Weekend Notes

A much better weekend of football compared to a week ago. Added bonuses of fun stuff involving two of the kids, and maybe the last summery weekend of the year. Let’s get into it.

Friday

Friday was L’s 17th birthday. To celebrate we took her and some of her friends to our local hibachi place, which is always fun, more-so with six goofy high schoolers. Our dinner overlapped with the start of the big Cathedral-Center Grove game, but none of us cared, as we expected it to not be much of a game. I think the dinner gave the girls an excuse to not drive the hour-plus it takes to get to CG. “We’re gonna get killed,” one of them said when we mentioned the game.

After dinner I went outside to set up a fire pit for the girls and some boys who would be joining them. I pulled up the Cathedral broadcast and was pleased to hear that they were up 8–0 in the first half, and had just blocked their second Center Grove field goal of the game. Interesting.

The Irish got the lead up to 18–0 before weathering the inevitable comeback to win 21–15. It was an incredible defensive performance. Class 6A #2 CG came in averaging 37 points per game. CHS got eight sacks and 13 tackles for losses, blocked those two kicks, and forced two fumbles, one of which turned into a defensive touchdown. That side of the ball has come a long way since they were lucky not to give up 50 week two.

By the computer rankings, CG was a 15-point favorite. Now, they were missing a couple key players on offense, but Cathedral was also missing two starting linemen and were down to their third-string long snapper, which contributed to a field goal clanking off the upright just before halftime.

Terrific win, and the Irish are proving me wrong when I suggested they might not win another game four weeks ago.

Saturday

A lot of casual football and baseball throughout the day, as the matchups weren’t great. So I was still kind of fresh when the KU-Central Florida game started at 7:30. KU’s defense, on the other hand, was not so fresh. They got gouged early, just like last week, contributing to a 14–0 hole.

They got their shit together, though, and held UCF to field goals on their next two drives while the offense finally got going to go into halftime down just 20–14.

Then the defense bowed the fuck up in the second half, shutting the Knights out, including two massive stops inside the red zone, one on fourth and goal at the one with 2:00 to play. The offense added 13 points in the third quarter and that was enough.

The final three minutes were stressful as hell. The game seemed over about three times, only for a penalty, fourth down conversion, or something else extended it. Pretty sure S thought I was insane during that stretch as she sat on the couch next to me binging her latest show on her laptop.

UCF isn’t great, but as KU didn’t win a conference road game for like 20 years, I’m not going to be picky about how it looked. Now the Jayhawks have won away from Lawrence in Big 12 play five straight years, which seems kind of miraculous.

And the loss to Cincinnati looks even better after they beat up on Iowa State this week. I’ll go ahead and jinx them by saying they have a great shot at being 10–1 going into their final game of the regular season against TCU.

Our Saturday night bonus was C making a quick, impromptu trip home. One of her friends texted her at about 6:30 saying she was coming back to Indy, did C want to ride with her. C had no plans so jumped in the car. She is coming back later this week for IU’s brief fall break, and she was just home two weeks ago, but it was still good to see her. She is, apparently, in the rowdy dorm, and that’s not really the way she rolls, so she was happy to get out before the usual Saturday night nonsense started.

Sunday

It took a couple series to get going, but eventually the Colts locked in and thrashed the Raiders. A comprehensive ass kicking, which is always fun. Big time concerns about kicker Spender Shrader leaving the game after getting hammered by a defender. Good thing it wasn’t close and punter Rigoberto Sanchez had to attempt a crunch time field goal.

Speaking of Sanchez, or Sanchezes I guess, Saturday news broke that Fox broadcaster Mark Sanchez had been stabbed in an altercation early Saturday morning while in town to do the Colts game. A few hours later we learned Sanchez had actually been arrested and labeled as a suspect by Indianapolis police. Details are still a little murky but it sounds like alcohol and an argument over a parking spot led to Sanchez attacking another man, who pulled a knife to defend himself.

Now, you’ll never guess what happened next. Our governor and lieutenant governor both jumped to conclusions and used the episode to attempt to score political points. Yes, sleepy Mike Braun, our worthless governor who would be happiest if he never had to speak or actually perform any functions, quickly suggested that Indianapolis city leaders were responsible for the attack and warned that he was going to step in if they didn’t get control of the city.

OH SHIT, IS THAT NATIONAL GUARD MUSIC?!?!?

Clearly Braun was assuming it was a 15 year old Black kid, or even better, an immigrant with loose ties to a gang in Central America, so he could advance the argument that our big cities are out-of-control. He also assumed that Sanchez was the victim in the attack.

So very funny that it was a 38-year-old, former professional athlete who was drunk and attacked an elderly man. That man’s identity has not been released yet, but rumor is that he’s not from Indy. Two out-of-towners got into a fight and the Guv, who apparently took his little blue pill Saturday morning, got all worked up about blaming all his usual suspects rather than, you know, calling the police and asking what happened. Which I’m assuming a governor has the power to do.

The governor eventually deleted the post. Or, rather, someone on his staff did, because there is zero chance he understands how to delete posts.

Our country is beyond doomed.

KU Hoops

Man, what a week for KU basketball, both men and women, on the recruiting trail.

The men followed up last week’s commitment from the #1 point guard in the senior class by adding a top 80-ish player who is considered one of the best defenders in the class, a top 10-ish player in the class of ’27 who is expected to try to reclassify into the current class, and Sunday night from the #3 center in the class. Four commitments in a week. Usually KU is lucky to get one early commit then has to wait around until actual signing week to hear on others. This year recruiting is basically done and practice hasn’t even started yet. I remember when Late Night was an opportunity to bring in a bunch of kids and hoped they signed a couple weeks later. This year I guess it will be aimed at juniors and sophomores.

The KU women got a commitment from a player who is in L’s AAU program. Obviously a year older and a level of play higher, but we’ve watched her play several times. I have to admit I was usually focused on one of her teammates, who is from the Indy suburbs and committed to Florida. The girl going to KU is ranked in the 60s in her class.

I forget if I already mentioned it but the KU women’s other early commit is also from Indiana. Cathedral has played her team each of the last two years, once in summer ball, and are scheduled to play them again this November. When she was a sophomore she dropped 27 on us when our girls were focused on her senior teammate who is now at Michigan State. Last year we held her in check. I’ll be paying close attention to her next month.