4 Hard Downs: Going For 2, Wasted Efforts & Cinnamon Buns
Georgia did the monster mash, James Franklin and Lincoln Riley were a graveyard smash
If you listen to College Sports Now Felder Friday, you know that I thought Ole Miss could pull an upset.
And for 16 minutes I was right.
Then Kirby decided he was fed up with Lane Kiffin and dropped a hammer on that team.
I love it.
Being wrong is fine.
But for me it isn’t a win. A win could be a tussle. Hand sitting. Playing keep away. Instead what we saw was Kirby being so pissed off about everything Kiffin did that he just went into sicko mode and truly was going to “seek and destroy” that team.
You know what, let’s just get into it because I’m on the way to NYC and I don’t have a lot of time so go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!
1st Down: It Isn’t Playing With Your Food If You Have A Restricted Diet
Georgia took out the Howitzer.
They also showed you that they can play with a bayonet. Get you with a pistol. Got your ass with a shotgun. Get you with a long gun. If it is a knife fight they can win too.
Trench warfare or close quarters or field combat or sniper battle; they are working at all of it.
I love that.
They will rattle your cage or sneak up behind you and drag you into the darkness.
Michigan, on the other hand, is like, “well, I guess we’ll do knife fight again because we can.”
32 runs and a DPI in the second half?
So you’re not trying to prepare for the next step. Georgia could have ran the entire second half and won, too, but they worked on what it is going to take to win a title.
2nd Down: Being Down 8 Is Always Better Than 9
Since we are have let the Big Ten into the party let’s keep going, James Franklin’s decision to go for two, instead of just kick a PAT is mind boggling. Then we saw the same thing from Lincoln Riley against Oregon.
You’re losing.
You already haven’t been good enough for 50+ minutes.
But, you get a reprieve and have a shot to turn it into a one possession ball game.
You get greedy and cute.
Just take the points.
Close end game situations are stressful. Having to figure out how to get the ball back in end game situations to have a chance to score are stressful. Onside kicks are so remarkably low percentage, that stress is insane. Having 1 or no timeouts is stressful. Already being in the loser’s seat for an entire day but having a chance is stressful.
So, why add to that stress by having to get the ball back twice because you are chasing points with a two point conversion?
Especially when your offense, Penn State, has been not great OR your defense, USC, has been porous as usual?
However, it does not include, “hey we have sucked all day and are lucky to be in this position.” It doesn’t include lack of timeouts. It doesn’t include less than 3 to play.
Make it a 1 possession game. 8 points is better than 9. Sure, 7 is better, but you don’t have the luxury of that hope. 8 points is better. Kick the 2 point conversion can down to the score you’re probably not going to make on the possession you probably won’t ever see.
3rd Down: Wasted Defensive Efforts Offend Me
I am going to stick on the Penn State kick because that defense played well enough to win.
In the year of our lord, 2023, if a team has 17 points in the 4th quarter at any point, you should be stuffing them into a locker.
Instead you can’t get more than 15.
Which means you wasted a good effort from your defense.
If you can’t get 28 points, hell 30, in a college football game, with the rules and the dynamism in offense, then maybe you should find a new job (unless you’re Kirk Ferentz).
You can’t offense and have “hopefully we get 24 today” be the high water mark. Someone can hold you to 14 or 17. Michigan didn’t hold Penn State to 15. Penn State and their inability to be dangerous held them to 15. Hell,
Michigan and Penn State combined to hold the Wolverines to 24, if we’re being honest.
Michigan worked with Penn State to shut the Wolverines down. No ambition, unlike what we just discussed with UGA. Plus decent defense and that’s what you get.
Kansas held Texas Tech to 16 points. In the world of 2023 college football, even with your third stringer, that should be enough to win.
4th Down: Cinnamon Rolls For My Wife’s School
Back when I used to drive up to Winston-Salem to do College Sports Now in studio every Sunday I would do a bit of a baking challenge to calm myself down from the weekend and have something to focus on.
I got away from that between moving to Chicago, having a kid and whatnot.
So, I decided to get back into it and use my wife’s school as the taste testers since we cannot just keep a danish or, in this case, a batch of cinnamon rolls around the house.
I used my Amish White Croissant Loaf setup that I talked about here.
The change to that is adding cinnamon, brown sugar, vanilla.
I debated rolling them into the bread, like you do with the butter after the first rise. However, I settled on rolling the butter into the bread, then mixing cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla, with a little bourbon, into a paste that I spread on the dough before the second rise.
Roll the rectangle of dough into a roll and then slice with a sharp knife or bench scraper and then in a greased pan (I use Baker’s Joy) put them in rose and watch them rise and squeeze the cinnamon paste out a little.
Bake at 350 for 16 minutes and turn them around at the midway point.
For the glaze, easy powdered sugar and cream mixture.
They turned out great and they were a hit at the school. I wasn’t sure if I was going to post this so I didn’t take enough pictures. If you want more details hit the comments.
Next week I think I’m going to do a strawberry cream cheese danish to get back into that game. Sorry it was a bit late, flying makes me feel insane and I woke up this morning and realized even though I finished this at the airport yesterday, I never hit send.
Cheers!!