4 Hard Downs: Attack The Ball, 3 & Out, 1-2-3-4-5 & Nose Wiping

Go get the ball. Time of "each" possession matters if you rush. Hanging with my kid. My favorite celebration.

I had a Big Saturday (no Fox intended). I’m the idiot dad who, on Wednesday forgot my kid’s shoes at swim. I also bought an extra HDMI cord that I had to return. I had to take my wife’s ring in to get a halo at our jeweler.

Oh and piano lessons at 10:15 (which comes up later), so everything I did had to be done before then.

Did I know they had a huge meet going on at her natatorium? No. However, I did find the shoes in the lost-and-found. Then I got to Staples and waited 20 minutes for a lady trying to use her rewards before I did my 1 minute return where I didn’t even need my card. Off to the jeweler and they let me in early, shout out to Morgan at Diamonds Direct, which opens at 10 but let me in at 9:53, because I got home in time for them to go to piano.

Busy Saturday morning, but home in time to watch ball, so let’s SPOT THE BALL!!!!

1st Down: Piano Vs Football

My kid does piano and she is good at it. Backstory, I don’t know anything about music, I’ve never played an instrument in my life. I famously told my parents, during the instrument assignment, “what is the point I’m going to play football in high school and will just quit” (I also got double recess during music time because we had band, orchestra and I got kicked out of chorus, so my school’s solution was do recess with the lower grade. I win).

However, if my little girl likes it and is working hard at it, I do need to get activated.

“If you like it, I love it.” Basically.

Her mother can help her with piano. Her grandmother. Her grandpa. Her uncle. They can all help her with reading music and explaining hand placement and how to get to where she wants to be.

I can’t.

So I do two things:

-I play the songs over the speaker that she is learning so she hears what they sound like, including singing the alt versions like, “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells…”

-She teaches me how to play piano

I’m bad at it, but it helps her gain more mastery of the skills she’s learning and be an authoritative figure in her own learning. She’s in charge. I’m the student. She shows what she knows and is giving her knowledge to me.

How does this relate to football?

In piano lessons they count. When my wife is working with her on piano she counts.

Football is also just counting.

She spent the afternoon coloring but also watching football with me and she asked, “how do you know he’s going to throw it?” I told her it is a count. Just like piano. Piano, from my rudimentary understanding operates on 4s and 8s. Football operates on a different counting system.

3-5-7 drops from the QB. A-B-C for the gaps for the defense. 1-3-5-7 for left runs. 2-4-6-8 runs to the right.

We dialed in on the rhythm throwing. Bah-Bah-Bah-Ball vs Bah-Bah-Bah-Bah-Bah-Ball.

“It is like piano,” she says. And I smile because football is daddy’s piano. It is my music. It is my instrument.

2nd Down: Go Get The Football

This is maybe my most hated play of the day:

Play is there to be made for the Utes.

GO GET THE FOOTBALL!!!

Thanks Fox.

The point here is that you have to go get the ball. Travis Hunter, goes and gets it. The corner underneath is trying to swipe hands. The safety over the top is just waiting for the ball to come to him. Hunter gets it first and that’s how you give up a play that leads to a touchdown, letting them get the ball inside the ten.

3rd Down: 60 Second Three And Outs Are A Losing Man’s Load

I went through some Top 25 games and something stood out to me. Not time of possession but length of drives. Not in yards, but in time. This is something that first stood out to me with Larry Fedora at UNC because they would, in the interest of tempo, often have 90 second or shorter three and outs.

So, I said let me go back and look at that and see teams with a shot at an upset or in a position to win: Wisconsin, BYU, Kansas State.

Wisconsin early, down 3-0 with a 3 play, -4 yard drive for 40 seconds. Down 16-13 in the 4th, 1 yard on for plays in 33 seconds.

BYU, fighting for their bye week auto bid life against Kansas. Both in the 4th quarter, 3 plays and 1:00 and 4 plays 1:17. In a one score game.

Kansas State in a 7-0 game early, 3 plays 58 seconds. 24-0, Arizona State on top, 1:01 and a punt.

This doesn’t include turnovers.

Not worried about getting to the half.

I will give flowers to the defenses they were facing for shutting them down. However, the main point is that tempo is not always your friend. Especially if your plan is not working or you’re skating on the razor’s edge. Take your time. Give your defense a break because you’re already losing and having them rested, not 33 or 58 or 107 seconds to run back out on the field after you fail.

Fail slower.

4th Down: Wipe Your Nose!

So if you’ve seen the wipe your nose celly, let me know if this is what you immediately thought?!

Because that’s what I think. And maybe that is being someone who went to UNC and was a bouncer who had to grab folks out of the bathroom for occupying stalls while they did that off the back of the toilet.

Apparently the celebration is related to Young Thug and a gang of Atlanta rappers, who I do like, and Deshaun Watson brought it out to celebrate in 2018. I am a noted celebration grader. I have previously said the “strap up” celebration about buckling someone up is bad. This Detroit Lions celebration is epic:

I think the “Wipe His Nose” celebration looks cool. Not like how the strap up looks cool, but it should be related to sheathing a sword not buckling a seat belt, a thing I do everyday to a 6 year old. This one is so coded and so hard, I’m giving it an A+ because so many people do not realize what it is.

This one is hard and I dig it. Every time I see a DB do it, your boy goes, “Yessir.”

I’m getting ready to go do some school stuff before returning home. Two days in-a-row where I’m not in my house in the evening. Won’t happen again until, hopefully never.

Cheers!!!