Tag: football

Akron is probably the only honest school in the nation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ASM Sports: University of Akron ruled the only school ineligible for bowl participation due to poor academics

In unrelated news, the University of Akron is probably the only honest school in the nation.  Reporting completely honestly in regards to the academics of their student athletes, whom, unsurprisingly are probably as collectively intelligent as a nursery school, instead of boasting falsely inflated graduation rates, and the flagrantly high GPAs of all the guys they have playing sports who are there are probably majoring in African-American studies, sports management, physical education, or any other patsy program that is a red flag for a student ringer.

Seriously though, anyone who’s ever heard a college student athlete ringer speak can tell right away that they’re not attending their schools in order to get an education.  There have been numerous published stories and documentaries about how flagrant this whole issue is, it’s just that as long as college sports keeps raking in the money as it does, there is no end to the amount of cheeks that will be turned to ignore the truth.

Not sure who’s the captain of the ship at the University of Akron, but they seriously haven’t been paying attention at the NCAA money making game, and should probably feel pretty embarrassed being the only school in FBS that has this distinction.  Lord only knows how many other schools, from low-tier FCS programs all the way to the royals in the Power-4 are actually as equally academically inept as Akron was, but are being run by smart enough people to be able to work around that and lie through their teeth in order to remain bowl eligible, but mostly important eligible to keep making that bonus money that comes from participating in bowl games.

This is entirely one of those situations where Akron shouldn’t be ashamed of being the dumbest school in the nation because of their poor academics, they should be ashamed of being the dumbest school in the nation because they’re the only ones who got caught being dumb, since every single other FBS school is probably lying their faces blue in regards to their academics.  If every school reported their academics honestly, the entire NCAA would probably be like, Stanford, Army and Navy vying for every single championship, because every single other school in the country has more athletic ringers that are illiterate than they have people that can pass econ 101.

Either way, kind of good on Akron for just trying to be honest, but in a field as crooked as the NCAA, they’re only shooting themselves in the feet at hamstringing their earning potential by doing such.  I get wanting to have integrity and honor and all that jazz, but at some point it’s just fucking embarrassing being the only ones in the entire division that didn’t get the memo, especially in a state that has six other FBS schools that they could have copied their homework off of.

Wouldn’t be surprised if next year, Akron is miraculously bowl eligible again, and academics across the board somehow are suddenly genius level.

In other news, there is such a thing as the National Lacrosse League

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

YT: two lacrosse goalies fighting at an NLL game

When I first saw this clip, one of the first things I thought to myself was, how old is this player that took off the jersey with the logo that look precariously similar to the Washington Capitals logo?  When he turned around, the male pattern baldness on his head shone like the fucking diamond on top of the pyramid in The Mummy Returns, and I thought to myself, man, high school boys got it rough if they’re going bald this early in their lives.

But then I learned that the NLL at the corner of the screen stood for National Lacross League, and it wasn’t an abbreviation for some city or province in Australia that I’d never heard of in my life, so that meant that these guys were somewhat grown men, playing lacrosse professionally, and I’d just learned that there was such a thing as the National Lacrosse League, that actually affords a bunch of Chads, Trents, Jaxsons, Rhetts and Wyatts the opportunity to get paid to play lacrosse.

The only thing that I can fathom being whiter than the NLL is the crowd of people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.

Secondly, I wondered what in the world had to have been said or done in order for the two goalies to get so triggered to where they thought the absolute next and only option was to start throwing hands?  I admit that I don’t really know anything about lacrosse* beyond it’s a bunch of white guys using nets on sticks to try and get a ball into the net of their opponents.  But I do know that said nets are a substantial distance away from one another, and a quick Google search says that they are 100 yards apart, which is the same distance between endzones in futbol americano (a real sport), so that’s quite a distance between nets, and their goalies.

*to the point where my hands don’t even have the muscle memory to type out lacrosse properly; seriously, I’ve forgotten to write the ‘e’ at the end of it at least six times at this point, and I keep having to correct it

Needless to say, I’m curious to know what the heck possibly could have been said or done between these two Chads from so far apart, to where they mutually agreed to meet up and start swinging.  Surely, there had to be a preexisting beef that just needed a spark to ignite physicality; maybe they had a disagreement about a Charlie Kirk podcast or one accused the other’s dad of insider trading or something, either way, the wussiest fight in the world was still the result of it.

Seriously, when both guys shed their MegaZord’s worth of armor, it was basically two guys whose offseason regimen is clearly 2-3 cycles of P90X, and they really had no business trying to throw punches.  Neither guy went down, there was no blood or even the slightest indication of a bruise, and I’m guessing even before the first punch was thrown, one or both of them probably felt the sense of wtf am I doing, but because they had started it, it had to happen, regardless of how pathetic it ended up being.

Regardless, poor form though, from both Luke and Trey.  This fight was enough to get NLL some ESPN exposure to where people under rocks like me can learn of their existence, but not nearly to the quality to where I talk about it any other fashion than ridicule and airing out my grievances with white guys.  Had they gone a little more full R-word and maybe hit a good pro-wrestling move like this kid dropping an avalanche head-scissor Fame-Asser, then people might be willing to put a little bit of respect on the NLL’s name.

Jayden Daniels is about as Japanese as a NASCAR Toyota

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There was once an episode of King of the Hill where there was an all-Asian country club in Arlen that just kind of out of the blue began trying to woo and get Hank to become a member.  It was later revealed that the club needed to have at least one non-Asian member to get some sort of sponsorship with the PGA, which would culminate with a visit from, “the greatest Asian player in the history of the game – Tiger Woods.”

Ultimately, Hank realizes the ruse and not wanting to be a token whitey, declines the membership.  Khan, desperate to gain clout with the Asian elite of Arlen ultimately decides to hang with his redneck neighbors instead, and we have a fairly happy ending for the main characters.

But the point of this backstory is mainly revolving around the joke about how Tiger Woods is the greatest Asian golfer in history, despite the fact that most of America doesn’t identify him at all by his Asian heritage, despite the fact that his genetic background contains a fairly substantial amount of genes originating from China and Thailand.

Because that’s basically precisely what the NFL is doing when they start declaring Jayden Daniels the first ever Japanese quarterback in the history of the league.  Apparently, despite the fact that he appears to identify as a black man, he has a great-grandmother who was Japanese, and has thusly decided to honor an ancestor three generations removed, by putting a Japanese flag on the back of his helmet, which basically served as the impetus to this whole story.

Depending on the genetic backgrounds of his predecessors, Daniels is probably no more than like 12.5% Japanese; I don’t know what percentage of indigenous someone needs to claim in order to get to run a casino, but I imagine it’s somewhere slightly more than 12.5% in order to do so, but that’s not stopping the NFL from seeing potential dollar signs and cultural outreach with Daniels’ pithy amount of Japanese in his genetics.

By saying the first-ever Japanese QB, you’d think they were talking about someone who looked like Ken Watanabe or Hiroyuki Sanada.  Don’t get me wrong, Daniels is a good looking kid, but to say Japanese guy and flash this guy’s face?  As the kids say, the fuck outta here

NFL be grasping at some real low-hanging fruit in tryna spin this shit into some global outreach, and that the NFL is a global game on par with futbol.  If they really wanted to really glorify football americano in Japan, they’d talk about shit like how when Japan crushed the USA in some foreign exhibition, if they really wanted to garner interest in the sport overseas.

Jayden Daniels is an outsanding player and has managed to bring a feeling of hope back to Washington Football, but he’s about as Japanese as the Toyota RAV-4 driven by the MAGA idiot down the street who flaunts his racism and hate for all that aren’t white, and the NFL looks like a bunch of clowns trying to portray him as anything other than such.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Is this becoming a Georgia thing?

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11aliveOnMySide: Marietta teen accepted into 52 colleges, amassing at least $1.8M in cumulative scholarship offers

So I have a tab open with a generic Google query for “college accepted” with filters to show me the most recent news.  Location is not turned on.  Yet all the stories that I’ve come across in regards to #TRYHARDs have all been kids from various Georgia areas, and not just seemingly out of Westlake High like they were highly concentrated from last #SZN.  Which is leading me to believe that the whole practice of applying to every single school under the sun for probably free seems to presumably be a very Georgia thing to do, especially seeing as how I have yet to come across a single #TRYHARD story from anywhere outside the state of Georgia yet.

Anyway, we have a new #TRYHARD for the #SZN, and what stands out to me for this one is the fact that the chica isn’t from one of the more commonly found #TRYHARD regions, but is actually quite the opposite.  Wheeler High School in Marietta is a school that’s not on the south, west or southwestern part of the Metro area, and isn’t just in Marietta, but in East Cobb Marietta, where the snobbery is real, but the general performance scores of the schools in the district are above average, generally.

Frankly, it’s one of the first times I’ve heard of an actual #TRYHARD coming out of a more upscale location, and I’m curious to what the criteria for getting to apply to a gazillion colleges with presumably no concern over application fees is, because if they’re allowing kids from Wheeler to do it, then geographical location isn’t necessarily a deciding factor in this privilege to shoot as many shots as you want.

But unlike many of reported #TRYHARDs, this one was considerate, and clearly egotistical enough to have a straight up graphic made, because it gives us a little more insight to some of the 52 schools that she was accepted into, because so many of these #TRYHARDs don’t actually disclose it, because as much as they want to brag about getting into 52 schools, they don’t want to brag that 48 of them are like small commuter schools nobody outside of their general locations actually know of.

Anyway, among the schools that this particular #TRYHARD got into are basically the entire SEC, with Auburn, Florida, Alabama, LSU, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi State (but oddly no Georgia), and then randomly some other Power-5 schools like Clemson, NC State, Oklahoma, Michigan State and Ohio State.

What seems apparent to me is that with the exceptions of Oklahoma, Michigan State and Ohio State, this girl doesn’t really want to stray too far out of the Southeast in general, seeing as how just about every school she got into is at the very most, like an eight hour drive to, less if flown.  But also, of all the aforementioned schools, they’re all notable college football programs, so if I had to guess, this girl really wants to go somewhere with big football cultures, and probably end up becoming an alcoholic at some point in her college career.  Even many of the non-Power 5 schools she got into have football programs that some people may have actually heard about, feeding the hypothetical narrative of the importance of football to our subject #TRYHARD over here.

Anyway, in the grand spectrum of #TRYHARDSZN, this is a solid contender, but if I’m a betting man, no chance at being top #TRYHARD.  58 and $1.8M are decent numbers, but it’s still early and the Ivy Leagues haven’t released acceptances yet.  I’m sure the #SZN still has a lot of gas left in it, and hopefully we’ll start to see some #TRYHARDs emerge from places outside of the state of Georgia, because this can’t be the only state where they’re all going to be coming from.

Notre Dame for the Natty; and chaos

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

An interesting thing happened this year’s college football bowl season; with the playoff expanded to 12 teams, it basically murdered any interest I could have in absolutely any other bowl game that wasn’t a CFB playoff game.  Even Virginia Tech being in the Belk Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which is maybe like a C-tier bowl, instead of the E-tier that shit like the TransPerfect Music City Bowl or ReliaQuest Bowl couldn’t interest me in the least bit.  And I don’t think such was the intention of the CFB committee, but at the same time I don’t think they should be surprised that fucks to give for any bowl that wasn’t a playoff game, actually ended up being quite minimal.

Anyway, the field is set for the National Championship, with it being The Ohio State University against Notre Dame, two schools I typically give no shits about beyond that I want to see them lose every time I hear their names in competition.  Not that I had any real horse in the race, but I obviously hoped for Georgia to win a third natty in recent years for the fact that they’re the hometown team for me, but their chances seemed like a wash when Carson Beck was ruled out after hurting himself in the SEC Championship.

Texas was my B-pick, because I proclaimed that the Natty really was theirs to lose; and it’s not because I like Texas by any stretch of the imagination, but if we really did end up with a Texas vs. UGA III, I didn’t think there was any chance that Georgia could upend them a third consecutive time in a single season.  And if there’s any consolation at all for me, there’s always some degree of satisfaction in being right.

However both schools shit the bed, and we’re stuck with TOSU and ND for the first-ever 12-team playoff version Natty, and I really couldn’t give a shit on who actually wins.  Honestly, I think TOSU is probably going to win, like a 38-17 contest because they look like world beaters right now, and they did win the first-ever 4-team playoff, so it just seems like one of those kismet things that they’d win the first-ever 12-team playoff, out of some weird tradition.

But for the sake of picking someone to root for, I think I’m going to be rooting for Notre Dame; not because I like them in the least bit*, but because Notre Dame winning a National Championship is basically the worst thing to happen for the CFB committee, who will undoubtedly be facing a lot of difficult questions should ND win the Natty, and I like the idea of chaos being brought to their doorstep instead of TOSU getting to be National Champions.

*especially since they no longer have a Korean kicker

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How does this manage to continue to happen?

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SI: New York Jets WR Malachi Corley drops ball before crossing into the end zone, negating touchdown into turnover

I don’t care enough to verify the details, but I’m fairly positive that between the NFL and CFB, this exact scenario has happened at least once every single year for like, the last decade or more, where a player with a guaranteed touchdown, boneheadedly drops the ball before crossing the plane of the endzone, negating six points and instead turning the ball over.

It never fails to astound, or fire me up whenever I hear about these instances, because I guess it pushes past my already extremely low standards as far as the intelligence of people are concerned, and I just can’t believe that there are people this dumb, that repeatedly keep squandering their privilege to be playing kids games at the highest levels and getting paid egregious amounts of money to do so.

It’s never not mindblowing to me, because throughout the history of the sport, all offensive skill players have always been like, GIMME THE BALL, but all of these clowns who have dropped the ball at the one-yard line couldn’t be in any more rush to get rid of the ball in their hands, to the point where they’re making these dumbass drops.

I just think about how in Forrest Gump, when Forrest was returning kicks for Alabama, his first TD return, he just kept running past the end zone, smashing into the band en route into the locker room tunnel.  A little overkill, but a definite example of protecting the ball and securing the score. 

Whenever a highlight of dropping the ball at the 1 occurs, I always wonder why players insist on being closer to DeSean Jackson instead of being closer to Forrest Gump.

There’s really not much more to add to this, aside from the continued disbelief that this somehow manages to happen at the frequency in which it does.  And while writing about it, YouTube delivers, as there’s actually a pretty interesting video that has chronicled this baffling phenomenon, and there’s a frighteningly more number of instances that have occurred than I was aware of, which doesn’t help the narrative of how bullshit stupid it is.

VT-MIA: Not sure what’s bigger bullshit

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The ending, in which a game-winning Virginia Tech Hail Mary pass that was originally ruled a completion and a touchdown that was overruled by pretty inconclusive video evidence to protect Miami and their top-10 ranking, or learning about the existence of Miami tight-end Cam McCormick who is a 26-year old NINTH-YEAR senior.

Obviously, I can handle an L, as asinine and bullshit as it might be; Virginia Tech isn’t expected to be a contender again any time soon, so I’ve always got this mindset that any victories are pleasant surprises, but for the most part if the opponent is remotely recognizable in name, they’re probably going to beat the Hokies for the next few years, Miami included.

But learning about Cam McCormick, that’s definitely something worth spouting some words on.  Mostly, along the lines of, how is this fucking legal, that a guy can just keep coming back to college year after year after year, and competing against kids typically between the ages of 17-22 traditionally.  Sure, there may be an occasional fifth year guy on account of a red-shirting here and there, but Cam McCormick is 26 fucking years old.

I was five years into my first mortgage, and stressing out about my career and paying bills at the age of 26; Cam McCormick is probably still shotgunning beers and trying to pick up barely legal freshmen at frat parties at the U, and showing up to games and practice and feeling proud of himself for trucking kids 5-8 years younger than him.  Sure, he’s probably already making more money than I’ll ever see in my life through NILs, but there’s just something fucked up and weird about a guy that’s been “in college” for nine years, presumably still chipping away at a bachelor’s degree he’ll never actually use any of his bullshit credits from, that is if he’s even required to go to class at all being a meathead.

Seriously, look at the picture.  McCormick is a grown-ass man playing against a bunch of kids.  It’s like Danny Almonte pretending to be 11-years old when he was actually a 14-year old flame thrower, except all the cards are on the table with McCormick and everyone knows he’s a bullshit ninth-year senior.  You can’t even call him a senior at this point, he’s like geriatric grade level.

And it’s bullshit that this is allowed.  What’s going to stop a program from recruiting or transfer-portal’ing a squad of 7th-9th year seniors and fielding a roster full of grown-ass men, who are all hardened and crusty from being 24+ in age, already divorced, and having notes to leave practice early so they can pick up their kids from daycare before they get charged by the minute if they’re late.  But when they take the field, they’re a squad of physically mature beasts who have been around the block a few times, and ready to stomp holes into the opponent who has an 18-year old kid at QB protected by an O-line that’s an average age of 20.5.

McCormick needs to fucking end this live-rendition of Van Wilder and get the fuck out of the game already, because it’s embarrassing and bullshit that a dumb jock is allowed to keep staying in school to play football when he’s closer to AARP eligibility than NCAA.