Specific shoutout to the 19th-century grinders who manual labored their way to an early grave so I could one day blog about college sports on the Internet. I didn't ask for this life.
Opening weekend observations:
- Playoff teams: Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, and Houston.
- How salty are OSU fans that paid $600+ for an Oklahoma ticket?
- Southern California might regret hiring an interim coach with a 6-5 record.
- Michigan's defense is legit but I'll wait until Big Ten play to judge its offense.
- Surprised Washington whooped Chris Ash and Rutgers like that.
- Four hours is too long for a college football game.
- I'm a big Texas fan now. More Charlie Strong wins means less chance it hires Tom Herman.
- I hope Notre Dame continues to pay Brian Kelly millions of dollars.
- Florida State is dumping Mississippi tonight.
I also watched Stranger Things (big weekend of exercise for me). I hate the Eighties (nothing iconic about the Eighties) and I enjoyed the series. It's original.
A NEW BUCKEYE MOM RISES. Malik Hooker did the damn thing Saturday against Bowling Green. He registered two interceptions (including one that will likely be the best we'll see all year) and gave a centerfield presence that could be the lynchpin of the secondary.
Afterward, he brought his mother to the post-game presser.
From mydaytondailynews.com:
COLUMBUS — She said she’d get tipped off by his aunt or uncle. Sometimes it would be a cousin, a neighbor or even his old high school coach and each time she’d get into her car and go out and find her son.
When she’d spot him walking, she said she’d pull up alongside him, roll down the window and give him the same command.
“I’d say ‘Get in this car … now!’” Angela Dennis said with a smile. “I’d tell him, ‘You are going back there … Period!’”
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in this case it took one to thwart a kid, as well.
Shoutout to Angela Dennis (and everyone who snitched to her) for keeping Hooker on the right path. #Teens are idiots — one of the many reasons why I'm bigoted against them — and it's always nice to see a mother's efforts overcome her son's desire to self-destruct. (I return my mom's by staying out of jail.)
GET DUMPED THEN, TULSA. Bowling Green rolled into Ohio Stadium as 28-point underdogs. In retrospect, I should've driven to Vegas and bet my life savings against the Falcons.
Given the performance, somebody may need to talk me out of making the hajj through the desert to Gomorra this week. If Urban Meyer is dropping 77 on his former employers then Tulsa doesn't stand much of a chance playing the Buckeyes a week before a road trip to Norman:
Ohio State opened as a 28.5 point favorite over Tulsa, per Vegas Insider: https://t.co/q6sXi64V2s
— Tim Shoemaker (@TimShoemaker) September 4, 2016
The Golden Hurricane, while silky, is also an odd name for a team from Tulsa, Oklahoma. On another timeline, it's "the Tulsa Golden Tornadoes."
From tulsahurricane.com (via @MarkAKunz):
ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA NICKNAME –– “GOLDEN HURRICANE”
In 1922, the Tulsa football team started working out in the fall with a new nickname "Yellow Jackets." In the past, Tulsa had been named "Kendallites," "Presbyterians," Tigers," "Orange and Black," "Tulsans," and, of course, "Yellow Jackets." Head coach Howard Acher, after a remark made in practice about "roaring through opponents," had seriously considered "Golden Tornadoes". However, it was learned that Georgia Tech already had chosen that tag in 1917. From the tornado, he evolved meteorologically to the hurricane. A few days before the team left for a game against Texas A&M, Acher asked the squad to vote on the name "Golden Hurricane," the gold being added because of the color of their new jerseys.
So not only did Georgia Tech cop "the Golden Tornadoes" before the Tulsa Yellow Jackets, but it went and copped the Yellow Jackets moniker for good measure too.
TIL: Georgia Tech swaggerjacked everything from Tulsa.
SIGN HIM UP, THAD. Ohio State's academic ascension is ongoing. But it won't be aided by Ol' Dude Benny, who sunk a ridiculous trashcan shot to purportedly earn his organic chemistry class a "100" on its first quiz.
S/o to Benny for making this shot and getting the entire lecture an automatic 100 on our first ochem quiz pic.twitter.com/nmYJ34DjdM
— rachel brown : * (@yo_rochelle) September 2, 2016
Those kids should've carried him out of class on his shoulders.
BIG TOE LAYS BIG WOOD. I hold no love in my heart for Penn State, its football team, or its fans.
However, I am a fan of Joey "Big Toe" Julius, the Nittany Lions' 5-10, 259-pound kicker. That was true before he almost decapitated a Kent State player on a kickoff return:
That is what should've happened to the Penn State suit that suggested honoring Joe Paterno before the Temple Game.
PROPS TO THE TAILGATE GURUS. Hosting a tailgate is a lot like hosting a party: You're paying a lot of money to get other people drunk and assume all the legal risk. I don't know why anyone would do that, yet Buckeye Kingdom is full of thousands of patriots that put their financial livelihood on the line every home game.
Let's give them the props they deserve.
From 10tv.com:
It's not even 5 a.m., but Larry Atchison and his family are wide awake, and hard at work, staking out their spot for a tradition that started decades ago.
"My son and his friend from high school started it right after he graduated from high school, with two chairs and a cooler," he said.
What began with humble beginnings, now requires a trailer to haul.
See what I mean? Guys like Larry are hauling trailers down the interstate at 5 a.m. so dipshits like me can breeze through to shotgun four Natty Lights in the hour before kickoff.
Y'all the real MVPs.
THOSE WMDs. Welcome to the World Nomad Games... The burning desire for hot chicken... How 100 million tennis balls get made... The Seattle super-hero who beats cops to bike thieves.
