4 Hard Downs: Thanksgiving Week Is Set, How I Learned To Love The Push Play & Mews My Main Man
Still hate it but, better than alternative, we start Thanksgiving & revisiting hidden yards
Thanks for reading, first and foremost, I got a bonus for the paid because I didn’t get to it last week between travel and some very serious hip pain. However, I got you this week as a make-good.
Next? Here is my Thanksgiving:
It is my favorite holiday, honestly the only holiday I actually like. You can’t really read it, but you can try. I do this every year and it is basically me putting together days to do things, things I still have to buy and what we already have in conjunction with the menu.
Shopping by your recipes are menu items goes a long way to stop “willy nilly” buying in the store.
As you can see, I’ve already 86’d the green beans. Not making them because I hate them and my wife won’t eat enough, I might just make her a personal green bean casserole and my aunt doesn’t eat pork and I’m not doing green beans without some bacon or ham.
My family will also bring stuffing and mac’n’cheese but I like to get those made because I like making them and they’re super low impact. I already have a few gallons of stock and why not just do it. My family can cook, I just have a weird controlling thing where I want to put the whole meal out myself but that is a me thing, not a “they can’t cook thing (that it would be if we were in a different Thanksgiving situation).”
So now that we are in the pocket, ItsFelder #51 hits later today for a better discussion of that list you can’t read, let’s go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!!
1st Down: How I Tricked Myself To Accepting The Push Play
If do don’t know what I mean, I’m talking about the play that basically made the Philadelphia Eagles unstoppable and has been huge in CFB:
I hate it and have said as much.
But, then I realized the alternative is the shotgun to sneak.
I hate that way more.
Just do it Maryland and Michigan and Alabama and everyone else. It is way better than snapping the ball to 3-5 yards and then trying to get a sneak.
So that’s how I made a lifestyle change.
2nd Down: Revisiting Hidden Yards And Mekhi Mews
I think this guy is my favorite teamer in all of college football.
Unless you’re a Georgia fan, you probably don’t even know who he is or why is the most amazing punt return man in CFB.
He’s 9th in the nation with 17 returns. 11th in the nation with 11.5 yards per return with 1 punt return TD.
However, he has caught a lot more than 17 punts this year; of them are fair caught. 18 to be exact. That’s Mews fielding 35 of the 62 punts that UGA has forced this season. Joenel Aguero and Anthony Evans III have also fielded punts. There are a few pinned inside the 5 but by and large they are out of bounds and touchbacks that this man does not catch.
This man is a pro.
3rd Down: What In The Hell Is Florida State @ Florida Going To Be?
Jordan Travis goes down with a brutal leg injury that I absolutely don’t ever need to watch another replay of for the rest of my natural life.
Graham Mertz goes beast mode and then a play later realizes, “maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”
So, going into Rivalry Week we have both teams without their starting QB.
One team needs a win to be bowl eligible. And please spare me the 5-7 teams can go too so they will get invited. I’m talking bowl eligible proper. The bare minimum, not the exception.
The other team is going to the ACC Championship Game, without their starting QB, which is a daunting task. But the main point is staying in playoff contention. They have to buy time, because if they can beat Louisville, they can get in.
Getting over the Florida hurdle is the issue.
Rivalry game. Inexperienced QBs on both sides. A game both teams need. Outside of Ohio State @ Michigan this is the most intriguing game.
Not the best game. Oregon hosting Oregon State is a better game.
But the intrigue here is very real. The lack of the two QBs makes it interesting. It will be sloppy. It is not supposed to rain Saturday, but it also wasn’t supposed to be rain-snow-sleet in Corvallis on Saturday night.
Billy Napier better be on his job because Mike Norvell will, I expect, have a plan.
4th Down: Here Is Who I Root For
There are a lot of new subscribers and for that, I say thank you. I figured now is a great time to explain my program and who I root for and teams I love and all that jazz, so we are square.
I don’t have a team.
Yes, I went to and played football at UNC.
But I don’t have a team.
I root for defense.
Doesn’t matter the team or the game or the situation, I root for defense because in modern football defense is often portrayed as the antagonist with the offense as the protagonist. Defensive pass interference is over-called because it hurts offensive production and limits fantasy points and it isn’t as exciting to watch.
Same with ineligible lineman down field, offensive pass interference and at this point, even false starts being under-called because they all help everyone’s darling, the offense.
So, when a defender gets away with one, I will take it.
No one sees themselves as Ben Wallace or Dennis Rodman. They see themselves as the Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan and the LeBron James of the story. Daily fantasy or just fantasy football, a thing they made a whole show about for FX, doesn’t celebrate defense. That is why when a defender gets any benefit of the doubt, I dig it.
Outside of a handful of college programs (Bama, UGA, Iowa) and NFL teams (Steelers, Eagles, Ravens, Seahawks), offense is what folks care about. That’s why I usually do “Thursday Fun Play” about offense.
Welcome to the party, we’re going to have a great time, but I do not care about defensive pass interference. Imagine yourself, running backwards when the other person knows where they are going and you have to guess, every play. Maybe you bump them, or grab them. You’re playing blind, do what it takes.
Podcast will be up soon. It is the Thanksgiving preview.
Cheers!!