At some point x years in the future, people will ask why tackle football is still played wherever its last vestige is, as [some nasty injury] seems inevitable. On its way to being viewed as barbaric as jousting is to us today--although not in my lifetime.
That said, using the goalpost as a pick to scrape of the defender was a feature rather than a bug back in my early days (which I realize was closer to leather helmet days than the present).
Moved in the pros in 1974. My memory is that cutting down on field goals rather than injuries was the main motivating factor at the time.
Nebraska just went for it on 4th & 1.
Sure field goals are boring, but you lose those exciting, high-impact collisions.
I actually wore a leather helmet around 1960.
I hadn't noticed that Florida lost six games this year. Tebow must have mattered.
8:Get ready for losing Bowl Games by being crushed, Hail Marys before halftime or various other reasons now that Nebraska is in the Big Ten as that is the destiny of the league. Nebraska had been pretty mediocre on their own in bowl games (probably why the Big Ten let them in) but now it's cemented. And looking at thing so far today, they might get to be part of the 2nd consecutive worst conference slaughter on New Year's Day* ever (folowing last year).
*Using college football time.
It's Jesus that matters. Tebow's just the vehicle JC drives.
If Florida can't actually run a play, Ohio State might come back.
But Illinois did beat UCLA in the worst bowl game ever. It snapped a 6-game losing streak for Illinois who were 2-6 in the conference and UCLA ended up 6-8 after sneaking into their conference final since USC (who beat them 50-0) was on probation.
But it's all a deeply criminal enterprise so I don't know why I you care so much, Moby.
Penn State's currently losing to Houston, because the universe is just.
Trust me over the history of bowls, evil is so far ahead it doesn't even care.
Tebow's just the vehicle JC drives into the ditch, apparently.
Either next year or the year after, the Big East will include Houston, SMU, San Diego State and Boise State for football.
Yeah, it's definitely garbage time in the war against evil. Truer words never were spoken.
Stormcrow gets it 100% right on this thread.
Happy Southern California boosterism/second full day of the year of the apocalypse, everyone! We have a parade and a football game, and apparently Wisconsin already distinguished itself by winning the beef bowl, which I personally consider to be the far more important competition, and far healthier. I will now return to allowing my knees to recover from my awesome holiday plan of "snowboard badly down a mountain with no snow on it."
Currently watching Philly hockey fans boo the Canadian national anthem. Stay classy, Philly.
Because of the goal post placement?
As far as bowl names go, Capital Won is at least not misleading.
They're singing "God Bless America" during the first intermission in hockey now? That song's terrible.
And what's with that crazy simultaneous forward motion by three receivers during the snap? Don't the Canadians have any respect for the purity of the sport?
20: the beef bowl, 23: The bowl in 13 was not helped one bit by being the "Fight Hunger" Bowl.
the Big East will include Houston, SMU, San Diego State and Boise State
Every campus lies to the east of something, I suppose.
We've long since passed the point at which it made sense to name conference after either geographic areas or the number of teams in them. The names just haven't caught up yet.
27: Right, it is the *Big* East after all.
The interesting thing about SDSU and BSU is that at the same time they step up into a theoretically bigger football conference, their other sports are stepping down into theoretically smaller conferences (for BSU, the same one they left for football reasons two years ago).
This process will inexorably lead, hopefully soon, to football becoming completely divorced from other sports' conference affiliations, and then from colleges entirely.
I'm sure the conferences will eventually be bought and renamed for Verizon, FedEx, U.S. Cellular, and whomever else, just like stadiums and bowl games.
28: they should just call it "The Big".
Having San Diego State in the Big East looks like logic personified compared to having the Anchorage Aces in the ECHL (previously the East Coast Hockey League, now stands for nothing). Anchorage is on the east SHORE of Cook Inlet, you don't call it the east "coast".
At least the ECHL no longer contains a team located on an island west of the west coast of North America (the Victoria Salmon Kings, who were of course in the Mountain Division).
this combination of letters somehow led me to the very brief conclusion there was BDSMU now. they might be able to field a good team. discussions about whether great offensive linemen are "topping from the bottom" could ensue.
The Aces' stadium is just down the street from my apartment. I should go to a game some time.
We're gonna need a lot of tight ends, people.
Anchorage is on the east SHORE of Cook Inlet, you don't call it the east "coast".
I'm not sure I'd really say it's on the east shore either. It's really more at the head of the Inlet, which runs northeast-southwest.
does anyone want to hear my rant about how the contributions of offensive linemen are undervalued in the NFL? I miss football. the having of informed opinions about football has garnered me getting hit on by the least appropriate people ever. only coming to mind at the moment, an obviously dirty, racist cop in the outset sunset when I was still using. I made some joking comment about living in the mission, which was his beat, but more the projects to the south of my place, and getting caught up in some raid (wrongly by stipulation), and he more or less straight up said his partner would cover for him if he wanted to rape md in the back of the squad car. ah...yeah. my (male) friend and I left then. secondly, and having just been there reinforced how fucked up this is, by my ER doctor when I had a raging fever from strep. and I was married then! in the south! I remember waving my hand on the assumption it was a get out of jail free card. I've been hit on by another ER doc but not because of caring about the NFL.
does anyone want to hear my rant about how the contributions of offensive linemen are undervalued in the NFL?
As a former offensive lineman (center; I chop blocked a lot because I was little), yes.
37: I spent an interesting few hours fishing on that body of water in a relatively small open boat (I just knew we were going "deep sea fishing" and assumed it would be some big charter) . I am pretty much the total newbie suck at fishing* but caught about 150 lbs. of halibut (like bringing up a slightly animate cast iron skillets). When I landed the first and biggest (~100 lbs.) I was definitely not prepared for the guide to pull out a gun and shoot it through the head before boating it (made sense though). My friend and 4-months pregnant wife caught a number of them as well, while the old-time Minnesota fisherman who rounded out the group managed only a couple of small ones. Totally random.
*Which I displayed while losing a big honking King Salmon just before I got it to the boat.
By God. He kills them at age 50-55.
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This year's Christmas goose-leftovers cassoulet turned out very nicely indeed. The blasted non-vegetarian child scorned it, forking out a morsel of sausage so he could claim to have tried it. Rotten child.
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You need to make the kind of cassoulet where two different types of food don't touch each other.
42: well, there's that. I think more by sportswriters, hall of fame nominatin' peeps, that sort of think. as if they were just a wall of lumpen flesh hurtling themselves forward. it takes skills! taking the hits for the delicate, valuable QB is noble! it's seen as good when your team is on the offense the whole time but jesus that's tiring for those poor bastards. I have more coherent thoughts when not loaded on painkillers/waiting in radiology in a sort of pen of wheelchair-bound patients, into which the "porter" deposited me.
Do people actually think that about the o-line anymore? Offensive linemen go super early in the draft, command the highest salaries outside quarterbacks, pro-bowl o-linesmen are hugely sought after, Michael Lewis wrote a book about how important and atheltic they are, etcetera. Seems like that ship sailed shortly after the "actually, people who walk all the time in baseball are terrific" ship did.
43: Our goose stock is cooling on the stove right now, waiting to be strained.
Teo, you should try to make it up to Chitina when they dip net for Salmon next year. Beautiful place and apparently quite the spectacle (or you could participate).
Further to 40: The guide was a hoot in general--a young guy from an old pioneer Russian family (we were at Ninlchik). He also had great stories of his attempt at homesteading in the backcountry.
Teo, you should try to make it up to Chitina when they dip net for Salmon next year. Beautiful place and apparently quite the spectacle (or you could participate).
A couple of my cow-orkers went this past summer, and one of them actually recently gave me three filets he still had. Fishing isn't really my thing, but I suppose I could easily tag along next year.
Back when they were good, the Washington Redskins' offensive line was The Hogs, who are celebrated to this day.
back in the day I was a skins fan. you have to remember I left the states 11 years ago. maybe the offensive line receives its due now.
oh man, pointlessly hyping the emotional drama on CSI:MIAMI with the raped and murdered 5-year old. jesus, I don't need to see this shit. I could watch "law and order: creepy perverts doing shit that will keep you up at night"unit
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Speaking of football, why in God's name am I cheering for Stanford?
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53: I am too, and I don't know why either. Beats OSU, I guess?
I'm going with "'cause T. Boone Pickens sucks". Feels a little hollow at the moment, though.
I was actually mostly rooting for my FB friend to cover after he parlayed his Rose Bowl winnings into Stanford at +5.5. And he did, in thrilling fashion! Hooray, gambling!
56: Yes, classic sports gambling moments on the calls by the officials and OSU coach at the end of OT (I think most people had it at least 3.5). The latter might hear about it in private from some of the OSU boosters.
The review on the TD seemed upfront enough to me. And if you weren't concerned about covering the FG was definitely the right play. So, you know, if the fix was in, it was a mighty clever fix.
I was not clear; I did not mean to imply that there was any kind of fix in either case--just how sports gambling and the "line" in particular can serve as an interesting filter on events. A slightly sad instance was when late in his career Earl Monroe (I believe, or it might have been Walt Frazier) on a whim turned and laid the ball into the opponent's basket at the very end of a game. But, the points pushed it over the betting line and it destroyed the whimsy of the moment and was investigated by the league.
And trust me, the OSU coach *will* hear about the decision from boosters.