D's Notebook

Tag: Indianapolis Colts (Page 1 of 8)

Weekend Notes

September 16, 2024 /

As has become standard so far this fall, Friday night was jam-packed with sports action from the couch. Things were ratcheted up a notch this weekend, as KU was playing, meaning I couldn’t casually watch tennis, baseball, or basketball while listening to high school football. No, this week I would be yelling at the TV while listening to the radio. Sadly, more yelling than I expected. For the most part that worked out ok, although there were moments that big things were happening in each game at the same time and it was tough to keep track of what was going on where. It was also very confusing for S, who was facing away from the TV and didn’t always understand what was causing my outburst when the radio announcers were fairly quiet.

There was plenty of dumbness over the weekend, with some cool stuff sprinkled in. Let’s get to it.

HS Football

On the radio was Cathedral’s visit to arch rival Bishop Chatard, ranked either #1 or #2 in 4A, depending on the poll. CHS had won eight of the last ten in the series, but last year was one of those losses in the weird, split game that started on Friday (and CHS led 21–0 early) then ended with BC making a comeback Saturday morning after the game was halted because of a power outage Friday.

No worries this year. CHS jumped out 14–0 and never let up, winning 30–7. It could/should have been an even bigger win. The Irish had three touchdowns, including a 66-yard pass, called back because of penalties. Two of those turned into 10 points anyway. The kicker missed a makable field goal, then put what would have been a school-record 51-yard field goal off the crossbar at the halftime horn. Still, always satisfying to beat the rival, especially for the girls who have friends there. L went to the JV game on Saturday, another W for the Irish.

The CHS radio guys were hilarious. Both analysts played for the Irish, one graduating about 20 years ago, the other over 50 years ago. They were a little fired up for the rivalry game. They thought each penalty that wiped out a TD was garbage. They show more uncalled holds than usual. By the fourth quarter they were screaming at the refs from the press box. And this was in a game their team was winning! I was entertained.

KU

Welp, so much for all the big plans for this year.

I would have written a lot more about this game had I taken a crack at it Friday. Some seriously dumb coaching decisions. Any hopes that Jeff Grimes would step right in for Andy Kotelnicki have been dashed. I mean, how you don’t give Devin Neal, who averaged almost six yards a carry on the night and is averaging nine yards a carry for the season, the ball on second and two and instead throw a pass that has not worked all night when another touchdown likely wins the game is beyond me. The KU offense, which would get all kinds of run on football Twitter the past couple years for how innovative and fun it was, is now boring and can’t adjust. Hiring Grimes is the first big mistake of Lance Leipold’s time in Lawrence. I feel like he could have grabbed some OC from a Texas high school and got better results.

Aside from one exceptionally dumb play by the defense that could have ended the game – the fumble they kicked around for 30 seconds before UNLV fell on it – they were, mostly, amazing. Especially the front seven, which was not expected to be a strength. Two weeks in a row they’ve controlled the game and been let down by the offense/coaches.

Losing a contest that, after the game, the analytics gave the Jayhawks an 83% chance to win seems dumb even for a program with as much dumbness in its history as KU has. Something about the entire team seems off. The last two years it seemed more like a Mangino-era team that rarely did things to beat themselves. Through three games they seem sloppier and less disciplined than the past two years. That is true from the coaches through the players. Not what I expected from a head coach wound as tight as Leipold.

The headline has to be Jalon Daniels, though. Clearly he’s compromised. Whether it is physical, mental, a matter of meshing with Grimes, or some combination of those three, it’s not working. Bad throw after bad throw. Terrible decisions. Seeming confused rather than playing with the joy he used to take the field with. Maybe he can be fixed/salvaged/cajoled into better football, but it needs to happen quick if that is a genuine possibility.

There was a lot of call on Twitter to bring in Cole Ballard. Friday didn’t seem like the time to do that. If things go sideways in Morgantown this week, it might be time to give JD a break.

You would have thought it was a KU basketball loss for how long the angry, post-game texts flew around after this one.

Technically, a lot of the big goals for this season are still possible. They could still make the Big 12 championship game if the offense gets fixed in the next, gulp, five days. At this point I’m more worried about finding five more wins and going to another crappy bowl than any of that. After blowing two winnable games, I don’t have a lot of confidence those W’s are on the remaining schedule. Playing the Big 12 home games at Arrowhead always had a measure of risk. If this team falls apart and no one is there – aside from the entire state of Iowa when the Clones come to town – it will make this season seem even worse. Remember, with Kansas football, things can always get worse.

We all know timeouts in college are too long. But KU called a timeout with under 2:00 to play in the game Friday just to stop the clock. It was a standard, FOUR MINUTE time out. Just fucking terrible. Even in the NFL, which will cram as many ads into a game as they can, they limit those late game TOs to 30 seconds or a minute.

College Football

I didn’t watch much ball on Saturday as I found few of the games compelling. The game I watched most was Cincinnati-Miami. M made the 45 minute trip to Oxford to hang out with friends but did not have a ticket. She did get to go to a party with one of her best friends and said she had a great time and enjoyed all Oxford has to offer. Nice win for her Bearcats.

The Victory Bell rivalry is tied for the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, but this was the last game scheduled to be played on campus, and the 2026 game at the Bengals’ stadium is the last one currently scheduled. When I talked to M on Sunday I tried to explain why – UC wants the games at the Bengals’ field instead of having to go to Oxford, Miami wanted to hang onto those home games, joining the Big 12 changed UC’s scheduling priorities, etc – but she thought most of those reasons were dumb. I’m with her.

S and I went out for an early dinner and got to see part of Notre Dame’s destruction of Purdue. I guess the Irish got re-focused after the Northern Illinois loss.

Colts

So the Colts might be a bad team. A really bad team. GM Chris Ballard insisted the defense would be solid this year, especially against the run. Then the Colts gave up over 250 yards rushing in the first half against a team starting a backup QB that was only going to pass if he had to. Seems dumb not to load up the box and force him to pass. And that was before two defensive linemen got hurt. I refuse to hold Anthony Richardson’s dumbness against him until next year. But something about his passes seems hard to catch, because his receivers dropped a ton of balls that hit their hands. Weird. Those drops make his poor decision making on other passes hurt even worse. And still the Colts had a chance until the final gun. They were fortunate the final score wasn’t more indicative how big a beat down this was.

The Cowboys, Lions, and Ravens all lost at home. The Niners lost. Aside from the Chiefs, who nearly lost at home, do you trust a single team in this league? I’m starting to think the uneven play is a function of teams barely playing starters in the preseason and the added week to the regular season making teams/players more cautious in how they handle injuries. But that’s crazy talk, right?

Twitter During Games

It is funny to look back on your feed at how people react to specific plays. When KU ran that stupid screen pass on second and two in the fourth quarter? People were pissed. And remained pissed well after the game ended. Same in the Colts game. There was a rather curious play call on a third down – something that happened several times during the game – and Colts Twitter, to the extent I follow it, blew up. My favorite was one of our young, local weather ladies getting involved. “What was that play call????” It shows how far we’ve come as a society where it’s not a surprise at all when a young woman has a football take, and it’s 100% legit.

Royals

The R’s took two of three in Pittsburgh, and really should have swept the woeful Pirates. Five games up for the final Wild Card spot with 12 games left. A better record over the last 10 games than both the team ahead of them and behind them in the WC race. 97% playoff odds. A clinched winning season. All summer I’ve been waiting for them to fall apart. It would really suck if they finally did it during this closing stretch.

Fever

Another Friday-Sunday weekend for the Fever. Friday they lost their second game in three nights to Las Vegas, this one much more competitive than the first. I checked on that game periodically but there was too much else going on for me to really follow it.

Sunday they closed their home schedule against Dallas. For some reason the game was only on locally on some third-tier station. One that, even on cable, looked piped in on some terrible, over-the-air antenna. The picture was all fuzzy and blurry. It was like trying to watch European soccer in the 1980s. Pretty sure this wouldn’t happen to the Pacers.

Anyway, for the third time this season the Fever and Wings played a tremendously exciting game, with the Fever winning by one, although Dallas hit an unguarded 3 at the buzzer. These teams tend to not play defense against each other, so it is back-and-forth, up-and-down the entire game. That win clinched sixth place for the Fever, and also guaranteed them at least a .500 season. Twenty wins two years after winning five. Not bad. Caitlin had a career-high 35 points Sunday, and broke the WNBA single season assist record Friday.[1] She also collected her sixth technical foul of the year Friday. Her teammates were keeping her away from the refs Sunday so she doesn’t get magic #7, which brings a one-game suspension with it. Maybe just stop complaining.

Weather

Still hot and dry here. I’ve been watering the grass a couple times a week for about a month. Despite that, our lawn got pretty crunchy over the past few days. We were hoping the hurricane remnants would bring us some rain last week, but that fizzled out in southern Indiana. No rain in the forecast, every day in the upper 80s. At least the pool is still open, and staying warm on its own.

  1. The WNBA schedule expanded to 40 games last year, so a lot of season records have been falling. They may add another four games next year, so throw out your record books.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 8, 2024 /

It was odd walking downstairs this morning. We put all the holiday decorations away Sunday, so this was the first time since Thanksgiving I was greeted by a dark main floor. C said our family room looked “emo” without the decorations yesterday. I’m not sure if emo is the term I would pick, but it does always take a few days to get used to the tree, etc being packed away for another 11 months.

It was also a strange morning because S is back in the office on Mondays for the first time in years. I’ll share more about that in a future post.

We had a very busy Saturday followed by a pretty lazy Sunday. Some notes…

Back to School

L had games Saturday starting at noon. After her JV contest, S and M left the gym and headed to Cincinnati to drop M off for her second semester. Sunday was the normal move-in day, but she had a greek leadership meeting that began at 9:00 Sunday and needed to go back early. I forget if I mentioned last fall that she was elected as social chair for her house, thus her presence was required at this meeting. She’s already working on planning their formal this spring. UC lovingly added $40 to our bill for her moving in 24 hours early.

I guess move-in went well. Someone working in her dorm told S that Sunday was going to be crazy, so it might have been worth the $40 to avoid that rush.

M ended up getting straight A’s first semester, which was a terrific start. Right before she came home she added Marketing as a major. She figured that’s a better path to a job right after graduation than psychology, which would likely require graduate work. She’s debating whether to do a double major or shift psych to a minor.

While she starts classes today, her sisters got to sleep in one last day. They begin their two-week J term tomorrow.

Snow

We got our first real snow of the year Friday night/Saturday morning. Probably 2” of heavy, wet stuff at our house. I got up and pushed it aside just to make sure the driveway didn’t turn into a sheet of ice. Our forecast this week looks miserable. Rain and/or snow almost every day, and potentially a major storm next weekend.

As a weather geek I love watching how the forecast changes this time of year. Last night one forecast predicted between 15–20” of snow from Thursday night to Saturday morning. This morning it had switched to mostly rain and just 2–3” of snow. I imagine it will change multiple times before the storm finally gets here.

Jayhawk Talk

You’re not going to believe this but I missed the first half of the KU-TCU game watching L play. It’s uncanny how often that has happened this year. Fortunately I got home in time to see most of the second half.

I guess that was fortunate? I might be getting too old to handle games like this, and I’m afraid the entire Big 12 schedule this year is going to play out similar to Saturday’s game. Almost every team plays really good defense. There don’t seem to be many pushovers. The next two months are going to be brutal.

It doesn’t help that this KU team seems to be missing something. Not just the shooters that would open so much up for the offense. There’s another mysterious “something” that isn’t there. It’s far too hard for them to score, even with two first team All American caliber players and one of the best distributing point guards in the county. It’s like the parts almost fit perfectly, but grind against each other just enough to keep them from reaching their potential.

I mean, it would be cool if someone on this team could hit a few 3s every night. Even then I think something would be off, though.

Let’s get this over with: the intentional foul called against Ernest Udeh when he elbowed Hunter Dickinson was 100% the right call. I wasn’t sure in real time but watching replays it’s clear Udeh threw his elbow with intent rather than as a function of trying to grab Kevin McCullar’s truly horrific pass. That said, I’m shocked it was called. There seemed just enough wiggle room for the refs to decide it was a play-on rather than foul since it hadn’t been whistled immediately.

I have no issue with TCU people being pissed about it. I would be, no matter what the replay showed. But I’m already done with Fran Fraschilla’s interpretation of the play, knowing he is going to mention it 8000 times between now and the end of the season.[1] God forbid KU wins the Big 12 by a game because he is going to talk about that single play incessantly. Props to Seth Davis, Seth Greenberg, and Jay Wright for countering Fraschilla’s nonsense.

Fraschilla and the other haters didn’t mention the awful foul called on KJ Adams with about 2:00 left that gave Emanuel Miller two free throws and TCU a two-point lead. I think the Hoops Gods made the call against Udeh to balance that shitty foul on KJ.

(OK, aside time. Fraschilla is truly a putz. For some reason about ten years ago he decided to become the voice for the anti-KU element of the Big 12. He holds onto borderline calls that go for KU like a psychopathic fan.[2] He often parrots lines that clearly come from other Big 12 coaches. Any time there’s a close call in Allen Fieldhouse, you can hear his energy level rise and the eagerness in his voice, like a Jan. Sixer talking about how the election was stolen.[3]

His comments Saturday were even more bizarre since he casually threw in his opinion that Dickinson traveled on his game-winning basket, as if that was another egregious miss by the officials that the entire world saw. It was such a strange observation that CBS’ Seth Davis tweeted back with a clip of the play, showing Dickinson clearly taking a dribble as he shuffled his feet before tossing the shot in.

I’m not sure if Fraschilla has cracked after years of being yelled at by KU fans, if Bill Self pissed him off/froze him out at some point, or just because he is famously close with a couple current/former Big 12 coaches, but it is clear his emotions affect his analysis. At least when KU is involved. Which is fine if you’re a middle-aged blogger. It’s not when you are the main color commentator for an entire conference.)

Anyway, KU is 13–1 but I don’t think many KU fans are feeling great about the team. We were extremely fortunate to beat TCU. There are about 18 tough-ass games ahead of us just to get through the conference season. To be clear, I don’t feel bad about the team. They just aren’t as good as we hoped and the path to reaching the pre-season goals of Final Four caliber team seems pretty daunting.

Colts

What a terrible ending to an unexpectedly inspiring season by our local football eleven. Actually that’s what our soccer team is called so I should not be cute and just say Colts.

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, a season in which rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson took his lumps and got acclimated to the NFL, with the idea of competing for a playoff spot again next year.

Richardson was surprisingly good, until he got hurt multiple times and ended up needing season-ending surgery. Gardner Minshew shook off some early rough games and often found ways to make just enough plays to win. After a lengthy hold-out and a brief injury absence, Jonathan Taylor returned to anchor the offense. The defense improved as the season progressed.

The Colts won a couple games they shouldn’t have. They lost a few they shouldn’t have. They benefited from playing in the thoroughly meh AFC South.

It was perfect their season came down to a de facto playoff game against Houston, at home, on Saturday night.

The result felt appropriate for the season, too. A couple dumb coaching decisions by Shane Streichen, who seems like a solid coach but like so many “innovative” coaches, occasionally tries too hard to be cute. A couple meltdowns by the defensive backfield. And then the inevitable Minshew mistake. This time is wasn’t a brutal interception on a potential scoring drive, but rather missing a wide-open back on fourth-and-one in the red zone with less than two minutes remaining.

There’s been a lot of debate about the play that did the Colts in, with a decent contingent of folks trying their hardest to say it wasn’t Minshew’s fault. I’m sorry: that was a TERRIBLE throw. He wasn’t pressured. Tyler Goodson was wide open with blockers ahead of him. At minimum it was an easy first down. The way it was set up there was a decent chance Goodson was going to tie the game and give the Colts the chance to take the lead on the PAT.

It was a perfect play call and 10 Colts did their job. It was Minshew who choked.

Now it’s on to 2024 with, hopefully, a healthy Richardson and Taylor behind him to start the season. The Colts weren’t a good team this year, so there are a lot of areas that need improvement if the want to be legitimate contenders next season. Regardless, the 2024 cycle begins with some genuine optimism about what is to come.

NFL

I’ve been saying all year how weird the NFL is. One week you think a team is dominant, the next they lose a stupid game against a weaker team.

So how do you pick the playoffs this year? The Niners and Ravens seem to have separated themselves in each conference. But do you trust Brock Purdy? Lamar Jackson’s shit hasn’t worked in the playoffs so far in his career, is this the year that changes? I think the Cowboys might actually be the favorite at this point. I’m going to need a few days to ponder on all of it, though.

  1. I think it started when Kelly Oubre wasn’t called for pushing off on an offensive rebound in 2015. It came against Oklahoma, where Fraschilla’s son was playing at the time, and I think something in his brain snapped that night. That game was in mid-January and, I swear, Fraschilla mentioned it every time he did a KU or OU game the rest of the season.  ↩
  2. Ahem. I know. You don’t need to mention pots and kettles, men in the mirror, etc.  ↩
  3. Pretty sure Fran subscribes to that conspiracy, too, based on some of his Tweets, so it all fits together perfectly.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 11, 2023 /

We had a super-busy Saturday that featured a lot of L’s for our family. Fortunately, for me, the one dub was a big one.

Throwing hoops and real life together, our family went 1–7 for the day.

Cathedral lost JV and varsity games. More on that tomorrow.

S’s Hoosiers lost to Auburn.

M’s previously undefeated Bearcats lost to Xavier.

The Pacers lost to the Lakers in the IST championship game.

And L was nominated for, but did not win, Ice Princess at the CHS winter formal.

The win…

Jayhawk Talk

Well, we finally got a competitive game between Missouri and Kansas for the first time since the series re-started. Even then, Missouri never got it down to a two-possession game in the second half, so we can call it a comfortable KU win. Comfortable, acceptable, yet somehow unsatisfying. Simply because the Jayhawks were once up 18 and another ass-kicking appeared imminent until Mizzou sliced 10 points off that lead and the final few minutes were a little nervy.

I think it officially qualifies as a Weird Game. Mizzou was better early, and held KU off for about three-quarters of the first half before a huge KU run allowed them to take control. Then the second half had a couple mini-KU runs balanced by steady Mizzou counters. There was never any real rhythm to the game. Mizzou played terrific defense, but couldn’t put together the offensive performance you need to pull an upset in Allen Fieldhouse. KU seemed low-energy much of the game outside of the last five minutes of the first half. Then the ending felt like it could have stretched on forever and the margin would never get outside a 7–11 point range. Like I said, weird game.

One concern for KU is that Mizzou showed that until someone on the Jayhawks starts forcing defenses to respect them from behind the arc, teams will just pack defenders around Hunter Dickinson, both taking him out of the game and preventing cuts to the rim by his teammates. I don’t see anyone on this year’s roster turning into a consistent deep threat, at least not this season. So I think Bill Self’s challenge is to find a way to generate mid-range looks, which this team has the potential to be quite good at, to open up the lane. I’m confident he’ll figure something out.

As is often the case, KU’s schedule is kind of hurting them. They need to develop a couple guys from the group of Elmarko Jackson – who was quite good Saturday – Johnny Furphy, Nick Timberlake, and Jamari McDowell as complementary players that Self can trust. A schedule packed with close games against high level opponents makes that difficult. Worse, KU has played kind of like ass in their guarantee games sprinkled in amongst the MU, UConn, Kentucky, and Hawaii games, preventing mop-up minutes for the young/new guys. Conference play is just a few weeks away, and that’s when guys that Self doesn’t trust usually disappear.

One positive for KU is how well KJ Adams played. He was the best player on the court Saturday. It’s remarkable how he keeps finding ways to add to his game. I joked Saturday night that he may just develop a 3-point shot over the Christmas break to solve KU’s shooting woes. I doubt that will happen, but I also wouldn’t ever count that kid out.

Oh, and he had the signature play of the year so far for KU, one that will be in the pregame video for years.

I also noticed that Self seemed pretty chill throughout the game. I guess this is a post- heart attack thing? It confuses me a little. I mean, I want the guy to be healthy and able to coach for another decade or so. But it also helps my mood considerably when he rips into the team when they are playing like ass.

I love how petty rivalry games make people. MU coach Dennis Gates made a comment in his postgame press conference about how not many teams come into Allen Fieldhouse and lead for 14 minutes. I get what he was saying, and it was 100% valid. I don’t think he was suggesting the game was a moral victory in any way. Just pointing out there was something his young team could build on.

But since it was a rivalry game, naturally KU people made fun of it, generating fake banners about close losses to hang at Mizzou Arena or referencing Bruce Weber and his Try Hard chart. I didn’t necessarily buy into those arguments, but they made me laugh.

Along those lines, I was watching the UC-Xavier game later in the evening and saw a sign in the XU student section that said “Hell Is Real And It’s Three Miles Away.” Rivalries are the best.[1]

Pacers

After a dream run to the championship game – during which they beat Philadelphia, Boston, and Milwaukee – the Pacers played their worst game of the inaugural NBA In Season Tournament in Saturday night’s championship game. They missed sooooo many open shots they had hit over their previous games. Myles Turner was really bad. A lot of people took shots at him forgetting he had played wonderfully in every game before the final.

Oh, and 157 year old LeBron James played like he was 25 and Anthony Davis remembered he is one of the best, and least guardable, players in the game and could not be stopped. Two transcendent players showing out usually get you the win in the NBA.

And even then the Pacers were right in it until about 2:00 were left and the Lakers went on a final surge.

A terrific run, a coming-out show for Tyrese Haliburton, and some rare national attention on the Pacers.

The Pacers have a lot of flexibility moving forward thanks to expiring contracts, some team-friendly short-term contracts, and full control of their future draft picks. Might they make a splashy move to bring in another proven scorer to put next to Haliburton, either between now and the trade deadline or over the summer?

Winter Formal

As I mentioned, L was nominated for Ice Princess at the CHS winter formal. Their winter formal is weird. It is the biggest deal for freshmen, who dress up and get nominated for stuff. Some sophomores go. Almost no juniors go. And seniors show up briefly, but wearing ugly sweaters rather than suits and dresses.

Anyway, L was one of five girls nominated. I hoped she would cross enough demographic lines to be in the running, but it was a girl who is kind of Tik-Tok famous, is a model, and the daughter of a former local celebrity that won. L isn’t a huge fan of the kid who won Ice Prince and she was relieved they didn’t have to stand/dance together. So she really won I guess?

Colts

What a shit game. A couple terrible calls went against them, but the Colts basically rolled over after the Bengals scored an early touchdown. And on a day when the Jags and Texans both lost. This team really isn’t playoff worthy, and will lose in the first round if they make it. But that was still a super-dumb loss.

Indiana Fever

I doubt I’ve ever written about our local WNBA team here before. The Fever won the WNBA draft lottery yesterday. Meaning if Caitlin Clark decides to go pro, as expected, she will likely be playing here in Indy this summer. We already have tickets to watch her play in Bloomington in February. I’m guessing this means L will be going to her first-ever Fever game sometime in 2024.

  1. M was very excited about the game…but went to see a movie with her friends.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 4, 2023 /

Jayhawk Talk


What a game Friday night between #5 KU and #4 UConn! Since this is rolled into a Weekend Notes post, I’ll chop my thoughts up into chunks tied to the four quarters of the game.

Opening tip to 10:00: This is awesome! The Jayhawks are unbeatable! UConn are frauds! The crowd is AMAZING! Why is Jason Sudeikis hanging out with Sue Bird?

10:00 to Halftime: OK, that could have ended better, but we still have a seven-point lead. And most of UConn’s points were unreal makes at the end of the shot clock. We’re fine, but we need to get the offense back into gear.

Beginning of second half to 10:00: This team sucks. Bill Self is an idiot for not recruiting more shooters. Why is DaJuan Harris playing so bad? UConn isn’t even full strength and they’re going to beat us. I hate this game and sports in general.

10:00 to final horn: What a team! What a win! I love Kevin McCullar and KJ Adams! This was an incredible game and I would have been fine losing it because it was so well played. Bravo sports!

Then I proceeded to stay up another hour watching all the postgame interviews. That put me in bed around 1:00 AM. 9:00 PM tips are dumb. Especially on Fridays.

The Huskies are super tough to guard because of their motion and actions out of it, and KU shut them down for the first ten minutes and last 5–6 minutes. That was an incredible defensive performance. UConn’s comeback was largely fueled because only the KU starters could keep that level of intensity up, and it cost them on the offensive end.

Still a lot of questions about KU’s ability to score, but you toss them aside for a few days after a win that fun.

A bonus to the night was parents of a couple UConn players bitching about their seats. They claimed KU put them in the upper row. Once the game started and you saw two rows of UConn fans right behind the bench – the exact seats you often see Big 12 player parents sitting in – it was obvious someone in Storrs decided that the parents needed to take the upper level seats in their allotment while more important people got the cool seats. Typical entitled east coast BS. Besides, there isn’t a bad seat in Allen Fieldhouse. Even if you have to lean under a beam to see the court.

College Football

OH MAN, WHAT A MESS!!!! AND IT’S GLORIOUS!!!!

I don’t have a huge beef with how things shook out. You can make legit arguments for six teams, and with only four spots, someone is going to get screwed. Obviously a huge bummer for Florida State. It absolutely sucks to go undefeated in a Power Five, err four, errr three, Power Whatever conference, and get the shaft. Michigan and Washington were awarded for doing exactly that. FSU gets the shaft because their quarterback is hurt, which seems like an odd decision point. If you take Alabama, you have to take Texas, who beat Alabama convincingly in Tuscaloosa. Georgia had their shot and blew it.

It was garbage how the biggest topic of last week was not the games themselves, but the hypothetical that the SEC would get left out. Actually my beef was more with some of the horseshit logic used to carve out a spot for an SEC team. The SEC commissioner suggested that if you throw out Texas’ win over Alabama, Bama was actually the better team. Which, first off, is debatable. And then THERE IS NO BETTER DATA POINT THAN A HEAD-TO-HEAD RESULT. Until it threatens the SEC’s spot in the championship playoff. That’s when you throw it out.

The commish also suggested that the SEC deserved a spot simply because of history. There’s no doubt the SEC has dominated college football this century. That means nothing for this year. Georgia doesn’t get extra points for being two-time defending champs. Bama doesn’t get a bonus for being the best program in the game since Nick Saban took over. The playoff is about the games played in the last four months only.

I don’t buy into the conspiracy theories floating around that ESPN wasn’t about to let their future partner the SEC get left on the outside. It is, though, another blow to college sports that a lot of folks are buying into those theories this morning. I think it’s just a super flawed process that had no clear outcome that would have been fair to all. However, you don’t have to be a conspiracist to have known there was no way that it would be Alabama and Georgia who would get screwed in the process.

Mostly I got fired up because the SEC nonsense actually had me wanting Texas to win Saturday so they could put the squeeze on the SEC. I guess KU gets a cut of the Texas CFP payout, so that’s cool. But I’m all about Washington for the next month.

KU Bowl Game

KU goes to Phoenix to play UNLV. Which is kind of weird since the teams will play week three next season in Lawrence.

Seems like it should be a high scoring game, which is how all bowl games should be. I probably just cursed it into being a 17–14 penalty-fest.

Jayhawk fans are now holding our collective breath that no key players decide to sit the game out as they prepare for the draft. Which is dumb. For us fans, not the players. It’s dumb because this game is basically meaningless. It will be cool if KU wins its first bowl game since 2008 and gets its ninth win. Grand scheme of things, though, this is just an exhibition and if Devin Neal or whoever decide they’d rather protect themselves for their pro career, its just a bummer, not something to lose sleep over.

Colts

The Colts remain in the playoff hunt thanks to a truly stupid win in Nashville. Were this not already a pretty long post, I would dive into the details. I mean, the Titans punter got flipped completely upside down and that was NOT the play he might have destroyed his leg on. Let’s all just accept it was a stupid game in every single way and move on.

Holiday Vibes

We went to a Christmas party briefly Saturday. We hung out for maybe 90 minutes then bugged out. It’s not that it wasn’t fun. We just didn’t know a ton of people and weren’t super in the mood to mingle with strangers. Also, S and I both realized we couldn’t hear shit. Everyone was crammed into two connected rooms and our old people ears just were not working at all. S had a long conversation with a lady and I could only catch snippets of it because they were operating in the 5’1” to 5’4” airspace and my ears being a foot higher just could not keep up. I don’t think my hearing is terrible in normal settings. But, man, put me in a crowded room and it goes to shit pretty quick.

M has her last final tomorrow morning, so I’ll be picking her up around noon. We keep telling her that is super early, and our finals always went much deeper into December. I swear we usually wrapped things up at KU right around December 20. UC did not have a fall break, which I guess helps.

Her roommate is already done and went home yesterday. M also has some friends who have a final this Friday at 5:30, which seems like kind of a dick move.

Holiday Weekend Notes

November 27, 2023 /

For the first time in three years we were home for Thanksgiving week. We packed a lot in, and it deserves a wide-ranging, extra-long breakdown.

College Visitor

I picked M up Tuesday around noon after her last scheduled class of the week. We grabbed lunch at Hangover Easy, a place just off campus I’ve wanted to try just because of their shirts. It was solid, but I couldn’t find any shirts for sale. I guess I’ll have to get one online.

That night she (and C) went with me to L’s game. M had a couple nights out with high school friends, but didn’t do anything too crazy. She thought about going to the IU-Purdue game with one of her best friends but they slept too late to make it to Lafayette in time. Seemed like she behaved herself. Unlike me during my freshman Thanksgiving break, when I may have consumed as much alcohol as I ever did before or have since.

S ran her back to school Sunday evening.

She will be back soon. UC has class this week then go straight into exams. She only has two true finals. One of them would normally be on the 9th, but all tests for that course are done outside class, so she’s hoping she can come home earlier in the week.

Oh, she was also elected as social chair of her house. Most of the new officers don’t take over their duties until January, but since she has to plan the formal this spring, she’s already pretty deep in finding a venue and getting all that arranged. Shocking she would be social chair, right?

Hawaii Basketball

Mixed results for KU out in Oahu. Smashed Chaminade in round one, as expected, with Kevin McCullar becoming the first KU player ever to record back-to-back triple doubles.

Then smashed by Marquette in the second round. That game never felt close, which was super annoying. There was the added bonus of Shaka Smart acting like a clown and then pretending he didn’t know why anyone was upset. It’s always a shame when someone acts like a punk then wins the game. Thanks to the Purdue-Tennessee game taking about five hours to play and this one starting after 11:00 PM eastern, I recorded it and watched first thing Wednesday morning. Good call, as I was able to fast forward through most of the second half. I would have been up until 4:00 AM pissed had I watched live.

Finally an encouraging win over a tough Tennessee team in the consolation final. Jamari McDowell stepping up might have been the best development of the week.

KU has some holes, but I think as a few players get more comfortable, those holes will get smaller. And Bill Self will figure out how to hide them better as the season continues. This is a good team that can get a lot better.

Jim Irsay

Oh boy…

In case you missed it, the Colts owner appeared on HBO’s Real Sports and, as is his general MO, was very candid about his life. Which in general is a good thing. Until he claimed that the only reason he was arrested a decade ago when he was pulled over for driving under the influence was because he is a “rich, white, billionaire.”

Please note he was pulled over and arrested in Carmel, IN, which isn’t exactly the most diverse suburb in our area, nor one that has ever been noted for its anti-capitalist views. Hell, the new mayor who was elected earlier this month refused to denounce a local mom’s group that used a quote from Hitler in their literature.

So, sure, the white cops in a super white, conservative suburb decided that they were going to stick it to the man by arresting the Colts owner.

It’s sad that someone who has done so much to both own up to his mistakes and help end the stigma around mental heath disease can’t take responsibility here and resorted to pretending that he, with endless resources and likely decades of people looking the other way at similar behavior, is the person oppressed by a racist police department.

Thanksgiving

Last year we were in Italy for Thanksgiving. Two years ago Hawaii. So it was nice to be back home again in Indiana for the holiday this year. We hosted, and had just 16 this year. We’ll be closer to 30 at Christmas so this felt super manageable.

I did the bird, Giada’s dressing, and potatoes. We delayed our meal until later in the day to allow for a sister-in-law and her kids to return from their trip to Denver. That made the day a lot easier than eating around 1–2 as we usually do. Although that last 45 minutes always gets crazy no matter what time you eat.

KU-UC

Several of you asked over the past week. No, I did not drive down to Cincinnati for the KU-UC game Saturday night. Had the game been played at noon, I could have made it work. However, the 7:30 kickoff was the exact moment that L’s game was scheduled to tip. As much as I love my Jayhawks, I love my daughters more, and chose to be a good dad.[1] Plus, M wasn’t interested in going back on Saturday and we really didn’t want to make the drive both Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and it was very cold.

Naturally I was annoyed that I missed it given the result. When we walked out of the CHS gym, KU had just taken a 21–10 lead into halftime. As we were pulling into our driveway Devin Neal was scoring his second touchdown of the night to extend the lead. Once I was seated in front of the TV I made M come down and watch with me. The next hour or so involved a lot of me waving the wheat and sending her bean emojis – 🫘 – with her flipping me off and telling me how much the Bearcats “freaking suck” in return.

Good times!

Sooooo happy for Jason Bean. Sure, the UC defense had basically given up by the fourth quarter, but it was fantastic for him to cap his regular season college career with two more long touchdown runs. His 340 total yards were both super-efficient and impressive. The guy has taken a lot of abuse, verbal and physical, over his career. He tried to leave KU last summer but no one wanted him. And, in the end, he is as responsible for KU’s turnaround as Jalon Daniels is. JD beat Texas two years ago. But Bean nearly beat OU that same year, did beat OU this year, and led the Jayhawks to two conference road wins this season. KU won eight total conference games from 2009 to 2021. Jason Bean has been the starter in six Big 12 wins over the past two years. When this season seemed to be on the verge of going down the toilet because Daniels could no longer play, Bean stepped in and KU barely missed a beat, winning eight regular season games for the first time since 2007.

There is a lot of praise to go around for the KU turnaround, from Lance Leipold and his staff, to Travis Goff and the athletic department, to players like Daniels, Neal, Kenny Logan, Cobee Bryant, etc. Bean’s name needs to be high on that list as well.

Eight wins! The Big 12 was a true adventure this year, with results often not making sense from week-to-week. KU was pretty damn steady, though, with the only real blip coming over the past two weeks because Bean was hurt and Cole Ballard had to drop his clipboard and fill in for 2½ games. KU was damn close to 11–1, and who knows, maybe they can stick with Texas longer if Bean had practiced as the QB1 all week instead of finding out about 30 minutes before the game that he was the starter.

Rock Chalk, bitches.

Other Football

As much as I hated all the hype that surrounded Ohio State – Michigan, that was a hell of a game. Incredibly entertaining.

M asked me if the weekend after Thanksgiving is when most rivalries play. I liked that she picked that up. I switched to Indiana-Purdue a few times during the OSU-UM game and that game felt very familiar. For a good chunk of my life the Kansas-Missouri game was at the end of the year,[2] and at least one team was usually pretty bad. Some years both sucked. There’s nothing quite like sitting in a cold-ass stadium in late November with 24,000 other people watching two shitty teams battle for bragging rights and not much else.

The Colts are 6–5? The Colts are 6–5! They would be playing in a Wild Card game if the season ended today. They have a pretty favorable schedule remaining, too. They – especially Gardner Minshew – do not make it easy each week, so I wouldn’t go printing playoff tickets up just yet.

Poor Detroit fans. It’s been since early in the Barry Sanders years that they had a good team to root for on Thanksgiving. When it finally happens again, they get curb-stomped by a mediocre Green Bay team. Just a cursed franchise.

Oh, and the Buffalo-Philadelphia game was straight-up awesome. Rain and a sloppy field. Josh Allen doing good Josh Allen things. Jalen Hurts doing Jalen Hurts things. Maybe the biggest and most clutch field goal in adverse conditions since Adam Vinatieri’s kick in the snow 21 years ago. And then a fun overtime to top it off. That was a fine way to end a terrific weekend of sports.

Pacers

The Pacers are a wild-ass team. Last Tuesday they clinched a spot in the quarterfinals of the NBA’s new In-Season Tournament with a 157–152 win over Atlanta. When we got home from L’s game, the Pacers were down by 20. I know everyone makes a run in the NBA, but coming back from 20 down to build a 12-point lead is kind of crazy. Even then the game came down to the final minute, and the Pacers just did not miss. Tyrese Haliburton had 37 points and 16 assists. Buddy Hield was 6-for–6 from deep. I don’t know that Bobby Knight purists love them, but I sure enjoy watching this year’s team.

They scored 131 the next night…and lost by one. Which was kind of incredible given what they did the night before. Then they dropped another 136 in a win on Friday. They are on pace to shatter the record the Sacramento Kings set last year as the most efficient offense in NBA history.

  1. Guess who has a game the same time as the KU-IU game in Bloomington in two weeks?  ↩
  2. I believe if you dive into the site’s archives you can find some of my thoughts about football rivalries and when they should be played.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 23, 2023 /

It was a pretty good fall break/long weekend around our house. It included another trip to Cincinnati, a new family toy, and a variety of news on the high school sports front. Let’s dive into the details.

CHS Fall Break

C and L were off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for their fall break. L had basketball practice all three days and the weather was crappy, so we didn’t do much. Our pool guy was supposed to show up Thursday to close it for us, but it rained so much he didn’t make it. He’ll now be here Tuesday.

Aficionados of my fall break posts will not be surprised that we went up the block to Walgreens and got flu shots on Thursday, which is a bit of a tradition. The girls also ran around with their friends a little bit. L got to go the final Pacers preseason game of the year Friday, sitting in the front row behind the basket. She got pictures with Cavaliers Caris Levert and Donovan Mitchell after the game, which was pretty cool. One of her friends accidentally dumped a bottle of water on Levert when he slid into them during the game.

UC Family Weekend

We drove down to Cincinnati Saturday morning for Family Weekend. The Bearcats were taking on Baylor, but I doubted the girls would be interested in an entire game between two bad teams so we opted to let M do her greek life tailgating thing and picked her up right after kickoff.[1]

We headed to the Findlay Market area and ate some pretty solid barbecue. While we were eating I could see L whispering to her sisters and they were all laughing. When I asked what was so funny, so said, “This is way better than Oklahoma Joe’s.”

Then M lost it, “LOOK AT HIS FACE! HE IS SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU!”

I mean, it was good barbecue, I won’t lie. But if she wasn’t just messing with me I may have to disown her.

While eating we ran into some Indy friends who sent kids to both St P’s and CHS. I’ve sat with the dad at multiple football games this year. Their oldest daughter is a senior at Xavier and it was her sorority’s parents weekend. Small world.

We went downtown to check into our hotel then walked down to the riverfront and visited the Underground Railroad Museum. It was fascinating. They suckered us into getting a membership since that is cheaper than five individual day passes. That’s cool because I definitely want to go back and spend more time there. Not going to name names,[2] but some folks in my family tend to breeze through museums where I like to take them in slowly and get into the details.

Back to the hotel for some down time. I watched football while all three girls took naps. Then we headed back to the dorm so M could change and grab her high school bud who was joining us for dinner. A’s parents couldn’t make it for the weekend so we made her an honorary B girl for the night. We went to Sacred Beast in the Over-The-Rhine district. It was quirky and good. And we sat in a booth next to another group of folks we know from St P’s and CHS. Twice in one day! So odd.

We dropped M, her friend, and C back at the dorm and returned to the hotel for the night. C was going to spend the night with M since her roommate was gone and get a taste of college life. Seems like that went ok, although C’s back was bothering her and M dropped C off after a couple parties, locked her in the room, and went back out. This might be the moment to point out that despite being sick for 87 consecutive weeks, M apparently doesn’t miss a chance to go out.

Sunday morning we got the girls then headed back downtown for breakfast at the tremendous Maplewood Kitchen. One of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had. And we got there just before the rush hit and were able to get a table without too long of a wait. By the time we left the line was out the door.

After eating it was back to campus so M could show us around. We got to see her sorority house and meet her pledge mom, J, who is awesome. M had told us a lot about her but meeting her made it all click. They are VERY similar, but in a good way where it works. We made a stop at a bookstore so both C and L could get some UC gear, ran into Target to get M a few things, then headed home. We were back in our house in time to see the second half of the Colts game.

Cincinnati is cool. I’ve been to one Reds game in my 20 years in Indy, and that was a quick in-and-out for a day game. I forget where but I had heard plenty over the years about the geography of the city, but until you see it, it doesn’t really make sense. It is a river town, like Kansas City and St. Louis, so all the roads are kind of fucked up based on that alone. Then it is built into some serious bluffs that rise straight up out of the Ohio. Parts of it look kind of California-like just because of the rapid increase in elevation. It is definitely more St. Louis than KC, as it feels a lot older than my hometown. Even then Cincy has a very distinct feel from the Lou. I imagine I’ll get to know the city even better over the next few years.

New Toy

We made the trip in S’s new vehicle, a Kia Telluride. It is very, very nice. Her lease doesn’t end on her Grand Cherokee for a few weeks, so we kept the Telluride in the garage for the first few days we owned it. She got it early specifically for this trip, so M could bring a friend (or two) if needed since we again have a seven-passenger vehicle. I drove the entire weekend and loved it. Between having a kid in college and another joining her in less than two years, when my Audi lease is up I’m going to have to do some serious financial downsizing. I dig the Telluride enough that a smaller Kia SUV will likely be in the running.

High School Hoops

I mentioned above that L had basketball practice last week. To answer the obvious question, yes, she seems to have recovered from her concussion.

Monday was the first official day of practice in Indiana, and she was cleared to return that day after taking a week off. Her coach did keep her out of scrimmages, though, just to avoid contact for a little longer. L said that made practice boring but I reminded her she didn’t need to get hurt again and then miss weeks of the season.

Wednesday was roster day, when the girls learned what team they would be on. We kind of knew what to expect, but it was still a little nerve-racking to drop her off, run to the grocery store to grab a couple things, then wait for her to come out.

Options were freshman, JV, varsity, freshman-JV double roster, or the JV-varsity double.

Each player had a one-on-one with the coach where they learned their fate. She texted me about 45 minutes in asking if I was there. I said yes, but she didn’t come out for another 20 minutes, which concerned me. But when she came out she was with a few older girls who I knew would make varsity, and they were all laughing.

She got in the car, I asked how it went, and she just said, “Fine.”

“Well…what did you get?!?!” Jesus, this kid.

She made the JV team, one of only three freshmen to make it. When I asked her what the coach said to her she said that L had done a great job in preseason camp, was already a leader in the program, and she expected that she would get some varsity minutes this year. So not double-rostered but the window is open to play up. My expectation/assumption is that she will be the starting point guard for JV. The head coach had the girl who will start as PG for varsity guard the hell out of L all preseason to get her toughened up for high school ball.

Pretty cool! I was pumped and told her I was proud of her. She kind of blew me off, because this is what she expected, but I think she was pleased on the inside.

Thursday night she had four of her friends over, all of whom made varsity. She knows how to get in good with the older girls.

The first game is November 7. Practice goes up to 2.5 hours this week, plus they have JV and varsity scrimmages against another school Wednesday.

Other CHS Sports

The football state tournament began last week. Class 6A gets a week off before their tournament begins, so no game for CHS. The Irish open sectionals against an 0–9 team this Friday.

CHS had three other teams playing Saturday, two of which could affect how quickly L gets to at least sit the bench in a varsity game.

The girls soccer team was playing in semi-state, a week after knocking off the #1 team in Indiana. Two varsity basketball starters are on the soccer team, and if they won and made it to State, those girls would not be eligible for the first two basketball games of the year.[3] The volleyball team was playing in the regional round, and if they advanced to semi-state next week that would knock another varsity basketball starter out for two games.

Unfortunately – except for basketball, I guess – both teams lost. Soccer lost 1–0 to the #11 team (CHS was ranked #6), and #4 volleyball lost in five sets to the #6 team (they would have played #5 Saturday night if they won the morning match). So bummers there.

Boys soccer balanced that a bit, getting a 2–1 win to advance to State. But our girls don’t really know any of those kids so would have much rather one of the girls teams won.

Colts

LOL. That was an insane game, and I missed the entire first half which was apparently totally off the rails. If I was fully invested I would be pissed about the second pass interference call on the Browns’ final drive of the game. I wonder what that Twitter user I mentioned last week, who likes re-tread white quarterbacks more than first round draft picks who happen to be Black, thought of Gardner Minshew turning the ball over four more times this week.

  1. (Speaking in a Troy Aikman voice) Folks, I gotta tell ya, the Bearcats might really stink. They may well be 2–9 when the Jayhawks roll into town Thanksgiving weekend. Which means I probably just jinxed KU into an L. Idiot.  ↩
  2. My wife.  ↩
  3. In Indiana you have to participate in ten practices before you can play in a high school game. Even if you are coming from another varsity sport, which is super dumb to me. Those kids are in shape.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 9, 2023 /

Going to flip things up a bit, as our family had a rough week that’s worth getting caught up on first.

Squad News

Monday M got diagnosed with mono. She’s been sick for weeks and it took a turn last weekend, so she went and got checked. She told us she could see the test turn positive from across the room. So she REALLY has mono, I guess. She had a terrible couple of days but after starting on some steroids, improved pretty rapidly.

She ended up coming home for the weekend – UC is off Monday and one of her local buddies offered her a ride – so she was able to have some downtime away from the dorm. When she was awake she seemed pretty normal, but she did sleep even longer than usual. Hopefully she’s on the right path for recovery. Funny how when your kid gets mono everyone you know has to tell you the story of the person they knew who missed a year of school when they got it. I know one of those people, so I understand some of those stories are legit.[1]

Otherwise she seems to be doing great at school.

That wasn’t our worst health news of the week. Friday morning L cracked heads with a teammate in practice and failed a concussion test after. She went to class for a bit but started to feel bad and I picked her up around 11. She had all the classic symptoms – headache, dizziness, light sensitivity – and they were pretty bad both Friday and Saturday. Sunday they hadn’t improved much but she was feeling a little more like herself.

The girl she knocked heads with is a good friend of hers. She stopped by Sunday to give L a bag of candy, which was nice.

Obviously we’re being very careful. She’s anxious to get back to school and on the court. We told her to slow her roll, it’s better to miss some time and have to make school work up and catch up in practice than get hit again before she is healed and miss even more time.

C didn’t have any issues last week. But we are still working to get her back issue figured out. She’s had an injection that didn’t work, seen a back specialist, and a spine specialist. Friday she goes back to the spine specialist for a more advanced injection he hopes can give her some relief.

HS Football

Friday was the first time Cathedral played Roncalli, the Catholic school on the south side of Indy, during the regular season in 13 years. They used to play every season and often played in the state tournament before Cathedral moved up two classes.

Roncalli won a state title three years ago and were very good last year but are a little down again. Friday the Irish killed them 42–0, extending their winning streak in the series to 13.

I only heard a few possessions as I was picking M up right when the game started. She laughed because one of her UC friends graduated from RHS and was going to the game. He said he was only going because his dad was making him and it was stupid to go because “We’re going to be down 30–0 at halftime.” It was, indeed, 28–0 at half.

Now it’s on to the final week of the regular season, the big Center Grove game. Center Grove is ranked #2 in the state but #23 in the country, so pretty much the same old same old down there.[2] Because a huge crowd is expected and CG is still complaining about having to play on real grass two years ago, the game has been moved to Butler’s stadium. Not sure if I’m going or not yet. I have a big day Saturday and have yet to determine if going to a game Friday night fits with those plans.

The Irish have adjusted their offense and played much better the last four weeks but it will take their best game of the year, by far, to hang with the three-time defending 6A champs.

Late Night

Friday night was also Late Night in Lawrence. Someone asked the question online if Late Night is washed. My response was “Of course it is.” The concept is 40 years old and pretty much every variation has been tried. If you expect anything more than silly/dumb skits and a ragged scrimmage you’re asking for way too much.

Where Late Night used to be the first chance for fans to see new players, we’ve now seen their highlight videos, seen them play on ESPN as high schoolers, seen viewed clips from summer pickup games, etc. In the transfer portal era we’ve even seen some of them play against their current teams. One of my buddies shared that he thought a guy who played for KU when we were in school was white until Late Night, which I thought was hilarious. No such issues these days.

(Lengthy aside: an underrated big day on the college hoops calendar back in our time was the first game after classes had started for the second semester. We always anxiously watched the tunnel the players came out of to make sure everyone was eligible. There was always one guy you were worried about. There was nothing like that moment of relief and elation when you saw Terry Brown or Alonzo Jamison walk onto the court in uniform. Of course today, when athletes take enough hours in the summer and online to stay eligible, kids have no idea about this flavor of anxiety.)

I say accept Late Night for what it is, the ceremonial start to the hoops season, and don’t ask any more of it.

College Football

We had a front blow through Friday night that crashed the temperatures. Saturday and Sunday were both cool and blustery. Which made each day perfect for sitting on my ass and watching football.

The Oklahoma-Texas game was awesome. I was super entertained for the three-plus hours it took the Sooners to pull out the win. And while I hate both schools for leaving the Big 12, I always lean OU in that game since they were a Big 8 school, so I was pleased with the result.

I was super nervous about the KU-Central Florida game. We knew Jalon Daniels would not be playing, which meant KU would feature the run. UCF’s defensive strength is their interior line. Seemed like it could go sideways pretty easily. I was both nervous about losing and about what an L would mean for the season. Drop this game, at home, and the road to bowl eligibility gets a lot tougher, many of the hopes of August quashed in early October.

Silly me. The Jayhawks manhandled those fools. One snap into the second half it was 31–0. Methodical marches down the field. Great defense (in the first half). A punt return touchdown for the first time in nine years. A 75-yard TD to open the second half. Other than the D getting torched in the second half and keeping one of the Indy boys from getting to play quarterback, it was almost a perfect game.

399 yards rushing on the day Tony Sands went into the Ring of Honor was perfect, too. In an ironic twist, my buddy Sweets, who missed Tony’s then NCAA record game in 1991 was unable to watch Saturday. We let him know about it.

So, Jalon… Super concerning. Especially since he apparently didn’t even come to the stadium to watch. Which is weird.

I have four theories, offered in order of likelihood:
1 – His injury continues to baffle doctors and he wasn’t actually in Lawrence but somewhere else seeing a specialist.
2 – He’s already had some kind of surgery and they’re trying to hide it.
3 – KU and Daniels/his family disagree on the best way to treat the injury and because of that he stayed away.
4 – Daniels has shut himself down for the year and was told to stay away from the stadium if that was his choice.

I can’t see JD not being around to support his teammates if he was able, so I doubt options 3 or 4 are the explanations. As the father of a kid with a back injury that experts have struggled to identity and treat, I totally get #1, which is no doubt way worse for a football player than just a random high school kid trying to get through her day.

He’s not been the same since he took that hit against TCU last year, and back injuries are never any joke. I’m hoping there’s a reasonable explanation and a path towards getting healthy and playing again before this season is complete. It would be very KU football, though, if his season/career is over.

Once again KU should be super happy Jason Bean decided to come back. He has some flaws, and I worry about how he’ll manage once teams dare him to make throws consistently. But he’s a hell of a second option and definitely good enough to win another game or two.

And I keep telling myself don’t let the drama around Daniels distract from a second-straight 5–1 start. Last year KU fans were thinking, “Can we win one more game?” This year it is “How many more can we win?” It’s kind of weird to hear national broadcasters praise KU football.

After KU I flipped between the evening games, but mostly watched Notre Dame – Louisville. That turned into an ass-kicking. The Irish, again, are frauds.

At some point in the evening S complained that she felt like she hadn’t accomplished anything all day. I pointed out she went to a friend’s house to take out some stitches and took M to both Costco and Target.

I, on the other hand, had been sitting on the couch watching football for nine hors at that point.

C helped me out, though. “Hey, you yelled a lot for awhile so you got your heart rate up.”

She’s my favorite for the moment.

Colts

What a weekend for the Colts!

Saturday they announced they had re-signed Jonathan Taylor after his holdout and that he would play on Sunday. I was torn on this. He makes the Colts better, but they are now paying like five guys a quarter of their salary cap, and three of those guys have concerning injury histories. Another potentially bad contract as the team tries to rebuild around Anthony Richardson. But, when healthy, Taylor will take pressure off of Richardson.

Sunday Taylor played a few snaps, but his replacement, Zack Moss, had the game of his life. Nearly 200 total yards, 160+ on the ground against one of the best run D’s in the game. Moss makes a hell of a lot less than Taylor, so now the new contract looks kind of dumb?

Moss was huge in the Colts beating Tennessee and pulling into a tie for first place. Which was even more impressive since Richardson got hurt for the third time this season, leaving the game with a shoulder injury. Apparently my teams can’t have good, young quarterbacks.

Again, great to have a competent backup, in this case Gardner Minshew.

I wrapped up the weekend watching a good chunk of the Cowboys-Niners game. Woodsheds, ass kickings, and whatnot. San Francisco looked awesome, which makes me even more sure that one or more of their stars is going to have a leg amputated or something next week.

  1. What up, Em?  ↩
  2. Brownsburg is ranked #1 in Indiana, but only #50 nationally. Cathedral is #8 and #212.  ↩

Sports Notes

October 4, 2023 /

NFL

Four weeks into the NFL season and I’m not sure what to make of things. Is there a single team that deserves unquestioned trust?

The Chiefs lost at home to Detroit opening night, righted themselves over the next two weeks, then apparently looked kind of crappy against the Jets last Sunday before escaping with a win.

The Bills played lethargic football against the undermanned Jets in week one, but have been kind of awesome since.

Miami hung 70 points on Denver, then lost by four touchdowns the next week.

Dallas has made a strong argument as the most complete team in the league. Well, other than losing to Arizona.

Philly is 4–0 but have been far from impressive getting there.

The 49ers are also 4–0, which means one of their stars is almost guaranteed to get hurt this week.

The top of the league seems kind of jumbled and uncertain, plenty of good teams but no great ones at the moment. Which I guess is a good thing as a casual fan of the game, as it makes for competitive games. Of course, any of those teams could go undefeated through October and a month from now we’ll be talking about how great they are.

For some reason I’m always surprised at how the Bears have been so bad for so long. 1985 was a long, long time ago, yet my brain keeps trying to convince me that they were still good until recently. They’ve been to the playoffs six times in the last 30 years. Is it just me or can other Gen Xers not get their heads around how long the Bears have been terrible?

I wasn’t able to watch the Colts Sunday, but it sounds like Anthony Richardson again dazzled. I caught a few minutes of ESPN’s NFL show Tuesday afternoon and I thought it was interesting that the panelists said they’ve seen enough, he is legit, and it’s time to start thinking about what moves the Colts need to make this offseason to both protect Richardson and put more weapons around him. He is still very raw, but is already making plays not many quarterbacks can make. I’m guessing if there was a re-draft, CJ Stroud would now be the #1 pick and playing in Carolina while Richardson would have gone #2 to Houston and the Colts would be, sadly, trying to keep Bryce Young from getting killed each week. Or maybe they would have traded down and chucked this season to go for Caleb Williams if they knew Jonathan Taylor would hold out.

NBA

What a crazy week in the association!

First, the Blazers trade Dame Lillard to Milwaukee as part of a three-team deal. Dame joining forces with Giannis made the Bucks the Eastern Conference favorites, at least temporarily.

My favorite part of the trade was Miami getting butt-hurt about being left out of the trade discussions. As if there was an obligation for Portland to make the deal that Dame wanted most but did not bring the best return for them. There was some pettiness on Portland’s part, which is kind of to be expected when the guy who still has four years left on his contract asks to be traded. But the Blazers were absolutely free to find a deal that gave them the best return as they rebuild around Scoot Henderson. Fuck Miami.

So for, what, three days the Bucks were conference favorites. Until Portland sent Jrue Holliday, who was part of their return for Lillard, to Boston. Suddenly the Celtics had one of the best perimeter defenders it the league and a thoroughly capable fourth option on offense. While there was some arguing amongst the experts, this trade made Boston at least co-favorites with Milwaukee, while some pushed the C’s into the top spot after the trade.

I loved all of this. Now we have two teams that are built to give the other absolute fits and will eye each other the entire regular season, likely battling for the top seed that would put a possible conference finals game seven on their home court. Should be a fascinating journey to get to those conference finals in late May.

And the Blazers absolutely kick-started their rebuild, assembling good pieces around the young core they already have while also grabbing a couple more established players that can be moved to add even more picks/youngsters to their stash.

I very much approve of teams making splashy moves like this. Dame or Jrue or one of their teammates could get hurt and blow this all up. Portland’s youth movement might never come together into a winner. The process sure wasn’t boring, though.

Man, the Lakers need to shut the fuck up. How do you whine about Denver talking a lot of trash last year after they swept you? Especially when the Nuggets went on to win the title. If a team sweeps your ass, they can say anything they want.

A team built around two aging, injury-prone stars should keep their mouths shut, lest the Hoops Gods notice and reward them by blowing out LeBron’s ankle again for wrecking AD’s back for the 1000th time.

MLB

I actually watched a baseball game on Tuesday, my first of the year! I didn’t plan on it, but when I was texting with L’s travel coach he said he was watching his Twins try to break their 18-game playoff losing streak. I had nothing else going on so flipped to the game. I was transfixed by the beautiful uniforms both the Twins and Blue Jays were wearing, and left it on as I did other things. I wouldn’t say I was super focused on the action, but at least I had it on. I even watched a couple innings of Arizona-Milwaukee later. I don’t know if this means I’m going to totally dive back in for the playoffs, but I may at least glance at them from moment-to-moment.

Travel Ball

Speaking of youth basketball, we finally got L’s assignment for the next travel season yesterday. I had been sweating it because I knew we were close to the deadline for rosters to be set.

As I’ve said several times, we knew the high school travel ball world is different, just not for sure what those differences were. At the final tryout the girls were told “if” they made a team, they would get an email in the next two weeks. “If.” Yikes.

It seemed like the past couple years it took a little over a week to get the assignment. But one of L’s best friends got hers last week and when L’s didn’t come, I started to panic a little.

Now I’m pretty sure that friend is going to play on a higher level team (there are three tiers of teams in high school), and figure that those teams come together first so they can fill holes.[1] But as each day went by without an email, I got more and more worried. I kept telling myself it would all work out, she will likely play a lot of minutes on the JV team this year so surely she’d land on a travel team, but she also wasn’t super happy with how she played in her tryouts, so you never know.

Fortunately the email arrived yesterday morning, coincidentally on her birthday. She’s staying with the coach she’s had the past two years, three of her teammates from those seasons are staying with her, along with one of her teammates from CHS. Another CHS girl may join them. It sounds like we might have zero size, although the coach is trying to find someone with height in the pool of remaining girls.

  1. A lot of those girls try out for multiple programs and pick from their offers. I’m not sure if money is involved for ninth graders, but L’s friend chose the team that practices closest to her home.  ↩

Weekend Notes

September 25, 2023 /

HS Football

Cathedral went down to Lexington, KY to play last year’s Kentucky 5A state champs. The Irish got an early lead, weathered their normal letdown, built the lead again, then held on for a nine-point win. Probably their best, most complete win of the season, from what I could judge by listening. They travel to Cincinnati next week.

The big news of the week was that the season finale against Center Grove has been moved to Butler’s stadium. CG fans are still bitching about having to play on natural grass two years ago, so this may have been purely a move to shut them up rather than play in a bigger stadium on a better field.

College Football

I had a very good day Saturday. I watched college football for at least 11.5 hours, almost uninterrupted.

I started with a little of Fox’s pregame show, something I never do, just because they were at UC for the Oklahoma-Cincinnati game. I talked to M Thursday and she told me some of her guy friends were going to go to bed mid-afternoon Friday, sleep until about midnight, then get up, go to bars until they closed at 2:00, hang out and drink until the official line for seats started at 5:00, then find a way to power through until the show started at 11:00. I haven’t heard how successful they were.

OU-UC was my first game of the day. Because it was another perfect day here, I watched on the outside TV. The Bearcats hung in all day, but are just dreadful in the red zone and couldn’t capitalize on multiple scoring chances. Oklahoma looks super talented, especially on defense, but something feels off about them still. They are good but don’t seem like a great team. Or at least not right now. I probably just jinxed KU into a 56–17 loss next month. The Sooners were good enough to earn a 20–6 win.

Then it was over to the BYU-KU game. The Jayhawks had been favored by between 8.5 and 10 points all week, which seemed crazy. They had struggled against a bad team last week while BYU won at Arkansas. I listened to a couple preview pods and both insisted that KU was a bad matchup across the field for BYU, and expected a comfortable Kansas win. I still didn’t trust them.

Naturally KU covered, winning by 11.

Not that it was that easy. Sure, KU got a scoop-and-score on BYU’s second snap of the game. But the Cougars led by one at halftime and KU’s offense seemed to be struggling. KU dropped a sure pick-six on the first snap of the second half, which seemed ominous. Until Kenny Logan snatched a pick-six two plays later. Then the offense took over. It wasn’t spectacular. Just solid, physical, ball-control offense with a couple beautiful touchdown passes to Luke Grimm mixed in.

Take out a couple bad, untimely penalties and this game is a blowout, so lots to feel good about.

As much as last week’s winning ugly game at Nevada, I think this game really showed the improvement of the program. They won a game by dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. KU rushed for 221 yards while holding BYU to nine yards on the ground. For years that was the biggest personnel issue with the Kansas roster: both lines sucked so they couldn’t protect their quarterback or control the game on defense. That once or twice a year things came together and the team was still in the game late, it was inevitable failure on the lines that sealed their fate. There’s a long way to go, and the competition gets much tougher this week. But as much of the credit as Jalon Daniels, Devin Neal, Daniel Hishaw, Logan, and Cobee Bryant get, it is the two lines that truly demonstrate how much KU has improved.

Being 4–0 in consecutive seasons for the first time in over 100 years is pretty dope.

Oh, and the bigger deal is that I am traveling to Austin to watch the #24 Jayhawks take on the #3 Longhorns next Saturday. Really looking forward to standing in the 90+ degree heat for four hours. No, really, I am. It will be my first KU football game in 13 years, plus I’m seeing guys I haven’t seen in six and 20 years. I’ll take potential heatstroke and sunburn in exchange.

Seconds after the KU game ended S walked in the house with the dinner she had picked up for us. I scarfed down my burger then headed back outside for the evening games.

I watched half an hour of Oregon State-Washington State before flipping to the night’s marquee game, Ohio State-Notre Dame. That was quite a contest. I’m not really sure why Ryan Day was so worried about what Lou Holtz said about his team. No one cares what that crazy old man says. And I’m not sure how the Notre Dame coaching staff can let their team play the final two plays of the game with only ten men on the field. If they struggle through a very rough stretch in their schedule the next three weeks, that decision may become even more significant.

It was getting a little chilly so I moved back inside during the fourth quarter of OSU-ND. Being back on cable meant I could happily rotate between games. I watched a little of everything that was on, without really settling anywhere. Penn State looked pretty impressive. When I was watching USC they were doing usual dumb USC stuff, although it seems like they figured things out late. I ended the night by watching the overtime periods between Akron and Indiana. Akron should have won in regulation, but missed a short field goal as time expired. Eventually the Hoosiers pulled it out in the fourth OT. Inspiring stuff from the Hoosiers.

NFL Sunday

I did not watch nearly as much football on Sunday. I would truly be a sicko if I had tried to sit through another full day.

I flipped on the Colts-Ravens game midway through the second quarter and was surprised that the Colts were only down seven. Anthony Richardson was the most notable of several key players who were sitting out the visit to Baltimore.

The Colts carved out a 10–7 lead at the break and trailed by just one when they set up to receive a punt with under three minutes remaining in the game.

That’s when all hell broke loose. The next 45 minutes of real time covered about 11 minutes of football time. And it was all gloriously stupid. The Colts would make a terrible play, then the Ravens would match it. Then the Colts would say, “OK, we REALLY don’t want to win,” and do something dumber. Only for the Ravens to say, “Not so fast!” and top them again. But then the Colts would make an amazing play and seem to have the game in hand, only for the Ravens to step up with their own amazing play. The CBS announcers were incredulous, shouting about the crazy things each team was doing.

This went on for the last 2:30 of regulation and almost all of overtime until Matt Gay hit his fourth field goal greater than 50 yards in the game to steal the win for the Colts.

Just an amazing, gloriously idiotic stretch of football. I literally laughed out loud multiple times.

This is the freedom that comes with not really caring whether the home team wins or loses. I’m just looking to be entertained. This game – or at least those last 11 minutes – were about as entertaining of a game as I’ve watched recently.

Three weeks in the Colts are in first place, their only loss being a game they pissed away late. Zach Moss (WHO?!?!) ran for 122 yards and had another 23 yards receiving. If only Jonathan Taylor had come to his senses and was playing in this offense.

The AFC South sucks.

Kid Hoops

L had her final travel team tryout Sunday. There were a lot fewer girls there than the first one she went to, as I think many of the locals had already put in their two recommended appearances. When I walked in she looked wiped out since she had played a lot more than two weeks ago.

It’s all kind of a mystery how this high school travel thing works, so we’re hoping we hear in the next couple weeks that she’s landed on a decent team.

She was excited that the director of training and recruiting who runs the workouts knew her name. Doesn’t hurt that her high school coach has worked in this program the past couple years.

Weekend Notes

September 18, 2023 /

HS Football

Two games again this weekend.

Friday night Cathedral played at the public school down the street. Both girls had some friends over before the game and we walked to the stadium. First play of the night CHS snapped the ball over the quarterback’s head, he chased but could not cover, and North Central took over in Irish territory. Not a promising start.

North Central was winless and it showed, as they went nowhere and gave the ball back to CHS, who methodically ran up a 49–0 lead before halftime. A penalty on the final play of the game gave NC an untimed snap, and they got the ball into the end zone to lose 49–6.

I’ve gone to four of the first five games this season (L has been to all five) and each of them has been on a perfect evening for football. CHS is out of state the next two weeks. We’ll see if the weather holds when we return to games in October.

Saturday I took L to the freshman game so she could take pictures. NC took the lead twice on huge kickoff returns that set up short possessions. Each time Cathedral answered with a 70+ yard TD run. The Irish pulled away in the second half to win 34–21. Very entertaining.

I stood near the dads of a couple of the players, who had a game-long commentary going. I’m thinking I should just live blog what they say some week as it is hilarious.

Oh, and L handed her phone to a friend to take a picture of her with some football player after the game. Then she saw the kid twice more over the weekend. Good grief…

College Football

Surely it is a sign of how far KU football has come that Jayhawk fans were pissed off about Saturday’s result. I mean, the program went something like a decade without winning a road game once. So even if needlessly close and nervous, getting out of Reno 3–0 should be what we’re focusing on, right? When you struggle with a team that got blasted by an FCS team the previous week, it’s going to mess with your head.

The worst part of the game wasn’t that KU played poorly, or that I don’t have CBS Sports Network and had to listen to the game, or that I’m not crazy about KU’s radio announcers. No, the worst part was that it began at 10:30 Eastern, and since victory wasn’t assured until there was under a minute to play, that meant I went to bed after 2:00 AM Sunday. Several of my buddies checked out at halftime, which was probably the smart move. I was wiped out on Sunday. I had Colorado State-Colorado muted on the TV so I was entertained. Just wish the game had started at a more reasonable time.

Saturday was also M’s first game in the stands for UC, as they played Miami (OH). The schools have the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, and I was amazed to learn that despite winning 16-straight in the series, UC only led by one win.

M got fantastic seats and I was constantly looking for her in the crowd shots. Never saw her though.

Miami played great and held a lead into the fourth quarter until the Bearcats jumped ahead. Miami tied it and then UC had a makable field goal to win the game late that Miami blocked to send the game to overtime.

In OT Miami scored first, then picked off a pass in the end zone to get the W. Now the series is tied 60–60–7. Two of M’s best friends go to Miami. I bet those girls were way nicer about breaking a long losing streak than I would have been in the same situation. We talked to M Sunday and she said it was a lot of fun, until the very end.

Colts

Another Sunday of doing work for relatives meant I missed most of the Colts game. I was tracking the score and saw the Colts were up 14–3, then 21–3. I also noticed that Gardner Minshew was playing. That was strange.

When I got home and looked up what happened I learned that Anthony Richardson had gone nuts early, smacked his head on the turf, played two more series, and then reported concussion symptoms and sat out the rest of the game. Hmmmm.

You can’t get too excited about beating up on the Texans – who tried their hardest to come back in the fourth quarter – yet it’s still promising that the Colts apparently looked really good with Richardson in. Now comes the worry of when he’ll play again and if he’s now in the “every big hit might cause a new concussion” zone. Which is a bad place to be.

KU Hoops

This is not good. Very not good. There were some rumbles of displeasure/disbelief when Bill Self took on Arterio Morris, given he played last year with a domestic abuse charge pending in Texas, but no general outcry. I would expect even Teflon Bill is going to get some serious heat about Morris as more comes out about this case.

Assorted Other Notes

We got the girls’ car back from the repair shop on Wednesday, about a week earlier than expected, which was awesome. It looks nearly perfect, so no complaints.

One of our senate seats is opening up here in Indiana next year, so the rats are scrambling to get their names out there early. The last two Sundays NFL games have been flooded with ads from all the “self-made outsiders” who will be in the Republican primary next spring. Throw in a very nasty Indianapolis mayoral race in this fall’s election, and I’m already having to mute commercial breaks. Really looking forward to 2024.

Speaking of commercials, I saw my first Christmas ad on Saturday. That was September 16 for those of you who don’t own calendars.

While on the subject of getting an early start on the holidays, S and I were at Target on Thursday and bought two full-size, posable skeletons for the front porch. We got a lot of looks as we wheeled them through the store and parking lot. We’ve given them some accessories and have a couple more things coming. Once we get everything situated the way we like I’ll share a picture.

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