Ignoring What's Happening in Big Ten Country is Being Complicit

 No offense, hip ESPN show. 

https://twitter.com/CollegeGameDay/status/1319979627134201859

YEAH, there are talking about fucking cake. 

Bad Ass Ladies #2: Geraldine Fibbers

 

Permit Us to be Absolute Bummers about the Big 10 College Football Opener

Perhaps, you remember, all the way back to August, when the Big 10 Conference announced they were cancelling the 2020 Season. Some said they were being pussies - mostly idiots like Clay Travis. Some critics were a bit more measured, but also suggested that the Big Ten was overreacting to a pandemic that had done as bad as it was going to do. Then there was a good chunk of folks (like myself) who breathed a sigh of relief that somehow, the moral imperative of keeping students safe was winning out over the motivation to make a buck. 

That decision lasted just about a month. 

But plenty of folks scratched their heads at the Big Ten's plan of starting the season right about when the flu season kicks in - late October. People with a cynical bent (like me!) noted articles about how the Big Ten decided it was safe enough to play football, but not any other fall sports. Read between the lines of this article, and the subtext pretty much punches you in the face. Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren says things that are just blatantly nonsense. 

Like this quote:  “We figured once we got (football) solved, being able to apply the same policies, procedures, and protocols to other sports would be straightforward.” That's nonsense. It would be much easier to figure out policies, procedures and protocols with a smaller team sport, with more built-in social distancing. Cross-Country running, for example, might be the best place to start experimenting with student-athlete health. Small teams, spacing, etc. 

And so now, the Big Ten Football season is about to begin. No other Big Ten fall sport has started up, and they won't. That should tell you everything about how safe this actually is, and how much of this is about the cash. As Michigan State Soccer Coach Damon Rensing said in the article linked above, "You've got to be realistic. Football funds a majority of our athletic department."

The Badgers of Wisconsin rolled up Illinois tonight to the tune of 45-7. Graham Mertz is a breakout QB star for the Badgers! Fantastic. 

But also, from the New York Times:  At least 46 new coronavirus deaths and 4,626 new cases were reported in Wisconsin on Oct. 23. Over the past week, there have been an average of 3,547 cases per day, an increase of 39 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

I promise I will be a bummer about this very ill-conceived cash grab the Big Ten has decided to embark on. 

Happy World Wombat Day to Those That Celebrate

Between his farts, and his savage love of sweet corn, it is possible that this Wombat will be writing for this blog in the next couple of weeks. 

NFC East Showed OUT on Thursday Night Football

 There were a lot of dumb moments in this game. A LOT of them. 

But this one is damn historic. Longest QB run in the last 25 years that did not result in a touchdown. Daniel Jones exemplifying the metaphor of "out over your skis" in perfect fashion. In many ways, the NFC East could not have demonstrated the brand better.

Destroy Sports Clichés (volume one)

Clichés offend because they are a meaningless expression of habit, rather than an exercise of free will.  The word itself originated with the letterpress.  French and onomatopoeic, it echoes the “click” of type fitting into place, ready to mindlessly reprint without variation.  

 

We encounter cliché more often in sportswriting than in any other form of nonfiction.  Do sports attract users of clichés, or do sports create them?  Who is to blame for this moronic inferno?  Are rhetorical questions condescending?

 

In the war against cliché, sports writing is our Iraq:  an unwinnable morass.  For a beloved novelist such as myself, it is just a new front in the battle with the stale, the stereotypical, and the trite.

 

By identifying a bad sports cliché, I intend to mark it for death.  Mock its use until it is swept into the abyss where “throw under the bus” and “sexy draft pick” have disappeared before. 

All writing is a campaign against cliché.  Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.                                                      -- Martin Amis

 

Destroy These Clichés

Generational Talent:   they must be trying to express “once-in-a-generation,” right?  But that’s not what this phrase means.  A “generational talent” is one skilled at creating things, as in “my roommate Tom had a generational talent for toilet clogs.”  

 

Anyway, the problem is not solved even if we allow that lazy phrase to mean “once-in-a-generation.” A human generation is about twenty-five years, so at best “generational” is humorless hyperbole.  Every draft reveals a dozen new generational talents.  Where are we going to put them all? 

 

We must destroy this cliché.

 

 

Chunk Play:  Gross!  I cannot believe people are still allowed to write this, or say it on tv.  You can’t dial up Mohammed on an etch-a-sketch without risking a beheading, but I have to endure professional sportsjacks blurting out “chunk play” upon my holy Sunday?

 

One time in college, I made a chunk play on the bathmat, because in the dark I was certain I was standing over the toilet.

 

We must flush this cliché.

 

 

GOAT:  An acronym, the last vestige of the dullard.  

 

Calling someone a goat means they are held at fault for losing the game.  It derives from scapegoat, wherein savages would blame their failures on some poor goat and sacrifice it to appease their idiotic superstitions. 

 

Using GOAT as “greatest of all time” creates an entirely unnecessary confusion of meaning.  

 

We must slaughter this cliché.

 

 

It is what it is:  Certainly the official cliché of 2020, infecting every hot sports take.  This is the dumbest possible sentiment, expressed in the least sincere way possible.

 

 

Away with these tautologies, these malapropisms, this misuse, this laziness. 

 

We must stop all the clichés.

 

 

I Wrote a Great Jeopardy Before and Answer Question and Answer

Q: Big man out of Colgate University solves crimes in WW2 London. 

A: Adonal Foyle's War. 

You are welcome. 

Bad Ass Ladies #1: Ex Hex

 

Same As It Ever Was: The Washington Football Team's QB situation

 Let's start this new blog with a common complaint that the old blog (since wiped off the surface of the internet) had - Daniel Snyder, owner of the Washington Football Team.

The news out of DC is that Dwayne Haskins, the 3rd QB drafted in the first round of the 2019 Draft, is on the outs, and will probably be traded before the end of the month. 

This is an all too familiar story for those of us who, for reasons based on events that happened at least 30 years ago, still follow this benighted franchise. While Haskins was never projected to be the next RGIII, the narrative feels familiar.

What's new here is that Haskins has barely been given a chance to show his bona fides before getting tossed out. We're talking about a 23 year old man who has started a grand total of 11 games, under two different OC's. 

But the Washington Organization (who always seems determined to step on their own dick) just happened to have this story hit the news, just before announcing they were going to shop the young QB. Oh, a 23 year old QB was immature about his stats? HEAVEN FORFEND. 

Which leaves the QB position in Washington down to Kyle Allen, who, based on statistics, should probably not be in the NFL, and Alex Smith, who, based on statistics and just general humanity, should probably not be on the field ever again, are the only two QB's Washington will field? 

Oh, yeah, and the guy leading this scorched earth policy to the most important position on the field is first year, cancer-stricken Head Coach, Riverboat Ron. 

Turning a Top-15 Pick into a 5th Round via trade is such a Washington move, that I'm almost proud of Rivera for glomming onto the Dan Snyder Culture this quickly. 

Welcome to the blog, babies.