Tag: football

Stetson Bennett went to Grambling State??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because that golden G logo next to his name is Grambling State University’s logo, an HBCU in Louisiana.  Pretty big of Stetson Bennett IV to not see color, in spite of having the whitest name on the face of the planet.

Or more likely, pretty bad on ESPN to not consider the copyright infringement and flagrant disrespect to an HBCU by gold-washing the team logos just because it was the national championship.  No shock there that ESPN doesn’t notice stepping on a black school.

But all jokes aside, holy mary mother of god, was that an ass-whoopin’.  65-7 is basically a Madden score when you turn the difficulty down to very easy, turn off injuries and fatigue, and truck the shit out of the AI, whose lone TD comes on a successful Hail Mary because the game’s rubberband mechanics basically make it impossible for someone to get shutout.

In spite of the chips on the shoulders, the media disrespect and all other detractors that should have for all intents and purposes fired them up to put up something of a fight, TCU put up what surely has to be one of the most embarrassing and worst national championship game performances in history. [2011 LSU and 1991 Miami were both shutout, and 2000 FSU scored just 2 points lol safety]  Undoubtedly, it was the biggest blowout in natty history, and outside of Georgia, probably one of the most boring national championship games ever.

Seriously, seven points?  In a natty?  It’s flabbergasting just how wrong everything was about TCU, and hopefully we never see TCU anywhere near the playoff again, much less playing for another national championship.  Frankly, I think it’s time we stop using the phrase Power Five when it comes to talking about conferences, because the Big-12, or the Pac-12 haven’t proven shit when it comes to football, considering notwithstanding that fluky first 2014, every single natty has been won by an SEC school or Clemson.

I mean I know I’m coming off as a mega SEC blowhard, but the numbers are the numbers.  All of my zero readers know that I’m really an ACC blowhard, regardless of how much Virginia Tech pretends to be a football school. Any single SEC school would have put up a better fight against Georgia than TCU did, and so often times is the case, after an SEC school routs a non-SEC school for a natty, there’s always some player or coach that makes the backhanded remark about how conference games are more competitive.

For context, unranked Florida and Missouri put up 20 and 22 points against Georgia earlier in the year.  Georgia Tech put up 14 points.  Even Kent State hung 22 on Georgia and they’re not even a Power-Five Three program.

I mean everyone has bad games, but this was the national championship.  This is the game where nobody should have any bad games, this is the game where everyone has been duking it out for the last six months and where real contenders should be showing why they’re contenders.  It’s not even that I’m happy that as a Georgia resident, Grambling State Georgia won another natty, I’m just disappointed that TCU shit the bed so embarrassingly bad.  Of course I was hoping Georgia would beat them, but when they basically didn’t even try, it’s tantamount to as being as meaningful as a win as beating a bunch of blind paraplegics in any sort of physical contest.

Whatever though, the only reason this post even came to fruition was the hilarious observation that I’m sure that only I noticed, that Stetson Bennett IV was shown on screen as playing for Grambling State.  Being the logo master that I am that collated all the logos and team colors for NCAA.com, only a snob like me would have.

What an incredible way to New Years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve made it pretty clear that I am no fan of Ohio State, especially when it comes to football.  I won’t call them “The” unless it’s in irony and with the intention to mock and ridicule, and few things make me happier during any given college season is seeing them get lose, be it to Michigan, Oklahoma, or better when it’s against some unheralded school.

However, regardless of my bias against them as a program, there’s no denying that they are talented and are always a threat to win a National Championship.  And the way that the media has been overwhelmingly favoring Georgia over them for the CFB semi-final Peach Bowl, I couldn’t help but have this sinking feeling that it was all tempting fate a little too hard, and it was a ripe scenario where Georgia was going to get their shit pushed in and choke hardcore to a program that should frankly never be overlooked.

I didn’t watch the game at all, but I was casually following the gamecast, because it’s not so much that I’m any bit of a UGA fan as much as I like that they represent my home, as much as I was just hoping to see Ohio State lose.  And as much as I didn’t like seeing it, I wasn’t really at all that surprised to see just how tightly TOSU was playing them, and when they went into half with TOSU up by a hair, I spoke with my one friend who actually liked sports at our chill New Years Eve gathering, about how I just had a bad feeling about this game.

When TOSU was up by two scores in the 4th quarter, I had the split feeling of being disappointed that Georgia was on the verge of choking against another team notorious for choking in TOSU, and how they were no longer buoyed by the baby luck that brought them, the Braves and Virginia Tech successes over her first year of existence, which is why they were crashing back to normalcy.  But at the same time, a degree of satisfaction at being right at the prediction that TOSU would pull the upset, because this is exactly what happened in 2014 when TOSU was so overlooked in favor of Alabama, before they steamrolled them en route to winning the first-ever CFB natty, but when it came down to it, I still would’ve preferred to see Georgia win, because seeing TOSU is always a treat.

But then fates intervened again, and TOSU just had to pull another TOSU and threaten to choke themselves, in a battle of notorious chokers.  Georgia would threaten, but it looked like TOSU got the stop, and forced Georgia to settle for the seemingly fruitless field goal that didn’t change their need for two TDs, but at least put them into a position where the second one would be a game winner and not a game tie-er.

Next thing you know, Georgia gets a stop, scores, and then gets another stop, and suddenly in crunch time, Georgia’s in a position to take the lead, which they do, with less than a minute to go.  In a battle of two programs notorious for choking, it was a war of who was going to fuck up last and go home as a result, and it was looking like it was going to be TOSU. 

But as many football fans know, 0:54 seconds might as well be 54:00 minutes, and before you know it, TOSU has gotten down the field, passed the arbitrary television field goal range marker, and they’re suddenly in a position to possibly win the game with a field goal.

All the while, the clock is ticking down towards midnight, where my friends are all watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve, as tourists in Times Square who have been likely standing there since 5 am, with pee jugs all hidden from cameras, are pretending like they’re having the greatest day of their lives, while the most exciting college football game in recent history is happening 15 miles away in Downtown Atlanta where not any one of us wants to be remotely close to.

The countdown to midnight starts taking up the screen, and I’m watching on my phone as Gamecast seems to be frozen forever, presumably where TOSU is setting up for the game winner while Georgia is presumably burning their last timeouts in an attempt to ice the kicker, and as we get to the last ten seconds of 2022, the snap and the kick are happening, and by the time the kick sails wider than I-285, and the refs are signaling NO GOOD, it’s suddenly 2023.

Seriously, it’s bonkers to me just how perfectly timed everything occurred, where Georgia completes a legendary comeback and survives the upset, at the very same time when the ball drops in Times Square, and the Peach drops less than a mile outside of Mercedes Benz Arena, and there are probably 100,000 people going apeshit gonzo in the 30303 zip code with thousands more around the Georgia, Ohio and sports bars across the nation, all while the new year changes, with millions more celebrating that.

I could only imaging the insanity that was occurring in Downtown Atlanta after the new year had lapsed.  Jubilation over survival and being on the winning side of an epic bowl game, all capped off with the celebration and jovial happiness of many others for bringing in the new year in memorable fashion.  With the cherry on top being THE Ohio State getting jobbed in a humiliating manner.  As much as casuals will throw the kicker under the bus, frankly he should never have been in a position where he was relied upon to deliver the win.  Watching the highlights of the game after the fact, TOSU’s defense got absolutely shredded in those last two drives, and they’re the motherfuckers who lost the game, not the kicker.

Whatever though.  TOSU loses, Georgia gets to defend their championship and go for two, and the New Year was brought in with good company and a chill and relaxed evening.  Seems like a fun start to me.

I will never not enjoy seeing Tennessee lose

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ICYMI: South Carolina defeats #5 Tennessee, 63-38

Man, this game is proof of the power of sports.  I had a pretty rough day, having to be on double duty all morning with the kids, and while they were down for their afternoon nap, I took my wife to the airport, and got obliterated on the way home in traffic, enraging me to thinking Thanos had a good idea, and how lucky the 2% of people who vanished in The Leftovers must’ve been to have been on a version of Earth without 98% of the population.

All I wanted was for the kids to go to sleep without too much warfare, and perhaps have a quiet evening where I could veg out and watch more television from my listed queue.  Instead, I caught wind that unranked South Carolina had hung 21 points on overrated #5 Tennessee, and I was like hmmmmmm and decided to watch, and hope for the upset; seeing as how my interest in South Carolina is merely in-law, but an opportunity to see Tennessee lose made it feel like it was kind of a no-lose situation for me.

Three hours later, my mood is uplifted, and the aggravations of the day earlier are melted away as ESPN cameras begin monitoring the crowding of the students section of Williams-Brice Stadium, after the inevitable upset is complete.

Seeing Tennessee get obliterated, and effectively dashing any remaining hope for playoff contention is the real win here.  Hendon Hooker demonstrated that his mediocre tenure at Virginia Tech was not the fluke, but his performance for Tennessee was, playing way over his head for an equally overrated and ballyhooed program as the Volunteers are in the SEC as Tech often had been in the ACC.  Instead of blowing out the unranked Gamecocks and making a case to leapfrog the Horned Frogs who needed a last-second field goal to beat Baylor, Tennessee will undoubtedly drop out of the top-10 outright and might not even get a New Years Six bowl.

South Carolina winning, and it pleasing my in-laws is merely the cherry on top. 

Spencer Rattler, oft-being labeled a bust after his much-hyped transfer from Oklahoma exploded on Tennessee like Soldier Boy from The Boys, throwing a double hat-trick of touchdowns that even Al Bundy would have to scrunch his eyes and tilt his head over.  If he performs similarly next week and the Gamecocks can upset Clemson, it’ll have to be one of the more legendary finishes to an otherwise adequate season.

But what a game though, really.  Who doesn’t love a good upset, regardless of the loose skin I might’ve had in the game?  Sure, I don’t like Tennessee and I am not a fan of turncoat Hendon Hooker.  But my in-laws are all South Carolina fans, and I like Shane Beamer being the son of Frank Beamer, and it was a treat to see that ol’ Frank was there to revel in this win. 

Speaking of Frank, it was also nice to see that Virginia Tech didn’t lose eight in a row.  Hard to believe a win against Liberty would be considered such a massive upset, but it also equalizes when they upset the Hokies in Blacksburg just a few years ago.

It was touching to see that both teams, and as I realized, all across the CFB landscape were wearing UVA stickers on their helmets to show solidarity and honor the victims of the senseless deaths and gun violence from earlier in the week.  Regardless of my personal team allegiances, nobody ever likes to hear of anything like that, and it seems pretty unprecedented that it hit multiple, active, student-athletes, whom people literally saw on television just days prior.

All in all though, this was a good example of just how effective sports can be, at being able to make a difference in the lives of people.  For me, it was a great catalyst to improve my day, for some, it’s a reminder of strength, solidarity and mourning, and for many in South Carolina, this is probably one of the better days of peoples’ lives.  Yeaahhhh sportsball

And as the subject says, I will never not enjoy seeing Tennessee lose.  Even when they’re back to being the middle-of-the-pack SEC East program they are, or when they’re having shitty years, but it’s even better when they’re completely overrated, and brought back crashing to reality.

Nothing says celebration like destruction of property

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sauce: University of Tennessee solicits for donations to repair their football field’s goalposts after they were ripped out of the ground and dumped into the Tennessee River in celebration of upsetting Alabama

I think I already know the answer to this, but I have to wonder if anywhere outside of ‘Murica, people celebrate sports victories by destroying property?  Sure, if I had to wager, places like parts of the United Kingdom probably get rowdy after a win, but by and large I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of like Japan, Korea, Germany, France or Brazil ever go biblical on their own property, after winning a World Cup or a gold medal or some other monumental victory.

Obviously this is very commonplace in ‘Murica where Philadelphia had been set on fire no less than three times in celebration, and most of Auburn and Tuscaloosa in Alabama have been torched and had trees poisoned as a result of college football games, which come to mind the quickest, with many other examples out there for inquiring minds.

Back to Tennessee, I get it, the celebration part; beating Alabama is a big deal, because it has not happened a lot over the last 13 years.  Any school that can steal a win over Alabama is truly a massive deal, and worth a good field storming afterward.

But then the uprooting of the goal posts and then throwing them into the river?  That’s just dumb, but honestly I wouldn’t expect anything less from a hick school like Tennessee which is barely relevant in anything outside of women’s hoops.  It’s the epitome of no one of us is as dumb as all of us, and you know that the vast majority of the people who ended up doing it probably don’t even care about football so much as it’s part of the scene out in Volunteer country.

The best (read: fucking insane) part of this is that not only is the school claiming that replacing  two sets of some metal bars is roughly $150,000, is that they’re soliciting people for donations to help pay for it.

Like, both schools are probably getting upwards of at least $1 million dollars each for the television rights to the game, not to mention all sorts of sponsorship monies from all the commercials.  And they have the audacity to cry poor and ask people to pay for the installation of new goalposts?  That’s fucking insanity.

Yeah sure it’s not right for people to celebrate the win by destroying property, and there should be some accountability from the violating parties. But it’s also the greatest moment in the program’s history since Peyton Manning, and some insanity should have been expected.  Not to mention the school is already loaded as fuck and in the grand spectrum of what the UT athletic department generates, $150k is a drop in the bucket.

The irony is also the fact that $150k is probably obviously some grossly inflated estimate so that a bunch of it can be pocketed, but there’s no doubt that at least $150k will be successfully raised.  And that’s the type of money that even the most tenured of educators in the faculty probably wouldn’t see, for trying to teach and develop young minds, while some yellow pieces of metal will have it raised for their sake in the span of a week.

And people wonder why college sports are resented so much, sometimes.  Sure I’m aware of the reality of the chicken and egg dynamic where the education doesn’t grow without the athletics, but when fucking goalposts raises the money that could probably pay two people’s salaries, it does sound pretty fucking ridiculous.

And that’s the kind of shit can of worms opened after a win.  Sociologically, and economically, it probably would’ve been better had Tennessee lost.

But that’s why we play the games, right??

Now this is actually just like old times

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little while ago, after I wrote about the amazing finish to the regular season, where the Braves caught the Mets on the final weekend of the season and literally stole the NL East crown right from underneath them, I had this sneaking suspicion that I was tempting fate by doing such, and that once the playoffs began, the Braves would be ripe for a good old fashioned, first round NLDS* collapse, like they had done countless times in the past.  Baby luck was no longer in play, and by acknowledging in text that the Braves were anything other than a garbage organization not worth two pennies rubbed together, I was clearly pressing the boundaries of the universe that my feelings of high on the Braves were doomed to come crashing down once the playoffs actually began.

*can’t call it first round anymore thanks to the new wild card round

The fact that the Braves did in fact, get bounced from the NLDS doesn’t bother me; after all it’s something I’ve seen happen so many times that it’s more of an aberration when it doesn’t happen.  What actually does suck is that it came at the hands of the Phillies, which is a team that I’ve never liked at any point in history, so that part does give me some sour grapes.  If it had happened against the Cardinals, I would’ve been salty but unsurprised because it seemed like the Pujols and Yadi farewell tour would’ve been very appropriate to have had run over the Braves along the way, but when they failed to close out the Phillies in the first game of the wild card series, it was pretty much all downhill from there.

More than any other sport, baseball playoffs has and will always be a game for the team that gets hot at the right time.  Because games are played so closely together, momentum can really hang and maintain in baseball, and throughout the history of the playoffs since the inception of the wild card, so often times is the World Series winner the team that just catches fire and stays on fire for a month.  Aided by the magic baby luck brought on by #2’s birth, the Braves were that team that got hot, and stayed hot, and won it all last year, no matter how unworthy of the playoffs the 88-win team really was.

The Phillies appear to be that team that’s caught fire at the right time, and amazingly they did it in the midst of a game, where they looked all but defeated against the Cardinals, but the switch flipped, they came back on the Cardinals, put them out to pasture, rolled into Atlanta, and put the Braves out of their misery too.

As much as I dislike seeing the Phillies succeed, especially at the expense of the Braves, there’s a sadistic part of me that really wants to see the Padres advance on the Dodgers, so that we have an NLCS between the #5 and #6 seeds, with hopefully the Padres going to the World Series to play against the Seattle Mariners,** in a barn burner of a World Series nobody in the world wants to see.

**at the time I’m writing this, the Mariners have just blinked first in the 18th inning of their elimination game and are on the cusp of getting eliminated  🙁

But as for the Braves, it’s back to being the Barves all over again, getting bounced in the NLDS.  Yes, it’s something that does suck, but honestly?  The good thing about a fairly fresh World Series victory, or any championship for a favored team, is that it always creates a cushion of absorbing the disappointment of future defeats.  I can still say I got to see the Braves win a World Series in my lifetime as a Braves fan and as an Atlanta resident, and because it happened pretty recently, this year’s fuckup doesn’t really irk me at all.  Being a Braves fan, it’s mostly just kind of business as usual, losing in the NLDS.

All the same though, woof, what a shitty day to have been a sports fan.  This really was kind of like a bloody Saturday as far as my casual fandoms go.  The Braves get bounced from the playoffs by the Phillies, Virginia Tech takes the L against an equally unimpressive Miami squad.  Normally Alabama getting upset is always kind of amazing, but the fact that it happened against Tennessee is irksome enough, but then realizing that their quarterback is Hendon Hooker, who used to be Virginia Tech’s QB before he transferred out and has developed into this Alabama-beating Jesus motherfucker, leaves a little bit of bitter in my mouth.

Also, I learned that Dikembe Mutombo has a brain tumor and is undergoing treatment, which hopefully is successful.  Those who know me well enough, know of my fandom of Mutombo, so this isn’t just sad because he’s kind of a meme, it’s sad because I genuinely have always been a fan of the guy.

And the cherry on top?  #25 JMU, my very literal hometown school in Harrisonburg, nationally ranked in probably like the first time ever, immediately loses to Georgia Southern, and undoubtedly that ranking.  Heavy is the team that wears a ranking, and even the Dukes couldn’t salvage this turrible day to be a sports fan.

Also, the Mariners just lost and are bounced, so there goes the hopes for a Padres/Mariners World Series. 😭

I’m sure this is going to go over very well

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a popular narrative that the National Football League is basically incapable of doing anything right.  And that the financial bulldozer that they ultimately still are, is completely in spite of the general lack of ethics, competent leadership and all of the just in general inability to not keep doing stupid shit.

Players want to celebrate touchdowns and look like they’re having fun?  Those are penalties.  A player who is on injured inactive status wants to bet on some football games?  That’s an exiling.  But multiple players who were caught, have video evidence, or were found guilty of domestic violence?  2-4 game suspension.  A Muslim player kneels after a touchdown?  Penalty.  Tim Tebow kneels after scoring a touchdown?  Hero.

I mean, the list can go on for an embarrassingly long time, regardless of the fact that the NFL is a veritable money printer.  Regardless of the fact that I don’t have the time to indulge in as much sports as I used to or liked to, the NFL doesn’t exactly make itself particularly compelling or attractive to want to pay any attention to, even if I had the capacities to.

Recently, the NFL made a public amendment to what has been called the Rooney Rule, which was already basically the NFL’s version of Affirmative Action, where teams are basically PR strong-armed into having minorities somewhere on the coaching staff.  And up until this amendment, just about every person of color ends up being a defensive coordinator, which depending on the reputation of the team, might either be a really important role, or a really insignificant one.

But the amendment states basically, that a minority must be added to the offensive staff, and also now includes that women can be implemented in order to fulfill these obligated positions.

So just like that, the NFL has basically admitted that defensive coordinators are mostly patsy positions, and that they’ve been stashing all of their mandatory minorities in them.  And now they’re trying to rectify it, as well as backhand placate women, by amending the Rooney Rule, to include more minorities and/or women onto the more glamorous offensive side of coaching.

Already, the public acknowledgment of all this is embarrassing enough, but because the NFL can’t do anything right, I can already see what’s going to happen: a whole lot of bogus bullshit positions are going to magically materialize, and they’re going to immediately be filled by minorities and/or women.  Or, there will be some team that’s extra ambitious, and fill them with black women, and go for that double whammy of Rooney Requirements:

  • Head Quarterback Football Asset Return Specialist (ball boy or girl)
  • Running Backs Nutrition Management Coach (personal chef)
  • Receivers’ Public Relations Coach (social media manager)

By labeling these with specific offensive positions, they’re now parts of the offensive coaching staffs, meant to fulfill the Rooney Rule.  And make no mistake, as hyperbolic and snarky as some of these things might appear for the sake of being brog material, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we see some surreptitiously new coaching titles start to appear on the coaching staffs of teams in the very near future.

Forced writing, vol. 745

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I’ve actually been in an okay rhythm of writing.  Between my new job having yet to really pick up steam, leading me to have some occasional downtime, trying to get #2 onto a modicum of a sleep schedule, and the fact that there have actually been numerous things that have piqued my interest to write about, I’ve actually felt satisfied with how much brogging I’ve been able to accomplish lately.

At this very moment however, I’m in a position where I wish to continue to ride such momentum and keep on writing, however my motivation to write is basically nonexistent today.  It’s not for lack of things that I know I could brog about, from the Royal Rumble, a Bengals vs. Rams Super Bowl, Tom Brady’s retirement, or the spoiled surprise of the Washington Redskins Commanders new team name.  Or social commentary about how despite the threat of coronavirus being no lower now than it was two years ago, people are going out and about all the time, and other sicknesses are spreading like wildfires, leading to situations like earlier this week where I had to go two straight days without a nanny, while on the clock, wrangling two kids.

No, I don’t much feel like writing right now.  And I hate to make it seem like I’m never not in a bad place, but right now I’m not in a particularly good place.  However, I’ve said it several times in the past, it’s times like this when I don’t feel like writing, is exactly when I should be writing, even if I am forcing it.  I have the capacity to do so, and short of dicking around on YouTube or doing surveys on my phone, there’s still no better way to spend available time than writing for me.

I just received confirmation from the vet that my dog is very much not a good candidate for surgery, due to the development and spread of cancer in his little body, and at (roughly) 16 years old, it’s probably best to just do whatever necessary to make his life comfortable, but for all intents and purposes, dog has cancer, who knows how much longer there’s left, but it’s probably not much.

I’ve touched on it before, but #2 has been regressing hard in terms of sleep, in spite of the training we’ve been trying to implement.  For the most part, both of my kids have been polar opposites of each other when it comes to sleeping, and for how great my oldest sleeps, #2 is an absolute nightmare when it comes to the topic of sleep.  Over the last few days, she’s been waking up multiple times in the night screaming bloody murder, and nothing short of plowing her with bottle after bottle seems to be capable of bringing her back down and getting her to sleep.  For another 54 minutes, before it all seems to repeat itself.

Mythical wife and I have been basically getting no more than an hour of sleep at a time before it repeats itself, and it might be just fatigue rate, but seriously, this shit is ruining my life right now.  I loathed teething and sleep regressions from my first go-around, but there’s nothing saying we’re not hitting both at the same time with #2, but it absolutely sucks balls, and I can’t even look forward to going to bed anymore, because of the expectation that shit will repeatedly hit the fan while asleep.

So when baby isn’t sleeping, parents aren’t sleeping, and we’re miserable and ornery and exhausted, more so than when she was a tiny newborn.  And this impacts my work life, which is actually now important now that I’m a new guy in a new place, and it’s critical that I make positive first impressions of how hardworking and reliable I am, but I haven’t really been able to, because of kid duties, and I’m concerned about having those that hired me think they got a dud, instead of the stud I know I’m capable of being when I’m normal, engaged and not distracted.

Of course, this, like most soul-sucking, sanity-testing tribulations of parenthood, will pass, but it’s just a matter of when.  It feels like a speedbump that never will end, and it’s so, so hard on a daily basis to operate in the routine I’m in.  It’s a waiting game with no definitive expected target date in sight, and frankly that’s feeling like the case with anything and everything these days.  From small shit like waiting for an email response from customer service, to waiting on some merchandise I’m interesting to drop when they said it was going to drop, to bigger things like the aforementioned wait for my daughter to get her sleep shit together so that my household can actually get some rest and improve the quality of our lives.

I am, not in a very good place right now.  I’m trying my best to keep my head above water, and trying to find happiness and small wins in the little things, like the explosion of growth and development from my first child, and the general daytime happiness and smiles from #2 at any other time outside of the night when she should be sleeping.  But when it comes to the big picture, there are a lot of things that are bogging me down, and I hope that the strings cut and they fall off sooner rather than later, because I’m just so over so much, and I need, just a little bit of time to catch my breath and not feel like I’m so underwater all the time.