Week Four of the Cavalcade’s “USE A CUCK-TAYEL STICK”
Here’s what happens when you try to grab Myles Garrett’s quesadilla sample using your fingers …
Myles Garrett doing the unthinkable and unimaginable. pic.twitter.com/Y0UXzrCskn
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 15, 2019
Which leads me to …
Five Cavalcade of Whimsy footballey opinions and, like, other stuff
5. The Myles Garrett incident
Are we all done now pretending to be outraged, and can we finally just admit that we were completely and totally entertained by the end of the Pittsburgh-Cleveland game?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, if Mason Rudolph was injured in any way, of course this changes, of course it would be horrific, and of course this was a vile act by Garrett that should never, ever, ever happen again. But since all those silly men were completely fine …
Come on.
In that same game, the respective brains of JuJu Smith-Schuster and Diontae Johnson were smashed up against the inside of their skulls so hard that they couldn’t walk off the field without help. A Pittsburgh special teamer was motionless after his neck went the wrong way on a tackle – but after a little bit, he appeared to be fine.
Yay! That’s okay, but Garrett broke “the code” and now he’s history’s greatest monster?
What are we doing here?
4. Notre Dame’s streak
The real shocker isn’t that Notre Dame’s home sell-out streak of 273 games that stretched back to 1973 didn’t come to an end. It’s that so many people are still going to games.
There’s nothing like being there at a massive event, and there’s nothing like the energy of being at an important game. But for a run-of-the-mill sporting even that’ll be memory dumped ten minutes after it’s over?
It’s 2019. Going to the bar and watching 13 games at once – or sitting in your living room and watching them on a kick-ass TV – is far better than blowing your whole day and hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to go watch the thing in person.
3. The nightmare at Jordan-Hare
When Georgia running back Brian Herrien couldn’t avoid Georgia student photographer Chamberlain Smith on the sidelines, ran into her and knocked her out, that’s when the whole thoughts and prayers thing sincerely kicked into high gear.
Thank goodness she appears to be okay …
— Chamberlain Smith (@ChamberlainSmit) November 17, 2019
And now, everyone is up in arms about the way Gary Danielson reacted to the horrific moment with a bit of a chuckle. That wasn’t good, but even worse was the way-too-long close-up the CBS cameras had on an unconscious Smith as she was being carted off the field on a stretcher.
TV producers, there’s no need to do that when players get injured, and take that times 100 when it’s anyone else in that particular situation.
2. The Scott Frost extension
Frost was already signed on at Nebraska through 2024, but the school thought it necessary to lock him up for an additional two years despite going an awe-inspiring 8-14 in his first 22 games. And after the announcement of the extension …
The Huskers got walloped by Wisconsin. Again.
Nebraska isn’t going to fire Frost, mainly because it can’t. Where do you go if you’re this program and the hottest coach in all of football two years ago/native son can’t turn it around?
He needs more time, more players, more speed, more defensive linemen, more … wins.
And that’s where next year’s team comes in.
Purdue, Central Michigan, South Dakota State, Cincinnati, at Northwestern, Illinois, at Rutgers. That’s 7-0 if you’re competent, 5-2 if you’re not.
Everyone will be in love with Frost. Everyone will point out how it’s all working, and then …
At Ohio State. Penn State, at Iowa, at Wisconsin, Minnesota.
1. Free Mizzou
The NCAA should never have punished Missouri’s football program with a bowl ban this year and sanctions for self-reporting a violation that was cleaned up in-house. The school wasn’t trying to get away with anything, and it did what it was supposed to do once the violation was uncovered.
So if the NCAA won’t reverse the ban because it would be the right thing to do, it needs to do it because the SEC won’t have enough teams to fill out the bowl slots.
LSU, Alabama and Georgia are all near-locks to end up in either the College Football Playoff or a New Year’s Six bowl game, and I’ll throw Florida as a sure-thing in the NY6 mix, too.
That takes out four SEC teams, and South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Arkansas are already out. Mississippi State could absolutely lose to Ole Miss – it would be out. Tennessee could absolutely whiff its last two games against Missouri and Vanderbilt – it would be out. That leaves Texas A&M, Auburn and Kentucky as the only three sure-thing bowl teams left, with anywhere between four to six bowls being open.
Tennessee and Mississippi State will likely get in, but there would still be a ton of strong open bowl game slots needing to be filled. If Missouri can beat either Tennessee or Arkansas, it would get to six wins and be eligible, but only if the NCAA does the right thing.