Of course, the Prom is a full 7 and a half months away, but since scrapbooking, photoshop and digital photography have turned every parent into Martha Stewart meets Ansel Adams on crack, joy and spontaneity must be hung until dead at the tree of cold, calculated perfection.
The only thing I remember about my own Senior Prom, aside from drinking a twelve pack in the woods and puking into a White Castle garbage can with the rest of the dateless "Grunge before there was Grunge" crowd, was the raging debate over the theme song. In those Classic Rock days this came down to a schoolwide vote between "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful To Me" which for my money are two of the three nastiest songs ever written (Wonderful tonight? What was I yesterday?; Beautiful to you? What about the rest of the world?). So knowing I had about has much chance of attending this soiree as Hank Williams, Jr. does Al Franken's Sukkot I decided to write-in the absolute meannest song ever written..."I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face".
And somewhere my former female classmates are blissfully unaware of the bullet they dodged.
--School Voting Postscript: I also take credit for leading the Senior "Liquid Lunch" Bunch in an attempt to get one-eyed "Looney" Lenny Morales into the Yearbook "Best Of" section by whiting out the "s" on the ballot thereby voting him "Nicest Eye_". Good times!
CFB NOTES
--Brevity is nice. I for one have a crockpot sitting dustily unused atop my refrigerator because as a single, childless, oft-inebriated male it's hard to envision what the future will hold even 10-12 hours in advance. Thus everytime I think about making that stew I immediately picture EMTs zipping my bloated corpse into a bodybag just as the baby carrots and pearl onions are simmering to perfection. That's why I'm a microwave guy where you can cook anything in an unbelievable fraction of the time with the exception of Minute Rice which no matter how fast you put it in and pull it out always winds up burnt. I bring this up because one exception to this rule is the sound bite-style of announcing popularized by John Madden that still has a foothold today. And my biggest complaint with these Madden-isms is one dusted off last week by ESPN Analyst Chris Spielman, namely, "don't throw a 3rd down pass short of the first down marker." Like any of these mini morsels there's a kernel of truth in there. You shouldn't throw short of the marker to a player who's running a stop-route or at the sidelines. However, you can throw, and often get a first down by throwing to, receivers running crossing patterns or misdirection plays like screens or shovel passes. So next time you hear this idiocy trotted out turn off the audio, do your own running commentary and maybe pop in a coupla Hot Pockets, it only takes two minutes for an entire meal.
--Because the FBS Division features 120 teams of wildly disparate talent it's easy for the polls to over-inflate a team with a soft schedule worse than Greenland on a wall map. The popular play in this vein today is Washington to hang with or possibly upset #7 Stanford. Indeed Stanford has not played a team yet with even close to a winning record and taking the 21 with the Huskies looks enticing. Still the Cardinal has crushed the squads they've faced handily and Washington's sked has featured only two decent teams, Nebraska whose inept offense hung 51 on them in Lincoln and Utah who lost their star QB to injury in the first half. Neither team has put up less than 30 in a game this season and while we know all about Andrew Luck U-Dub's Keith Price can also make big plays with both his arm and legs. If +21 looks like a trap to you then Over 63 may be the way to go in what looks to be a wild one and if Stanford does cover look for an even more inflated go against line in the coming weeks.
--One of our favorite analysts of all-time was legendary Arkansas coach Frank Broyles who worked for years alongside Keith Jackson at ABC. His best call in our opinion was the 1984 Sugar Bowl between #3 Auburn and #8 Michigan. Clearly overmatched by a talented Tiger team Bo Schembechler played every Wolverine defender within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage and dared Auburn HC Pat Dye, a man so conservative he makes Pat Buchanan look like an Occupy Wall Streeter, to pass. When Dye refused Broyles nearly burst the throbbing vein in his forehead while screaming through the marbles in his mouth, "pass, dammit, pass, Keith, why won't they pass?" Auburn eked out a 9-7 win that was so unimpressive that despite #1 Nebraska and #2 Texas being upset the Tigers were leapfrogged by Miami (FL) and gained no ground in the final polls. Twenty-seven years later the idea that one-dimensional teams can go only so far before their lack of balance is exposed is even more prevelant. Case in point is Michigan's loss to Michigan State last week and last night's fall of Rutgers to a mediocre Louisville club. These clubs beat up on weak sisters and defensively challenged opponents in their early games, but once faced with stout rush Ds on the road they withered. Neither club ran for 100 yards or better than 3.0 ypc and when their aerially-challenged QBs had to go vertical they produced less than 50% completions and a 2-4 ratio. Today Georgia Tech's option attack goes on the road to Miami (FL) a week after getting upset at Virginia in a game where their QB Tevin Washington was 2 of 8 for 24 yards and 2 INTs. The Hurricanes are playing better of late, though, their run defense was gashed by the pass deficient Ohio State for 174 yards earlier in the year. Our plays will be below, but this is worth a look at Miami (FL) -3 and a trend to follow in your "recreational" CFB prognosticating.
It's amazing any learning gets done at...oh does that say Arizona State?...never mind...--Speaking of Michigan has anyone noticed that the turnaround there has coincided with not only the removal of Rich Rodrieguez as HC, but also that of the ultimate Coaching Hack's Hack DC Greg Robinson. Robinson's close ties to Pete Carroll from their days with the early '90s Jets have continually kept him employed as a DC in the pros or the upper levels of the NCAA despite not producing a decent defense since the late '90s in Denver. His 2003 D in K.C. did not get a single stop against Peyton Manning in the playoffs as the 13-3 Chiefs got bounced at home by the Colts despite putting up 31 points on offense. Last year the Wolverines D allowed over 450 yards per game and was gashed for 52 by what we now know was a very average Mississippi State team in their bowl game. Conversely this year under the competent Greg Mattison UM has shaved over 100 yards off their per game average and is all but assured of producing a better record than in either of Robinson's years in Ann Arbor.
But even more inexplicable is how Syracuse allowed themselves to be be suckered into hiring G-Rob as their HC in 2005. Again the Pete Carroll connection came through as he persuaded 'Cuse AD and USC grad Darryl Gross into hiring his buddy. The Orange went 10-37 in 4 years under Robinson only to begin a remarkable resurgence under current HC Doug Marrone which culminated last night with their rout of #11 West Virginia at the Carrier Dome. Alas it appears Robinson's record of futility has forced him out the game at least for 2011, but keep an eye open for pointspread plays should the ol' boy network spit him out into a job of prominence in the future.
This post is running late, so here's one that really requires no reasoning or caption...--On to the plays. The BCS rankings came out this past week and #1 according the computer rankings is Oklahoma State. Their ranking of #6 in the Harris and Coaches polls drops them to #4 overall, but something feels like they may have peaked. Today they go to Missouri, a generally tough place to play, and face a Tiger squad that stumbled early, but seems to have righted the ship with a good effort at Oklahoma and 52-17 rout of Iowa State last week. We'll try Mizzou +7 and how 'bout a pair of Overs since we get tired of whirling our arm in a circle like a referee indicating the clock should keep running when trying to root for the Under. So let's say the aforementioned Washington/Stanford Over 63.5 and SMU/Southern Miss Over 60. As always these selections are for the proverbial "sh*ts and giggles" and not an enticement to contact your "friends" in say the Netherland's Antilles. Enjoy the games!
