Raise a glass this day to the most fortuitous knee injury in football history, because without it Buford T. Justice wouldn't have gotten his sheriff's car all boogered up.
Excuse me. I suppose I should explain.
See, an old Florida State running back died yesterday. His name was Burt Reynolds.
He was an athlete before he was the Bandit, driving Buford T. crazy in that black Trans-Am. He toted the mail for the Seminoles before he did it for the Mean Machine. And he did again as Billy Clyde Puckett in the worst adaptation ever of an iconic football novel, for which its director (Michael Ritchie) should have been sentenced to shooting used car ads in Pee Stain, Mississippi, for the rest of eternity.
But let's not talk about what that idiot did to "Semi-Tough."
Let's talk instead about Reynolds, who made the jump from athlete to actor after blowing out his knee at FSU, and (unlike so many others) made it stick. I don't know how you measure these things, but surely he's way up there in that poll. Arnold Schwarzenegger, yeah. Duane "The Rock" Johnson, sure. But Burt Reynolds?
He was the Bandit, by God. And, as Paul Crewe, he got to hit Ray Nitschke in the nuts with a football and live to tell about it. Ah-nold and the Rock never did that.
So here's to him, and here's to the glorious intersection between sports and Hollywood. There have been a lot of gruesome car crashes at that intersection -- Jim Brown's film career never worked out, and let's not even talk about O.J. -- but Burt Reynolds was the king, or one of them. And he never really lost his jones for football; he was a major donor to the FSU program over the years and for a time was part-owner of the Tampa Bay Bandits of the old USFL. So here's to him.
I'm sorry, what was that?
Gee, Buford T. I don't know. I think he went thataway.
(Pointing in the opposite direction he actually went).
Friday, September 7, 2018
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Anti-Warrior
The other day the Blob jotted down some thoughts on Leland Etzler, the longtime Woodlan football coach who passed Sunday and who taught an entire community, not to say all of us who had the great good fortune to know him, how you go about being a football coach.
Keeping the game in its proper perspective, that's how you do it. Understanding that you are an example in ways that go far beyond 100 yards of turf. Understanding, too, that above all else, you are an educator, and that if what you teach is blocking and tackling, it's also lessons that don't have anything to do with the wing T or the 3-4 defense.
In other words, you are everything this guy isn't.
A grown-ass man threatening an 11-year-old? Over youth football, for God's sake? Who does that?
And why should we be thanking him?
Because just as we need the Leland Etzlers to show us how it should be done, we need guys like this clown to show us how it shouldn't be. Both role models, in a sense, but occupying completely opposite poles of the earth.
I know which pole I'd rather spend time. I'm guessing you do, too.
Keeping the game in its proper perspective, that's how you do it. Understanding that you are an example in ways that go far beyond 100 yards of turf. Understanding, too, that above all else, you are an educator, and that if what you teach is blocking and tackling, it's also lessons that don't have anything to do with the wing T or the 3-4 defense.
In other words, you are everything this guy isn't.
A grown-ass man threatening an 11-year-old? Over youth football, for God's sake? Who does that?
And why should we be thanking him?
Because just as we need the Leland Etzlers to show us how it should be done, we need guys like this clown to show us how it shouldn't be. Both role models, in a sense, but occupying completely opposite poles of the earth.
I know which pole I'd rather spend time. I'm guessing you do, too.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Cinderella goes barefoot
If the shoe fits it puts the universe right, sends sunlight to even the dimmest corners, makes put-upon chroniclers of the human experience buy a round for the house, because it makes the chronicling so much more fun. Not to say so much easier.
And so here last fall came NASCAR lifer Martin Truex Jr., scrounger of rides and middle-of-the-pack scuffler, putting on the glass slipper. It fit to the tune of eight victories and a Cup championship, and if that wasn't Cinderella enough he did it driving for an outfit called Furniture Row Racing, which was no one's idea of a heavyweight.
Until 2017, see, Furniture Row was a one-car team, and a scuffler itself. In its first 10 years fielding a Cup team either part-time or full-time, it won two races. It took 137 races for it to crack the winner's circle with Regan Smith in 2011. It took 148 more to do it again with Truex in 2015.
But the last two years it forged a working partnership with Gibbs and Toyota, and hammered out lucrative partnerships with 5-Hour Energy and Bass Pro Shops. And since the start of 2016, Truex has won 16 races carrying Furniture Row colors.
It was the ultimate little-guy-defies-the-odds story. Until it wasn't.
What happened, see, is the odds hit back, and now Furniture Row Racing is just another example of how hard it is to sustain success or even simple viability in motorsports these days. 5-Hour Energy pulled its sponsorship, and that was the end of the fairy tale. This week Furniture Row owner Barney Visser announced he was closing the doors on the race team at the end of this season, defending champion or no defending champion.
“This is not good for anybody," Visser said reluctantly. "The numbers just don’t add up. I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team and I’m not going to do that. This was obviously a painful decision to arrive at knowing how it will affect a number of quality and talented people. ... I feel that it’s only proper to make the decision at this time to allow all team members to start seeking employment for next year."
I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team ...
Think about that for a moment.
Think about what it means for NASCAR, with its diminished but still outsized presence on the American motorsports landscape, and a perspective still warped out of round by the outrageously unsustainable model of the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Think about what it means especially heading into Brickyard weekend, the most visible barometer of NASCAR's descent from unassailable monolith to just another racing series with a healthy TV deal.
I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team ...
This is not the owner of Chico's Bail Bonds Racing saying this.
This is the owner of the defending Cup champion saying this.
If this Cinderella can't make a go of it in NASCAR these days, no other Cinderella has a ghost of a chance. Even the big boys -- the Gibbses, the Hendrickses, the Penskes, the Stewart-Haases -- have to scrounge and scuffle for sponsorship deals, all their power and connections notwithstanding. Furniture Row managed it because it had Gibbs preparing its cars for them and a couple of solid sponsors. But if one of those sponsors no longer finds it financially viable to put their name on even a Cup-winning car, how solid is any sponsorship for anyone?
Answer: Not very.
Which means everyone, even the big boys, will continue to do their own scrounging and scuffling.
Which means the business will continue to be a going concern, as in "going to be another roll of the dice this year."
Which means it's never going to be the sort of investment into which anyone sinks a fat chunk of change for the long haul.
Them's the facts, boys and girls. Them's always gonna be the facts.
And now it's on to Indy, where the organizers, desperate to stem the dwindling interest in an event that long ago lost its shine and novelty, decided to move the event from late July to early September. After almost 25 years, it seemed, they noticed the last weekend in July was usually hotter than the hinges of hell, and that's why people were staying away. Even though they hadn't until lately.
In any case, here's September, and here's Indy.
Where the forecast for this weekend is for temperatures in the 80s, with a chance of storms every day.
A chance of storms.
Mother Nature doesn't know the half of it.
And so here last fall came NASCAR lifer Martin Truex Jr., scrounger of rides and middle-of-the-pack scuffler, putting on the glass slipper. It fit to the tune of eight victories and a Cup championship, and if that wasn't Cinderella enough he did it driving for an outfit called Furniture Row Racing, which was no one's idea of a heavyweight.
Until 2017, see, Furniture Row was a one-car team, and a scuffler itself. In its first 10 years fielding a Cup team either part-time or full-time, it won two races. It took 137 races for it to crack the winner's circle with Regan Smith in 2011. It took 148 more to do it again with Truex in 2015.
But the last two years it forged a working partnership with Gibbs and Toyota, and hammered out lucrative partnerships with 5-Hour Energy and Bass Pro Shops. And since the start of 2016, Truex has won 16 races carrying Furniture Row colors.
It was the ultimate little-guy-defies-the-odds story. Until it wasn't.
What happened, see, is the odds hit back, and now Furniture Row Racing is just another example of how hard it is to sustain success or even simple viability in motorsports these days. 5-Hour Energy pulled its sponsorship, and that was the end of the fairy tale. This week Furniture Row owner Barney Visser announced he was closing the doors on the race team at the end of this season, defending champion or no defending champion.
“This is not good for anybody," Visser said reluctantly. "The numbers just don’t add up. I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team and I’m not going to do that. This was obviously a painful decision to arrive at knowing how it will affect a number of quality and talented people. ... I feel that it’s only proper to make the decision at this time to allow all team members to start seeking employment for next year."
I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team ...
Think about that for a moment.
Think about what it means for NASCAR, with its diminished but still outsized presence on the American motorsports landscape, and a perspective still warped out of round by the outrageously unsustainable model of the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Think about what it means especially heading into Brickyard weekend, the most visible barometer of NASCAR's descent from unassailable monolith to just another racing series with a healthy TV deal.
I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team ...
This is not the owner of Chico's Bail Bonds Racing saying this.
This is the owner of the defending Cup champion saying this.
If this Cinderella can't make a go of it in NASCAR these days, no other Cinderella has a ghost of a chance. Even the big boys -- the Gibbses, the Hendrickses, the Penskes, the Stewart-Haases -- have to scrounge and scuffle for sponsorship deals, all their power and connections notwithstanding. Furniture Row managed it because it had Gibbs preparing its cars for them and a couple of solid sponsors. But if one of those sponsors no longer finds it financially viable to put their name on even a Cup-winning car, how solid is any sponsorship for anyone?
Answer: Not very.
Which means everyone, even the big boys, will continue to do their own scrounging and scuffling.
Which means the business will continue to be a going concern, as in "going to be another roll of the dice this year."
Which means it's never going to be the sort of investment into which anyone sinks a fat chunk of change for the long haul.
Them's the facts, boys and girls. Them's always gonna be the facts.
And now it's on to Indy, where the organizers, desperate to stem the dwindling interest in an event that long ago lost its shine and novelty, decided to move the event from late July to early September. After almost 25 years, it seemed, they noticed the last weekend in July was usually hotter than the hinges of hell, and that's why people were staying away. Even though they hadn't until lately.
In any case, here's September, and here's Indy.
Where the forecast for this weekend is for temperatures in the 80s, with a chance of storms every day.
A chance of storms.
Mother Nature doesn't know the half of it.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Message sent
Nine words. That's what this is about, really.
Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.
People will burn their Nike gear, because of those nine words. The super patriots, the ones who elect to see affront where none is being given, have already fired up #boycottnike on Twitter. They will cost the most corporate of entities market share because of those words, though it's doubtful such a monolith will be very much shaken by that. Our Only Available President, inconsequential though he is, will be sure to weigh in with some adolescent bloviation that distorts and distracts, because distortion and distraction are all he's got to offer.
Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.
That's what shows on the screen over a black-and-white image of Colin Kaepernick in Nike's latest "Just Do It" campaign.
That's what will have OOAP and his ilk up in arms, even though it's exactly the sort of message they'd be glad to impart to their own children, and one no thinking human could see as anything but noble and right. Especially in a nation born on the belief of so many who did sacrifice everything.
But not this time. Not with Colin Kaepernick delivering the message, Colin Kaepernick who in his own small way has also sacrificed much for something he believes.
He's not right about all of it, mind you. He's said and done things he shouldn't have. But when he knelt with his head bowed during the national anthem because he didn't think it was right people of color were being killed in situations where they shouldn't have been, and receiving prison sentences white people do not for the same crimes, he was displaying exactly what is best about this country. And what has always been one of its guiding principles.
Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.
No sentiment is more American than that one.
And yet ...
And yet, because it is Kaepernick, and because what he is protesting is beyond the experience of those who don't look like him, it will be seen as something alien. It will be an occasion for outrage.
How dare Nike allow That Guy to deliver that message! How dare they!
And yet. And yet.
And yet, what he knelt to protest is happening. It is real. Just because it's not happening to you -- because you were lucky enough to be born with a different pigmentation -- does not make it less so.
We can debate the causes, and they are many. But we can't debate the fact that, if you are white, you're probably not going to get shot while reaching for your wallet. You're probably not going to get shot or beaten or choked to death simply for arguing with a cop. Your child is probably not going to wind up on a slab because he was playing with a cap gun in the park.
And if it does happen, you're probably going to get justice.
Kaepernick, and all those who followed suit, saw a fundamental unfairness in that. They saw a broken place in the American ideal. It's fair to debate whether or not the way they chose to protest that is the right way, although doing it in the full glare of an NFL Sunday afternoon would seem to be the perfect way. And although OOAP's narrative -- that they were disrespecting America -- is as false as virtually everything else he says.
If the goal was disrespect, after all, there were a million better ways to do it: spitting in the direction of the flag, flipping it off, cursing loudly while the anthem is playing. But kneeling quietly with a bowed head? And in some cases with one hand over the heart?
Please.
Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.
Well, Colin Kaepernick does believe in something. And, if not everything, he has sacrificed a career worth hundreds of millions. And, as have so many of his peers, he has spent millions to back up his Sunday afternoon symbolism with real Monday-through-Friday activism.
You don't have to see the America he sees, simply because it's not in your realm of experience. And you don't have to respect the way he's gone about trying to make that America great again, as OOAP and his acolytes are so fond of saying.
But you do have to respect his instinct to do it. And acknowledge that he's as fit as anyone to deliver this particular corporate message.
Monday, September 3, 2018
A Warrior passes
They've put down a living room carpet out there, beyond the place where the semis used to moan through the gears toward Ohio in the old days. But the old days are gone.
U.S. 24 no longer skirts those Friday night lights behind a screen of trees at Woodlan High School; it runs south of Woodlan now, an easy run to Toledo that's four lanes wide these days. The field, too, is four lanes wide, in a sense: Pristine artificial turf from which the green never fades and maintenance -- like, yes, a living room carpet -- amounts to running a vacuum sweeper over it or some such thing.
Yet there are things that never change, out there at Woodlan. There are eternals every high school that's seen generations walk its halls contains, certain truths that remain self-evident.
Blocking and tackling.
August heat and sweat and the clatter of pads as rustling stands of summer corn bear witness.
The bark of a coach's voice, the scree of a whistle, names like Gerig and Ehle and Gerbers. And of course one other name who coached generations of the aforementioned, and which now proudly graces the front of the pressbox.
Etzler Field, it reads.
Because, yes, this is Leland Etzler's field. It is his field and his Friday nights and his school, you might say, in the way every school becomes synonymous with those who serve it long and faithfully and with a particular love that binds the two of them forever.
For an entire community on the eastern edge of Indiana, Leland Etzler was everything a high school football coach was supposed to be, and much more. He passed Sunday afternoon at the age of 78, but his example of how you coach young men and how you live your life will go on forever. All those Gerigs and Ehles and Gerbers -- everyone who's lived the last half-century or so in Woodburn -- carry it with them. They pass it along to the next generation; they find themselves repeating things Leland Etzler said to them decades ago in those electric minutes just before kickoff.
This will happen when a man clumps up and down one school's sideline for 43 years, which is what Etzler did at Woodlan. He broke in as an assistant junior high coach back in 1962, and he was the varsity head coach from 1965 to 2004. He came in with Kennedy and went out with Bush the Younger, clumped up and down that sideline through Vietnam and Watergate and the Gulf War and 9/11. The Beatles became the BeeGees became Pearl Jam became Jay-Z, and still he was there.
I got to know Leland fairly late in all that, and a finer man and educator and just plain by-God example I never met. Now when I hear the words "high school football coach," I think of Leland. When I hear "pillar of the community," I think of Leland. Long before it was a living room carpet, when it was just God's own grass that gleamed dew-wet beneath the lights on Friday nights, that field was Leland's field. He guarded it jealously, watching over it with the eye of an art critic inspecting a Monet or Gauguin.
He was doing that early one morning when I drove out to Woodlan for a first-day-of-football-practice column, some span of years ago. The sun had just cleared all that head-high corn to the east, bringing with it giants' shadows and the promise of thick August heat. Leland was keeping a close eye on the grounds crew as they groomed his field, fretting a little, maybe, hoping for some rain. The season, after all, was only a couple of weeks away.
Presently we made our way back to the blockhouse that comprised Woodlan's locker room, and stood outside talking as Leland's latest crop of Woodlan Warriors straggled in by ones and twos and sometimes threes and fours. This is where, on this day or another -- too many years have flown to pinpoint the exact date -- I noticed some sort of wooden contraption that looked homemade.
Turns out it was.
Turns out Leland had built it himself. I don't remember what it was for, but he'd seen a need and had gone home and committed some carpentry, cut the wood and fastened it together and brought it out here to serve Woodlan High School and the Woodlan High School football program.
That's what a guy did, after all, when Woodlan High School and Woodlan football had been his charge to keep for four decades. It's what made Leland Etzler synonymous with both, when the lessons he imparted and the example he set had become as much a part of it all as those100 yards of manicured grass and every brick in the place.
Because, see, Leland Etzler was not just a warrior, coaching all those young men in their navy jerseys and white helmets with the blue numbers on the sides to 287 wins and a state championship game appearance in 1981. Ultimately he was much more than that.
Ultimately, he was also a Warrior.
U.S. 24 no longer skirts those Friday night lights behind a screen of trees at Woodlan High School; it runs south of Woodlan now, an easy run to Toledo that's four lanes wide these days. The field, too, is four lanes wide, in a sense: Pristine artificial turf from which the green never fades and maintenance -- like, yes, a living room carpet -- amounts to running a vacuum sweeper over it or some such thing.
Yet there are things that never change, out there at Woodlan. There are eternals every high school that's seen generations walk its halls contains, certain truths that remain self-evident.
Blocking and tackling.
August heat and sweat and the clatter of pads as rustling stands of summer corn bear witness.
The bark of a coach's voice, the scree of a whistle, names like Gerig and Ehle and Gerbers. And of course one other name who coached generations of the aforementioned, and which now proudly graces the front of the pressbox.
Etzler Field, it reads.
Because, yes, this is Leland Etzler's field. It is his field and his Friday nights and his school, you might say, in the way every school becomes synonymous with those who serve it long and faithfully and with a particular love that binds the two of them forever.
For an entire community on the eastern edge of Indiana, Leland Etzler was everything a high school football coach was supposed to be, and much more. He passed Sunday afternoon at the age of 78, but his example of how you coach young men and how you live your life will go on forever. All those Gerigs and Ehles and Gerbers -- everyone who's lived the last half-century or so in Woodburn -- carry it with them. They pass it along to the next generation; they find themselves repeating things Leland Etzler said to them decades ago in those electric minutes just before kickoff.
This will happen when a man clumps up and down one school's sideline for 43 years, which is what Etzler did at Woodlan. He broke in as an assistant junior high coach back in 1962, and he was the varsity head coach from 1965 to 2004. He came in with Kennedy and went out with Bush the Younger, clumped up and down that sideline through Vietnam and Watergate and the Gulf War and 9/11. The Beatles became the BeeGees became Pearl Jam became Jay-Z, and still he was there.
I got to know Leland fairly late in all that, and a finer man and educator and just plain by-God example I never met. Now when I hear the words "high school football coach," I think of Leland. When I hear "pillar of the community," I think of Leland. Long before it was a living room carpet, when it was just God's own grass that gleamed dew-wet beneath the lights on Friday nights, that field was Leland's field. He guarded it jealously, watching over it with the eye of an art critic inspecting a Monet or Gauguin.
He was doing that early one morning when I drove out to Woodlan for a first-day-of-football-practice column, some span of years ago. The sun had just cleared all that head-high corn to the east, bringing with it giants' shadows and the promise of thick August heat. Leland was keeping a close eye on the grounds crew as they groomed his field, fretting a little, maybe, hoping for some rain. The season, after all, was only a couple of weeks away.
Presently we made our way back to the blockhouse that comprised Woodlan's locker room, and stood outside talking as Leland's latest crop of Woodlan Warriors straggled in by ones and twos and sometimes threes and fours. This is where, on this day or another -- too many years have flown to pinpoint the exact date -- I noticed some sort of wooden contraption that looked homemade.
Turns out it was.
Turns out Leland had built it himself. I don't remember what it was for, but he'd seen a need and had gone home and committed some carpentry, cut the wood and fastened it together and brought it out here to serve Woodlan High School and the Woodlan High School football program.
That's what a guy did, after all, when Woodlan High School and Woodlan football had been his charge to keep for four decades. It's what made Leland Etzler synonymous with both, when the lessons he imparted and the example he set had become as much a part of it all as those100 yards of manicured grass and every brick in the place.
Because, see, Leland Etzler was not just a warrior, coaching all those young men in their navy jerseys and white helmets with the blue numbers on the sides to 287 wins and a state championship game appearance in 1981. Ultimately he was much more than that.
Ultimately, he was also a Warrior.
Nightmare scenario
Just had this crazy-bad dream in which my baseball team, the relentlessly underwhelming Pittsburgh Pirates, traded the face of their franchise, Andrew McCutchen, to the San Francisco Giants.
That was awful enough. Then the Giants turned around and traded Cutch to the bleeping bleep-bleep Yankees, for God's sake, insufferable scourge of all things decent and American.
So now Mr. Pirate, whose bobblehead graces a shelf in my office at Manchester University, would soon be wearing those bleeping bleep-bleep pinstripes.
"Oh, my God, I think I'm going to pu--" I said.
Thankfully I woke up before I could finish that sentence. Or the act.
Wait ... What?
That was awful enough. Then the Giants turned around and traded Cutch to the bleeping bleep-bleep Yankees, for God's sake, insufferable scourge of all things decent and American.
So now Mr. Pirate, whose bobblehead graces a shelf in my office at Manchester University, would soon be wearing those bleeping bleep-bleep pinstripes.
"Oh, my God, I think I'm going to pu--" I said.
Thankfully I woke up before I could finish that sentence. Or the act.
Wait ... What?
Sunday, September 2, 2018
A few wildly premature thoughts
So, Notre Dame 24, Michigan 17 on the first full Saturday of the college football season, and now we know what we know. We know NOTRE DAME IS GOING TO WIN THE NATIONAL TITLE!
Also, FIRE JIM HARBAUGH!
Yes, as surely as day follows night, it's time for that storied tradition in Sportsball World (college football division), Overreaction Sunday. In which the Blob looks at the very first games of the new season and extrapolates completely ridiculous conclusions, and also some that may not be as ridiculous as they sound.
Ready ... set ...
Go:
1. Notre Dame Is Going To Win The National Title!
The itch to over-hype the Irish after a juicy win is one more than a few folks (including, ahem, the Blob) simply can't avoid scratching, so of course it's going to happen this time, too.
First things first: It was a pretty impressive win, especially on the defensive side of the football. New defensive coordinator Clark Lea's D reduced Michigan and its ballyhooed new quarterback Shea Patterson to little more than a squeak; the Michigan offense didn't find the end zone until two minutes remained in the game, and Patterson was harassed all night by a Notre Dame front seven that beat the Michigan O-line briskly about the head and neck, and was every bit the equal of Michigan's much-more-hyped defensive down seven.
Take away the kickoff return touchdown, and Michigan managed just 10 points against the Irish D. And it managed only a field goal until very late.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, after two impressive scores on its first two drives, Notre Dame's offense didn't do a whole lot, either. Brandon Wimbush was terrific early and then, well, not really. In the second half, the Michigan D all but silenced the Irish, allowing one lonely field goal, five almost as lonely first downs and 67 pretty-damn-lonely-themselves yards.
So ... slow the roll, folks. At least a little, and at least for now.
2. Fire Jim Harbaugh!.
In which the Man Who Would Return The Wolverines To Greatness came up wanting again on the big stage, and in a way that didn't inspire a lot of confidence. The Wolverines lost their starting safety to an undisciplined head hit, flubbed the snap on a field-goal attempt and made hash of clock management late as they tried desperately to get back in a game they'd hardly been in.
Not an impressive showing for the Man Who Would Blah-Blah-Blah. The loss dropped Harbaugh's record to 1-6 against Michigan's fiercest rivals (Ohio State, Michigan State and Notre Dame), leveled the Wolverines' record at a pedestrian 9-9 across their last 18 games and seemed to herald another fine 8-5 or 9-4 autumn.
Not exactly what the Michigan faithful expected when Harbaugh breezed into Ann Arbor full of hope, promise and -- perhaps -- a bit of helium, given the results so far.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, the hot seat doesn't look all that toasty to the Blob just yet. So stay tuned.
3. Appalachian State Should Immediately Apply For Membership In The Big Ten!
Because, you know, it beat Michigan once, and damn near beat No. 10 Penn State yesterday. The Nittany Lions needed a late Trace McSorley touchdown pass to force overtime, then got an interception in the end zone to seal a 45-38 victory.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, they're still Appalachian State. So, there's that.
4. Penn State Is Going To Be Terrible Without Saquon Barkley, Just Terrible!
Because, you know, they almost lost to Appalachian State.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, Appalachian State's program has won over 550 games, claimed three national FCS titles and appeared in the FCS playoffs 20 times. And last year the Mountaineers went 9-4 and shut out Toledo 34-0 in the Dollar General bowl.
So it's not like they're, you know, Whatsamatta U.
5. Cole McDonald Is Going To Win The Heisman!
Don't know who Cole McDonald is?
Well, he's the quarterback at Hawaii. And last night he threw for six touchdowns in a 59-41 win over Navy. Which of course makes him the Heisman frontrunner. Just hand the stiff-arming little goober to him now.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, he's the quarterback at Hawaii. Which is not Alabama. Or even Ohio State.
Speaking of which ...
Last but not least:
6. Stop! Urban Meyer Has Been Punished Enough!
Which, OK, is not an overreaction. It's just sarcasm.
Because Ohio State 77, Oregon State 31.
Oh, how Urban must have been agonizing as he thought how easily it could have gone the other way if the teams had played for, I don't know, a hundred years or so. Oh, how he must have been regretting, to the depths of his soul, coddling a wife beater all those years.
On the other hand ...
Well. You know.
Also, FIRE JIM HARBAUGH!
Yes, as surely as day follows night, it's time for that storied tradition in Sportsball World (college football division), Overreaction Sunday. In which the Blob looks at the very first games of the new season and extrapolates completely ridiculous conclusions, and also some that may not be as ridiculous as they sound.
Ready ... set ...
Go:
1. Notre Dame Is Going To Win The National Title!
The itch to over-hype the Irish after a juicy win is one more than a few folks (including, ahem, the Blob) simply can't avoid scratching, so of course it's going to happen this time, too.
First things first: It was a pretty impressive win, especially on the defensive side of the football. New defensive coordinator Clark Lea's D reduced Michigan and its ballyhooed new quarterback Shea Patterson to little more than a squeak; the Michigan offense didn't find the end zone until two minutes remained in the game, and Patterson was harassed all night by a Notre Dame front seven that beat the Michigan O-line briskly about the head and neck, and was every bit the equal of Michigan's much-more-hyped defensive down seven.
Take away the kickoff return touchdown, and Michigan managed just 10 points against the Irish D. And it managed only a field goal until very late.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, after two impressive scores on its first two drives, Notre Dame's offense didn't do a whole lot, either. Brandon Wimbush was terrific early and then, well, not really. In the second half, the Michigan D all but silenced the Irish, allowing one lonely field goal, five almost as lonely first downs and 67 pretty-damn-lonely-themselves yards.
So ... slow the roll, folks. At least a little, and at least for now.
2. Fire Jim Harbaugh!.
In which the Man Who Would Return The Wolverines To Greatness came up wanting again on the big stage, and in a way that didn't inspire a lot of confidence. The Wolverines lost their starting safety to an undisciplined head hit, flubbed the snap on a field-goal attempt and made hash of clock management late as they tried desperately to get back in a game they'd hardly been in.
Not an impressive showing for the Man Who Would Blah-Blah-Blah. The loss dropped Harbaugh's record to 1-6 against Michigan's fiercest rivals (Ohio State, Michigan State and Notre Dame), leveled the Wolverines' record at a pedestrian 9-9 across their last 18 games and seemed to herald another fine 8-5 or 9-4 autumn.
Not exactly what the Michigan faithful expected when Harbaugh breezed into Ann Arbor full of hope, promise and -- perhaps -- a bit of helium, given the results so far.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, the hot seat doesn't look all that toasty to the Blob just yet. So stay tuned.
3. Appalachian State Should Immediately Apply For Membership In The Big Ten!
Because, you know, it beat Michigan once, and damn near beat No. 10 Penn State yesterday. The Nittany Lions needed a late Trace McSorley touchdown pass to force overtime, then got an interception in the end zone to seal a 45-38 victory.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, they're still Appalachian State. So, there's that.
4. Penn State Is Going To Be Terrible Without Saquon Barkley, Just Terrible!
Because, you know, they almost lost to Appalachian State.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, Appalachian State's program has won over 550 games, claimed three national FCS titles and appeared in the FCS playoffs 20 times. And last year the Mountaineers went 9-4 and shut out Toledo 34-0 in the Dollar General bowl.
So it's not like they're, you know, Whatsamatta U.
5. Cole McDonald Is Going To Win The Heisman!
Don't know who Cole McDonald is?
Well, he's the quarterback at Hawaii. And last night he threw for six touchdowns in a 59-41 win over Navy. Which of course makes him the Heisman frontrunner. Just hand the stiff-arming little goober to him now.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, he's the quarterback at Hawaii. Which is not Alabama. Or even Ohio State.
Speaking of which ...
Last but not least:
6. Stop! Urban Meyer Has Been Punished Enough!
Which, OK, is not an overreaction. It's just sarcasm.
Because Ohio State 77, Oregon State 31.
Oh, how Urban must have been agonizing as he thought how easily it could have gone the other way if the teams had played for, I don't know, a hundred years or so. Oh, how he must have been regretting, to the depths of his soul, coddling a wife beater all those years.
On the other hand ...
Well. You know.
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