A few brief thoughts on the NFL Week 17

 And now this week's special New Year's Eve edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the festive Blob feature that rings out the old, rings in the new, and of which critics have said "Imma slap you so hard your ears will ring," and also "I got your ring right here - a ring of fire with you in the middle":

1. "Hey, look, guys! It's almost a new year! Perfect time to turn over a new leaf!" (The Jets, the Browns, the Patriots, the Raiders, the Giants)

2. "Hey, we already did, losers!" (The Raiders who punked the Saints 25-10, and the Giants, who knocked the Colts out of the playoffs, 45-33)

3. "Yah, like beating our unmotivated hineys was hard." (The Saints and Colts)

4. In other news, Joe Burrow!

5. Threw for more than 300 yards again. Threw for four touchdowns again. Kept the Bengals alive in the playoff chase, at least if you do a lot of math.

6. "But what if we don't WANNA turn over a new leaf?" (Burrow and the Bengals, to the New Year)

7.  "Yah, we like the old one just fine, thanks." (The Chiefs, the Bills, the Eagles, the Lions, the Vikings, the Ravens)

8. "A new leaf? Who needs a new leaf? We're STILL goin' to the Super Bowl, dammit!" (Cowboys fans, despite losing 41-7 to the Eagles and having already been eliminated from the playoffs)

9. "In the New Year, maybe Cowboys fans will finally get the help they need." (Everyone else in America)

10. "Nah, I doubt it." (Also everyone else in America)

The splendid example

 The good Lord called his servant home at exactly the right time, as it turns out. Nobody ever said the Big Guy wasn't down with the timing thing, after all.

And so Jimmy Carter went to his reward over the weekend after he'd seen a full century of years, and after he'd gotten to vote in one last election, and after he'd celebrated his savior's birth one last time. Then, finally, he passed away before having to watch a man re-inhabit the White House who is the polar opposite of everything he embodied. 

A craven, grasping charlatan vs. a true follower of Christ: You'd be hard-pressed to find two men more unalike than Donald John Trump and James Earl Carter. One can only surmise Carter was thinking this, as he departed our mortal coil: "Aw, HELL, no. I'm not sticking around for THAT."

Only without the "hell", of course.

Jimmy Carter was the 44th President of the United States, a one-termer whose four years were undistinguished except for the decency of the man who served them. If he was the President on whose watch inflation spiraled into recession and Americans were taken hostage in Iran, he was also the President who got two mortal enemies -- Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat -- to agree to a fragile peace.

The Camp David Accords were the first treaty between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and they won Begin and Sadat the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. They were also the very embodiment of Jimmy Carter's core values as a human being -- a legacy far more impactful than anything he did or didn't do as our 44th President.

In the long reach of history he was not the worst president we've ever had nor was he particularly close; distance lends perspective, as it tends to do, and softens as often as it hardens accepted narratives. In the end, Jimmy Carter comes off merely as a man ill-equipped to deal with Washington's more predatory instincts, not to say its Byzantine snarl of ever-shifting alliances and motives.

And why was he ill-equipped?

Perhaps for the same reason he became America's splendid example: His decency, his faith, and his unquenchable Christian impulse to do the most good for the most people during his time on earth.

The common theme has always been he failed as a President but beat everyone as an ex-President, and even in these stubbornly partisan times you'll hardly get an argument on that. He was a man of faith who lived his faith one Habitat for Humanity home at a time, showing America what America should be with every nail driven or beam measured twice and cut once.

It goes without saying we've needed that reminder often since Jimmy Carter left the White House. And never more so than now, with felons, reprobates and out-and-out loonies about to occupy it again -- and with the full blessing of a certain species of "Christians." 

God bless you, President Carter. My your memory be eternal, and your example forever our north star.

A telling exit

 Here's the punchline, on this dreary morning after: They lost to a guy named Drew.

And, no, not the good Drew. The Drew who, until yesterday, had thrown almost as many interceptions (27) as touchdown passes (29) in six seasons, and who had a career rating a tick over 78, and who less than two months ago was third-string on the depth chart behind, um, Tommy DeVito.

Yes, that Drew: Drew Lock, career backup/washout, who yesterday threw for 309 yards and four touchdowns, with a 155.3 passer rating, against a team that needed to win to stay in the playoff hunt.

That team was the Indianapolis Colts.

Yesterday, in a game that meant everything to them and nothing to their opponents, they said "nah" to the playoffs and lost, 45-33. Lost by 12 points to Drew Lock and the now 3-13 New York Giants, the worst team in the National Football League.

Gave up 45 points, the Colts did, to a team that hadn't scored more than 14 in a game in a month. Missed a bunch of tackles. Recorded zero sacks. Never led after Lock threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Malik Nabers with a minute left in the first quarter; were outscored 10-0 after drawing within 35-33 with 6:38 to play.

Know what that fairly screams, in seven-league flashing neon?

Not a lot of want-to in this group.

Not a lot of pride. Not a lot of focus. Not a lot of ... well, everything.

It was, in short, a telling exit for a team that should never have been in the playoff hunt anyway, and proved it in spades yesterday. And the blame for that begins not with the players, but with the leadership that slapped together this crash site.

It begins with an owner (Jim Irsay) who's stuck by a failed general manager (Chris Ballard) for far too long. And with the failed general manager. And with the head coach (Shane Steichen) they hired, and especially with the defensive coordinator (Gus Bradley) they hired.

I suspect Bradley will be the first one out the door, after yesterday. Ballard ought to be next, for putting together a flawed roster. As for Steichen and the rest of his staff ... well, they've messed up the Colts big prize, Anthony Richardson, about as badly as you can mess up a guy. 

Richardson was on the sidelines again yesterday, injured for the umpteenth time in two seasons. "Injury-prone" is never a tag you want to be stuck with, but it seems glued to him now for keeps. "Bust" is another tag you don't want, and if AR is edging toward it, it's unfair just yet to slap that one on his back.

The kid's still only 22, remember. Four years ago he was in high school, just beginning to learn his position. He may never be more than a great athlete playing quarterback (as opposed to a great athletic quarterback), but we'll never know until the Colts clean up their mess and bring in some quarterback whisperer who knows how to develop raw young talent.

Wait. Did I say "until" the Colts clean up their mess?

Perhaps "if" is the better word. Because, you know, they're the Colts.

The sublime and the ridiculous

 Everything about America that is great and weird and brashly commercial happened a little before 8 p.m. last night, when a guy dressed as a Cinnamon Roll Pop-Tart disappeared slowly into the top of a giant fake toaster.

This symbolic sacrifice of a breakfast pastry ended when a giant, actual Cinnamon Roll Pop-Tart emerged from the bottom of the fake toaster, and a bunch of football players from Iowa State began stuffing their faces with it.

And thus the second Pop-Tarts Bowl was in the books, with Iowa State quarterback Rocco Brecht burrowing in from a foot away with 56 seconds to play to lift the Cyclones to a dramatic 42-41 win over that other meteorological event, the Miami Hurricanes.

"This is just silly," said my wife, watching various Pop-Tart mascots cavort around the field. 

"Ah, you have no soul," I teased, enjoying the greatest achievement yet in bowl-game marketing.

And, listen, people, it was. Last night, the sidelines were decorated with sprinkles. The goalposts were wrapped in Pop-Tart foil. One of the mascots even did a Pop-Tart striptease, bursting exuberantly (and nakedly, except for his frosting) from his foil wrapper. And the corpse or ghost or whatever of Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart, last year's ritual sacrifice, appeared on top of the scoreboard at one point.

It was glorious. It was sublime. And, yes, also silly, bizarre and ridiculous.

But no more ridiculous, it must be said, than the game itself -- or at least one aspect of it.

This happened when Miami quarterback Cam Ward, a Heisman Trophy finalist, sat out the second half after throwing three touchdown passes in the first half. The three sixes put him at 156 for his career, one more than the D-I record set by Case Keenum of Houston between 2007 and 2011.

Mission thus accomplished, he then retired to the sideline by pre-arrangement to watch his team lose.

In the postgame Miami coach Mario Cristobal refused to say why this was so, possibly because the only thing more ridiculous than seeing Ward on the sideline as his team desperately tried for the last-minute win was trying to explain it.  But it seems fairly obvious: Ward is a virtual lock as a top-ten (or top-five) pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, and he wasn't going to risk injury trying to win even so prestigious an event as the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

And yet ...

And yet the sight of a Heisman finalist staying in the game only long enough to achieve a personal record did not, shall we say, have universal appeal. Nor should it have.

I'm sure Cinnamon Roll Pop-Tart, far nobler in his sacrifice, would agree.

Owned

 The chant began drifting out of the shadows in Soldier Field the other night, as the Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks put on an exhibition of American football that only vaguely resembled the preferred model. The final score was 6-3, and it was every bit as dreary as that number suggests.

And so here came the chant, as the Bears horse-assed around to their 10th straight defeat.

Sell the team! Sell the team!

This was aimed at the McCaskey family, who married into the Halas family, who birthed the Bears back when football players wore leather hats and the Model T was the car for Everyman. Now they preside over the ruins of George Halas' Monsters of the Midway, who, as the Old Man noted in "A Christmas Story," are more like the Chipmunks of the Midway.

Sell the team! Sell the team!

After yet another lost year for the Chipmunks, I think the chanters are onto something.

Bad owners are the root cause of a lot of misery in Sportsball World, and, as a long-suffering devotee of the Pittsburgh Pirates, I can speak with some authority about that. A bad coach/front office only sentences you to temporary disappointment, disgust and finally disengagement. A bad owner makes it a legacy.

And sometimes, it doesn't even take a bad owner. Sometimes you get owned because your owner is not only bad, but a thorough-going jackass.

Which brings us to Vivek Ranadive, the owner of the Sacramento Kings of the NBA, who this week abruptly fired head coach Mike Brown mere months after extending his deal. The extension happened because Brown, in his first season in Sacramento, coached the Kings to the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. That earned him not only his second NBA Coach of the Year honor -- and by a unanimous vote, no less -- but the IBCA Coach of the Year.

In June, the Kings extended Brown, whose .549 winning percentage was the fourth-best in Kings history. But then Sacramento stumbled out of the gate, going 13-18 and losing five straight at home. And Brown, who wrung 107 wins in two-plus seasons, was gone.

Now how he found out?

Kings management called him on the phone while he was on his way to the airport for a flight to Los Angeles. Called him. On. The phone.

This was dirtbag stuff even for an owner, and it earned him scorching condemnation from other coaches around the NBA. Nuggets coach Mike Malone, who was himself fired mid-season by Ranadive ten years ago, was especially scornful.

"No class and no balls," he said, adding that the firing didn't surprise him because of "who he works for."

He's got a point. In the decade since Ranadive eighty-sixed Malone (who, by the way, went on to win an NBA title in Denver with Nikola Jokic), the Kings have burned through six other coaches on his watch. That's seven coaches in 10 years if you're keeping score at home, and it suggests the problem in Sacramento isn't about who's running the show from the bench.

In other words, maybe someone should start up a "Sell the team!" chant at the next Kings home game. 'Tis a thought.

Another canary, another mine

 I remember Jim Larranaga from almost 20 years ago now, when the Final Four came to Indianapolis and Larranaga's George Mason Patriots were wearing the glass slipper. 

And not just wearing it, mind you. Dancing the freaking tango in it.

They were the Cinderella of Cinderellas, those Patriots, a team whose tallest starter was 6-7 and whose last game before the start of March Madness was a loss to, um, Hofstra. And if the mossy adage about such teams is they're just happy to be here ... well, the George Masons weren't gonna lie. They were ecstatic to be here.

"We're a bunch of no-name guys playing in the biggest event in the world and loving it," declared Larranaga, who was 56 at the time and thoroughly enjoying the most spotlit moment in his then-35 years as a coach.

"I'm having a blast," he went on, revealing to the assembled Final Four media that he'd told his team he was going to have more fun than any other coach in the NCAA Tournament, and he wanted his team to have more fun than any other team.

It's been 19 years since Jim Larranaga said that.

Suffice it to say the fun departed awhile ago.

Now he's 75 years old and the landscape of college basketball is all different, which is why Larranaga, now the winningest coach in University of Miami (Fla.) history, announced this week he's stepping down. And not at the end of the season, either.

Like, right now.

"I'm exhausted," he explained the other day. "I've tried every which way to keep this going. And I know I'm going to be asked a lot of questions and I want to answer them before I'm even asked. What shocked me, beyond belief, was after we made it to the Final Four just 18 months ago, the first time I met with the players, eight of them decided they were going to put their name in the (transfer) portal and leave. 

"It's become professional."

And so, like 55-year-old Tony Bennett at Virginia and 60-year-old Jay Wright at Villanova before him, he's getting out. The game's not their game anymore. All the familiar landmarks are gone. March Madness might still be a wonderful thing, but now it's all madness. Sheer, undiluted madness.

And, sure, you can say the Larranagas and Bennetts and Wrights all have a continent-sized blind spot here, because if the players are all chasing NIL paydays like professionals now, they got there honestly. College basketball and football, after all, went professional in everything but name decades ago. It's why Jim Larranaga and Tony Bennett and Jay Wright et al were paid so handsomely by their institutions of higher learning to teach a game.

Now, however, the paycheck's in the other wallet. And frankly they've got no one to blame but themselves.

None of this changes the fact Larranaga quitting mid-season is the latest canary in the mine signaling there's poison in the air in big-deal collegiate athletics. When a man who so clearly loves what he does can't stomach it even for another three months, that's a problem. When accomplished coaches in the prime of their careers say "To hell with it" and walk away, that's a problem.

And now I'm back in the old Hoosier Dome again 19 years ago, and here comes Jim Larranaga, head coach of the joyous George Mason Patriots, zooming past on a golf cart. He's on his way to yet another media scrum. And he's, yes, having a blast.

"More of these?" he cries, pretending to be exhausted.

Two decades later, sadly, he's no longer pretending.

Party crashers

 Saw a factoid the other day that, by playing on Christmas Day yesterday (and here's hoping you and yours had a wondrous holiday, by the way), the Kansas City Chiefs set some sort of weird NFL record. They officially became the first team ever to play a game on every day of the week but one.

Yessir. Because Christmas fell on a Wednesday, the Chiefs have now played games on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Which perhaps revealed more than the NFL intended.

Mostly it revealed the NFL's insatiable grasping at the big stage, and its equally insatiable gluttony. More is never enough for Roger the Hammer Goodell and his Shield. It already monopolizes the American sporting landscape like some Gilded Age robber baron, and it shares those celebrated money-grubbers' naked and unrepentant greed.

So there were the Chiefs and the Steelers and the Ravens and the Texans, horning in on Christmas Day. And as a card-carrying, fist-shaking codger, I reverse the right to bitch and moan about that.

I do it because card-carrying, fist-shaking codgers love their traditions, and the NBA playing a quadruple-header on Christmas has been around long enough to make it one. I am a lukewarm NBA follower at best, but I am with Lebron James on this one.

"I love the NFL," the league's unofficial patriarch said yesterday. "But Christmas is our day."

And it was one gaudy day, as befitted the occasion. LeBron, to begin with, was speaking after going for 31 points and 10 assists to help the Lakes hold off the Warriors, who got 38 points from Steph Curry, including a ridiculous 31-foot three that tied the score as the clock drained. 

Everyone else followed suit.

In New York, Mikal Bridges scored 41 points to help the Knicks edge the Spurs, who got 42 points and 18 boards from the Big Phenomenal, Victor Wembanyama. In Dallas, Anthony Edwards had 26 points, eight rebounds and five assists as the Timberwolves survived a late rally by the Mavericks. And in Boston, Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid combined for 60 points as the 76ers knocked off the defending NBA champion Celtics.

But of course, you only know that because I just told you. And that's because you were probably watching the Chiefs wash the Steelers 29-10 and Lamar Jackson 'n' them run all over the Texans, 31-2. 

I'm sorry. But that's just wrong.

Bad enough the NFL recently decided to violate the sanctity of high school football by scheduling a handful of games on Friday nights. May Tim Riggins, Matt Saracen and Coach Eric Taylor scatter nails in the path of the Chiefs (or Packers or Rams or Steelers et al) team bus for that affront.

 But now they've gotta crash the NBA's traditional big party, too? When is enough, enough?

To reiterate, it's never enough. And as a crabby, lost-in-the-past geezer who remembers when the only football on Christmas Day was the late, great Blue-Gray Football Classic, I can only splutter crabbily about that.

Consarn it all anyway.

Merry Christmas, and all that

 It's Christmas season again, and you know what that means, Blobophiles. 

"Blood sugar spikes? Marauding, over-stimulated toddlers? Aunt Wilhelmina's festive Jell-O Mold From Beyond Space And Time?" you're saying. 

Uh, not where I was going.

No, where I was going was, it's Christmas season again, and that means a brief pause in the clamor of our days. It means, for those of us who observe, a chance to celebrate the birth of a Prince of Peace whose grace transcends the madness of kings and wanna-be kings, and every other madness besides.

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 really, really means it despite your suspicion I'm just joking around like usual.

I'm not. And to prove it, 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, everyone.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 16

 And now a special Christmas Eve edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the ho-ho-ho-ing-est Blob feature of which critics have said "Ho-ho-ho THIS, sucka", and also "Peace on Earth, goodwill toward the chimney you hopefully get stuck in":

1. 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a New York Giant, a New York Jet and a Las Vegas Raider.

2. "Hey, what about us?" (The New England Patriots, the Cleveland Browns, the Tennessee Titans, the Chicago Bears)

3. Marley was dead, to begin with ...

4. "Not us, though! Nuh-uh! We're alive! Aliiiive, I tell you!" (The Colts, the Cowboys, the Bengals)

5. "And we're GOIN' TO THE SUPER BOWL!" (Cowboys fans)

6. "And I'm still throwin' touchdown passes, though God knows why!" (Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow)

7. Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say ...

8. "Hurts is hurt, oh, great, we're toast ..." (Eagles fans)

9. "... Nah, you're just a Jayden roast" (Commanders fans, after rookie sensation Jayden Daniels burned the Eagles with five touchdown passes)

10. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night ...*

(*"Except for us! We're GOIN' TO THE SUPER BOWL!" - Cowboys fans)

Em-Bear-assment

 Eventually, you just feel sorry for the Chicago Bears. If the initial stages of Bears fandom are delusion ("With Caleb Williams, we could be a Super Bowl contender!"), enlightenment ("Gee, Caleb plays like a rookie sometimes") and disillusionment and self-loathing ("Why do I let them do this to me every year? Why?"), then surely the final stage is pity.

Garnished generously with sad laughter, naturally, and an occasional Tourette's burst of "&%$# McCaskeys!"

This brings us to yesterday in Soldier Field, where the 13-1 Detroit Lions embarrassed Da Bearz 34-17 with the greatest of ease. Jared Goff stitched them for 336 yards and three touchdowns through the air, and Jahmyr Gibbs gashed them for 109 yards and a score on the ground. 

That wasn't the most embarrassing part, however. 

The most embarrassing part happened three minutes into the third quarter, when Goff, Gibbs and the Lions offense made the Bears look like the Washington Generals with a trick play straight out of the Harlem Globetrotters playbook.

What happened was, Goff took the snap and pretended to stumble as he dropped back. At the same time, Gibbs pretended to fall down. 

And then?

Then Goff abruptly straightened up and threw a 21-yard touchdown ball to tight end Sam LaPorta, wide open behind the thoroughly suckered Bears D.

Shortly thereafter, the cameras caught Goff and the rest of the Lions yukking it up on the sideline, amused  and perhaps a little astonished that their epic goof actually worked. And there you had it: This lost Bears season summed up in one image.

Their opponents aren't just beating them, you see. They're laughing at them.

That fits, because the season has been one long standup routine for the Bears, who fired a head coach mid-season for the first time in franchise history and still can't get out of their own way. Their defense can't defend. Their offense can't, um, offend. And their O-line can't protect Williams, who's spent a good chunk of the season running for his life like Dr. Richard Kimble in "The Fugitive."

Through 15 games, Williams has been sacked a league-high 60 times, a Bears franchise record and just 13 adrift of David Carr's NFL season record of 73. That's a big reason, though hardly the only one, why the Bears are now 4-11 and have lost nine straight games.

What's bizarre about that is, very quietly, Williams is also having an historic season for a Bears rookie QB.

In Sunday's loss, for instance, he completed 26-of-40 throws for 334 yards and two touchdowns, and tucked it and ran six times for 34 more yards. It was his fourth 300-yard passing game this season, and his ninth straight game without an interception.

On the season, he's thrown for 3,271 yards on 62.2 percent accuracy, with 19 touchdowns and just five picks. Nothing to laugh at there, certainly.

Even if, you know, everything else is a knee-slapper these days.

"Belong" this

 Well, well, well. And what have we here, on this fine three-days-before-Christmas morning?

Penn State 38, SMU 10.

Texas 38, Clemson 24.

Ohio State 42, Tennessee 17.

Kinda makes Notre Dame 27, Indiana 17 look like a nail-biter, doesn't it?

Kinda makes you wonder what Kirk Herbstreit, Colin Cowherd, Lane Kiffin and the rest of the SEC public relations staff are going to say now on the subject of belonging, considering they so clearly decided Indiana was some dweeb who snuck into the College Football Playoff wearing cargo shorts and Crocs-with-socks.

You remember what they all said, right?

After Indiana struggled so mightily against a superior Notre Dame team, Herbie called Indiana "outclassed" and said it was "not a team that should have been on that field." Cowherd, that frequently dizzy twit, said he didn't care how the CFP was configured going forward so long as Indiana was never again invited. And Kiffin -- the head coach at Ole Miss, and one of many SEC bellyachers --  made some snarky comment on the Magic Twitter Machine about how he really enjoyed such a competitive game.

And then ...

And then, Penn State rocked SMU by 28. And Texas beat Clemson by 14 and was in cruise control much of the day. And Ohio State ... wait, this can't be right, can it, Lane Kiffin?

The Buckeyes smacked around a 10-2 SEC school by 25 points? Same Buckeyes who also blew out Indiana, but by two points fewer?

Goodness. Maybe SMU, Clemson and Tennessee also were teams that shouldn't have been on that field, right, Herbie? Maybe the CFP going forward also should never include those three programs ever again, right, Colin?

Um, Colin? Herbie?

Hmm. Perhaps some rethinking is in order.

Perhaps now is the time to suggest that on a given day, and it can pretty much be any day, virtually any team in the country can look like it doesn't belong. Indiana brought its B-minus game, maybe it's C-plus game, to South Bend, and was never really in it against a Notre Dame team that was better anyway. These things happen sometimes.

Fun fact: In the last six CFP championship games, the average margin of victory has been 27.8 points. Twice the team on the losing end -- Alabama both times -- was ranked No. 1. The Crimson Tide lost those games by 15 and 28 points, respectively.

 Strange. But I don't recall anyone saying  'Bama "shouldn't have been on that field" then. Or that the Tide should never again be allowed in the CFP.

Meanwhile, here's an Indiana team that came in 11-1 with 10 of those wins by double digits. The only "W" that wasn't by double digits was against Michigan -- who went on a few weeks later to beat the Ohio State team that beat Indiana.

Friday night, the Hoosiers closed out an historic 11-2 season in which their only two losses were against two top-ten teams.

You know who can't say that?

Alabama, a three-loss team so many were caterwauling should have gotten inside the velvet rope despite two of its three losses coming against .500 teams. And poor Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss Rebels -- whose three losses were to LSU, ranked 13th at the time; unranked Florida; and a 4-8 Kentucky squad.

Memo to Kiffin and any and all 'Bama apologists: You want to make the CFP, don't lose three games to mid competition. And especially don't lose to a 4-8 team.

Because you know who didn't do that?

Indiana.

A matter of degree

 So, now we know, I guess. If football programs were canned goods down in the old bomb shelter, Notre Dame's would be a shelf or two higher than Indiana's at this point.

The big intrastate hoo-ha between went off in front of a capacity crowd and the entire nation last night, and it turned not to be much of a hoo-ha. Notre Dame rolled the Hoosiers 27-17, and it was never really a contest. The Irish, demonstrably better up front on both sides of the ball, simply lined up and did what they do, and the Hoosiers mostly were helpless to stop it.

It was a 27-3 blowout when Riley Leonard stuck it in the end zone one last time with 4:50 to play, after which Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman started dipping into his reserves and defensive coordinator Al Golden mostly packed away his pass-rush schemes. So Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke threw a touchdown pass to Myles Price and a two-point conversion to Elijah Sarratt, Indiana recovered an onside kick, and Rourke threw another touchdown pass to Omar Cooper Jr. with 25 seconds left to make it, as they say, respectable.

Didn't fool anyone who watched the show in its entirety.

Truth is, this one was on its way to over when Jeremiyah Love burst through a seam and fled down the sideline for the game's first score four minutes in, because Indiana never got even again. Love went on to 108 yards on just eight carries, the Irish run game ground out 193 yards on 5.5 yards a pop, and Notre Dame hogged the ball for 11 more minutes than Indiana.

Indiana fans will point out it might have been a different game had Indiana cashed an early pick of a Riley Leonard pass by D'Angelo Ponds, but the Hoosiers didn't. Sarratt got them close with an acrobatic grab of a Rourke throw, but then Rourke threw into coverage and Xavier Watts intercepted for Notre Dame at the 2-yard line.

You know what happened next: Love motored cross-country from Touchdown Jesus to Six City, and the Irish had the lightning bolt they needed to seize command.

Rourke finished the night 20-of-33 for 215 yards and the two garbage-time scores, but the Irish defensive front sacked him three times. Leonard ran for a score and threw for a score and was sacked once. So call the quarterback battle a draw.

Of everything else, you can say this: It's a matter of degree.

In one season, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti has turned a chronically blah football program into a very good football program. But the Hoosiers are not quite where Notre Dame is yet.

No shame in that. No reason to think Cignetti won't get the Hoosiers there, either, and perhaps beyond.

When it was done last night some dopey people weighed in with some dopey takes, including an Associated Press columnist named Matt Hayes who wrote Indiana had no business in the CFP. This ignored the obvious fact that had the CFP left an 11-1 Big Ten team out of a 12-team bracket, it would have been even sillier than Hayes' assertion.

No, the Hoosiers belonged. But belonging is, again, a matter of degree. And those degrees hardly ever remain static.

Notre Dame, 12-1 and headed to the Sugar Bowl two years after going 8-4 and losing their first two games in Freeman's initial season, can attest to that.

And your winner is ...

 Curt Cignetti says he hopes it snows a foot-and-a-half up in South Bend tomorrow night, but that's just Coach Cig. If demeanor were a color, brash would be the dominant one on his palette.

So he's no help.

Neither, because I checked, is the actual weather report for Friday night: Cold (in the 20s) and windy at kickoff, with possible snow showers. Doesn't sound like one of those lake-effect blizzards that so favor South Bend in the winter will make an appearance.

Besides, as Coach Cig points out, it was cold, windy and snowy for the Bucket game, and Indiana tattooed helpless Purdue like a speed bag, winning 66-0 as quarterback Kurtis Rourke threw for 349 yards and six touchdowns.

What to do, what to do.

My gut, which usually determines these things, has been a gutless punk since the IU-Notre Dame College Football Playoff matchup was announced. It's finally telling me something now, but it's being pretty timid about it.

"Come on, enough verbiage," you're saying now. "Out with it. Who's gonna win?"

Well, if I had to pick at this point ...

"You have to. So, who will get the honor of being dropkicked by Georgia in the quarterfinals?"

Well ... I say Notre Dame. 

I say Notre Dame, because, first of all, the Irish are at home. Also, if it's cold and windy, they're the more likely team to run it down the defense's throat, because that's kinda been their identity all season. Also-also, their own defense has been the rock upon which they've built their 11-1 season -- a season in which they pummeled two then-undefeated teams (Army and Navy), and delivered mortal beatdowns to almost everyone else on a schedule that was step or so better than Indiana's. 

On the other hand, Indiana didn't lose to Charlotte or Florida International or any of its other early-season snack cakes. But Notre Dame did lose (at home, no less) to Northern Illinois, a so-so MAC team that was supposed to be one of  ND's snack cakes.

Of course, that happened three-and-a-half months ago. It's as relevant to what will happen tomorrow as Gus Dorais throwing down-and-outs to Knute Rockne.

So what will happen?

My gut tells me, timidly, that Rourke will be fine when he has time to throw, which won't be nearly as often as he's used to. That will give a slight quarterback edge to ND's Riley Leonard, whose legs give him that advantage. Notre Dame's secondary will slow Indiana's superb receiver corps but won't shut them down completely; the Irish will have success grounding-and-pounding because the O-line will wedge open cracks for Leonard and running backs Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price; and Notre Dame consequently will wear down Indiana in the second half to rack the W.

Call it, I don't know, Notre Dame 33, Indiana 24. Or 33-26. Something like that.

On the other hand ...

On the other hand, Indiana 33, Notre Dame 26 could happen, too. 

Told you my gut's a weenie.

Three-for-all

 Quietly, sort of, the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA's in-season tournament last night, beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81 in the NBA Cup finale. This was remarkable for three reasons, at least one of which might have something to do with why it happened quietly.

One, the Bucks are now just 14-11 on the season after a horrendous start. Two, the Thunder -- who might in fact be the best team in the league so far -- are now 20-5.

Three, the Bucks won by 16 despite the fact only half their shots were 3-point attempts.

Chucked it 81 times, 41 of them from inside the arc. The remaining 40 tries were from Threeville.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "You're saying 40 three-balls qualifies as 'only'?"

The Blob's response: You haven't been watching the NBA much lately, have you?

Forty three-balls, in today's NBA, is pedestrian. Even more pedestrian are the paltry 32 attempts the Thunder hoisted -- which is probably just as well, because Oke City only made five of them. Five-for-32. You could blindfold an 8-year-old, spin him around five times and he'd likely shoot better than that.

But enough about alleged professionals who can't stick the jumper.

The real issue, one NBA commissioner Adam Silver is just now getting around to addressing, is not about the "5" part in the aforementioned stat, but the "32." Which is to say, when 32 three-balls is considered ordinary, you've got a product that's become far less interesting than it should be.

What you've got is a product leaning perilously toward monotony: The drive, the kick, the three. Or, the drive, the kick, the miss, the putback. Or, the drive, the no-kick, the take-it-to-the-tin-and-either-dunk-it-or-miss-the-layup.

Rinse. Repeat. 

This is the modern NBA, and more and more people, apparently, are finding it repetitive and boring. In the modern NBA, with few exceptions, post play is an archeological study. The mid-range jumper, unless it's off the break, increasingly is becoming one. 

(This is not to say the Blob totally agrees with the prevailing sentiment. Personally, I like the more free-flowing game the league plays now. That's because I'm old enough to remember the NBA of the Bad Boys and the Pat Riley Knicks, and I don't remember it fondly. It was ugly basketball, all clutch-and-grab and the big fellas mud-wrestling on the low blocks. Occasionally, to keep us from nodding off, Michael Jordan would fly through the air with the greatest of ease.)

Where was I again?

Oh, yeah. Today's NBA.

It's become such an arc-centric three-for-all,the NBA's defending champs, the Boston Celtics, are threatening to shatter the league record for most 3-point attempts in a season. The Celtics are averaging a shade more than 51 tries per game. Averaging. That's 19 more attempts than the Thunder got up last night in one game.

This was never the intent when the dear departed ABA introduced the 3-pointer to what was then a plodding, fusty pro buckets landscape. Initially, it was called a "home-run ball", because, like a home run, it wasn't supposed to happen that often. Conceptually, it was a novelty intended to keep a potential blowout close, or to close it out.

Note the use of the word "novelty."

Some numbers: In 1970-71, to randomly pick a season, the champion Utah Stars led the ABA with 613 3-point attempts. That works out to 7.5 per game. The league as a whole averaged 6.1; the Indiana Pacers, even with sharpshooter Billy Keller in the lineup, averaged a measly 4.9.

Now here come the Celtics, jacking 51 per. Almost makes you wish for the old mu-wrestling days.

OK. So not really.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 15

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words -- the Blob you can set your calendar by (because it always knows when it's Tuesday), and of which critics have said "The only date I care about is the date when this insult to my intelligence ends", and also "If it's Tuesday it must be Stupid Day again":

1. It's Tuesday and Josh Allen just threw another touchdown pass.

2. It's Tuesday and another Lion just got hurt.

3. Oops, make that two Lions.

4. Aaaand there goes another.

5. In other news, the Bears!

6. Lost again, 30-12 to the Vikings. Scored one touchdown. Same blecch, different day.

7. "It's Tuesday and they're still the #@&%!!! Bears." (Bears fans)

8. "It's Tuesday and we're still trying to figure out how the Falcons and the Raiders wound up on Monday Night Football." (America)

9. Speaking of which, it's Tuesday and the Raiders are still losers, the Giants are still losers, and Patrick Mahomes is no longer running for his life on account of he went down with a high ankle sprain and now is merely limping for his life.

10. "It's Tuesday and I still don't have an offensive line than can block sunlight."  (Patrick Mahomes, to himself, probably)

Rocky Mountain Low

 We took the train west through the Rockies to the coast a year ago, and it was a lovely trip: One postcard landscape after another reminding us what a vast and stunning country this is, and how often we don't slow down long enough to appreciate that. Sometimes the leisurely pace is the best pace.

Aaaand, sometimes the train derails and provides a different kind of insight.

This tortured analogy is brought to you this morning by your Indianapolis Colts -- a certified train wreck with feet, but not much of an arm and even fewer functional hands. As we did a year ago, see, the Colts ventured out to the Rockies yesterday. Unlike us, however, they missed out on the majesty. 

What they found instead was a lot of physical comedy and a 31-13 loss to the Denver Broncos that made you surprised when you looked at their record and saw it was 6-8 and not, say, 4-10.

Here are a few things that happened on the way to loss No. 8. Feel free to hum "Yakety-Sax" as you read:

* Jonathan Taylor, no raw rookie, gave away a 41-yard touchdown run when he executed the touchdown football-drop before actually reaching the end zone. The ball rolled out of bounds and Denver took over on the touchback.

* The Colts' Country Crock receiving corps butterfingered another pile of passes, which was again a factor in quarterback Anthony Richardson's 17-of-38, 172-yard 36-passer-rating day.

* Speaking of Richardson, he did what he does: Threw a few lasers that made you say "Wow!", then threw a few balls so atrociously off-target it looked as if the intended receiver was the ghost of Don Hutson. He also gifted the Broncos two interceptions. 

* After the Broncos had jetted past the Colts like they were backing up, Colts coach Shane Steichen sealed for them with some truly baroque goofiness: A gadget play in which Richardson lateraled to wideout Adonai Mitchell, who fiddled around and threw the ball back without really looking, which is why Broncos defender Nick Bonitto picked it out of the air and set sail for the easiest defensive score in history.

* Richardson scored on the Colts first possession, and Indy led 10-0 early. They led 13-7 and had 20-7 all dialed up until Taylor missed the end zone with the football. After that, they laid down and let the Broncos walk over them, giving up 24 straight points in the last quarter-and-change.

I don't know what you can take away from all that, except it was a Rocky Mountain Low that merely reiterated what we already knew about these Colts. One, they're not very good. Two, they're not very smart. Three, the hoped-for success of the Anthony Richardson Experiment becomes more unlikely by the week, if not by the hour.

Four ... they're not very good.

They are, in fact, that aforementioned train wreck, from the front office on down. General manager Chris Ballard might have gotten his man in the 2023 draft, but the Colts clearly had no clue what to do with him once they got him, because they've mishandled Richardson as badly as you mishandle a young player. They also botched the Steichen deal, handing him a quarterback who wasn't ready to play at this level and a roster almost as ill-equipped.

So, what now?

What now is this comedy of errors could still make the playoffs, believe it or not. They have three games left, and none of them are against the Lombardi Packers. In order, they get the Titans, the Giants and the Jaguars. That's a combined record of 8-34 if you're scoring at home.

So am I saying there's still a chance?

With this team? Nope.

A whole other thing

 This is not the Purdue you thought you knew, or maybe it is. Maybe you looked at Matt Painter's 2024-25 edition when he rolled it out, and guessed what might happen would happen now that the big fella was gone.

The big fella, Zach Edey, plays for the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA now. He's no longer collecting rebounds like a kid collects Pokemon cards, if that's still a thing. He's no longer putting up double-doubles as if he owned the patent -- which is definitely not still in vogue in West Lafayette.

I say this because the for-now No. 11 Boilermakers lost to another lower-ranked team yesterday, this time 70-66 to No. 17 Texas A&M in Gainsbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

I say it also because once again one of the culprits was rebounding, which through 11 games Purdue's smaller, more athletic lineup doesn't do well at all. An asset has become a liability, or at least it has for the time being.

A&M, for instance, cleaned the Boilers 34-23 on the glass yesterday, and 16 turnovers didn't help Purdue's cause, either. Point guard Braden Smith took a brief trip to Nostalgia City, kicking it away six times as if he were still a callow freshman and not the savvy junior he is. Trey Kaufman-Renn, the Boilers' smaller, more athletic successor to Big Z, had more turnovers (5) than rebounds (4), and Smith's backcourt mates Myles Colvin and Fletcher Loyer had seven more TOs between them against A&M's pressure D.

The loss was Purdue's second in three games and third overall, and the culprits have been the same in each of their three Ls. Against Marquette, Penn State and A&M, they've been out-boarded 94-82; against those same three teams, they've also turned it over 55 times -- an average of 18 per, including a staggering 24 against Penn State.  

So the book on Purdue so far is go hard to glass, and pressure the ball defensively. That didn't work last year, obviously, and it probably won't work this year when Kaufman-Renn and Cam Heide are feeling it, Braden Smith is playing like Braden Smith, and sharp ball movement is getting Loyer -- who came into yesterday shooting 53 percent from Threeville -- open looks from the arc.

In other words: Don't expect every day to look like yesterday. Do expect to see fewer days like yesterday, as the Boilers get more comfortable with who they are now.

It may be a whole other thing now in Mackey Arena. Doesn't mean it has to be a much lesser thing, though.

Let's go bowling!

 The college bowl season kicks off today with the Cricket Celebration Bowl in Atlanta and the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., and, man, I am stoked. Four hundred thirty-seven bowl games between now and Jan. 4! Every school that horsed around and put up a .500 season, and some that horsed around and didn't, on display in a spangled cavalcade of bowl-y bowl-li-

I'm sorry, what?

OK, OK. So I lied. Turns out there aren't 437 bowl games, even if will seem like it before the cavalcade of bowl-y bowl-iness is over. Actually there are only 42, if you count the Scooter's Coffee Frisco Bowl and the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl. Which of course I do.

Anyway, it all begins with Jackson State vs. South Carolina State in the Cricket Celebration, and South Alabama vs. Western Michigan in the IS4S Salute to Veterans. The latter is notable because Western is one of seven MAC schools who'll be going bowling this season. This despite the fact even my Ball State Cardinals, who were so lousy they couldn't have gotten into the Three-Day-Old Bowl of Wheaties Bowl if it existed, beat one of the seven -- Buffalo, who'll play Liberty in the Bahamas Bowl on Jan. 4.

Shoot. Old-timers like me still remember the days when the MAC was lucky to get one bowl bid.  And that was to the Tangerine Bowl, which barely counted.

But times have changed, and thank God for it. If they hadn't, we'd never have known how North Texas and Texas State matched up in the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl, or Miami (O.) and Colorado State in (I swear I'm not making this up) the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl. 

Not making up East Carolina-NC State in the Go Bowling Military Bowl, either. Or Arkansas State vs. Bowling Green in the 68 Ventures Bowl ... or Marshall vs. Army in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl ... or Polynomial State vs. the Franklin Pierce Institute for Removing Stubborn Stains in the Mushy Peas Salute to Horrible British Food Bowl.

OK, OK. So that last one I did make up.

Had you going there for a second, though, didn't I?

Go (to hell) team!

 Unless you are a serious NFL nerd, you've probably never heard of De'Vondre Campbell, the presumably soon-to-former linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers. You've probably also never heard of Jack Pyburn, a soon-to-be-former edge rusher for the University of Florida Gators.

If you're of a certain age and cranky disposition, though, you're gonna hate what I'm about to tell you about them. I know this because I'm of a certain age and cranky disposition, and it's got me shaking my liver-spotted fist at the clouds and spluttering all sorts of "consarn-its" and "dagnab-its."

Let's start with Campbell.

Who, last night, in a blah 12-6 loss to the Rams, was called upon to enter the game because Dre Greenlaw and Dee Winters were dealing with injuries, and the linebacking corps had therefore become dangerously thin. Allow 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan to take it from there.

"He said he didn't want to play today," Shanahan said.

Which is to say, Campbell refused to go into the game. Then he walked off the field at the end of the third quarter. As Leon the me-first jock in one of those old beer ads said when told there's no "I" in team, "Ain't no 'we' either."

Leon, of course, was only a parody played for laughs. De'Vondre Campbell is (or was, since the Niners are likely to launch him into space any minute now) an actual NFL player. And you know what he did was well beyond the pale because even some of his teammates were ripping him afterward, and professional athletes hardly ever rip one another publicly.

"It's one person making a selfish decision. I've never been around anybody that's ever done that, and I hope I'm never around anybody who does that again," Niners tight end George Kittle declared.

"That's some sucka stuff to me, in my opinion," cornerback Charvarius Ward agreed.

I have no idea if either Kittle or Ward has ever heard of Jack Pyburn. But while we're talking about sucka stuff, we should include him as Exhibit A for why sucka stuff isn't limited to the professionals.

Pyburn, see, is a Florida Gator who apparently doesn't care about being a Florida Gator anymore unless there's something in it for him. And by "something", I mean A) a guarantee of of $45,000 a month; B) a guaranteed starting position at outside linebacker, including a guarantee to be in the lineup on all third downs; and C) more snaps at the OLB spot.

Now, let's be clear here: All of the above has merely been reported. It might be true, or it might be only partially true. But it is true Florida said "nah" to the aforementioned requests/demands or reported requests/demands, so Pyburn -- second on the team in tackles this season -- is saying "Later, Gator" and entering the transfer portal.

"Gee, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Isn't he worried his credits won't transfer?"

Oh, you sweet innocent child. What makes you think Jack Pyburn (or anyone else jumping into the portal two or three times these days) cares about that? What makes you think he's an actual scholar who goes to class because he's in it for an education, and who thinks a college degree is worth more than the sheepskin it's printed on?

Silly you. That went out with disco.

It went out the minute universities discovered thar's gold in them there Saturday afternoons. It went out when they started paying their coaches like CEOs and cutting chunky deals with the teevees and apparel companies, and then started sending out their players adorned with the logos of those apparel companies. And it really went out when the kids started following their lead and decided to be as mercenary as the grownups.

Now the Jack Pyburns and De'Vondre Campbells are one and the same, driven by the same impulses that always drive people when they reach the monetary stratosphere. They go from "This is a team effort" to "Team? What team?" in an eyeblink.

And, yeah, I know, "team" is a concept virtually layered with mustiness. It belongs with raccoon coats, bathtub gin and sis-boom-bah. With few exceptions -- one of which happens tomorrow, when Army plays Navy and the idea of pulling together toward a common goal gets its yearly moment in the sun -- it's just not that world anymore.

Codgers like me might hate it. But I-got-mine is the flavor of the month now.

I wonder, though, if the De'Vondre Campbells and Jack Pyburns realize what they're losing by following the prevailing zeitgeist. Perhaps the NFL has become so self-serving itself that some team will pick up Campbell despite the stunt he pulled last night. But, perhaps not. Perhaps he blew up his career with five little words ("I don't want to play") and just doesn't know it yet.

And Jack Pyburn?

I wonder what happens in 20, 25 years to him and all the other kids jumping schools every time something doesn't work out. I wonder if they'll miss the bond old teammates share because they didn't stick around long enough to form one. I wonder which school they'll identify with when they grow old because they didn't identify with one when they were playing.

Will Jack Pyburn still consider himself a Florida Gator when he grows old? Or will he consider himself a Tiger or Sooner or Cyclone or whomever? These kids who've transferred two, three times, who is their alma mater? And will they regret, down the road, not really having one?

See, the thing is, you can say go to hell, team, if you like these days. But what price do you pay when the team says go to hell back?

That darn truth

 I feel for former Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. I really do.

It's gotta be a hard thing to sell your Persecuted White Girl script when your lead actor won't play along. 

It's gotta be a hard thing to hear Caitlyn Clark, the aforementioned lead actor, blow up your phony construct by telling Time magazine how phony it really is. Gotta be, I don't know, galling to hear her say the narrative you're pushing is complete bullstuff.

Which essentially is what Clark did when she pointed out how many black stars have contributed mightily to the WNBA, and that the fact she's getting so much credit is partly a function of white privilege. 

"I want to say I've earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege," she told Time. "A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been black players. This league has kind of been built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight that ... the more we can elevate black women, that's going to be a beautiful thing."

Couple of points about that:

1. Nothing about it is remotely untrue. 

2. Nothing about it is even remotely controversial unless you've got your head screwed on backward or have some bitter agenda to push.

Which brings us back to Megyn Kelly.

Who lashed out, well, bitterly, at Clark on the Magic Twitter Machine, saying she was "on the knee all but apologizing for being white and getting attention", and that her championing of black WNBA players was "Condescending. Fake. Transparent. Sad."

Couple of points about that:

1. In what known universe was Clark "apologizing" by acknowledging the obvious, which is that she's the white face of a largely black league?

2. And why is it condescending, fake, transparent and sad to talk up the WNBA's black players? Why would Megyn Kelly (and those of her ideological bent) find that so objectionable, unless ...

Well. We all know what the "unless" is here, right? Or it least what it sounds like?

It sounds like a time when basketball coaches had self-imposed quotas on players of color, because too many blacks on the roster risked offending their largely white fan bases. It sounds like the 1970s, when people were openly saying the NBA was too black, and that's why drug use was rampant because you know how black people are.

And never mind all the white people in Hollywood and elsewhere who were snorting mountains of nose candy themselves.

Look. I'm not gonna go Full Wackadoodle here and say Megyn Kelly and all the others howling about Caitlyn Clark's alleged betrayal should be fitted for white sheets and hoods. But when Caitlyn Clark promoting the black players in her league gets your back up, you invite some pretty awful analogies. And you've got no one to blame for that but yourself.

Or, you know, Caitlin Clark -- who's no longer your darling because the "Woke Negroes Basketball Association" has "conquered" her. 

Megyn Kelly didn't tweet that, by the way. Some other nutball did. So it goes.

Today in getting over it

 There are few things sadder in this life than people who cannot let stuff go. You know who I'm talking about: Those dreary humans who nurse grudges like family heirlooms, or who refuse to speak for years because of some beef grown so old it's become more mythology than fact. 

And, no, I'm not just talking about all those Georgians and Alabamans and Mississippians with "Fergit, hell!" stickers on the bumpers of their F-150s.

This morning, for instance, I'm talking about Mark Gastineau.

You remember him -- or, I don't know, maybe you don't. Back in the 1980s he was the linchpin of a fabled New York Jets defensive line known as the New York Sack Exchange. He became famous during that time for his elaborate dance moves whenever he took down a quarterback, which split America into two relatively equal camps.

"God, what an annoying tool" was one camp. "Dance, Gastineau, dance!" was the other.

 Anyway, one year Gastineau spent so much time in opposing backfields he rang up an astounding 22 sacks, which was in NFL record. It stood until Jan. 6, 2002, when Michael Strahan sacked Brett Favre to bring his season total to 22.5.

Favre may or may not have taken a dive on the play to help Strahan out. What the hell, it was the tail end of the last game of the 2021 season, the play was meaningless, no big deal. Right?

Wrong. Because then came 2023.

"Wait," you're saying now. "2023? The hell does 2023 have to do with something that happened in 2002?"

Well ... this is where we get to the sad part.

ESPN, see, just released a clip from an upcoming 30-for-30 about the Sack Exchange in which Gastineau confronts Favre at a 2023 autograph signing about deliberately trying to help Strahan knock him off the single-season sack record. Favre says he understands why Gastineau is upset (although behind closed doors he's probably saying, "God, what an annoying tool"), and says if  he took a dive, it wasn't directed at Gastineau. In all likelihood, Mark Gastineau never crossed his mind at the time.

That's not the point, though.

The point is, Mark Gastineau is 68 years old.

And in 2023 -- 22 years after the Favre-Strahan play, and 40 or so after Gastineau's glory days -- he's still all butt-hurt about it.

That's more than just sad. It's pathetic. Makes you want to shake your head and say "Geez, dude, you're 68 years old. Get over it. Go play with your grandkids or something."

Of course, those words would likely be wasted breath. They usually are with those who can't let stuff go, because ... well, because they can't let stuff go. If they could, they would have already.

Then again, this is coming from a guy who still refers to Francisco Cabrera as "Francisco (Bleeping) Cabrera" because his base hit kept my Pittsburgh Pirates out of the World Series in 1992. So there's that.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 14

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the occasionally odiferous Blob feature of which critics have said "So you're aware you're odiferous?", and also "Odiferous, hell. Ever just tell yourself 'God, I stink'?":

1. "God, we stink." (The Giants, now 2-11 after a dreary 14-11 loss to the also-fragrant Saints, their eighth straight)

2. "God, we stink." (The Raiders, also 2-11, after their ninth loss in a row, this time to the Buccaneers)

3. "Hey, don't forget us! We stink, too!" (The Jets, 3-10 after their fourth straight loss)

4. (Also the Bears, the Panthers, the Jaguars, the Titans)

5. "Well, THIS stinks." (Fans in Nashville, watching the aforementioned 3-10 Jags and 3-10 Titans wallow around in the NFL's Not The Game Of The week)

6. Meanwhile, Josh Allen!

7. Who ran for three touchdowns, threw for three touchdowns, and definitely does not stink.

8. (Although his defense does, because despite all that, the Bills lost 44-42 to the Rams)

9. "Hey, look, guys! I threw for three more touchdowns and 369 more yards and we didn't lose for once!" (Joe Burrow, after the generally stinky Bengals managed to be less hapless than the hapless Cowboys)

10. "God, we stink." (The Cowboys)

And now, the reset

 Say this for the athletic braintrust at Purdue University, on the morning after they made Barry Odom the school's 38th head football coach: They know all the words to that popular hindsight tune "We Shouldn'ta Oughta Done That, And We're Not Gonna Do It Again."

Which is to say, Barry Odom actually has a resume. Ryan Walters, the braintrust's last hire, did not.

Two years ago they rolled the dice on a dynamic young defensive coordinator who had never been a head coach, and, as frequently happens, his skills did not transfer. So the braintrust struck up the aforementioned tune, and went looking for a resume guy.

Odom's who they found -- and the resume he brings with him more than suggests he knows what he's doing as a head coach, on account of he's been one. Been one in the SEC, for goodness sakes. Been one at UNLV, where he turned a sorry falling-down program into a winner in just two seasons.

Sorry falling-down program ...

Hmm.

Sound like anyone we know?

Why, goodness gracious, yes it does. That's Purdue to a "T" right now, coming off that smoking crater of a 1-11 season. It was so bad it got Ryan Walters fired after just two seasons. It was so bad recruits were fleeing their commits because, well, why wouldn't they; so bad Walters had hardly any other recruits locked up before the early signing period last week.

Odom inherits a wreck, in other words. Then again, it's nothing he hasn't seen before.

At UNLV, he inherited a program that had been to one bowl game in the previous 22 seasons. It hadn't had a nine-win season in 39 years, and in the three seasons before Odom's arrival it had gone 0-6 in the Covid year, 2-10 and 5-7. The Runnin' Rebels hadn't had a winning season since 2013, when they needed a bowl win to finish 7-6.

In Odom's first season, the Rebels went 9-5 and finished first in the Mountain West. This fall, they're 10-3 and lost in the Mountain West title game to Boise State.

So in two seasons, Odom managed to do something that hadn't happened in Vegas since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. And he did it twice.

This does not mean he'll perform the same magic in West Lafayette, of course. The Big Ten is a whole different animal than the Mountain West, and the recruiting and transfer portal-ing is on a whole a different level. Darrell Hazell, remember, came to Purdue as a miracle worker, too, a man who in two seasons turned a perennial MAC loser (Kent State) into a nationally ranked 11-3 team that reached the conference championship game.

Hazell was in his fourth season at Purdue when he was fired six games into the 2016 campaign.  He never won more then three games in a season and departed with an overall record of 9-33.

However.

However, Odom's experience to date has been very different. For one thing, four of his six years of head-coaching experience happened at Missouri in the SEC, where he finished .500 (25-25) but won more games every year except the last, when the Tigers went 6-6. 

So, you know, there's that.

Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

Match games

 Oh, they are crafty ones, these men in suits who are the gatekeepers for the College Football Playoff. Why, just looked what they did yesterday, when they unveiled the first 12-team CFP bracket with, presumably, a herald of trumpets and all the proper flourishes.

They gave us Indiana vs. Notre Dame. That's what they did.

They gave us the matchup everyone in these parts wanted, and don't even try to tell me it was just a smile from the football gods or mere happenstance that made it happen. My suspicious mind, working overtime as it always does, will always believe the men in suits played match games with the seedings until they got IU-at-ND. Of course they did.

Notre Dame was slotted fifth in the final CFP poll and Indiana eighth, but they wound up the 7-vs.-10 game in the bracket. This despite the fact neither team played last week (and so didn't lose), while Texas lost the SEC title game to Georgia and Penn State lost the Big Ten championship game to Oregon.

Notre Dame, at 11-1 and ranked as high as third in the other relevant polls, therefore would logically have seemed at least a 6-seed. But, nah. Penn State (11-2) got the 6-seed -- and was somehow still ranked fourth in the final CFP poll despite the loss to Oregon.

So, yeah. You can't convince me there wasn't some jacking around going on to get Indiana against Notre Dame.

That happens on Dec. 20 at Notre Dame, and it promises to be a lot more interesting than the last time the teams met, 33 years ago. Jerome Bettis was playing for the Irish then Vaughn Dunbar was his opposite number for Indiana. They're, respectively, 52 and 56 years old now.

So it's been awhile. Notre Dame brushed the Hoosiers aside 49-27 that day in 1991, but it might as well have happened in 1291 for all the relevance it has to 2024. Notre Dame, for instance, is on its fifth head coach since then. Indiana is on its seventh. 

Both are 11-1 this time around, and both have their skeptics. Indiana has for the most part crushed everyone it's played except Ohio State, but most of the people the Hoosiers crushed were eminently crushable. Notre Dame, on the other hand, has that increasingly bizarre loss to a middling MAC school (Northern Illinois), but they've crushed almost everyone else on a schedule less crushable than Indiana's.

So, who knows. But the good news is, now we'll all have a reason to  guess.

Thank you, crafty men in suits. Thank you.

Ghosts of Conferences Past

 Sunday morning now after the big Championship Weekend in college football, and spirits walk restlessly among us. Apparently you can kill certain conferences deader than dead (or steal major chunks of their lifeforce), but, like Michael Myers, they will rise again to terrorize poor Jamie Lee Curtis or whatever.

Remember the Pac-12, for instance?

Sure you do. USC, UCLA, Stanford, various Ducks and Sun Devils and Huskies and Beavers. All just a memory now, with half the conference defecting to the Big Ten (The Big Ten! Those ancient Rose Bowl archenemies!), and the rest scattering to the Mountain West or Big 12 or wherever.

Except.

Except did you see what happened yesterday?

The Oregon Ducks, a Pac-12 refugee, beat Penn State to win the Big Ten championship.

The Arizona State Sun Devils, another Pac-12 refugee, slapped around Iowa State to win the Big 12 championship.

Texas, which fled the Big 12 for the SEC, lost in overtime to Georgia in that conference's championship game. SMU, formerly of the American Athletic Conference, reached the ACC title game before losing to Clemson.

So to review: Two teams from a dead conference hoisted another conference's trophies;  two strays played for the championship of the conferences that took them in.

You can call that parity or water seeking its own level or just the SEC, ACC and Big Ten stealing football programs from their rightful owners, but the Blob prefers to call it something else. Especially in the case of Oregon and Arizona State, I just think of it as the Ghosts of Conferences Past getting revenge on their usurpers.

All these years after Bo and Woody 'n' them, and the Big Ten still can't beat the Pac-12 in the big one. And just when the former thought it was safe from the latter when the Rose Bowl stopped being an exclusive Big Ten-vs.-Pac-12 deal.

Oregon 45, Penn State 38 last night?

Somewhere Anthony Davis is doing his end-zone knee dance again ... and Jim Plunkett or Warren Moon or Andrew Luck is throwing another touchdown pass ... and Ricky Marcus Bell-Allen is gobbling up miles of real estate out of  Student Body Right.

Rattling their ghostly chains all the while.

Bill College

I don't know what to make of the reports Bill Belichick has interviewed for North Carolina's vacant head coaching job, except that maybe he's bored out of his mind. Or maybe because he's dating a 24-year-old, he figures he's down with the younger generation and can relate to Today's College Student.

(Some quick mental images: Bill doing a kegstand at a Kappa Dabba Doo rush party ... Bill, his hair dyed Carolina blue, crowd-surfing at a pregame pep rally ... Bill bopping across campus in board shorts, flip-flops and a Slipknot concert tee. Or maybe J. Cole)

Anyway ...

Anyway, my more serious theory, if indeed I have one, is Bill has surveyed the college football landscape and thought "Hell, this is just the NFL in drag. I can do this." Because let's face it, college football pretty much is the NFL in drag.

Consider:

1. Players, through NIL, are being paid outrageous sums of money.

2. Coaches (or "educators", as they so quaintly used to be called) are being paid outrageous sums of money.

3. Free agency is a thing, and, thanks to the absence of player contracts and the virtually unregulated transfer portal, is even more free than it is in the NFL.

4. Network deals are gargantuan, sponsor deals are gargantuan, the entire construct of big-time college football and basketball has become almost wholly divorced from the academic mission of the universities they represent. They pay mere lip service to that now, and "North Carolina" (or "Alabama" or "Texas" or "Georgia") is just the brand they sell.

It all must look like common ground to Belichick, so why not give the college game the old college try? And if Buddy Bill McElroy decides to bail on him because Baylor or Arizona State offered him a chunkier deal, how would that be different from Tom Brady bailing on him for Tampa Bay?

He'd just recruit (draft) another stud freshman, or convince another Buddy Bill to transfer to UNC (the Patriots) from Whatsamatta U. (the Jaguars).

Of course, he wouldn't want to let Buddy Bill get away to Duke. That would be like Brady signing with the Jets instead of the Buccaneers.

OK. So, sort of.

College Football Protestin'

 Three days now until the College Football Playoff  bracket reveal, and everyone's gripin'. Miami's gripin' there's no way a three-loss Alabama squad should be ranked above them. The  Big 12 commish is gripin' there's no way the champion of the Mountain West (Boise State) should get an automatic bid over his conference's champ.

How could three-loss Clemson still get in? How could the Big 12's two title-game contestants, Arizona State and Iowa State, be out until one of them wins this weekend? And DAMMIT INDIANA STILL HASN'T PLAYED ANYONE.

Well ... let me say this about that.

Ain't it grand?

Like a lot of folks I wondered how expanding the CFP from four teams to 12 would affect the college game, but turns out it's affected it like a shot of penicillin affects the creepin' crud. It's made a lot more games a lot more relevant, especially late-in-the-season games. It's given college football a narrative that changes with every week, and therefore keeps our attention riveted. And schools that before now would be looking forward to some Radial Tire/Chicken Sandwich/Lawn Implement Bowl are still in the mix for the Big  Square Dance -- or so their fan bases believe.

The upshot of all this is everyone's arguing again. Which to me has always been the bone-and-blood of the college game.

It's what I miss most about the old days, when New Year's Day had a distinctive storyline that unspooled as the day went on. Did Great Big Deal U. losing in the Cotton Bowl open the door for Just As Big Deal U. to win the national title in the Rose Bowl? Or would Hey We're Big Too U. claim it by winning the Orange Bowl?

Terrific stuff. It was especially terrific in years like 1966, when Notre Dame won the national title while unbeaten Alabama and Penn State said wait a minute, you haven't played us yet. Or when AP and UPI came up with dueling national champs.

All this College Football Protestin' has revived some of that, and I love every whiny morsel of it. Major nostalgia hit is what that is. And remember the part about making more games more relevant?

Well, when Indiana played Purdue in the Old Oaken Bucket game last weekend, there's was a level of suspense -- tiny, but it was there -- that would have been missing without the expanded CFP. The loss to Ohio State, coupled with IU's admittedly pallid strength of schedule, meant the 10-1 Hoosiers could possibly have been an odd man out if they didn't sufficiently pave the 1-10 Boilermakers. 

Of course, it would have been ridiculous to keep out an 11-1 Big Ten team. But if IU came out flat, and the Boilers decided to put up a fight ...

Nah. The Hoosiers came out to prove a point. The Boilers came out like congealed gravy. The result was an historic 66-0 rump-roasting that punched the Hoosiers CFP ticket and earned Purdue coach Ryan Walters a bus ticket out of  town.

Without the CFP, who would have cared outside of Bloomington and West Lafayette? It would have been just another dreary Bucket beatdown -- albeit administered by Indiana this time and not by Purdue, as has often been the case in a rivalry the Boilers still lead 77-42-6.

And now people can resume griping about Indiana's SOS. And of course much else.

One more time: Ain't it grand?

Golden battiness

 I am no strict baseball constructionist, that species of fan who thinks the designated hitter marked the dawn of civilization's fall. But neither am I a baseball agnostic.

In other words, I'm fine with the DH. I'm also fine with the pitch clock, and limiting pitching changes, and all other tweaks baseball has added recently to speed up its numbing stem-winder plod.

Those changes have shaved a considerable number of minutes from the average length of a game -- a good thing here in the go-go 2020s. We may pine occasionally for what we imagine was the more leisurely pace of the good old days, but that doesn't mean we want our baseball games to outlast entire epochs in the march of time.

Three-and-a-half, four hours to play nine innings is too much foot-dragging even for nostalgia buffs like me. Get on with it already.

However. 

However, some things are just too contrived even for the Blob's relatively enlightened stance.

Abolishing the shift, a legitimate defensive strategy since Moses was throwing his two-seamer, crosses a line that shouldn't be crossed, in my opinion. Ditto the "ghost runner" employed now in extra innings, because I think if a man is out there standing on second base, he should damn well have better done something to get there.

Even that, however, is not as egregious an affront to the game as the latest gimmick being tossed around in baseball's boardrooms: The Golden At-Bat.

In essence, the Golden At-Bat would be a one-time-only maneuver that would allow a team to insert a designated hitter into the batting order whenever it felt like it. In other words, if the Dodgers were trailing by a run or two in the bottom of the ninth, it could send Shohei Ohtani to the plate no matter who was next in the order.

Theoretically, this means Ohtani could get two at-bats in a row. Imagine the nightmares an opponent's closer would have about that.

And, sure, I get the appeal. The Golden At-Bat would add a whole new layer of strategy to a game whose strategy has always been one of its draws. When does manager "Biff"  Biffington use his Golden At-Bat? Does he save it for the later innings? Or, if his team jumps out to a lead, does he use it earlier in hopes of putting the game out of reach?

Inquiring minds would want to know. Well, not really, but we can pretend.

Now, I'm not going to go all cranky old guy here and wonder what some of the old timers would have thought of all this. The old timers thought moving on from the deadball era was too radical a move. So we already know they're turning the air blue somewhere in the Great Beyond.

(Although, honestly, Ty Cobb and the Babe and maybe even Honus Wagner might have liked the idea of the Golden At-Bat. As long as they were the Golden At-Bat, of course)

No, what I'm going to do instead is say baseball wants to be very careful about gimmickry like the Golden At-Bat. They're treading perilously close to a place where baseball becomes not baseball but some loony mix of the WWE, Hollywood Squares and a carnival midway. 

Now batting as the Designated Celebrity, Charles Nelson Reilly! He'll be swinging a giant plastic bat at a beach ball thrown by ace closer Ace Closer, who'll simultaneously try to guess Charles Nelson's weight!

And you thought the '24 White Sox were a joke.

Flag football

 Tuesday morning after the big holiday weekend, and Curmudgeon Boy has broken his surly bonds again. Someone left the gate open, and now he's out there roaming free in my brain and, who knows, probably leaving little Curmudgeon Boy piles in places he shouldn't.

Which is to say I've been listening to the chatter about the Michigan-Ohio State brawl, and the other brawls that broke out in college rivalry games over the weekend, and it's brought out the cranky old guy in me. And also all the cranky old guy bromides.

Such as: Winners, act like you've been there before.

And also: Losers, accept your fate with humility and no loud noises.

This goes back to Paul Brown, the original Curmudgeon Boy of football, who once said when you win say very little, and when you lose, say even less. 

Not anymore, apparently.

Now the winners can't wait to rub salt in the wound after rivalry games, and the losers are no longer disposed to put up with it. This betrays a general lack of discipline on the part of both, even though the Blob tends to side with the losers in this matter. It takes less discipline to taunt than it does not to respond to it.

Which brings us to this whole flag-planting business.

Two geniuses from Michigan decided it would be a good idea to plant a giant M flag on the Ohio State logo after upsetting the rival Buckeyes in Columbus, touching off the brawl we've all seen on TV by now. This happens all the time now in rivalry games -- remember Baker Mayfield planting an OU flag on the same Buckeyes logo years ago, after Oklahoma upset the Buckeyes? -- and it's a disgusting phenomenon.

Winners win with class. The ones who don't are only losers in disguise. Thus sayeth Curmudgeon Boy.

But, nah. The two Michigan geniuses decided instead to rub it in with the flag business, and further decided it would be an excellent idea to do it with the Buckeyes still milling around at midfield. Especially considering how bitter this rivalry is, what did they think was gonna happen?  The Ohio State players were just gonna say "Ha-ha, good one, Wolverines"?

Of course not. An Ohio State player ripped the flag away, both teams waded into one another, and it took cops with pepper spray to break it up. Meanwhile, Florida players were fighting with Florida State players after the Gators tried to plant a flag on the Florida State logo in Tallahassee, and North Carolina and North Carolina State players were throwing down after the Wolfpack tried to plant a flag on the Tar Heels logo.

Enough, people. Enough.

Look. No one appreciates a good college football rivalry more than the Blob, and the more enmity the better. Michigan and Ohio State certainly didn't invent the latter on Saturday afternoon; go back 50 years, and you'll see Woody Hayes tearing up sideline markers in a fit of rage during the Michigan game, and coasting across the state line on fumes because he refused to buy gas in Michigan. 

Great stuff. But Woody and his splendid doppelganger Bo Schembechler at least had the good sense to get their teams the hell off the field after Ohio State-Michigan games. Sherrone Moore and Ryan Day, not so much.

Moore you can partly understand, because his team had just scored a jaw-dropping upset and were, as they say, in the moment. No such excuse for Day, who stood and watched as his players waded into the Michigans. 

One would have thought, considering what he's said in the past about how special is THE Ohio State University, that he would have been reminding his players what they represented, and to conduct themselves accordingly. Perhaps by grabbing a facemask or two to get the point across.

And Moore?

Same message to his Wolverines. Delivered the same way if need be.

The good news here is the Big Ten refused to put up with all the nonsense, and dropped a $100,000 fine on both schools.  And given what happened elsewhere, the NCAA may waken from its slumber long enough to ban planting flags on rival logos.

Curmudgeon Boy would be A-OK with that.

He'd also be A-OK with coaches controlling their players. But I suppose that's too much to ask these days.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 13

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the "Hey, look" Blob feature of which critics have said "Hey, look, here comes that idiot again," and also "Hey, look, only about a month left of this torture":

1. Hey, look, it's Tuesday morning and Browns quarterback Jameis Winston just threw for another gazillion-bazillion yards, and also threw another touchdown pass.

2. Also another pick-six.

3. Also another completion to Browns wideout Jerry Jeudy, who caught, I don't know, 50 balls for infinity yards in the Browns' 41-32 shootout loss to the Broncos.

4. "Actually it was only nine balls for 235 yards, but thanks for noticing." (Jerry Jeudy)

5. "Hey, look, I ran for another two scores and we won again!" (Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson)

6. "OK, so it was only the Patriots, and it was only by a point, but still." (Also Anthony Richardson)

7. "Hey, look, I'm out of a job!" (Former Bears coach Matt Eberflus)

8. "Hey, look, I'm about to be suspended!" (Texans defensive back Azeez Al-Shaair, after his vicious helmet-to-helmet late hit on a sliding Trevor Lawrence, although it doesn't look quite as vicious or late until you see it in super-slow motion)

9. "Hey, look, two wins in a row, baby! We're back on track for THE SUPER BOWL!!" (The Cowboys)

10. "OK, so it was only the Giants, but still." (Also the Cowboys)

Sunk cost

Purdue got the first part right Sunday, painful as it must have been. It swallowed the ten or so million necessary to buy out football coach Ryan Walters' contract, and showed him the road out of West Lafayette.

You go 1-11 and winless in the Big Ten, these things will happen. You lose by a combined score of 132-7 to the two other football majors in your state, these things must happen.

A catastrophically bad Purdue team did that, losing 66-7 to Notre Dame at one end of the season and 66-0 to Indiana in the Old Oaken Bucket game at the other. In between there were some 56-7 and 49-10 wipeouts, as well as a stray 35-0 or two. But it was the Notre Dame and Indiana capitulations that did in the short-lived Walters regime.

Together, they served as bookends to what is possible when you make the right hire. The contrast with Purdue, who made the wrong one, was simply too stark to be tolerated another second.

And so, less than 24 hours after the surrender in Bloomington, Purdue declared Walters a sunk cost and ponied up the cash to send him on his way. Meanwhile, in South Bend, Marcus Freeman has the Irish 11-1 and cruising into the College Football Playoff; downstate, meanwhile, Curt Cignetti has the Hoosiers 11-1 and cruising toward the same.

There were some grumbles among the Domers when Brian Kelly blew town and Freeman was elevated from within to replace him, but hardly anyone is grumbling now. And Cignetti has energized an IU program even more chronically beige than Purdue's, which at least has a few Drew Breeses and Bob Grieses in its woodpile.

It also has the right hire in its history, if that means anything. Joe Tiller was the right hire, even if hardly anyone in the Midwest had heard of him when he landed in West Lafayette. Jeff Brohm was the right hire, even if the siren call of his alma mater (Louisville) lured him away.

And Ryan Walters?

Walters looked like the right hire, at least initially. He'd never been a head coach in the Big Ten before, but neither had most of the coaches in the Big Ten before they became coaches in the Big Ten. What he was, by all accounts, was a defensive genius who, as defensive coordinator at Illinois, turned the Illini into one of the most fearsome Ds in America.

But he turned out to be a disaster, an epic fail who made other recent epic fails (paging Danny Hope; paging Darrell Hazell) look like Vince Don Lombardi-Shula by comparison. Now athletic director Mike Bobinski and the same people who hired Walters must go back to the drawing board, two short years after they blew it big time.

Wild guess, but I'm thinking that scenario might keep the alums awake at night. Especially the ones with deep pockets.

I'm also thinking this: Whoever Purdue hires, he'll need to blow into town like Hurricane Cig did downstate. If 66-0 didn't seal Walters fate, after all, the fact recruits were bailing on his program left and right surely did. With the early signing period looming, Walters had just five recruits still locked in.

So this will be a total reconstruct. And thus crunch time squared for Bobinski and Co.

They got the first part right. The hard part awaits.

Karma's a ...

 ... aaaand you know the rest of that one.

Karma is what happens when you do something you shouldn't oughta done, like running your mouth about how so-and-so sucks, and then having so-and-so stick it to you by punching in one last touchdown after the issue had long been decided.

That happened last week, in Columbus, Ohio, when Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes decided to school Indiana coach Curt Cignetti about why you don't say "Ohio State sucks," because Ohio State will remember it. And so the Buckeyes scored one last touchdown with seconds to play, and a 31-15 Indiana loss became a 38-15 Indiana loss.

And yesterday, also in Columbus, Ohio?

Ryan Day and the Buckeyes got theirs.

They were beaten again by their bitterest rival, Michigan, this time by the Woody/Bo score of 13-10. It was the fourth straight time the Wolverines had beaten the Buckeyes -- and this was the worst of all, because Michigan came in a beige 6-5, and the Buckeyes were 10-1 and ranked second in the nation.

By all rights, they should have pounded lumps on the Wolverines. Instead, they lost, and then got into an embarrassing brawl with the Michigans that security had to use pepper spray to break up.

(About that: Why were both teams still on the field? And what sort of brainiacs does Michigan have on its roster these days, considering two of them thought it would be a good idea to plant a giant "M" flag at midfield with the entire Ohio State team milling about? Of course the Buckeyes took offense. Which of course ignited the whole brouhaha.)

Anyway ...

Back to Ryan Day, the Buckeyes, and karma.

If karma paid back Cignetti last week, then karma paid back Day and the Buckeyes yesterday. You run your mouth, it comes back on you. You disrespect an opponent because the opponent ran his mouth, it also comes back on you.

Remember Will Howard, the Ohio State quarterback who taunted Cignetti -- aka, Coach Cig -- by pantomiming putting out a cigarette on the sideline as the game ended last week?

Yesterday he threw a touchdown pass. But he also threw two picks to contribute to the Buckeyes' loss.

Karma.

As for Indiana ...

Well, the Hoosiers embarrassed their own rival last night, laminating the worst Purdue team in recent memory 66-0. It was the first shutout of the Purdues for the Hoosiers since 1945, and Indiana's largest margin of victory in a Big Ten game ever. And it was like watching Joey Chestnut play with his food. 

The Hoosiers outgained Purdue 582 yards to 67. They out first-downed the Boilers 30-5. Kurtis Rourke threw six touchdown passes; Elijah Sarratt caught eight balls for a school record 165 yards; and, like Ohio State the week before, Indiana shamelessly ran it up on their helpless rival, with Rourke still slinging it deep in the game and Cignetti dialing up a fake punt for a first down with the score 38-0 and the game long over.

Then they took a knee at the end -- which looked like mercy, but which felt more like rubbing it in given the circumstances ("See? We didn't make it 73-0 like we coulda").

Which makes me wonder what misfortune will befall the 11-1 Hoosiers in the upcoming College Football Playoff, in which they surely will be included now. 

Because, you know: Karma.