open at one end of the rink.

Through them came Michael and David Franke, arms around one another.

 Onto the ice they skittered in their grownup shoes -- two still-young men trying hard not to fall and bust their asses; two still-young men celebrating like the paper-wad-slapshooting kids they once were. 

Look at that smile on Michael's face, the unrestrained joy.

Think it's not still there?

A returnable W

 There are Ws and there are Ws, and then there's the W North Dakota State's men's basketball team hung up over the weekend.

That one ought to be returned. And without a refund.

That one was North Dakota State embarrassing itself by beating Oak Hills Christian College 108-14 -- and, no, that's not a misprint. The Bison really did win 108-14, and it probably wasn't an upset that it won 108-14, because Oak Hills Christian College is an NCCAA school from Bemidji, Mn., with an enrollment of 100.

"Did you leave a zero or two off of that, Mr. Blob?" you're asking now.

No. No I did not.

Oak Hills really does have an enrollment of 100, and its athletic department consists of six sports -- basketball, cross country and soccer for men; basketball, cross country and volleyball for women. 

North Dakota State, on the other hand, is a Division I school in Fargo, N.D., with an enrollment of 12,242. It funds 14 sports, seven each for men and women. Why it would even schedule a school like Oak Hills boggles the mind. What, Roger Maris Middle School wasn't available?

I suspect what happened is an opponent for that date suddenly cancelled, and NDSU had to beat every bush in North America to find a replacement. I'm also guessing they paid Oak Hills a decent chunk of change to play them.

What ensued was not a basketball game, but a sad parody of a basketball game. North Dakota State led 60-5 at halftime. Every player on its roster played at least 13 minutes. No starter played more than 20 minutes; three reserves played at least 20.

And yet ...

And yet: 108-14.

It's the sort of mismatch so beyond the pale it not only gives the word "mismatch" a bad name, but makes one the object of ridicule. And, no, I'm not talking about Oak Hills, which no doubt played its heart out. No one's laughing at them; they're laughing at NDSU for scheduling such an abomination in the first place.

When is a W not a W?

When a basketball program decides it violated so many rules of fair play it shouldn't count on its record.

Come on, North Dakota State. Do the honorable thing here.

Return this W to sender.

A trip to the Wood(y) shed

 Ouch. That hurt.

There it is, Blobophiles. That would have been my lede if I were still a working sports scribe and bloviating about whatever the hell that was yesterday between Auburn and Indiana.

"I know what it was, Mr. Blob!" you're saying now, waving your hand.

OK, so what was it?

"It was a royal platinum-grade ass-whuppin'!"

Well, yeah, it was all that and a bag of chips, and so let the Mike-Woodson-must-go-ing begin. Crimson Nation does not like it when their Hoosiers lie down and let some football school wipe its feet on them. They don't like it when the football school outscores their guys 42-12 across the back end of the first half and then just keep piling on in the second half, eventually winning 104-76.

Crimson Nation, after all, is not supposed to be short for "Crimson With IU's Blood Nation."

And the hell of it is, Crimson Nation is not entirely wrong/delusional/completely hysterical like usual. They're mad at Woodson because this one was demonstrably on him.

His Hoosiers came out of the gate smoking, building a 26-16 lead and putting Auburn on its heels. But then Woodson did that weird substitution thing of his -- subbing out five-for-five the way hockey teams change lines -- and it came apart like the surprise prize in the Cracker Jacks box.

Auburn cranked up the defensive pressure the second unit, kept aggressively going to the glass, and, hey, look at this, the 22-10 Indiana lead is gone. Now it's 52-34 at the break, and the Auburns are in the process of undressing the Indiana guards with eight steals, and pounding the supposed Indiana strength -- its game around the rim -- with 11 offensive rebounds and 32 points in the paint, and exploiting the Hoosiers' puny perimeter D with 14 threes.

And even worse part?

Indiana surrendered. Flat outright surrendered.

And even worse than that?

Against the only two really formidable opponents they've faced, the Hoosiers have lost big -- by 20 to UConn and 28 to Auburn.

This does not bode well for their chances in March. Heck, it's doesn't bode well for the chances to get to March.

Not all of this is on Woodson, but yesterday certainly was -- when a team simply doesn't compete, that's a coach thing -- and others might be as well. The team he's put together has two or three quality bigs, but doesn't have a guard capable of handling aggressive pressure or taking control of a game when an opponent keeps the bigs in check. That's especially true when Xavier Johnson isn't on the floor, but it might be only slightly less true when he is.

Kel'el Ware, Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako are some solid pieces to build around, but you've still got to build around 'em. Maybe that happens as the season goes on. Maybe Woodson figures out you can't sub hockey-style in the college game, that it simply doesn't work. And maybe everyone in the Big Ten was taking notes yesterday on how you beat Woodson's team, because Auburn certainly provided the blueprint yesterday.

In the meantime, the Hoosiers get No. 2 Kansas next weekend. 

Altogether now: Yikes.

Mad money

 Of course the Dodgers got him. The rich always get richer, right? 

The rich always get richer, and the Dodgers are stupid rich, clearly, because they just opened the vault and handed Shohei Ohtani a 10-year deal worth $700 million. Seven-hundred million! You could buy yourself a whole pile of them eight-slice toasters for that.*

(*A reference to some hilljack in Ohio who once won several mill in the lottery, and, when asked what he was going to do with the money, replied "Well, I always wanted of them eight-slice toasters.")

Anyway, Shohei's a rich man, and everyone in baseball is in shock because ... well, because $700 million blows the whole pay scale right to Alpha Centauri. Seven hundred million for hitting a ball with a stick and making other people miss it with their sticks -- Ohtani's otherworldly gifts -- is the thing that appalls me in these deals, however. What always appalls me is there are people in America with so much of so much they can afford to pay a man seven hundred million to do that.

Meanwhile you've got other people in America living on Pete's Pride Pork Fritters and Banquet pot pies. It is a wonder -- and not the good kind.

But enough social commentary.

This is about Ohtani's stunning deal, and the equally stunning decision by the Dodgers to make it a 10-year package. Surely there must be some sort of guardrails baked into the thing, because Ohtani's already 29 years old, his pitching arm is messed up enough that he's not scheduled to pitch again until 2025. And who knows what kind of ghost that arm will be then?

So let's just say for now that he's getting $700 million for 10 years to hit home runs. And he will. But how many is going to be hitting when the contract expires? 

He'll be 39 then. Unless he's even more the freak of nature he already is, he won't be the same player. Heck, the Dodgers may have already dealt him if they can get someone to swallow the mammoth chunk they'll have to swallow. 

That's what happened back in 2004 when the Texas Rangers, just three summers into the then-record 10-year, $252 mill contract they handed Alex Rodriguez, traded him to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and one other player. Three years later the Yankees re-upped A-Rod to another 10-year deal, which Rodriguez played out to its end.

He was 30 years old then. So, hey, maybe this 10-year thing with Ohtani will work out after all.

But color the Blob skeptical. As ever.

The As Intended Bowl

 I don't know what you're watching this afternoon. But I know what I'm watching.

I'm watching college football -- and by that I mean actual college football, the kind played by actual students and not entrepreneurs. 

I'm watching the Corps of Cadets, the Brigade of Midshipmen, the long gray line and the sea of white caps.

I'm watching the Black Knights of the Hudson, and the Midshipmen of Annapolis. The boots on the ground, and the bluejackets on the deck. I'm watching Army-Navy.

It is an annual ritual with me, and now more than ever. I watch because the history nerd in me demands it -- Army-Navy goes back to 1890, after all -- and  because I'm a sucker for pageantry. But I also watch because it is to me one of the last vestiges of a gone time, when football was an autumn reverie and not some mighty engine of commerce bankrolled by Amazon and the makers of chainsaws and muscle trucks and the like.

I watch today, especially, because the above just became as true as it's ever been, with the NCAA this week finally acknowledging what we've all known for some time now: That college football (and basketball, too) are ruled by the dictates of the boardroom, a business driven by the same prerogatives as IBM or U.S. Steel or any other corporate American giant of the past.

And, listen, I get that. I'm not some romantic fool wallowing in the mists of yesteryear, or at least not always. I understand college athletics began headed toward this the first time a TV network changed a start time, or the first time a swoosh appeared on a player's jersey because his school was getting a nice chunk of change from Nike. And I understand Army-Navy in 2023 is not Army-Navy back when Grover Cleveland was president.

(I also understand that, even in the days of Grover, players were sometimes paid. The Thousand-Dollar Handshake is as much a college football tradition as stealing a rival's mascot or, in one famous instance, Yale infiltrating Harvard's card section so it out spelled WE SUCK.)

Anyway ...

I will watch Army-Navy today. Because in spite of everything, it's the As Intended Bowl -- the closest college football can come anymore to the ideals it once at least tried to uphold. 

It's not great football. The players are smaller and slower and for the most part aren't as skilled as the players at Alabama Inc. or Ohio State Inc. or Georgia Inc. 

But you know what?

For sixty minutes, they will play their hearts out. For sixty minutes, if they're seniors, it  will be one last valedictory fling with the game they fell in love with when they were kids dreaming their dreams in the backyard.

And when it's done, they'll shake hands and walk off the field and into the service of their country. 

I don't know what you're watching today. But I'll watch that all day every day.

Money talks (and wins) again

 Would our lifestyle change if I got $400 million? No. It would not change one bit. Truth be told, I could retire right now with what I made (on the PGA Tour), and I'd live a very happy life and not play golf again.

- Jon Rahm, once upon a time

God. I hate getting played for a sucker.

I hate it when a guy says something wise and centered and  self-aware, and you say "Yeah! That's right, by golly!", and you decide here, finally, is a professional athlete who gets it. A professional athlete who has values that are screwed on straight and cares about the game and isn't in it just for the mon-

And then it turns out he was in it for the money after all. And there you are, just another rube on the carnival midway.

Because I believed the Jon Rahm who said all of the above a year-and-a-half ago, until this week he decided $400 million might make a difference in his lifestyle after all, and it wouldn't even take $400 million. The price tag is reported to be $300 million over three years, and that and a stake in his very own golf team convinced to him to defect to the LIV exhibition tour -- something he's been saying for at least two years he would never do.

Welp. Never say never, I guess.

And money talks and everyone has a price and all that other junk we know is true but ,manage to convince ourselves it isn't. I learned a long time ago never to feel let down when athletes let us down, because sooner or later they almost all let us down. But this ...

I gotta confess. I never thought Rahm would take the Saudis' blood money. I never thought he would be one of Those Guys.

After all, he was on the record as saying he loved the PGA because he loved tournament golf, and LIV golf wasn't tournament golf. Fifty-four holes? No cut? A generous check just for showing up, knocking the ball around with a willow branch and finishing last?

Nah. Not for him.

But then ...

And here's where I'll swallow my dismay and sort of defend Rahm, because despite it all  I still like the guy.

Here's where I'll say Rahm was consistent about not selling out until the PGA, to whom he'd been loyal, sold out him and everyone else who stuck with the Tour. Cut a deal with the very people the PGA had been rightly vilifying. Entered into a kinda-sorta merger with the journalist butchers/9-11 planners. Made a dash for the cash, you might say.

Everyone has a price. Remember?

Now, I don't know if the PGA's betrayal had anything to do with Rahm's reversal of perspective, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if it did. Others who stood by the PGA weren't shy about voicing their disgust when the PGA-LIV treaty was announced, after all. So I can see Rahm thinking, "Well, hell, if the PGA's suddenly OK with these asshats, I might as well take their money, too. Because what does it matter anymore?"

I can understand that. I mean, I guess I can.

But, dammit, Jon. Dammit.

Silence is golden, or something

Confessions of an MLB general manager who prefers to remain nameless. (Mainly because I totally made him up):

I talked with Shohei Ohtani the other day. There, I said it.

I said it, and I know my team will be punished for it by Shohei's people, but I don't care. This Cone of Silence they've insisted upon during his free agency is ridiculous. He's the most sought-after star with the most extraordinary skill set since, I don't now, Babe Ruth, probably, but it's a state secret to whom he's talking? To the extent that if anyone he's talked to mentions they've talked to him, Shohei's people will put that team on double secret probation or something?

"Yes, I can confirm we've met with Shohei and his people." (MLB team)

"You're out! Finished at Faber!" (Shohei's people)

That's pretty much the deal here. And, no, I'm not making this up.

Look. I get it. Shohei's an extremely private young man (also an extremely nice young man, by the way). And he's not the first extremely private young man to come down this pike. 

Remember the famously reticent Steve Carlton? That guy wouldn't say poop if he had a mouthful. And because he especially wouldn't say it to the media ... well, you know how the media are. They get all butt-hurt if you won't talk to them, and paint you as some kind of gaping orifice.

That's what they did to Steve Carlton. Now, I have no clue whether or not he actually was a gaping orifice. But he was occasionally portrayed that way, and I've always thought that was kind of unfair to him. 

Fortunately, they haven't done it to Shohei yet -- mainly because they've seen enough of him to know he is, as I said, an extremely  nice young man. And if he's also extremely private about stuff that's considered private by anyone who doesn't strike out 10 and hit two dingers in the same game ... well. That's his right, right?

I mean, when he posed for a magazine photo with his dog, and the media asked what the dog's name was, his people said he wasn't prepared to go public with that information. That was weird as hell, but well within the bounds of propriety.

Who he's talked to during free agency, on the other hand ...

Come on. That's legit news. It's news people might not exactly have a right to know, but they certainly would like very much to know. And by "people", I mean "fans of teams rumored to be interested in him, like, I don't know, the Cubs, for instance, or the Dodgers, or one of those other fat-cat clubs."

Where's the harm in those clubs saying they've talked with Shohei, just as a service to their fan bases? Why should they be punished for that?

Beats me. Maybe it's because Shohei is such an extremely nice young man he doesn't want the teams he turns down to get a raft of crapola from their fan bases, and by keeping those teams a secret he's trying to help them avoid that?

On second thought, nah. Nobody's that nice.

And so, yeah, I'll tell you I talked to him, just as a protest to the Cone of Silence. It's really not much of a sacrifice, because I'll also tell you we didn't have the money to sign him anyway. Ye gods, the man wants the GNP of Switzerland. And I didn't walk into our meeting with Benjamins falling off it like leaves in October.

Oh, and in the interest of completely blowing the deal we never would have had ...

The dog's name is Charlie.

(Just kidding)

Taking the (inevitable) plunge

 The perfect response eludes, although some responses come to mind. What do you say now that the NCAA seems at last to be bowing to the inevitable?

"Come on in, the water's fine"?

"What took you so long"?

"At last you admit big-boy college athletics are a bidness, after all those years of denying they're a bidness"?

All of the above are acceptable, now that NCAA capo Charlie Baker has finally dropped the last of the scales from everyone's eyes. Yes, college athletics -- mainly football and basketball -- ARE a business. They are a filthy huge business, and have been for a considerable length of time. And now Baker has proposed fully treating them like one.

The other day, see, he proposed schools be allowed to directly enter into Name, Image and Likeness deals with their (student) athletes, rather than fig-leafing around it the way they're doing now. In other words, directly pay their players.

The proposed new rules would also create a new subdivision of Division I schools that would allow them to create their own set of rules for recruiting, transfers, roster size and so on and so forth.

You can interpret all that any way you want. But what seems clear is Baker and the NCAA surveyed the landscape and, because they're not complete idiots, realized they were about to become irrelevant. Division I football and basketball eventually were going to split off into their own separate entities with or without them, And so Baker and the NCAA chose "with."

They started down the path to this a few years back by allowing (student) athletes to enter into their own NIL deals and transfer virtually without restriction. The former quickly turned into bidding wars among the schools, even if they weren't technically the ones bidding. And the latter ...

Well, it's turned into Rent-A-Quarterback/Combo Guard/Point Forward. Notre Dame, just to use one example, rented former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman for a year. Now the Irish may be bucking to rent Duke quarterback Riley Leonard.

And then there's Kedon Slovis, who just finished up his college career at BYU -- his third school in five years.

Now, I don't know what the NCAA is thinking. But having unleashed the wholesale jumping of schools to begin with, turning transfer rules over to the super-conference schools seems like a Hail Mary to rein in the current lunacy.

In other words: We couldn't control it. Maybe you guys can.

"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Doesn't the NCAA's proposal to directly pay players mean there'll be essentially no difference between the top level of college athletics and the pros? Doesn't it essentially make D-I athletics into a developmental league?"

Sure it does. But that elephant's been in the room for some time now. In fact, that elephant has escaped the room and is rampaging through the streets. Even 40 or 50 years ago some observers were calling college football and basketball a farm system for the NFL and NBA. Now it's become one in fact.

Might as well acknowledge it at last. Call a spade a spade, as it were. 

Or a bidness a bidness.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 13

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the playing-out-the-string Blob feature of which critics have said "Is that the end of the string I see?", and also "Speaking of playing out the string, how about those Patriots and Chargers?"

1. "And us! Don't forget us!" (The Jets and Falcons)

2. "When does the game start?" (Patriots fans in Foxborough, after Chargers 6, Pats 0)

3. "Hey, thanks for the string!" (The Falcons, after beating the Jets 13-8)

4. In other news, the Colts ... won?

5. "Hey, what's with the question mark?" (The Colts)

6. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia ...

7. The 49ers rolled.

8. A security guard got into it with one of the Niners and was ejected from the premises.

9.  "Hey, he assaulted one of our guys! OK, so he tackled him! OK, so he's a football player and football players do stuff like that and I'm not supposed to inject myself into the game but DAMMIT THE EAGLES WERE GETTING SMOKED AND I JUST COULDN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!" (The security guard. Presumably.)

10. "When does the game start?" (Patriots fans in Foxborough, two days after Chargers 6, Pats 0)

Easy peasy, Part Not

So remember yesterday, when right on this here Blob we wrote that the College Football Playoff Four was an easy call unless the committee couldn't quit its SEC addiction?

Well ...

Come on down, Alabama!

(And you people from Florida State, here's a tissue. Not our fault your QB1 got hurt and you play in a conference the CFP has deemed unworthy since Clemson backslid. Them's the rules, chum)

And so we've got Big Ten, the SEC, the PAC-12 and the Big 12 in the College Football Playoff. And the only reason the committee let the latter two in there is because 1) Washington is the undefeated champion of demonstrably the best conference in college football this season, and 2) Texas beat Alabama by 10 in Tuscaloosa back in September. Otherwise Georgia would be in and Ohio State would be in, and all would be peachy keen in the college football universe.

The sport these days is the Big Ten and the SEC, plus one outlier every year to make it look like it's not just the Big Ten and the SEC. That's partly why the CFP will expand to 12 teams next year, so the rest of college football will stop hollering about it.

"My, aren't we cynical this morning," you're saying.

Well ... yeah. It's how I tend to get when someone gets hosed as badly as Florida State got hosed.

The Seminoles did everything the committee says a team's supposed to do to get into the CFP, and they still didn't get in. Just "win out"? Check. Go undefeated in a Power 5 conference? Check. Beat two SEC schools?

Check, and check.

And still, Alabama jumped 'em. If you're Florida State, how does that square? If  you were still a top-four team even after Jordan Travis went down, how do you suddenly drop after winning your conference title and holding a potent offensive team (Louisville, which was averaging 31 points per game) to two field goals?

"Well, because Alabama beat No. 1 Georgia," you're saying.

OK, sure. And, OK, so right now Alabama is probably better than Florida State. Hell, Georgia probably is, too. The Bulldogs' one loss in their last 29 game was to a top-ten team, after all. How does that drop them all the way to No. 6?

I mean, if the committee really wanted to be unfair, it would have kicked Texas out, too, and put both Georgia and Alabama in. But apparently that would have been made the pandering look too obvious even for the committee.

The Blob is not much for conspiracy theories, but here's today's Oliver Stone "JFK" moment: That shoehorning an SEC school in there had as much to do with the power behind the throne as it did with the power of Alabama's football team.

The power behind the throne, of course, being ESPN.

Which owns the broadcast rights to the CFP. And which also has a contractual agreement with the SEC.

You don't think the ESPN suits had at least some input into the committee's deliberation, given that? Really?

In any case, Florida State's out and Alabama's in, and, sure, who doesn't want to see the Crimson Tide square off with Michigan in the Rose Bowl? I get the appeal. I even get that the committee might have been afraid of another blowout if it was Florida State-Michigan -- although it's almost impossible to believe the Wolverines would have had the offensive juice to strap a 40-or-50 spot on that Seminoles D.

Best thing about all of this, though?

That it is the last year for the four-team CFP. Because if there were ever a year that exposes what an obvious sellout it is, this is it.

Family matters

 Bronny James has been cleared to resume playing basketball at USC, and I'm allowed to feel a trifle queasy about that. When your heart stops beating in the middle of a game, like Bronny's did last summer, my mind immediately (if morbidly) goes to darker places.

Hank Gathers places. Pete Maravich places. Places where a guy's heart quit working while he was playing basketball, and who didn't, like Bronny, recover.

I'm assuming Bronny's been run through every test imaginable to get to this point. I'm also assuming his dad, LeBron James, is OK with this. So I guess if he's not worried, the rest of us shouldn't be.

He is, after all, a man who clearly loves his son, and wouldn't let him risk his life if there was an appreciable risk to it. I know this because the other day he said he'd told his Lakers teammates that if Bronny's first game at USC happens the same day as a Lakers game, he won't be in the lineup. He'll be at his son's game.

"Family comes first," he said.

Some people would agree with that. Some, unquestionably, wouldn't. In fact if you put an ear to the ground firmly enough, you can already hear what they'd say: He's a professional athlete being paid millions of dollars to play for the Lakers. They've made a commitment to him, and he needs to honor that commitment. That's what a professional does.

I understand that reasoning. I just don't agree with it.

I think in this case, LeBron has his priorities screwed on straight, and I applaud him for it. Fact is, he's played in a gazillion NBA games, because the NBA plays a gazillion games every season. There's always gonna be another NBA game; only once will Bronny James play his first collegiate game. 

And so, good on LeBron for recognizing that. And it's a damn near mortal lock the Lakers will recognize it too.

Family first, as LeBron says.

Easy peasy ... or not

 So Texas road-grades Oklahoma State ... Michigan out-wheezes Iowa in the Suffocation Bowl ... Florida State prevails in "Suffocation Bowl II: The Worst Offense Is A Good Defense", and ...

Oh my God it's chaos! Chaos, I tell you!

Because Alabama knocked off No. 1 and unbeaten Georgia in the SEC title game, and now there will be churn, now there will be falling chunks of sky, now there will be DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER!

But only if the College Football Playoff committee completely loses its mind, or fails to break its shackles of servitude to  That One Conference (hint: It begins with "S").

See, this is easy-peasy, or at least it oughta be. The four teams in the CFP are, in order, Michigan, Washington, Texas and Florida State. Or, Florida State and Texas. No one else need apply.

But of course others will, mainly Alabama and Georgia, because, come on, it's not a CFP without the SEC. Georgia had won 26 straight games until last night. Alabama is Alabama. One or both has to get in over those posers from the Big 12 and ACC, right?

Not in this locality, Bubba.

In this locality, here's the deal, in a neat little package tied up with a bow: This isn't a beauty contest. Nor should it be an ancestral right. It doesn't matter if Alabama and Georgia are legacy Deltas, like Kent Dorfman in "Animal House." Winning trumps everything, or should. 

And so one-loss Texas is in and one-loss Alabama is out because Texas whupped the Crimson Tide by 10 in Tuscaloosa. 

And Michigan, Washington and Florida State are in because they're undefeated champions of Power 5 conferences, while 'Bama lost to Texas and Georgia lost its conference title game.

Easy-peasy.

Or, you know, not. Probably not. 

The new guy

 The man comes with a ready-to-serve nickname. Let's start there this morning.

An hour, maybe two, after Indiana announced it had plucked Curt Cignetti from the litter as its new football coach, folks were already calling him "Coach Cig." So that's something, right?

Why, you can already hear the puns coming, about how IU hired itself a Marlboro Man, and what a Lucky Strike that is. And forget any and all No Smoking ordinances, because it won't be long before Coach Cig has the Hoosiers smokin'.

OK, I'll stop.

Let's move on instead to just what sort of coach, and man, is coming to Bloomington to take on the Everest task of making Indiana football matter. His resume certainly suggests he's up to it; Nick Saban put him in charge of recruiting at Alabama back in the day, and as a head coach he's won everywhere he's been. And usually quickly.

He comes to B-town from James Madison, where he's 52-9 and has the Dukes at 11-1 in their first Division I season. Even got College Gameday to come to campus, a heck of a feat for a school of 20,000 undergrads located in Harrisonburg, Va.

Coach Cig's reputation for making chicken salad out of chicken poo was already well-established by then. He took an Indiana (Pa.) program that had lost 11 of its previous 14 conference games and immediately won 11 of 14. Then he went to Elon, where a program that was 9-37 in its previous four seasons went 8-4 in Cignetti's first year.

And, yeah, that wasn't the Big Ten, or even D-I. And, yeah, Cignetti's 62 years old. If he's such a hotshot, why has he never coached a big-boy program before now?

Legitimate questions, I suppose. And maybe a needed curb on the enthusiasm that always attends the hiring of a new coach.

That's why you heard the usual "great hire" reactions around the state yesterday, because we are a naturally optimistic species that always wants to believe the best. And if you can't believe it on Day One, when can you?

Well. Here's my contribution to all that: Judge Curt Cignetti not just by his resume, but by who else wanted that resume on their campus.

See, Indiana didn't land a guy no one else was looking at. A lot of people were looking at Cignetti -- including Duke just down the road a piece. The Blue Devils just lost Mike Elko to Texas A&M. Texas A&M. And looking for someone comparable, a lot of people around Durham were looking at the guy from little old James Madison.

What's that tell you, aside from the fact Indiana didn't for once settle?

Look. No one's laboring under any illusions here, Hiring Day giddiness notwithstanding. Cignetti's taking over a big-time program for the first time, and it's a big-time program buried under so many layers of mediocrity it would frustrate the most diligent archaeologist. So miracles need not apply

However.

However, the fact Indiana landed Cignetti, and a lot of others didn't, hints that maybe the school is finally going to get serious about football. So does the NIL money it's reportedly gotten its supporters to ramp up, because that's a big part of the deal now in college football. Money talks; BS walks out through the transfer portal.

In any event, all of this -- hiring Cignetti; sweetening the NIL pot -- at least whispers commitment. And that's something.

Right?