Category Archives: College Sports

Monday’s Pigskin Palaver

College Sports, Football

Allow me to begin with yet another shoutout to Bronconagurskius for his beneficent ways.

I’m a worrier by nature. Most all the time I need a dump truck to unload my mind.

And Sunday, you know in my neck of the woods. Stress. Power. Cable. In addition to the usual daily stuff that plagues me while not bothering most sane folks.

But there it was beginning to end, my Detroit Lions on the telly, turning the Vikings into what my mom would call hochflesh.*

*Which essentially means something like the chicken parts she tossed after conjuring her chicken soup from scratch. Including plucking the feathers of the fresh bird. True.

Twas a glorious 31-9 evisceration, allowing the Lions a week off and home field advantage through the conference playdowns.

While DC Aaron Glenn is receiving most of the postgame acclaim — deservedly so, his plan was brilliant, genius — I want to start with Detroit GM Brad Holmes.

Who has fashioned a franchise rebuild that would put Holmes on Homes to shame.* Continue reading Monday’s Pigskin Palaver →

Friday Noise & Nonsense

Basketball, College Sports, Football

Be still my beating heart.

My favorite Cardinal pigskinner ever, Teddy Bridgewater is joining my Detroit Lions as Jared Goff’s backup.

Let’s hope he never has to play.

Let’s hope he fashions the most unique double in the history of football. Coaching a HS state champ, getting a Super Bowl ring that same season.

Teddy B is not the only U of L connection on the Lions. Among the 19 Lions on the IR is one Jaylen Reeves-Maybin. Son of Cardinal Marques.

 * * * * *

Seems there’s an equivalent in the college ranks to Lions’ innovative OC Ben Johnson — the leader in the clubhouse dubbed Next Big Thing.

His name: Will Stein. Continue reading Friday Noise & Nonsense →

Anna Denied

College Sports, Volleyball

It is the yin and yang of life.

It is the the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

It is yet another reminder of reality, the randomness of circumstance.

It is a tale twice told.

The final pages do not read the same.

It is life telling us yet again, enjoy this instant, carpe this diem, one never knows what the next shall bring.

Anna DeBeer was not able to compete at the moment she’d dreamed of years ago, that she’d been pointing to forever.

Playing in her home town, for her home town team for supremacy in the endeavor she chose.

She is not the first.

Darrell Griffith made the same vow.

Playing for his home town team, leading his home town school to national supremacy.

The tales differ.

Life in chaotic, coincidental, haunting corrective balance.

Grif won his title a few miles north, though Cardinal red-drenched Market Square was Freedom Hall North that glorious ’80 March weekend.

But, what would the outcome have been had the Cardinal star gone down in the semi against Iowa?

Happily we will never know.

Sadly we do understand for certain what happened with Anna.

Without their their leader, their catalyst, their soul, their star who was injured in the semi, Louisville was game against long time power Penn State but mustered not quite enough for victory.

It was frankly too much watching DeBeer holding back tears in an interview.

She normally has an eerily mature demeanor.

Her look on the court, determined, stoic, focused.

Who among us doesn’t understand that the exigencies of the day sometime present a breaking point?

Anna DeBeer’s came on the biggest stage, at a long awaited pinnacle.

Anna DeBeer, Long May You Run.

— c d kaplan

 

Hoopaholic’s/ Pigskin Gazette/ Palaver: 11/04

Basketball, College Sports, Football, ,

Random inconsequential arguably interesting bits of irrelevant anecdotia about intercollegiate hoops and pigskin, presented in random and confusing order.

Every once in awhile even an inveterate it-was-better-back-in-the-day guy must admit that some things are sweeter nowadays.

Like how on a whim I can purchase Baskin Robbins Chocolate Chip ice cream at the Dirty Krogers just a couple blocks away. (Which frankly is not good for my waistline or cholesterol count.)

And like, oh, the beginning of the hoops season.

Once upon a time, it always commenced the first Saturday night of December.

There’d be an apéritif the weekend before, the frosh vs varsity game.

So, celebrate with me that the real deal starts this very day. First Monday in November. Which is, no calculation necessary, a whole month ahead of back when. Continue reading Hoopaholic’s/ Pigskin Gazette/ Palaver: 11/04 →

Pigskin Palaver: 10/28

College Sports, Football

The three mid-twentysomethings, pals since childhood, are in Vegas the first weekend of the NFL season.

Huge football fans all.

It was a bachelor party sortie of sorts. One to be married yesterday, almost a couple months after the scenario. It was the only time they could get away, though the ceremony was a long time off.

One matriculated at Indiana. The one to be hitched graduated from Pitt. The third somehow ended up at BYU, though he had since tossing his mortarboard eschewed the cultural strictures of the Mormon-run school.

After an entire night throwin’ ’em down at the Laundry Room and Velveteen Rabbit, the three stumbled back into the Wynn as the pro fans in their Packer and Patriot jerseys staked out spots in the sports book for pro game day in front of the video walls.

Seriously in their cups, all three pigskin fanatics pumped because their alma mammys  had all won their first two games of the season, came up with the kind of idea that happens only in that town, after a night on that town.

“What if the Hoosiers, Cougars and Panthers are all still undefeated on the day Maury gets hitched? What kind of odds you think they’ll give us for that parlay?” Continue reading Pigskin Palaver: 10/28 →

Seedy K’s Pigskin Palaver: 9/09

College Sports, Football

My favorite non-L&N scoreboard visuals of the weekend’s potpourri of pigskin.

Battered because his father coach didn’t get him an OL that could protect him, Shedeur Sanders slowly trundling to the locker room with two minutes left in Colorado’s L to Nebraska. The Buffaloes had the ball.

Not that I wish him ill, the kid is really really good. Deserves better from the old man.

But, you know.

Northern Illinois coach Thomas Hammock tearing up with joy on the field in South Bend after the final gun.

These stats from Arkansas 31-39 L to Okie State. 648 yards in offense. Twice stopped on 4th down attempts. Three turnovers. Reminder: Razorback OC, one Robert Petrino.

ACC rookie California Golden Bears 21, Auburn 14. In Jordan-Hare.

Actually from Week I but I forgot to mention it last week. Boston College taking a knee so as not to overly embarrass Florida State in Doak Campbell. (The 0-2 Seminoles coach Mike Norvell signed a 8 year? $120 mill per contract extension during the offseason.) Continue reading Seedy K’s Pigskin Palaver: 9/09 →

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Boo-Boos on Beale, or Cue “Tiger Rag”

Basketball, College Sports

Yes, I know, I know, it’s just Week II of football season.

I understand opening tipoff isn’t for another couple of months.

But, in my neck of the woods, oh I needn’t explain. Hoops is ever on our minds.

So, it was of major interest when I learned yesterday morning of the weirdness attendant in the Land o’ Fed Ex. (UPS is way better, right. Right!)

For those too young to know, once upon a time Memphis State was the archest of rivals.

Oh, those battles in the 70s against the Tigers. Keith Lee. Baskerville Holmes. Andre Turnover.

Obviously not so much anymore, U of L having moved up the food chain to the ACC, while Memphis State is mired in the AAC, is it? Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Boo-Boos on Beale, or Cue “Tiger Rag” →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Preseason Puntidicocy, Part I

College Sports, Football

It is the time of the season when those who pray at the altar of Bronconagurskius walk out on the porch first thing in the morning, hoping for a hint o’ pigskin crispness in the air.

We be ready.

So, in a tradition perhaps not like no other, I begin as my default algorithm would dictate, an annual reference to the many of us dedicated to consuming bratwurst while tailgating before the big game(s).

This time around in a twist, I decided to make an actual informed recommendation as to which of said wursts might be the best? Every once in awhile.

Thus I consulted my go to expert on all matters -wurst, Badger Billy.

He is as his moniker might indicate a true and loyal son of America’s Dairyland. The nickname of his HS football team was the Cheesemakers. True, I have a t-shirt.

On which gridiron contingent, he split tight end duties with another fellow. With which he also shared a mouthguard.

Oh how I love that story.

Anyhow he’s a brats ‘r’ us fellow to the core, so I inquired who makes the best? Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Preseason Puntidicocy, Part I →

Diss&Dat(a): Plates Shift, Eruptions Ensued

College Sports

“You can’t tell the players without a program!”

When I was a yout (Cousin Vinny pronunciation), that was the first thing you’d hear when walking into the gym or ballpark or stadium.

Yes, kids, in the days of yesteryore, you could actually purchase a collectable booklet with lineups, bios, stories about the teams and players alongside ads from the local hardware store and Dizzy Whiz.

Today, the question is whether the foe of your favorite team is in the same league or not?

Programs would help.

Which I really needn’t advise anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention to the erupting college sports landscape.

July 1 was the day the plates shifted, and the lava started spewing.

It may slow when we get used to it. But there shall be flare ups. Continue reading Diss&Dat(a): Plates Shift, Eruptions Ensued →

Diss & Dat(a): Sponsored by (Your Name Here)

College Sports

I have attempted to evoke chortles before with this shtick.

That the ACC should rename itself the Great A&P Conference. We got Stanford and Cal now, right?

Which would not only be geographically correct, but pay respects to my mother’s favorite grocery.

So more’s the pity that in an ever changing world of commerce, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company shuttered its doors a decade ago.

Because an incredible naming rights tie in would now present itself.

That the Big 12 is about to slap a commercial sponsor’s name on the league seems frankly inevitable. Much more than Oh Really? And, pretty danged clever all context considered.

Infusion of moolah. Attempt to keep up with the Sankeys and Petittis. Acceptance of the landscape as it has evolved today.

One has to admire the out of the box, forward thinking Brett Yormark, who leads the Big 12.

At least, I do. Continue reading Diss & Dat(a): Sponsored by (Your Name Here) →