Events demanded an emergency sports notes post. I’ll try to keep these relatively brief.

Jayhawk Talk: Disaster

Well that fucking sucked. Arguably the worst Big 12 loss of Bill Self’s career, the first time his team lost when they led by 16 or more points. Having that big lead is what made it worse than the TCU loss in 2013. Because they had this game won. They were toying with UCF. Making them look silly. Then the entire team fell apart when Hunter Dickinson got his second foul and sat the last 3+ minutes of the first half. In the second half they panicked even when they still had the lead, throwing terrible passes, taking terrible shots, and getting cooked on defense. For a team loaded with experienced players, they all sucked when a team that wouldn’t lay down for them. Super concerning.

On the one hand I’m inclined to throw it out as a flukey loss as the team had been trending towards a loss like this for a few weeks. In years past this was a classic Wake Up Call loss. If they can’t get their shit together, though, things could get awfully interesting awfully quick.

Carroll and Saban and Belichick (Oh My!)

What a 12 hours or so for legendary coaches stepping down!

Pete Carroll in Seattle is probably the least significant, simply because the Seahawks have been good but not great in recent years. It was a true surprise – perhaps even to him – that he will no longer coach them. It seemed like he would coach forever. He set up the first college dynasty of the century at USC, a program that in its prime was breath-taking to watch. He won a Super Bowl and lost another. A pretty good run.

Then Nick Saban shocked the world about an hour later by announcing his retirement. A truly stunning turn of events. The greatest coach in modern college football history, and on the short list for all time greats. Alabama should be able to pick just about anyone they want for the job. Yet the opening still comes with a lot of pressure. They hired a lot of bad coaches over a 20-year stretch before they landed Saban. This could easily go wrong and upset the balance of power in the SEC and game as a whole. Many Big 12 fans laughed when Texas and Oklahoma announced they were leaving for the SEC, mostly at the hubris of thinking they could match up with Saban and his Bama machine. For Texas especially, they may have timed that jump genious-ly well.

Finally, Bill Belichick is out in New England, which was very much not a surprise and perhaps a year or two overdue. He will almost definitely end up coaching somewhere next year, so this is just the official end of the Patriots dynasty. Nine Super Bowls – and six wins – in sixteen years is outrageous. For a man who is widely considered the greatest NFL coach ever, his next job does come with some pressure for his legacy. If he does about the same or worse as he did in Cleveland, or in his first year-plus in New England, much of the credit for his success will shift to Tom Brady.

I’m fascinated to see where he ends up. San Diego, err, Los Angeles to try to harness the gifts of Justin Herbert? Washington to try to rebuild that franchise in the post-Snyder era? Might an organization that isn’t totally in love with their current coach – Green Bay, Arizona, Jacksonville, Dallas if they fall apart in the playoffs – decide to make a switch if they can lure Belichick? And then does he have the humility to give up control of the roster, an area he struggled with in recent years in New England?

CFP Final

A kind of disappointing game if you’re not a Michigan fan. I was hoping for a more competitive game from start-to-finish, but have to admire how UM put the hammer down on Washington. They were locked in and ready for their moment.

There was a lot of gnashing of teeth after Michigan won about how they cheated to get their title. I say whatever to all of that, and their “cheating” scandal.

Sign stealing is such a dumb form of “cheating.” Everyone does it. Maybe Michigan took it to another level, but every single program is looking at tape to try to pick up their opponents’ signals. They have someone trying to crack them during games. They disguise their own signals because they know the opposite sideline is watching.

I didn’t care much about the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal. I care less about this. A hitter knowing whether a fastball or off-speed pitch is coming does give them an advantage. But, again, everyone is trying to get an edge; Houston just took it to another level. I think Michigan got far less of an advantage by attempting to steal their opponents signals. They might know the general set, but they still didn’t know the specific play that was coming.

Now I’m mad because people have me defending Michigan…