Weekend Notes
I spent my time a little differently over the weekend than I have been recently. There was still football, for sure. But I also went all-in on a rabbit hole that ate up a bunch of time. I am still processing it, so we’ll see how much I end up writing about it today.
HS Football
Friday was Sectional Championship night in Indiana. The biggest game in the state was in class 5A, where #1 CHS hosted #2 New Pal. These teams were flipped in the rankings a year ago when NP beat the Irish by 5, by far their closest game of the season on the road to their second-straight state title.
This year’s game was as good.
CHS jumped all over the Dragons early, absolutely dominating the first half. They led 17-0 at halftime and should have been up 27-0, having also missed a short field goal and fumbled at the NP one-yard line.
You can’t not close out a team like NP when you have the chance.
The Dragons scored 14-straight to open the second half and suddenly it was a game.
The Irish answered with a huge third down conversion late in the third quarter, followed two plays later by a 44-yard touchdown to stretch the lead out again.
Most of the fourth quarter was ragged, each team struggling to get first downs as they exchanged punts.
NP drove 85 yards to score and cut the lead just three with under 20 seconds left. Their onside kick attempt went at CHS’ best defensive player, who had a huge night before that kick. He smothered the ball and CHS were sectional champs for the first time in three years. It was also the 800th win in school history, by far the most in Indiana history.
Next up with be a trip to the far west side of Indy to face #8 Plainfield in regionals. The computer says the Irish are 17 point favorites.
KU Hoops
For once I was glad about a late KU basketball tip. Just as CHS was closing out their game, the KU-Middle Tennessee State game was beginning. You can’t draw too many conclusions from this game, as MTSU is one of the worst teams KU has played in recent years. Even without much flow on the offensive end, though, the Jayhawks absolutely housed the Blue Raiders.
I have two takeaways.
This team is so deep Bill Self will have no choice but to play at least 10 guys on a regular basis. I’m hoping he’s not too stubborn to do that, as it will allow KU’s guards to apply more pressure in the backcourt, the offense to run with Melvin Council Jr., and provide all kinds of opportunities for playing big or small, very big or very fast, depending on matchups.
Second, my Purdue friends were correct: I already love Trey Kaufman-Renn. What a perfect college player. He makes everyone around him better. He might be the ideal compliment to Tyran Stokes. Hell, he allows Self to run all kinds of high-low sets, even if in modern ball sometimes the low is a guard or wing instead of a second big.
TKR has only been on campus a couple weeks, and is still both rounding into shape and learning to understand his teammates. The entire offense is disjointed because of the three late additions. This team can get A LOT better.
My fear, like so many other college fans, is that right about the time they lock in, some judge is going to decide all the fifth/sixth year guys are no longer eligible. That can blow a lot of teams up, but with three of those guys in KU’s starting lineup, can be especially damaging to the Jayhawks.
KU Football
Saturday’s loss to UCF might have been the most KU-iest loss of the Lance Leipold era. I know that’s not proper English but the situation demands poor grammar.
KU got an early lead thanks to a UCF turnover, then looked terrible and gave up 26 straight points, causing me to turn the game off and focus on my rabbit hole. About 40 minutes later I started getting texts that KU was coming back.
You know my policy here: if I turn a game off, I’m not turning it back on and risking jinxing it. But I came to a stopping point in the rabbit hole just as KU got the ball with a little over two minutes to play, down by two. I turned the game back on. And watched KU go the length of the field to take the lead. No jinx here, bitches!
Oh, but there was 1:06 left on the clock. Which was exactly enough for UCF. They scored on the final play of regulation then kicked the PAT for the win.
KU is going to get hammered the next three weeks by West Virginia, BYU, and Oklahoma State. A 3-9 season that should have been, at worst, 6-6.
Lance Leipold turned the program around, without any doubts. He got enough momentum for the much needed new stadium project to finally get off the ground. But he isn’t recruiting transfers as well as he did his first couple years. All the Les Miles talent is gone. He and his coaching staff can’t manage the ends of halves or games to save their lives. Saturday the old bugaboo that haunted KU football for years - calling a timeout before a punt - reared its ugly head again.
I think Leipold is a good coach. But something has changed. I don’t know whether it is NIL making getting talent into a program like KU harder. Maybe he has lost a spark after realizing he missed his chances to level up from KU and is stuck there. Maybe his wife’s health problems have, completely understandably, changed his focus.
He’s the sixth-highest paid coach in the Big 12. Baring an upset, KU will finish last in the conference again this year. It’s time for a change.
The obvious answer for a replacement would be the current James Madison coach, given what Curt Cignetti and Bob Chesney have done at IU and UCLA. But JMU is now coached by Billy Napier. He has had success at non-Power 5 jobs, but was 22-23 in three-plus years at Florida with lots of drama. He doesn’t seem like the kind of coach who would answer the phone if KU called.
Besides, even if KU hired whoever the next Cignetti is, odds are the history of the program would overwhelm that guy’s mojo. Unless KU suddenly scared up as much football NIL money as IU did just as Cignetti arrived in Bloomington.
Rabbit Hole
OK, I spent a ton of the weekend down the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos/Nathan Fielder rabbit hole.
C was home for the weekend and mentioned wanting to see You Can See Everything. I did too, so we agreed to watch it Sunday. I talked to a couple of friends who had raved about it, did some reading, and decided in preparation I would watch season one of Fielder’s The Rehearsal and the documentary The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley.
In reverse order, You Can See Everything lives up to all the hype. It is one of the most astounding movies I’ve ever seen. One of my top five “Saw It In The Theater” movies. It goes from being a standard documentary, albeit a very good and unnerving one, into a completely jaw—dropping last hour when all expectations and paradigms are thrown out the window.
I honestly knew very little about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, so watching The Inventor was vital to understanding what was going on in YCSE. Then watching The Rehearsal gave insight into Fielder’s style and techniques. Having that exposure to his methods made the last hour of YCSE riotous fun for me. And Amanda Seyfried? AMAZING! Bill Simmons said she deserved the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. In a documentary! He presence definitely allowed Fielder to take the film in a very Fielder direction.
Put that all together and it was about nine hours of content crammed into three days. And explains why I didn’t watch the Colts Sunday. I don’t think anyone would argue I chose poorly there.
As I said in the intro, I am still processing what I watched. Unfortunately I have a very busy week-to-ten days ahead of me. I’m hoping I get a chance to write more about all this while it is still fresh in my head.