LOVE IT or LEAVE IT: Dropping the ball

Good Lord, Saturday sucked. But if you haven’t read John’s commentary yet, I suggest you do so. It may get you through the rest of the week. Maybe calm your nerves. But if I could write one long LEAVE IT section on this past Saturday, I would. Time to move on though. New week, new possibilities. And now some new opinions for this week.

LOVE IT: There was very little to love about Saturday. One of the very few bright spots came when God C.J. Beathard was temporary knocked out of the game. He was replaced by true freshman Nathan Stanley. I’ll be the first to admit that I am eating a huge plate of crow when it comes to Stanley. I thought there was no way Kirk would let a true freshman climb the depth chart ladder as easily as he has. But aside from that, kudos to Greg Davis for dialing up a pass play on Stanley’s first snap when NDSU was clearly expecting the run. Stanley delivered the pass with ease. From the in-person perspective, Stanley looked the part. He looked confident, stood tall, and seemed like he belonged. Something to give us hope in case CJB goes down again.

Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports

LEAVE IT: The Big 12 is not good this year, folks. Ok I love that. But what is particularly insulting to the entire playoff process is that the Big 12 has already knocked itself out of the conversation and it’s not even the end of September. Oklahoma is 1-2 with a damaging defeat at the hands of Ohio State. TCU, Texas, and Oklahoma State all already have one loss. That leaves Baylor, which has played Jr. High teams thus far and, frankly, hasn’t looked particularly good despite the final scores. A 12-0 Baylor would have to face the music on a lax non-conference schedule and I think the Committee would probably look for every reason to keep Baylor out after the mess it endured last spring.

LOVE IT: The Big Ten, on the other hand, looks as strong as it has in several years (*sigh* Iowa). Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and even Nebraska all have very strong wins against traditional Power 5 powerhouses. Michigan doesn’t have a marquee win yet, but they have certainly looked the part otherwise. Iowa’s struggles be damned, I love to see the conference doing well. I have included the B1G in the past couple segments, so I’m beating a dead horse, but it is actually a big deal when even Finebaum says the B1G is the strongest conference top to bottom.

Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports

LEAVE IT: You would think by now players would not do dumb stuff like this:

SI

How the hell does this keep happening? Obviously you can’t take points off the board once the next play starts, but the replay officials really botched this one. Fortunately, it didn’t affect the outcome of the game, but the NCAA may have to take the replay rule to a literal extreme when it says it will replay “every” scoring play. But for now, I’ll just say that players are stupid if they haven’t learned to not do this already.

LOVE IT: A little basketball news for those looking for a break from football misery. Welcome to the family Luka Garza and Jack Nunge:

Yes, we should note that we are over the limit for the 2017 class. I don’t believe, however, that Fran would have accepted their commitments without some kind of plan. Personally, I think he will have his son Connor walk on for a year and Dale Jones will have to decide whether he wants to play a sixth year and if he does, he may have to give up his scholarship since his original commitment was for two years. Not to mention someone will almost certainly transfer. It will work itself out. It always does in these types of things.

LEAVE IT: Mike Leach is misguided in his criticism of the media for coverage of his players getting into trouble. Putting my lawyer hat on for a minute, I too hate it that names in the media are judged in the court of public opinion before a court of law. But I am also enough of a realist to understand that this is the world we live in. I do not believe athletes are targeted by police. I do believe that they receive a disproportionate amount of coverage in the media when they do get into trouble. But this is what happens when athletes are public figures. Division-I football players are exactly that. You don’t hear about the latest Central College (Go Simpson!) football player getting a public intox on the local news because his team does not affect the same amount of people. This is about getting the most important news to the most amount of people. Division-I players live with that reality. for better or for worse.

Oh and if you need some entertainment, here’s Mike Leach using the F word for about 6 minutes straight. Definitely NSFW but enjoy anyway:

Have a better week than Mike Leach, everyone.