Here is today's bowl slate y'all swear to know and love:
| TIME (ET) | BOWL | MATCHUP | FAVORITE | TELEVISION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2:00 | NEW MEXICO | NEW MEXICO VS. TEXAS SAN ANTONIO | UN (-7½) | ESPN |
| 3:30 | LAS VEGAS | HOUSTON vs. SAN DIEGO STATE | UH (-4½) | ABC |
| 5:30 | CAMELLIA | APPALACHIAN STATE vs. TOLEDO | PICK 'EM | ESPN |
| 5:30 | CURE | CENTRAL FLORIDA vs. ARKANSAS STATE | UCF (-6½) | CBSSN |
| 9:00 | NEW ORLEANS | SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI vs. LOUISIANA LAFAYETTE | MISS (-6½) | ESPN |
I'm weekend editor, so I'll watch Appalachian State and Toledo, two programs close to my heart, at 5:30. Otherwise I'd induce myself into a coma with instructions to wake me when "LOCAL TEAM VS. ENEMIES" comes across the docket.
LOCAL TV: The Ohio State men's basketball team plays at No. 2 UCLA at 3 p.m. ET on CBS. If my "Marc Loving" TweetDeck informs me the game is close within the last 10 minutes, I'll tune in.
LOCAL PSA: Hit the backdoor portal onto the Blue Jackets swagwagon before it reaches capacity. The NHL could make due with two 20-minute halves per game, but hockey haters miss me. They sound too much like soccer haters—insecure yet inexplicably arrogant after chasing rivers and streams they're used to used to.
Analysts say the Blue Jackets' division is too tough for them to go all the way. That sounds like talk from non-locals who don't realize Urban Meyer is available to coach the Jackets as early as Jan. 10th.
Canada should activate its riot police, because I plan on causing an international crisis this summer when federal agents place Lord Stanley's Chalice into my alien fingers. As the rightful King of Montréal, it will be the closest a Canadian came to the Cup since the dial-up era.
HOUSE MONEY. This won't help me in court after my neighbors call the cops about a possible murder during the Fiesta Bowl broadcast, but Ohio State is playing with house money at this time.
If you told me before the season Ohio State would finish 11-1 and deny Michigan its first full national title since 1948, I would have been content with a Rose Bowl bid, which is an iconic bowl albeit falsely labeled as "the Granddaddy of them all."
But the Buckeyes went where only loyalists like us said they could go. And like in 2014, Meyer is aware of his team's growth.
From morrowcountysentinel.com:
“My closest confidant, my wife Shelley, said, ‘How are we going to be this year?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I think next year’s the year,’" he said on Thursday at Ohio State’s bowl media day at the Woody Hayes Center.
Ohio State has recruited well enough during Meyer’s tenure that it didn’t exactly have to hang up “Help Wanted” signs to replace 16 starters this season.
[...]
“We kind of hit it right because a lot of those kids were ready to play when they got here,” Meyer said.
In retrospect, guys like Jamarco Jones, Sam Hubbard, and Malik Hooker could've played earlier. They just competed against NFL players for reps.
The NFL exodus could play out in a myriad of ways. Defending a title isn't nearly as fun as winning it (Ohio State fans nod knowingly), so I could see a championship producing another wave to the NFL.
But if Ohio State falls short? I envision a majority of guys opting for a chance to finish the task at hand.
And depending on those who return, it's not ridiculous to say 2017 team will be more talented than 2015.
This is a golden era of Buckeye football, folks. Bask in it.
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL PAPER. College football is a competition where enemies can see your piss-poor wealth management. Some schools invested their wealth well.
Others invested in guys named "Bronco" from Utah.
From usatoday.com:
You might be wondering where Michigan resides on this list. Funny you should ask. They paid more money than Ohio State for an extra loss and a trip to a non-consequential bowl.
Michigan had the greatest cost per win among schools with at least 10 wins. With coach Jim Harbaugh getting $9 million this season, including two $2 million deferred payments rather than what will be his usual one, the Wolverines’ 10 wins cost more than $1.35 million apiece. Even if Harbaugh’s extra $2 million is eliminated from the equation, Michigan’s average cost per win would be more than $1.15 million.
I'll be shocked if Urban Meyer's agent isn't on the phone with Gene Smith a week after the season ends demanding a raise for his client. Given the current rates for these stiffs, Meyer already earned a raise.
ZEKE INVESTIGATION UPDATE. Ezekiel Elliott leads the NFL in rushing. And although the Franklin County Prosecutor passed on charging him with domestic violence earlier this year, the NFL is still investigating the matter.
The stakes have never been higher.
From mmqb.si.com:
Promising to professionalize and strengthen its domestic violence efforts, the NFL created its own investigative team in 2015 and hired Lisa Friel and Kia Roberts, former New York prosecutors who specialize in sexual assault and domestic violence cases. The league put Friel in charge of all investigations, made Roberts its lead investigator, and asked them to coordinate with its security reps: independent investigators contracted by the NFL who are stationed around the country.
When the NFL got word of the Elliott incident from the summer, Friel and Roberts began investigating. It was a messy he-said, she-said case to begin with, the kind that often does not result in an arrest or charges. It would be difficult for the NFL to determine the facts of the matter and reach a conclusion.
Then Elliott emerged as the NFL’s leading rusher, and the league fumbled another, separate domestic violence case, and the stakes seemed to get higher. The NFL could not afford to get this investigation wrong, too, not after pledging to be better, and so the Elliott case has dragged on. It’s still going, three and a half months into the season, with no end in sight.
Some Well-Adjusted Dudes on the Internet swear we're headed for a monarchy where men imprisoned on fake sex assault charges are industrially farmed for sperm.
They can type what they want, but the old way led to Baylor and the systemic protection of Jerry Sandusky. It led to us reading about Joe Mixon fracturing a woman's face in four places and not lighting the torches until two years later when we saw a video we could quote RT with milquetoast insight like "I disagree with this."
And what sucks about individual situations, there's no way for average saps like us to discern the truth other than reading reports, which leaves two options: Typing fluff like "I hope the truth comes to light" or cobbling together 800-word comments about how this foretells the extinction of men.
For those interested in the NFL's investigative efforts, read the whole story. It makes an interesting backdrop for the unfolding investigation in Minnesota.
ANOTHER ONE. Michigan fans call Ohio "the worst state ever" without acknowledging all their greatest players (and greatest coach) came from there.
Michigan has pillaged this state for decades, even before Meyer expanded his net to a national scape.
Three-star offensive tackle Joel Honigford, from Sugarcreek, is poised to be a part of the next exodus out of the state.
From mlive.com:
ANN ARBOR - Growing up, the last vision Joel Honigford saw before he closed his eyes and the first thing he spotted after waking was scarlet and gray.
His room was, essentially, a shrine to Ohio State.
"My whole childhood, I was an Ohio State fan - a huge Ohio State fan," said Honigford, whose dad played basketball for the Buckeyes and his mom also attended Ohio State. "I knew everything about them. I loved the Buckeyes and always hated Michigan, because they're Michigan."
Well, the good news for Honigford is Ohio State will be around if Harbaugh jettisons him two weeks before National Signing Day in favor of a more talented option.
LUKE FICKELL: CYBER KING. Luke Fickell is basically the Neo of Cincinnati.
From gobearcats.com (via sbnation.com):
But long before Bohn interviewed Fickell, he and his staff had done extensive research on Fickell, including the use of data analytics to vet all 12 of the candidates on Bohn's original list. Bohn said he had never used such research before during a coaching search, but he decided to tap into the expertise of a UC graduate who had a past relationship with the athletic department and expressed a desire to help in the search
[...]
According to Brandon Sosna, Bohn's chief of staff, a simulation on each candidate starting with the personnel on the current UC roster was run 100,000 times to produce a four-year projection of how the team would perform.
"There are a few characteristics of coaches that are consistent no matter where they go or what they do," Sosna said. "Things like turnover margin tend to follow coaches. Penalties per game tends to follow coaches, and tempo. You're either an up-tempo coach or you slow down but you don't tend to change over time."
Speaking of Cinci, I recently found out people from Cinci type it "Cincy." That justifies every negative thing I've typed about that city (the Skyline judgment still stands).
THOSE WMDs. Not just every four years... The desk wants to know... Great American word-mapper... A male synchronized swimmer's quest for gold... What happened to Robert Swift?
