Another full-ish weekend, with most of our attention focused on the corrupt and disgraceful arena of sports. Sports suck.
Family
Let’s flip our normal order, though, and kick it off with family chat. M came home for the weekend. It was her first visit of the semester and nice to have her in the house for about 48 hours. She had no plans and mostly chilled on our couch while doing homework or taking naps. I told her to let me know if she was missing any specific meals and I would make them for dinner, but she never got around to picking something and/or we had other things going on, so she didn’t get any good home cooking. Which is kind of a bummer. That was always a highlight of trips home for me. This was also her first time coming-and-leaving on her own. When she left Sunday afternoon, S noted how it was nice that one of us wouldn’t spend the next five hours driving to Cincinnati, helping her get settled, then coming right back. Indeed.
Her classes are going well. Much harder than freshman year, since she’s in the business school now, but she’s working through it. Crazily, she showed me how she has her next two-and-a-half years completely planned out. Thanks to all the hours she took with her from high school, she can both spend a semester abroad and then do a co-op without taking any classes another semester and still graduate on time. We are also about to sign a lease for where she will live the next two years. Seems like she just started college and now we are about to lock up her housing up to graduation.
C had a quiet weekend, until she got sick Sunday night. She is home with me today. Fun.
L had a tryout for next year’s travel ball team yesterday. We think she’ll end up on the same team, or at least with the same coach and the same core players, she has been on. So this was more a required show your face type thing. She is really hoping that her old coach is allowed to keep the team together, because she didn’t feel very good yesterday either, and didn’t think she played very well.
High School Football
One reason we couldn’t do anything special for dinner for M Friday was that it was CHS’ homecoming, and the girls basketball team had a tailgate. S and I went and ate pizza and hung out with the girls and other parents for about 90 minutes. We came home after to hang with M. It was hot, the game was at Butler so our season passes didn’t work, and we knew it would be a blowout – CHS beat the school across the street from our house 53–13 – so we didn’t see any reason to stay.
That proved to be even smarter when our first rain in two weeks rolled in midway through the second half. There was lightning, of course, and the game got halted for about an hour. L was there with friends and they left to get ice cream then hang out at a friend’s house.
Jayhawks
This is why, as a KU fan, I should never, ever, ever have expectations when football season rolls around. In 44 years of being a KU fan, conditions have been right to have serious hopes, I’m talking potential conference championship game rather than just go to a bowl game, exactly twice in my life. Both times those expectations got blown out of the water before the season was even halfway finished.
This time it was allowing West Virginia to score 15 points in about 3:30 of game time in the fourth quarter. The defense was terrible, our two alleged all-conference cornerbacks getting roasted all day while the line couldn’t tackle anyone. Jalon Daniels struggled. Shocker. The play calling was odd, again. Yet the Jayhawks were up 11 with under 5:00 to play on the road, after a two-hour weather delay no less. Then they blew it.
While there was plenty to be mad about, and this game pretty much ruined my entire day since it took over five hours to complete and then I was pissed for the remainder of the night, all the attention goes to a couple coaching decisions. First, taking a delay of game penalty right before the weather delay and turning a 4th and 2 into 4th and 7 was idiotic. Especially when our punter hadn’t exactly been kicking the shit out of the ball. Then running to the short-side on the biggest play of the day, when a first down might ice the game, was criminal. As one West Virginia writer pointed out:
Kansas for the last hour: Succeeds for chunks of yards every time they run a speed option.
Kansas on the biggest 3rd down of the game: Let’s try something else.
Maddening.
Jalon missed some more throws that suggested to me he’s compensating for injury/weakness in his body. But the coaching staff had an entire summer to game plan around that, and apparently didn’t. Then they make dumb calls in the game’s biggest moments.
Just like the only other time I had big expectations going into the season – 2009 – this season has quickly gone to shit. Now, the Illinois loss doesn’t look so bad after they won at Nebraska this week. And the remaining schedule is still relatively weak. Given how KU’s best players – aside from Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw – and coaching staff have performed through the first four games, I don’t have much confidence things will improve. And next year we will roll out a team filled with freshmen and sophomores who haven’t played much…
Again, with Kansas football, it can, and almost always will, get worse. Can’t wait to see what this week brings.
Other College Games
Well, it’s started. All the weird, new conference games that a year ago would have been awesome non-con games. USC traveling to Michigan, for a tremendous game that went down to the final seconds. Tennessee going into Norman and slapping Oklahoma around, which was cathartic to this Big 12 fan. The games were good, but the vides were odd.
I read this weekend how UEFA adjusted how they schedule the Champions League this year, requiring the best teams to play more games against other strong teams. It is starting to feel like college football should do something like that. Just get rid of conferences and throw all the names into buckets based on preseason rankings, and try to make balanced schedules from that.
Here’s a wild bonus idea: Keep the schedules geographically logical, too. Nah, that’s crazy talk. Why would we want schools to play most of their games against rivals from neighboring states?
Colts
Hey, at least the Colts won! Not that they looked good doing it and didn’t try to give the game back to Chicago like three times.
Quarterbacks
Jalon Daniels has seven interceptions. Anthony Richardson has six. I’m falling out of love with the forward pass.
Fever
Like a lot of Indianapolis, at 3:00 eastern I switched from the ugly Colts game over to watch the Fever open their playoff series with the Connecticut Sun. That went well for one quarter, then it turned into a rout. The Sun kept big defenders on Caitlin Clark and made her life hell. CC and Kelsey Mitchell combining to shoot 4–23 from 3 did not help. We’ll see if they can regroup and adjust for game two and get the series back for the finale in Indy. The Sun have handled the Fever pretty easily all season, but it would be cool to steal game two and have the deciding game back here.
Royals
Man, you think KU had a bad week, go check out what the Royals did. Six straight losses. At home. A 13–1 collective shellacking to the Giants over the weekend. Now somehow tied with Detroit, DETROIT, for the second/third Wild Card spots with Minnesota just a game back, and Seattle a game behind the Twins. Detroit closes the season with three against the pitiful White Sox, so they have effectively locked up one of those two spots.
A week ago the Royals had a five-game cushion over the seventh place spot, with a 99% chance of making the postseason. This morning that percentage has dropped to 69% (per Fangraphs). If Minnesota wasn’t nearly as cold as the Royals those odds would be even lower.
Maybe the bats will wake up this week. Or the pitching will do enough to get the R’s to the playoffs and then the bats will wake up. Sure doesn’t look promising this morning.
Weather
Mother Nature finally flipped the switch Sunday and our heat wave broke. Rain moved in midday Sunday, with heavier showers in the evening, and the temps have dropped 10–15 degrees from where they had been. The forecast has highs in the mid-upper 70s with cool nights. Just about perfect.
We put the Halloween decorations out Saturday. The holidays are getting close.