4 Hard Downs: Dawgs (Close To) On Top, Indiana Is Good, Greed Can Be Not Good
UGA has re-entered the chat, Florida getting better & I like Michigan fans
Contrary to Gordon Gecko:
Greed isn’t always good and what I’m seeing from Michigan football fans, I love. They aren’t trying to be greedy. They just lost to Illinois and I didn’t get a single tweet or DM about how they’re screwing up and this is not ok and the sky is falling.
You lose your head coach. You lose your Top 10 draft QB. You lose your best defensive player. You lose your best running back. You don’t get to run out of the tunnel with goblin hands thinking, “We should go back-to-back!”
And guess what, they haven’t.
I’m proud of a bit of reality settling in and folks not needing to be greedy for titles. If you’re 35, and a Michigan fan, you’ve seen 2 titles. If you’re 35, born in 1989, you’ve seen more titles than every program that isn’t Florida, Florida State, Bama, UGA, Ohio State, USC, Miami and Nebraska.
More or equal titles in 35 years than 8 teams. 134 teams in FBS now. 27 years between titles but if you’re 35 or older that is still a cognizant two titles. One at 7 or 8 and another one to show your little kid as they wait 20 more years for the next one.
Not a joke.
Not making fun.
As someone whose school will never win a title, let alone two in my lifetime. As someone whose wife’s school will never win a title, let alone two in her lifetime. UNC and Michigan State, respectively. It is nice to see the basking in how special 2023 was for the Wolverines was instead of losing their minds about 2024 (Granted in basketball the greed sets in for both).
Anyways, on to the heavy lifting, let’s go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!
1st Down: Kirby Smart F*cks
This is a guy I would play for every single day and twice on Saturdays (not Sunday because it is college football, but I do know the normal saying).
Even with a very not good effort from the QB this team went out and got the job done.
Trevor Etienne was better than we’ve seen most of the year, including 3 TDs. The offense knows who they are; this isn’t the team with people movers on a play-to-play basis like they have been. So to fix that they used swings, screens, motions to create “long hand offs” that got Texas moving laterally. That movement initially leads to tackling in space. That movement, secondarily, leads to Etienne to the interior while the back seven is worried about side-to-side.
Great gameplan. Amazing.
But the point here, on first down, is Kirby Smart speaks these young men’s language. And I’m not talking about rizz or no cap or skibidi Ohio.
I’m saying that when he is in that locker room and lets these guys know you need to go out and break their soul and he starts dropping fuck them and kick their ass and we need to be dawgs; they get it. They’re not there for photo shoots.
They’re there to eat.
This dude brings a team to the table to eat, not just take photos of the food for the ‘Gram.
2nd Down: Hoosier Daddies!!
Speaking of eating, Indiana is absolutely a feasting right now. They’re undefeated, just smoked Nebraksa 56-7. Kurtis Rourke is cooking. Curt Cignetti has them cooking and they’re playing a brand of football that teams just either didn’t expect or cannot defend.
So I did this with a little help from CFBStats:
Yeah, let’s go!!!
3rd Down: Circling Back To Sportsmanship
Two things here Tristan Leigh pushes off to get up, not roll off. Ben Smiley then grabs his lower leg.
This is what I’m referencing regarding sportsmanship and why I don’t care about the “Doot Doot” or Fortnite gun cellies. This goes into the world of spitting. On both sides. You roll off. You also do not attack someone post-play at their legs.
That’s a huge difference to me.
If you want to be mad and boss up because he pushed off instead of rolling, absolutely square up with him.
From a bystander standpoint, if you’re more worried about guys shaking hands than spitting or ankle grabbing type stuff, I can’t help you. Performative “sportsmanship” is a lie people tell themselves to feel like good people.
4th Down: Let’s Get Miscellaneous Out Here
-My kid had friends over on Saturday and my wife was amazing. She got the kids out of the house, the weather was nice, she got so many toys out.
The kids wanted to make a leaf pile to jump in and the main issue here is my Kobalt tools aren’t for fun. Then I saw a kid, not my kid, just throw it on the patio and I was very close to running down and losing my mind but I realized Mrs. Felder is handling things, I just needed to switch the “tools” they could play with. Out comes two rakes, a snow shovel and a plug in blower that isn’t the one that is fully part of my 24v family of batteries.
-The Trojans and Sooners are down bad. I don’t even do the “Horns Down” to my neighbors anymore because they’re down so bad (I like what Texas was until Kirby walked into their backyard and peed on all their bushes and said, I don’t do it for the gram”). Maryland had the dopest celebration of the weekend:
When you’re Ooping on SC, that means you’re not scared. If Lincoln Riley’s teams don’t scare Minnesota or Maryland then what are they doing as a program. This isn’t unsportsmanlike, this is “bruh we got this and knew that coming in”-like to me. I love to see it.
-Jalen Milroe is trying to do everything and he just can’t. Ryan Williams seems to be the only help he has and that kid is 17. He’s pressing and he’s angry because folks ain’t coming with him on what he wanted to be a championship journey.
Watching him run try to rally this team as they ran into the tunnel was both inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time. Some guys just ran past him. That sucks. He’s a remnant of a very recent past and he’s trying his best to make it happen.
-Mertz goes down and Lagway shows up. This team is in good hands, it seems. A month ago we were putting nails in Billy Napier’s coffin. We were talking candidates for the job. Now, they’re a team that should be on a 4-game win streak but shit the bed to finish against Tennessee.
I like watching them play, they’re energetic, aggressive and there ain’t no quit in these guys.
That’s it y’all. The Format hits tomorrow where we get to talk some Ashton Jeanty and Boise State, Army-Navy/Navy-Army and Notre Dame playing a super pivotal point in the non-P4 bids. Plus a little Miami, specifically Cam Ward to wrap things up.
Cheers!!!
Kirby pissed in Texas’ bushes … classic