Weekend Notes

Two weeks ago my theme for the football weekend was special teams. This weekend it was the teams I follow having meltdowns in the fourth quarter. Only one of those teams survived, sadly the team I care least about.

High School Football

Cathedral played Trotwood, a team from Ohio, for homecoming. The Irish jumped out to a 18–0 lead and led 18–6 at halftime. After an early fourth quarter touchdown they led by 19. It was looking good.

Trotwood scored twice to cut the lead to four late in the fourth quarter.[1] Then CHS threw a pick six and trailed with four minutes left. The Irish went four-and-out, setting the Rams up with a short field to ice the game away. A THS receiver got wide open and dropped a sure touchdown that would have clinched things. The Irish held on fourth down and raced down field to score with under 20 seconds left for the dramatic win.

That leaves CHS 4–2 with three weeks to play. Two of those games are against 6A top ten teams.

KU

It was a completely beautiful weekend in Indiana, with seasonably cool mornings turning into hot afternoons. I spent three-and-a-half hours Saturday sitting on our back porch watching my Jayhawks take on M’s Bearcats. The 93-yard touchdown to start the game for KU was great! And, in fact, much of what the offense did Saturday was terrific.

But the freaking defense was criminally bad, turning UC quarterback Brendon Sorsby, who started his career at IU, into a Heisman candidate. Now, KU started the game missing two defensive starters, one to injury and one to a targeting suspension. And moments after the suspended player returned, one of KU’s other defensive leaders got his own targeting ejection. But that soft-ass zone they were stuck in all day was clueless against UC’s attack. If I didn’t care who won I would have been laughing my ass off at how wide open UC’s receivers were getting.

KU battled. The offense kept putting up numbers to hang with the Bearcats. The defense got two stops in the fourth quarter, which allowed KU to jump ahead with just under two minutes left. It felt like it wouldn’t be enough. Then a Sorsby pass on third down floated a little, went through one KU defender’s hands, and then another’s, before falling harmlessly to the turf. I yelled and smacked my palm against our table. I knew that was the mistake KU teams always make that keeps them from winning games. Sure enough, UC converted on fourth down and seconds later were scoring to take the lead with too little time for KU to move the ball.

A super frustrating loss for so many reasons. The defense was 2010s KU bad. Jalon Daniels made a terrible turnover that cost KU a touchdown.[2] Two massive penalties wiped away UC touchdowns and KU couldn’t take full advantage. KU lost a home game and might have ruined their chance to make a bowl game in the process. Plus I spent nearly four hours staring at a TV when I could have been doing something productive on a gorgeous day, and then got harassed by my daughter about the result.

Piss.

I worked out my anger by taking a hammer and screwdriver to a stack of old hard drives I found in our basement that needed to be destroyed. Not sure it helped all that much, although I was able to enjoy the fantastic Oregon-Penn State game later in the evening.

Also, how about C’s Hoosiers? That is a clutch-ass team. Not sure how they go from being terrible a couple years ago to bullies that quickly. Maybe Lance Leipold needs to study Curt Cignetti’s system.

Colts

You hate to blame one player for a loss. The result of each game is a combination of everything every player does over the game’s 60 minutes, even if individual blunders are sometimes the most obvious causes.

Well, it’s tough not to put the Colts’ loss to the Rams squarely on receiver Adonai Mitchell. I’m sure you’ve seen the first way he made himself known Sunday, making an utterly ridiculous catch, bouncing off a couple receivers, racing down the field for 76 yards, avoiding being either pushed out of bounds or tackled and then reaching for the goal line only to let the ball slip from his hand though the end zone for a Rams touchback. It wasn’t like what Jonathan Taylor did last year, being cocky and dropping the ball early for no reason. Mitchell was off balance, running full speed, trying to make a play and got excited in the process, allowing the ball to slip from his grasp. The Colts still lost seven points because of it.

Then, in the fourth quarter, with the game tied, Taylor ripped off his own ridiculous run, bouncing off multiple tacklers before finding space, kicking it into gear, and racing 53 yards to break a tie with about 3:00 left. Only there was a flag. For holding. By Mitchell.

Oh man.

Naturally the Colts couldn’t finish the drive after the penalty. They punted and pinned the Rams deep in their own end. And after a TV timeout decided to only run 10 men onto the field. Which is a problem when one of your cornerbacks trips himself at the line of scrimmage and leaves a receiver wide open and there’s no one behind him to help. The result was an 88-yard, game-winning touchdown.

Why was I cursed by having to watch such terrible defense all weekend? If I had a dog, I would have kicked it.[3]

Sports are dumb.

Fever

Speaking of dumb, for the second straight Sunday the WNBA scheduled the Indiana Fever to play at the same time as the Indianapolis Colts. It’s amazing that the league has had so much growth the last couple years, because the people who run the league seem to be idiots.

I flipped back-and-forth a few times, watching the Fever grab a lead just before halftime and then hold off the #2 seed Las Vegas Aces in the fourth quarter to tie their semifinal series at two games a piece.

This remarkable team, which should have been dead three weeks ago, is now a single win away from making the WNBA Finals. Game five is in Vegas, and I’m sure Aja Wilson is going to be locked-the-f in, so odds are long. The Fever shouldn’t be here in the first place, though, so there’s really no pressure on them. Hopefully Kelsey Mitchell has one more magnificent game in her.

Also, I saw sooooo many bad foul calls in the few minutes I watched. Two were overturned by replay reviews. A couple more probably would have been reversed if challenged. I’m not sure how these refs can be so ridiculously bad every game.

KU Hoops

It’s not basketball season yet but there was some KU news that balanced out the football loss. The number one rated point guard in the class of 2026, Tay Kinney, committed to play for the Jayhawks on Sunday. He’s not at the same level as Darryn Peterson, but it’s nice to have DP’s replacement next year locked up. Kinney said a big factor in choosing KU was Jacque Vaughn’s presence, and the opportunity to play under someone who played and coached in the NBA. JV already paying dividends!

Bonus to steal a kid most thought was headed to Louisville for about a year. Double bonus that he’s from the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati. If M cared about recruiting I would have let her know about it.

Now I will say, Kinney seems like he’s kind of annoying. At least to an old man like me. He’s super out there on social media. He helped popularize the “6–7” meme your kids are probably driving you crazy with. He already sells his own brand of 6–7 bottled water, and had special cans in KU colors made for his announcement video. If he has six turnovers against Kentucky in the Champions Classic but puts out three videos that week, I’m going to be super irritated. I will also realize I am an old men.

I have some more sports takes, but I’ll save those for tomorrow.