Lake Effect Trash Talk
Whoo boy, there is a bit of snow that shuffled in to Buffalo recently. So, with the Kittehs over in Foxborough taking on the steamrolling Pats, Buffalo will be the “home team” in Detroit for their game against the Jets. And tickets will be free, which is a cool thing for fans in Motown. The Jets just stink and Buffalo ought be a little jacked up, so I’m taking the Wagon Circlers. But what about the Kittehs? The Bill Bel and Brady brigade are just flat out rolling and just signed a new/old battering ram, er running back, LeGarrette Blount to solidify their running game. The Lions might be slipping back into the penalty prone ways. Hard not to take the Pats here.
Other than Pats and Lions, the other truly big game is the Cards up at the Seasquawks. The Squawks are favored pretty heavily. The national press, especially all the chatterers on ESPN, seem fixated on the Cards being in trouble because Carson Palmer is done for the year and backup Drew Stanton is in charge at QB. But I don’t think that is the worry, Stanton is competent, and the Cards were not exactly flashy even with Palmer. I think the problem is the running game, or actually lack thereof. The Cards get a little bit out of Andre Ellington, but really just don’t have much of a ground game. I think against a still tough Seattle defense, in that noisy stadium, that will doom the Cards. The Dolphins at Broncos and Ravens at Saints will also have big implications for all four teams and their playoff chances.
It is really a weak schedule in the college ranks this week. Arguably the two best games are in the Pac-12. First up is Rich Rod and the Arizona Wildcats in Utah to face the Utes.As I said earlier in the year when ASU played Utah, the Utes are good, and especially so at home in Rice Stadium. Lot of people picking Utah, but I think the Cats will pull out a narrow win. The other Pac-12 tilt of note is the yearly grudge match between USC and UCLA. The Bruins are favored at “home” in the Rose Bowl, but home field doesn’t mean much with these two. Both Brett Hundley and Cody Kessler are having great seasons at QB. I think it is a tossup, maybe slight edge to the Trojans. The SEC seems to all be playing Eastern Podunk State this week, so who cares about them? Special shoutout for Scribe on the Lehigh and Lafayette game being played in Yankee Stadium. I rate it a tossup, because who knows what can happen when these two get together! Seriously though, this is the 150th meeting in this ancient rivalry, and the NYT has a great story about the history.
Really, that is about it for excitement. There are only the two top shelf games in the NFL, but they should be good ones. The announcement of a no-bill, the opposite of an indictment for you non-criminal lawyers, is likely to be announced from the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office on Sunday, or so it seems to be shaping up to my eye. Officer Darren Wilson will skate for the homicide of Michael Brown, and all because prosecutor Bob McCulloch designed and ran a ridiculously out of the ordinary and craven grand jury designed to insure there was no indictment. Wilson figuratively chased a boy through the park and put a bullet in his heart. So today’s music is an absolutely kick ass version of Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) by the Stones from 1972. Rock on.
Update from emptywheel. Scribe actually wrote a great piece on the Lehigh/Lafayette game so I’m making an executive decision to share it with you all.
This is the weekend someone in the marketing department decided would be called “Rivalry Weekend”. And, so it is. Even though BMAz says it’s a lame weekend for college football, he’s wrong again. Many of the greatest rivalries in the college game get played today. But there is one rivalry which stands apart from the others. Today, Lafayette College and Lehigh University will play football against each other for the 150th time. That is more than any other pair of teams have played each other, anywhere, ever. This year The Game will take place at a neutral site. Yankee Stadium.
These are two smallish Eastern colleges with campuses about a dozen miles apart in two of the small, now post-industrial, cities of Pennsylvania. The schools are justly proud of their academics and the distinction of their graduates. You can look them up, but they routinely wind up near the top of the “highly competitive” categories.
Lehigh is a full-blown university awarding all sorts of degrees through the doctorate, but it came up as a school of engineering and the hard sciences. It was founded in the 19th century by the man in charge of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and located literally up the hill – Bethlehem’s South Mountain – from the main works and offices of the Bethlehem Steel Company. For generations there were many young men who, upon graduation, would go down the hill and into the offices of The Steel, to retire from there 40 or so years later. For the longest time, Lehigh’s teams were “the Engineers”. But, in recent years either they had an attack of the marketing department or a crisis of confidence and they wound up renaming themselves the “Mountain Hawks”.
Lafayette is an all-undergraduate college sited on College Hill, a bluff overlooking the city of Easton and the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers. Its professors actually teach students in classes. It was founded in the first part of the 19th century. Its graduates have been more catholic in their fields of accomplishment, though business and Wall Street are strongly represented. Since time out of mind, its teams have been called the “Leopards”. In the days before the No Fun League, college football was the game and Lafayette was a national powerhouse as well as innovators. They were consensus national champions in 1896, 1921 and 1926. That’s right. Three-time national champions. In those old days, responding to the team from the University of Pennsylvania stealing their signals, Lafayette’s team invented the huddle. And, after tiring of getting banged around, one of Lafayette’s players invented the old leather football helmet. And in the late 40s when Texas’ Jim Crow would have stopped their star running back, a former Tuskegee Airman, from playing, Lafayette told the Sun Bowl to keep their bowl bid.
The rivalry between these two colleges is and always has been intense even as they’ve gone from I-A to I-AA in football, I-A in other sports. If you haven’t experienced it from the inside it’s quite hard to describe. It extends from football through all other sports and into the work and social worlds. That whole “Roll Tide -War Eagle” bit has nothing on this. For many years, the intensity of the rivalry required The Game to be played twice – home and home – every year. Thus, today is the 150th time The Game has been played even though they only started playing in 1884. The energy behind the rivalry played out in stunts – can you build an egg launcher that can be smuggled into the game and will reach to the other side of the stadium? – violence – both were all-male schools until about 1970 and all that energy went into … something – vandalism – once, some Lehigh students put their welding skills to work and removed the balls from a larger-than-life bronze of General Lafayette. (After that and some very professionally done repairs, all outdoor statuary was boxed over for most of November. Students often repainted the boxes to look like outhouses.)
Two schools where football players play more for the love of the game than anything else. Both schools are antipathetic toward athletic scholarships and there are no academic shortcuts. Hardly any of the players ever gets a look from the No Fun League, so today is the end of football for most of the seniors. Each school has long traditions, alumni who deeply love them and many reasons to be proud. Today is one more. For me, Yankee Stadium is too far to travel, but I might be going to a sports bar where The Game will be on CBS Sports Network.
Raise a glass. This is what college football should be.
Pats 38 – 17
“New England is unbeaten at home since the 2012 season, and they are seven-point favorites over the visiting Lions. The over/under is 48 points”
Hmmm the first sentence makes me nervous….
How good is Detroit’s defense?
Detroit’s defense is great, and bmaz may be onto something about BillBel picking up Blount to try to barge through the Kitties. Only way Kitties win this is 1) if they sack early and often and 2) if they keep penalties in the 5ish range.
Thing is, in spite of all the talent, the Kitties O just as been fairly lackluster (I blame the snot-nosed kid, Joe Lomnardi, I used to play frisbee football with when I was 12 and he was 9). So even if you stop the Pats, I think the Pats will be able to contain Megatron and Golden.
A shout out to Nomolos for predicting our victory tonight.
The Lions really did suck today.
I miss Nomolos.
.
Also, the Cardinals sucked today. Mostly the Cards sucked because the Squawks were just better. Will be interesting to see if the Cards can put up against the Squawks and Niners in the last two games of the season.
.
I’m thinking Eastern Podunk has a real shot against the Gators today. Remarkably, though, I still think they have a good chance next week of embarrassing FSU and knocking them out of the playoffs.
.
On the Ferguson issue, one thought does occur. I’m trying to remember if among the abuses of the grand jury system in Houston that we’ve heard about, is convening a new grand jury and re-examining an issue where the previous one did not indict is one that could be done in Ferguson?
Short answer to the “new grand jury” question: “not likely”
.
Longer answer: to get a new GJ, you need a new prosecutor. Which, given the history of Saint Louis County, ain’t too likely. This one does a very good job of protecting and promoting the white power structure and they like that and will keep him in that job doing just that.
.
Moreover, to go back to the grand jury to get an indictment that will stand up, the prosecutor will have to be able to credibly argue that he came up with some new evidence. Not before the grand jury, but rather when the defendant comes back seeking to dismiss the indictment.
.
Deliberately botching the indictment is both hard to get people to admit to and hard to prove as a reason for a new indictment.
I suppose the best way to handle Darren Wilson getting a walk is to give him the Steve Bartman treatment (unjustified in Bartman’s case but not here), enhanced by pegging Wilson with the wholly-accurate nickname of “Killer”. Everywhere he goes: “how ya’ doin’, Killer?”. “How’s it hangin’, Killer?” “Would you like fries with that, Killer?”
.
No rest.
.
No respite.
.
No violence.
.
That treatment will, in the long run, be far more effective than a prosecution likely to fail because the prosecutor wants it to fail.
Petrino and the Louisville Cards are going to Southbend today to play the Golden Domers. Domers will probably win but one can only hope…
Gonna be icy and nasty too, assuming it’s like it is here (though lake effect may mean not).
Bmaz
Do you think Roger will comply with the Pre-Thanksgiving edict or stuff the turkey?
I understand that Pollak is a well respected Judge.
Maybe your buddy, Rusty will urge the Bully to “plead no contest” like his defense in Re Peterson case, and settle out of court………
“Roger Clemens could be held in contempt of court and face sanctions for disobeying an order to turn over correspondence involving the disgraced baseball pitcher’s agents and public relations guru to lawyers representing Clemens’ former trainer, a Brooklyn judge said in court papers Tuesday.
———————————————-
U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl L. Pollak ordered the former Yankee star to turn over the documents to Brian McNamee’s attorneys by Nov. 26. Pollak also told Clemens and his lawyers to explain by Dec. 19 why he should not be held in contempt and sanctioned for failing to produce the correspondence involving his agents, Randy and Alan Hendricks, and public relations guru Joe Householder.
——————————————————————–
“Defendant’s decision not to produce all responsive documents in violation of the Court’s Order was deliberate and intentional, and therefore subject to sanctions,” Pollak wrote in her order
This is the weekend someone in the marketing department decided would be called “Rivalry Weekend”. And, so it is. Even though BMAz says it’s a lame weekend for college football, he’s wrong again. Many of the greatest rivalries in the college game get played today. But there is one rivalry which stands apart from the others. Today, Lafayette College and Lehigh University will play football against each other for the 150th time. That is more than any other pair of teams have played each other, anywhere, ever. This year The Game will take place at a neutral site. Yankee Stadium. Sold-out Yankee Stadium.
.
These are two smallish Eastern colleges with campuses about a dozen miles apart in two of the small, now post-industrial, cities of Pennsylvania. The schools are justly proud of their academics and the distinction of their graduates. You can look them up, but they routinely wind up near the top of the “highly competitive” categories.
.
Lehigh is a full-blown university awarding all sorts of degrees through the doctorate, but it came up as a school of engineering and the hard sciences. It was founded in the 19th century by the man in charge of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and located literally up the hill – Bethlehem’s South Mountain – from the main works and offices of the Bethlehem Steel Company and the tracks of the Lehigh Valley. For generations there were many young men who, upon graduation, would go down the hill and into the offices of The Steel, to retire from there 40 or so years later. For the longest time, Lehigh’s teams were “the Engineers”. But, in recent years either they had an attack of the marketing department or a crisis of confidence and they wound up renaming themselves the “Mountain Hawks”.
.
Lafayette is an all-undergraduate college sited on College Hill, a bluff overlooking the city of Easton and the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers. Its professors actually teach students in classes. It was founded in the first part of the 19th century. Its graduates have been more catholic in their fields of accomplishment, though business, Wall Street and the legal and medical professions are strongly represented. Since time out of mind, its teams have been called the “Leopards”. In the days before the No Fun League, college football was the game and Lafayette was a national powerhouse as well as innovators. They were consensus national champions in 1896, 1921 and 1926. That’s right. Three-time national champions. In those old days, responding to the team from the University of Pennsylvania stealing their signals, Lafayette’s team invented the huddle. After tiring of getting banged around, one of Lafayette’s players invented the old leather football helmet. And in the late 40s when Texas’ Jim Crow would have stopped their star running back, a former Tuskegee Airman, from playing, Lafayette told the Sun Bowl to keep their bowl bid.
.
The rivalry between these two colleges is and always has been intense even as they’ve gone from I-A to I-AA in football, remaining I-A in other sports. If you haven’t experienced it from the inside it’s quite hard to describe. It extends from football through all other sports and into the work and social worlds. That whole “Roll Tide -War Eagle” bit has nothing on this. For many years, the intensity of the rivalry required The Game to be played twice – home and home – every year. Thus, today is the 150th time The Game has been played even though they only started playing in 1884. The energy behind the rivalry played out in stunts – can you build an egg launcher that both can be smuggled into the game and will reach to the other side of the stadium? – violence – both were all-male schools until about 1970 and all that energy went into … something – vandalism – once, some Lehigh students put their welding skills to work and removed the balls from a larger-than-life bronze of the Marquis de Lafayette. (After that, all outdoor statuary was boxed over for most of November. Students often repainted the boxes to look like outhouses.)
.
Two academically demanding schools where football players play their hearts out more for the love of the game than anything else. Both schools are antipathetic toward scholarships and there are no academic shortcuts for the athletes. Hardly any of the players ever gets a look from the No Fun League, so today is the end of football for most of the seniors. Each school has long traditions, alumni who deeply love them and many reasons to be proud. Today is one more. Yankee Stadium is too far for me to travel, but I might be going to a sports bar where The Game will be on CBS Sports Network. 3:30pm ET.
.
Raise a glass. This is what college football should be.
I agree, and another example would be Amherst vs Williams.
I never understood why college football is so big in the South.
Shit, I wish UMass was back in the Yankee Conference playing UConn, UMaine, UNH, and
Vermont………… now they are trying to go big time and failing.
Hell, Thanksgiving day high school games like Salem v Beverly, or Boston Latin v Boston English were much more enjoyable than Alabama v Auburn………
I have gone retro…
Yup, that is what Amherst-Williams is about. But Amherst-Williams only gets this kind of bragging rights for baseball. 73-32 baybay!
Yeah. But could Amherst-Williams sell out Yankee Stadium? Doubt it.
.
Sadly, I’m supposing it will be impossible to get the goalposts and tear them down. Those scrums were epic. A good hunk of goalpost (with room enough for the names of everyone involved) was the trophy of trophies to bring back to the house after the game. (Save that one time a bunch of us managed to get an opposing team helmet after the game. Good story.) Used to be that they’d take the regular posts down for doubled 2x4s, but I suppose the Yankees and the NYPD will see things differently.
Dunno, we might be able to, if only bc so many Amherst and Williams grads are NYC mucketymucks. Then again, Amherst is the school that resisted a real stadium bc if you’re not tailgating properly (which at times includes tents with steam tables, bartenders and 5 other staff) you might as well not watch football. Can you do that in a luxury box?
My AMherst Williams games were always hazy bc w/the exception of the first year I was always coming in after getting my ass kicked by Williams women ruggers (we beat them my senior spring but I was captaining from the sideline w/a bum knee).
Whoa, snap. I was aware you had “played rugby”, EW, but didn’t have a sense for how well or how intensely you might have played that singularly challenging game. “Captaining from the sideline with a bum knee”, as so casually mentioned here, bespeaks a degree of dedication that, well, just goes a long way to explain the enthusiasm, the attention to detail and the dogged tenacity your work here reflects on a daily basis. Damn, woman! Exponential further enhancement of my already high levels of appreciation and respect to you. And carry on!
Well, in that case, I was the backs captain, and one reason we finally won that game is we got a lot of independent type women who mostly happened to be science majors (and therefore miss a lot of practices) to work together well for a change. So not only did I have an obligation to be there, not only would I not have missed the semiannual Williams match for anything, but I do feel some sense of accomplishment in what we pulled off that season.
That year the 3 of us who captained that team got a letter from an alum from the pre-co-ed days who had wandered by a game one day and stuck around to watch. He had played at Amherst and in the Army. He said that he had been skeptical of women at Amherst to begin with. He then said that he thought the game we played exemplified what the game was supposed to be, with the team work and skills, which had been lost (he said) from the men’s game.
It was one of those compliments that stick with you, as was the one from a woman (she didn’t play but two of her roommates did) who told me we had accomplished with the woman’s team what every other women’s group on campus had tried to do but failed.
I played club for two years after college, then some years later shifted into ultimate.
Trust me, she is a powderpuff, much more at home in a dress and heels.
Good old George Steinbrenner is a Williams graduate, and so is his son Hal, who’s running the Yankees now.
———————-
Another reason to hate the Yankees?
Beautiful.
Makes me want to hope it ends in a tie.
It won’t. A tie is a loss.
Scribe, thanks for the article, I enjoyed it. I first learned about the rivalry while attending college out that way, and Lafayette and Lehigh got props from around Barnard&Columbia way for upholding the student athlete banner. There’s a chance that that will be the model of some distant future.
*ding*
Awesome story about LeHigh and Lafayette. I woulda never known …
.
Are Amherst and Williams the Jeffs and Not-Jeffs? … Or am I misremembering the rivalry that often gets mentioned at TT.
Precisely. The Jeffs and the Bad Purple Cows.
what, no love for the Big Game?? Powerhouse 5-5 Stanford vs. Titanic 5-5 Bears?
.
(was hoping the torrential rain would stick around long enough to provide a change of pace. guess i’ll save my hope for another Band/Player incursion, cause that play don’t ever get old…)
Was gonna mention that. Wonder if anyone’s gonna be on Tightwad Hill watching the game? lol
.
(Getting rain up at the Lake, and took a pic of a rainbow during a break in the clouds. Times like this, I wish I had an account at a photo sharing website)
After three quarters, Western Kentucky leads UT San Antonio 35 – 0. This win will make the ‘Toppers ‘bowl eligible’ (not that that has had much impact these last few years when they have been ‘bowl eligible’ with no bowl invite forthcoming)
Minnesota 28, Nebraska 24.
In Nebraska.
Yeah, Nebraska hasn’t been Nebraska for the better part of a decade, but this is the second time in the Jerry Kill regime that the Golden Gophers have beaten Nebraska – and the first time AT Nebraska.
Kill is going to coach the Gophers till he dies.
Jerry Kill is already on something like his third or fourth life. Kudos to him for sticking around, but he’s had several reprieves already.
Scuttlebutt is that Kill was told by the U of M in no uncertain terms to can it with the faith-healing crap and go see real doctors to get real medicine. He’s not done the flop-around-on-the-sidelines thing since.
And now, for your delectation — the newest rivalry trophy, the Bits of Wooden Chair Trophy!
http://bringmethenews.com/2014/11/23/21st-century-folklore-minnesota-nebraska-rivlarys-bits-of-wooden-chair-trophy/
Welp, I headed out about 8 this morning to drive a large truck up to Payson, bout 100 miles away, to pick up a new king size bed and some furniture from a friend selling their summer house up there. Beautiful day here; perfect weather. Incredible lunch at the Beeline Cafe, a very old and cherished restaurant that natives have known about all their lives. I first went there as a kid in the 60’s. Listened to ASU game on the way back, and they sucked in the first half, but found their groove again in the second and won 52-31. Midway through the third quarter, and the Arkansas Soooieees are blanking ‘Ole Miss 17-0.
Was waiting for you to say the weather went south at Payson.
Oops. Notre Dame wide right with less than a minute to go. Louisville up 31 – 28
And that is how it ends 31 – 28 Louisville Petrinos over the Domers in south Bend
It was chip shot too, congrats on your Cards win…!
Man, the CrimiNoles just barely hung on over the stout BC boyz…!
Holy Hell.
Just saw BillBel on a NFL network interview and he claimed the Kitties have a good kicking game.
I’m assuming he doesn’t mean field goal unit.
Bill Bel?? Jeebus woman, the Terrapins just rocked the Wolvereenies!
.
Oh My
yes, as I understand that makes me the new MLB for the Wolvies next year, because everyone else is de-committing.
Good lord, it is getting ugly there. I joke often, but this saddens me. College football is better when teams like Michigan and ND etc are all at least sort of competitive (and ND has been this year). Are there any rumors about next AD and coach?
I have this vision of EW confronting the AD and NCAA . . . “No, I have four years of eligibility letft. Unless, that is, you’re willing to cough up four years’ worth of scholarship money, adjusted for educational inflation.”
To be fair, I did have scholarships for grad school. I’m net positive already w/UM. They MIGHT say I used a few weeks of college eligibility by playing ultimate. But that’s a different eligibility.
It was great seeing y’all at today’s book salon…! ;-)
Have to say, as rewarding as it is to see the Domers get waxed, these losses to the likes of the Fighting Journalists, and now Louisville, make ASU’s win over the Irish look too cheap. Not helpful Domers.
*heh* B*tch, b*tch, b*tch, there’s always something, eh bmaz…? ;-)
Btw, Didn’t those FJ’s beat the Boilermakers today…?
Why yes, yes they did.
Of course, in the style to which this year’s team is all too accustomed, they lost their starting QB to injury in the second quarter. The training staff is really earning their money this year.
Don’t be so hasty to denigrate Louisville beating ND. They are 8 – 3 losing to VA on the road by 2, Clemson on the road by 6 and the Criminoles at home by 11..
I don’t care who they are beating them, ASU needs the Domers to looks like they were a quality team they beat. That is not the case now. Bleech!
Well, I just got back from the gin mill where Lafayette-Lehigh was on the tube. And that was one mad brilliant game.
.
Lafayette won 27-7 on the strength of a brutal running game. Setting a school single-game record, senior RB Ross Scheuerman had 304 yards on 45 carries and 3 TD, more than twice as many yards as the entire Lehigh team (151). Lafayette scored its 4th TD late in the 4th quarter on a fade into double coverage in the right corner of the end zone, going for it on 4th and 21 from about the 32. Lehigh was totally befuddled in the first half and got its act together in the second, making a game of it until a Lafayette defender intercepted a pass with less than 2 minutes to go. From there Lehigh, out of timeouts, could do nothing.
.
EW – your Kitties have a better kicking game than Lafayette.
.
It was the kind of game I’d hoped for. Not just the result but also, especially, the way it was played. It was a clean game – only 4 penalties a side – and the refs stayed out of the way and let the players play. They played with a lot of sportsmanship. No one appeared badly hurt though a couple players had to be helped off the field. No strutting, no posing, no clownish behavior.
.
That, and my waitress was a smiling, strawberry blonde version of Cate Blanchett, which was a real bonus. I dunno what I did right to deserve all this and wish someone would tell me so I could do it again….
.
The sad part is that for most if not all the seniors this will be their last game.
Georgia Tech vs MIT?
“The engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made a history breakthrough this fall, but it wasn’t in a laboratory. It was on the football field. The school’s Division 3 football team is undefeated this season for the first time.”
Hi Scribe,
Thanks for your commentary that got incorporated into the text, and also your update.
My niece (the older of two nieces) is a Senior at Lafayette. I don’t know if she went to the game (will have to find out), but I’m guessing that she did. She got a soccer scholarship to Lafayette- always good to have help with college tuition ;). She’s from California, and was in a premier soccer player there. But, she’s an incredibly talented artist, and is doing a double major in Spanish and Art at Lafayette.
She interviewed at various schools in the East. Can’t remember all the details, but she turned down Yale (and the offer of a soccer scholarship) there to go to Lafayette. She loved the place when she visited. And, although there is some business and tech focus at Lafayette, she has had amazing support from Art professors, and one in particular, who took her under his wing. She was able to work in summer programs at NY galleries, plus the Met. And, yes, the profs do actually teach classes, and the classes are small with a lot of individual attention to students.
None of my sister’s friends in So. Cal. had heard of Lafayette, and couldn’t understand why she (and her husband) didn’t twist my niece’s arm to go to Yale instead (or where ever else). But, my niece loved her experience at Lafayette during the interview process, and Yale not at all.
Just thought I’d add some good words in support of Lafayette. Are you an alum?
VG
FWIW: Cardinal 38, Bears 13. USC-UCLA tied at 14, with about 10 minutes left in the first half.
Yep, USC is NOT helping my cause either! Ugh.
It is good weather for football, though. Cool and not windy. (I was in marching band one quarter in college. Rain is hated by bands.)
Looks like gorgeous fall weather in Pasadena. USC could easily be even or ahead in this game but for a few plays. But, man, those few plays are just deadly. Hat’s off to the Bruins; after some opening jitters, they are killing it.
UCLA 38, USC 14 after three quarters.
Nice for UCLA fans.
Yup. Ugh squared here though. Needed USC to win tonight for ASU to have any chance to get to Pac-12 Championship game. Turns out the Trojans are as maddeningly unreliable as the Sun Devils are. Ugh again!
Any score that has USC behind is good. Better when it’s UCLA beating them. I particularly liked the announcers suggesting USC defense was “tired” because of sanctions. Suggestion: don’t do shit that gets you multiple years of sanctions, children.
Ooof. From Adam Shefter:
The games looks like a toss up.
I’m hoping that Blount exacts revenge, and Bill goes Hoddie-less (60’s at 1PM)
Gray will be active, but sent to his room by Bill for oversleeping on Friday.
Herewith, a discussion of of how good Aaron Rodgers is at using his voice and the snap count to trick the defense into jumping offside. I guess that’s something to be proud of, but … someone as good as him has to stoop that low? Pretty sad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/sports/packers-aaron-rodgers-has-a-voice-that-leaves-defenders-muttering.html?_r=0
The best quarterbacks in history have always done this. Tom Brady excels at it. So did Brett Favre, Joe Montana, Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas.
So why, then, is it illegal for an offensive lineman to “flinch” in an attempt to draw the defense offside? What’s the difference? Is what the quarterback doing, considered more honorable in the grand scheme of things?
Yes! One is against the rules, one is well within them.
Best tell the owner of this blog (and some commenters thereto) that many of the “bad” things that the Feds are doing are wholly legal, even if morally outrageous. Take her blood pressure down twenty points.
Um, many of the “bad things” that Feds do are indeed legal, even if morally outrageous. Many are not legal too.
“Son, you can be proud of your old man. He won the Super Bowl by tricking the other team into jumping offside.”
WTF? Patriots/Lions is on the early NFL schedule and my local CBS station gives me Bengals at Texans. This is just depressing.
They should have moved the Lions game to 4PM
That wouldn’t help here, as that is when the Cards/Squawks is on.
When teams are playing a game against the other conference, the network for the road team gets the broadcast. Bengals are AFC/CBS so CBS gave you that game. The Kittehs are NFC/Fox (I got both games here in Lexington at the same time.) My guess is because the Cards played at 4 PM, you only got the one Fox game for the NFC but got the Broncos/Dolphins game as a 4PM choice as well
Yes. Still is fucked up.
•Yeehaw. Tom Verducci takes on the Rocket
———————————————–
•Time for waffling. 209, 102, 68, hike!
———————————————————–
“Clemens gave versions of “I don’t know” 209 times, “I’m not sure” 102 times and “I don’t remember” 68 times. That’s 379 statements of uncertainty in the seven-hour deposition for those of you scoring at home, or about one waffle per minute. In fairness, too, Emery’s questioning often resembled a wayward fishing expedition. They’re doing exactly what bullies do. When you push back, they cry like five-year-olds, which is probably giving five-year-olds too much credit”
————————————
After messing with the law, The Rocket plays dodge ball: “Important conversations with former teammate Andy Pettitte and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, inquiries from Mitchell Report investigators, why he never took a lie-detector test, when he trained with McNamee and so many other inquiries from the banal to the important all went fuzzy or missing in Clemens’ mind. He was brilliant and consistent in his avoidance of simple declarative statements, the Nureyev of verbal dodge ball.
——————————
•Time for the Rocket to go weird on us:
——————————————————-
“So now Clemens was saying not only do steroids not help performance, but also they are bad for performance. How anybody, let alone a former pro athlete, could believe such nonsense in 2014 is near comical. Clemens goes even further, suggesting that one of the notorious steroid-enhanced athletes of all time was hurt by using steroids. Asked if steroids helped Jose Canseco play baseball – within six years of being a 15th-round draft pick and within four years of starting a steroid regimen, Canseco had hit 111 major league homers and was the first 40-40 player ever — Clemens said, “I don’t think it helped him … I think it probably hurt him.”
————————————–
Only B-2 was shot up his arse
————————————————-
“Well, there you go. The whole Steroid Era in baseball? All those cartoonish numbers? All the anguish over what happened to the hallowed record book and the bastardization of baseball? Never mind. Steroids didn’t help ballplayers in the weird world of Roger Clemens. The poor guys actually were hurt by freakish anabolic muscle gains from testosterone, Deca Durabolin, Winstrol and other drugs favored by everybody from sprinters to weightlifters precisely to improve performance”
————————————–
The smell of delicious trial in June may bring his cover up to the forefront
————————————————————————————–
“Clemens can repeat his silly claim along with his poor recall in court next June, when Emery expects to call him as his first witness if McNamee’s case goes to trial. Clemens was acquitted by a Washington jury in 2012 of charges that he lied to Congress about never having used performance-enhancing drugs. In that trial as well as the recent deposition, Clemens and his legal team offer no possible reason why McNamee would fully fabricate stories about Clemens using HGH and steroids, especially when Clemens was his meal ticket as a trainer and why fellow McNamee clients Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch confirmed McNamee was correct about their own PED use. Clemens attorney Michael Attanasio said at trial of McNamee, “We can’t prove why he did what he did, but we don’t have to.”
——————————–
Well done Tom, well done
Nice job by the Rocket. I wish all my clients heeded my advice as to how to respond to deposition questions!
Exactly. Good point
That’s why our legal system is so fucked up.
The true really doesn’t matter.
Shall I use my Shakespeare quote?
Stafford and the Kitties can’t get out of their own way today.
.
Word I’ve heard is that Cheatin’ Bill is looking to retain Daniel Webster in regards to that contract he signed with that man in black. No one’s had the heart to remind him Ol’ Dan is 150 or so years under the dirt.
I dunno, I think the combination of Bill Bel and Dead Daniel Webster might still be pretty formidable.
Thank you Scribe and your Steelers for turning over Blount to the Pats.
It made our victory ever so sweet.
Three teams, one of them Pgh, got rid of malcontents last week. Anyone who walks off the field, uninjured, before the end of the game and heads for the bus is quitting on his team and cannot be allowed to remain. Cheatin’ Bill does much the same with players late for meetings or practices – the doors are closed and they have to try to come back the next day.
You can have Blount. Dope dealers across Massachusetts are rejoicing at his return.
It looks like the Steelers are more “righteous” than the Pats?
Would be interesting if we played Pittsburg in the playoffs….
So, you have no use of the Pats due to our tyrannical coach?
Gronk, Edelman and Brady are pretty good sports, heh…
I’m certainly looking forward to the Patsies journey to the Frozen Tundra, BSL…! Will it be frozen or a muskeg swamp…? ;-)
I will go with that Muskogee thing
*heh* Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die … I won’t lie…! ;-)
CAN YOU PEOPLE IN SEATTLE HELP ME OUT A LITTLE BIT???
.
PLEASE?
Answer in from Seattle: “No. Your pain nourishes us.”
Dammit Janet, the Card should have had a TD, not just a FG, there. Ugh.
Back when I was a high-school senior, I was accepted by both Lafayette and Lehigh. I’ll leave it at that – I like to be vague online about my real-world life.
.
I am glad to hear of your niece’s happiness with her college choice.
I understand. I am the same. But, thank you again for your “essay”.
Nothing more exist in the NFL until November 30th when the Pats fly to Lambeau.
Personally, I think Belichick is an arrogant fucker, but the guy is a football, mastermind.
Rodgers vs Brady, I can’t wait
I dunno – Iggles-Owboys Thursday, through a haze of tryptophan, looks to be interesting.
*whew* My Donkos and lemon-sucky faced, noodle-armed, Manning survived the Fin’s potent D…! ;-)
Ain’t it ironic that the Kitties only had a kicking game, today…? ;-)
Praternatural
*heh* I thought about him when McManus shanked the 33 yarder, bmaz…! ;-)
How much snow did Buffalo get? This much!
*ugh* But wait, ya ain’t seen nothing yet…! US northeast braces for flooding after record snow, and, much of Megalopolis is facing a stiff Nor’easter that’s gonna ruin a few Turkey Day plans…! 8-(
That is an awesome wing on that sprint car at the top of that article.
*heh* I love looking at snow from here in the middle of the Pacific, and, if I really want to experience the pleasures of the frigid climes, it’s but an hour’s drive uphill…! ;-)
I’ve got some amazing memories of Haleakela at sunrise on a February morning a number of years ago, with ice and snow on the Silversword plants.
Then we went back down to the beach and 75 degrees . . .
Dang, the Gmen and Eli are looking sharp tonite…!
Dayam…! What a f*cking catch…! ;-)
Bend it like Beckham…! ;-)
Quelle surprise! Sheriff Joe Arpaio Files Suit Against Obama on Immigration Action
Why is he still in office, bmaz…? 8-(
Some of the onlookers think that one’s going to get tossed because he shouldn’t have standing.
Arpaio’s attorney is famous lunatic Larry Klayman. Their lawsuit is DOA. Honestly, I am not sure the House suit, that Jon Turley signed on to handle, will fair much better, but it stands a tiny bit better shot than Arpaio’s.
Not sure that Turley is much better than Klayman, but then I think suing the President because he didn’t pander to the wingnuts enough is a sign of poor judgement.
Obama is still in office because he’s bought off the judges and fooled everyone with his birth certificate forgery.
.
/Sheriff Joe
*heh* The very first comment on the latest Donkos’ official FB page… ‘Get rid of McManus…Missing Matt Prater! ;-)
I nominate Phred to give the opening salvo for next week’s trash talk.
—
Then Scribe can chime in on “Cheatin Bill” and his conspiracy to obtain Blunt.
—
The Red Sox hot stove is burning up with the pending (maybe) signing of HanRam and Kung Fu Panda……………..
—-
We told Middlebrooks that he should play Winter Ball, but he decided to spend erotic time
with his bride to be, the ex-NESN on field analyst.