Tag: football

How does this manage to continue to happen?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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.

Oh the sweet irony

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol’d heartily: Joel Embiid expresses disappointment at Knicks fans taking over the Sixers’ Wells Fargo Center during the Knicks’ playoff win

Fewer things in sports are as awe-inspiring as a stadium takeover.  It’s nigh impossible to get sports fans to ever come together and be in complete solidarity at home, much less take the act on the road, but there have been instances throughout the history of sport where the planets align, the stars are in the right position and people manage to get on the same page, and embark on taking over stadiums, be it their own, and even more rarely, someone else’s.

Once there was a year where the Braves were not good and the visiting Chicago Cubs were having a strong season.  I remember watching the game on television, and noticing that the crowd was particularly hot that night, where the usually apathetic Atlanta fans were cheering for every single and strikeout, and there was a lot of booing whenever the Cubs did anything good for themselves.  But reality came catching up and eventually the Cubs took the lead and cruised to a relatively easy victory, but not before chasing off Braves fans, basically taking over Turner Field, and I remember seeing one shot of a large group of fans in the nosebleeds unfurling a banner that said “Wrigley South.”

It was fucking embarrassing.

There was a stretch where the Pittsburgh Penguins systematically eliminated the Washington Capitals from the NHL playoffs for 800 years in a row.  The greatest player in the history of the game since Gretzky, Alexander Ovechkin for whatever reason, couldn’t lead a DC team over the Penguins, and there was one specific year where Penguins fans trekked down to DC and really rub it into the face of Caps fans, and although they didn’t take over the USAir MCI Verizon Whatever the fuck they call it Arena now, they definitely didn’t make haste in getting out of town after the Penguins eliminated the Caps yet again.

Partying in the streets, congregating all over DC’s numerous landmarks in Penguins gear, basically marking their territory all over the city; it was fucking embarrassing.

The poor Baltimore Orioles, there was a stretch where they were woefully bad year in and year out, and eventually word got out to just about every team off of I-95, and Camden Yards was invaded countless times.  The Phillies, Yankees and Red Sox have taken over their stadium a bunch of times, and even the Nationals down the street have gathered en masse in their lovely ballpark.  They’ve been proclaimed to be Yankee Stadium South and Fenway South more times than they should’ve been. 

I’ve actually been there for a Nationals take over and a Yankee takeover.  One man I spoke with explained to me that it was cheaper to drive his family of four down to Baltimore from New York, the cost of tickets, food and lodging, than it would’ve been for decent seats at Yankee Stadium.  That fact, as well as getting taken over as repeatedly as they have been: fucking embarrassing.

But circling back to the Phillies, there was one year in particular that stands out, where Phillies fans absolutely took the fuck over at Nationals Park for the season opener.  I remember reading about it in the aftermath, how a really popular Philly sports website arranged the whole thing, and exploited a ticketing snafu that gave large groups priority when purchasing tickets, and the result was a Nationals home game that was easily 65%+ Phillies fans, where all the home players were booed out of the building, and Roy Halladay absolutely shut them down.

I knew several friends who were at the game, and unsurprisingly, it was one of the worst game experiences they’d ever had.  All the same, it was, fucking embarrassing.

And as far as I’m concerned, Philly kind of reinvented the idea of stadium takeovers.  After Occupy Nationals Park, it became almost like something that Philly sports fans would do anywhere else they could get away with it.  As mentioned, they weren’t shy about pulling the same act on the Orioles, but they’ve also attempted it on the Baltimore Ravens in the seasons in which the Eagles had them on the road.

The New York and Pittsburgh sport scenes are a little more prideful to allow such to happen, but as the pattern seems to be, just like everyone in Westeros, everyone marches south.

Which brings us back to the original topic, it’s sweet irony at its finest that not only did a Philadelphia sports team get invaded, the players definitely noticed, as Joel Embiid took the time to “I love them but” and basically throw them under the bus for not showing up to support the team, in the playoffs no less, and allowing for all the Knicks fans to take over their home court.

After the NLDS choke against the Phillies last year, I basically threw in the towel and resigned that Philly definitely is a sports town worthy of respect, for the innovative culture and brand they’ve built where players want to throw themselves into moving traffic for the fans, but then they have to and act like shitty fairweather fans who clearly have taken the 76ers for granted, the Process for granted and have collectively prioritized Eagles football and Phillies baseball over their basketball franchise.

And getting the stuffing beat out of them by the Knicks, of all the teams in the league.  The Knicks haven’t been relevant since Patrick Ewing was still on team, and I don’t say that just to be snarky, in the footage I’d seen of the takeover, the #1 jersey still seen being worn by most of these fans, is #33 Ewing.

The Knicks suck, but the Sixers and the city of Philadelphia are allowing them and their fans to have a genuine W, before they’ll inevitably choke and make this whole playoff run feel all for naught.

How fucking embarrassing.

College Football presents: Van Wilder

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This shouldn’t be legal: NCAA grants Oklahoma State quarterback, Alan Bowman, waiver to play in his seventh college football season

This is funny to me in so many ways.  In an age of CFB where there are 18-year old true freshmen who bounce after one, softly-mandatory year of college, here we have a 24-year old man-child who is seemingly determined to stay in college, and has been granted a waiver to play for a seventh year.

Traditionally, kids enter college at around age 18, if they do everything by the book, they’re usually out in four years, by age 22, and then they’re unleashed upon the real world with as much earthly idea of what to do after college as they did before it but that’s another story for another day.  But Alan Bowman, will be 24 years old when he suits up for his seventh season of college football, and we basically have a real-life Van Wilder, as in a grown-ass man who seemingly is entirely against leaving college.

I love the explanation of how he was redshirted in his freshman year a decade ago was the justification for allowing him to play a seventh year in college ball, because typically redshirting is a cheap tactic employed by schools who are glorified sports franchises, to immerse a kid in the team culture, practice with the squad, train with the squad, learn with the squad, and occasionally get into a very small number of games.  It does not go against their finite number of eligible years, and it’s basically a way to get a bonus year from a kid before really actually using them.

But typically a redshirt year adds just a single year to a guy’s college career, but in the case of Alan Bowman, it’s being the rationale of why he’s going to get a seventh year.  This isn’t like the case of the 34-year old kicker for UVA, because that dude at least served his country forever ago and held off on college until he basically got the GI Bill to pick it all up for him and then decided to play ball.  It’s just a guy that just flat-out refuses to leave college for whatever reason.

Frankly, aside from it being hilarious, it really shouldn’t be legal in the holistic sense that a grown-ass man will be taking the field against squads that will have literal teenagers still playing against him.  There are probably freshman players who are still learning how to live on their own, while Bowman is probably throwing away AARP applications from his mail.

I mean I have to assume that Bowman is sticking around as long as he can because he’s probably not good enough to play professionally, and he’s trying to milk an NIL train or some sort of under-the-table benefits as long as humanly possible, because when his lengthy college career is over, his playing days probably are too.

Either way, it’s just hilarious that there will be a guy playing in his seventh college season, taking the field for a fairly adequate football program.  He’s literally nearly done with his second tour of college if he’s been taking school by the books, which he probably isn’t in all fairness but still, damn boy; get the fuck out of there, and let actual college players have an actual college career.

Rarely are there ever winners in college football

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Okay, so I’ve been marinating over this topic over the last few days.  The 2023-2024 college football playoff field is set, and unsurprisingly there exists a ton of salt from various fanbases, just as much pointless analysis to simulate a bunch of hypotheticals, and then a whole lot more salt from the results of such hypothetical matchups.  Honestly, this isn’t something that I was really intending on writing about, but it’s getting a little slow at the office as we’ve entered the tail end of the year and the holiday season, and I’ve found a little bit of time here and there to help kill time by writing, win-win.

Honestly, I think the committee did an okay job with the four teams that are slated to play for the National Championship.  The only one I really don’t agree with is Texas, but I’m completely okay with Michigan, Washington and Alabama being in the playoff.  I wholeheartedly agree that Florida State, in spite of their 13-0 record and ACC championship aren’t a top-4 team, because the ACC has been more or less anything but a Power-5 conference since well, Trevor Lawrence left Clemson.

Trying to not sound like such a Georgia homer, but despite the fact that they did lose the SEC to Alabama, I still feel that they should’ve been in the playoff, especially instead of Texas.  CFB is always about recency bias above all else, and Georgia did finally lose, at the worst possible time ever, but nobody’s going to convince me that the two-time defending National Champions who hadn’t lost in two years doesn’t deserve to be in the CFB playoff.

An even harder sell is convincing me, as well as millions of other CFB fans, that a Michigan/Washington/Georgia/Alabama field wouldn’t be absolute money for all parties involved, because it’s no secret that the SEC has flexed on the entire sport for decades at this point, and what better way for other conferences to try to overcome the mountain than by having two SEC powerhouses in the field?

If anything, the one flexible school that is in the field in my opinion is Washington, because they’re always a strong regular season school, but have done jack shit come postseason, with them getting trounced by Alabama just a few years ago the time they did make it in.  Plus they have a far smaller fanbase that isn’t nearly as willing to spend money, travel, spend money or spend money than programs such as FSU, Texas or Ohio State, and as long as the CFB playoff remains a biased invitational, there will always remain arguments of keeping certain programs out for the pursuit of money.

Regardless of my armchair analysis, the one thing that most everyone can agree upon at this juncture is that the CFB playoff field desperately, desperately needs expansion.  Fortunately, this is something that is mutually agreed upon by the CFB committee, but unfortunately this is not the year in which it rolls out, otherwise we’d have a pretty lit playoff field set.

But the word is that starting next season, the playoff will become a 12-team field with the top four seeds all getting bye weeks, and then 5-12 playing games to reduce to eight, then to four, before setting up the game for the Natty.  And although this system is probably more than sufficient to get a lot of CFB fans wet, sure there is a lot for me to like as well, but I just think that it isn’t a particularly good idea as well.

Continue reading “Rarely are there ever winners in college football” →

Jimbo Fisher: The Bobby Bonilla of College Football

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When I first heard the rumblings that Texas A&M was planning to axe Jimbo Fisher, I didn’t think much of it.  Just that it must really suck to be Jimbo Fisher and having to hear through the grapevine that your termination was basically coming, and that you just have to sit there waiting for the shoe to drop.  Even more so than the fact that at the time, Texas A&M, while not having a great season, were still 6-4, bowl eligible and in the grand spectrum of the sport, at least more than likely going to have yet another winning season.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Texas A&M is doing such, because Jimbo, in spite of not having won a National Championship for the school, is still a rare breed of good coach, who has been to the top of the mountain before, when he won a natty with Florida State, and for all intents and purposes knows what he’s doing.  The interesting thing is that ATM* hasn’t exactly been a cellar dweller under Jimbo Fisher, which is usually one of the first pre-requisites for firing a coach; under Jimbo, ATM has gone 45-25, and won 9, 8, 9, 8 games before a five-win season a year ago, and as it stands right now, the Aggies probably will finish with seven this year.  But two unsatisfactory years is basically bad luck, injuries, a miss on a recruit or two, but really nothing a fairly successful football program like ATM should worry about.

*what I like to call Texas A&M because their logo’s letter order is literally, “ATM” and it’s also a metaphor to the cash cow that college football is

What it really boils down to is the fact that ATM has higher expectations than much of the rest of CFB, and are tired of hanging out in the middle of the pack and want to make a change for the sake of making change.  The thing is, there’s a vastly higher chance that ATM is going to go through some really dismal years over the next few, possibly miss some bowls (and the payouts that come with participation), and probably would have been better off in terms of wins and losses if they stuck with Jimbo.

But the bigger story is the fact that in firing Jimbo Fisher, ATM is still on the hook for around $77 million dollars of contracted salary, and despite the fact that he won’t be driving the reigns for the program, are very much responsible for paying every single cent.  Unsurprisingly, this is the highest payout in CFB history, and if there’s one thing that never seems to change with my interests, is stories about sports having too much fucking money and doing a whole lot of dumb shit with it.

Long story short, from what I’ve seen, it appears that ATM is taking a page out of MLB and going on an installment plan in order to help spread out the money they owe Jimbo, instead of just plunking down $77M, slapping him on the ass and bidding him adieu.  So until 2031, it looks like ATM will be paying $7.27M every single year to not be coaching ATM.  He gets a lump sum of $19.4 immediately for some reason, I don’t care to know the granular details, but basically starting in 2024 and over the next eight years, he’ll be getting a cool $7.27M for doing absolutely nothing,

This is of course, a similar situation to Bobby Bonilla, the baseball player whose agent somehow transformed $5.9M into nearly $30M, spread out over 25 years, except the fact that it doesn’t appear that Jimbo’s agent negotiated any variables for inflation or interest.  But who’s to say that within the next eight years, ATM gets sick of how much cash they’re literally throwing away, and renegotiate something that does encroach more similarly to Bobby Bo territory, but that’ll be another post for if it ever occurs.

But given the sheer dollar amount and the breakdown of daily intake, Jimbo Fisher is not only the Bobby Bonilla of CFB, he’s actually making out way bigger than Bobby Bonilla ever did.  $77M is greater than $30M, and whereas Bobby Bo is basically making $3k a day for existing, Jimbo Fisher will be making roughly $28k every single day until the end of 2031, merely for existing.

Chalk this up as another reason why sports are so (ironically) great, and just how much needless money is dumped into these industries to where programs can literally set millions and millions of dollars on fire and suffer absolutely no consequences in the process.  Whereas I couldn’t have given any lesser number of shits about Texas A&M in the past, just due to this failure of a scenario, I kind of feel like I need to root against them, and whomever is Jimbo’s successor, just so I can imagine a guy I gave no turds about in the past, laughing in front of a television while the Aggies get rolled around in the basement of the SEC for years to come.

God Bless Rednecks, Sometimes part 2

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Nope, the following picture is not a photoshop or a sports meme gone awry.  General Booty’s legal name is actually, General Booty.  There is a man living in the United States who’s birth certificate is legitimately General Booty.  General Axel Booty, and not an actual military rank.

I really hope this becomes more of a thing in coming years, because fewer things are more smugly amusing than hearing about rednecks from Texas who have ridiculous names like General Booty or Bumper Pool, whom to their credit of overcoming the criticism that silly names tend to degrade at, manage to get good enough at football to where they can actually try to make a future out of it.

Because I was quite tickled pink six years ago when I found out about Bumper Pool, and I’m quite amused to find out that there’s an actual possible starting quarterback for fucking Oklahoma, named General Booty.  I mean we’re talking about possibly being a successor to guys like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Spencer Rattler.  General Booty has the opportunity to get his name into the annals of Oklahoma football, and not just because his name is General Booty, although I think he’s already on his way there, regardless of if he ends up as QB1, 2 or even 3.

Regardless of his chances, let’s just do a little mini-dive into this guy named General Booty, and how the hell he came to fruition:

To no surprise, his father is a former player himself, having played at LSU as a wide receiver.  I say no surprise, because it’s the meathead jock type like a guy who played at LSU whom would be so fixated on the military rank of General to where he vowed to name his son by a rank should he have one, and by god did he ever, and therefore we have a legitimate person named General Booty.

Aside from his dumbass dad, it turns out that General Booty is actually related to former USC quarterback John David Booty, who actually made it to the NFL, even if he didn’t last that long in the show, but it goes to show that there’s clearly football in the genetics of the ol’ Booty lineage.

If I’m a betting man, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s going to be QB1 for the Sooners, seeing as how fifth-year senior Dillon Gabriel seems to be the more likely candidate to start, but stranger things have happened in sport.  I imagine that with the awareness of General Booty spreads, he’ll have a Brian Scalabrine-like cult following in the world of sports fandom, and any time he steps onto the field, people will be snickering and chuckling over his name, and by proxy, probably cheer everything he does, just so that they can talk about and spread the word about a guy named General Booty.