We’re pollen-coated ass-deep into Spring, which means the start of Major League Baseball and playoffs in the NBA and NHL. So of course we’re going to offer a few words about second-tier college football. Never say we can’t scratch a niche.
William and Mary, at least the third-favorite college for many in the audience, recently announced that it would move its football program from its long-time home in the Coastal Athletic Association (formerly the Colonial) to the Patriot League, beginning in 2026.
The move makes sense for both cultural and competitive reasons.
The Tribe’s primary football rivals, Richmond, James Madison and Delaware, all departed for other locations; JMU and Delaware climbed upward to the Football Bowl Subdivision, Richmond moved laterally to W&M’s future home in the Patriot beginning this coming season. The CAA’s distended conglomeration that now includes the likes of Stony Brook, Hampton U., Monmouth, Albany, Campbell and North Carolina A&T doesn’t much move the needle for Team Tribe.
The Patriot, meanwhile, is a collection of schools whose profiles more closely resemble W&M, in size and academic standing. It was also a relatively light lift, since W&M’s move is football only. The rest of the school’s athletic teams will continue to compete in the CAA.
A segment of Team Tribe has pushed for years, with varying degrees of force, to join the Patriot. Again, like-minded schools, particularly as CAA expansion brought in colleges with little in common to replace the league’s better known programs. But that wasn’t and isn’t William and Mary’s call entirely. The Patriot is comprised of small, private schools – undergrad enrollments range from Lafayette’s 2,764 to Fordham’s 10,337 – that were and are justifiably concerned about getting Bigfooted by W&M’s broad-based athletic program.
For many years, the Patriot also didn’t permit its schools to offer athletic scholarships, providing only what’s called need-based financial aid, a la the Ivy League. But more than a decade ago, conference Big Hats concluded that athletic grants weren’t a path to academic ruin and allowed their athletic programs to pony up. As a result, Patriot football is more competitive regionally and certainly with the CAA, which in its heyday was one of the nation’s best FCS conferences.
William and Mary athletic director Brian Mann explained to a former colleague that the football move came about relatively quickly – in discussions over just a few weeks – and that football-only makes sense now and for the foreseeable future. CAA football is a separate entity from the rest of the conference. It has/had adjunct members Richmond, Villanova, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, schools whose entire programs compete in other conferences, and de-coupling was easier than a full move. He is quoted in the piece: “I don’t think anybody at this time is ready for a big decision like that. We’re happy with where we are in the CAA, and (the Patriot League is) happy with their full membership. And with all the changes coming to college athletics, any sort of a change like that right now feels premature.”
“Premature” is an interesting word choice. College administrators – the more effective ones, anyway – are usually precise with language and can be as vague or specific as necessary. Given Mann’s entire thought, “premature” reads more like “not yet” rather than “not interested.” Indeed, former athletic director Terry Driscoll told my comrade in that same piece that W&M had discussions with the Patriot on three occasions during his tenure, without a move.
Patriot League affiliation may be a single-sport endeavor for William and Mary, or it may be a wade into the shallow end of the pool for consideration of full membership down the line. In any case, it continues the Tribe’s historic rivalry with Richmond as a conference game. And rumblings that Villanova football will also move from the CAA to the Patriot would further enhance the league and give Coach Mike London’s program one more familiar foe.
College power brokers sweat and fret over a shifting landscape with new seven- and eight-figure expenditures and legal taffy pulls. Meanwhile, schools down the food chain that simply want kids to be able to compete and to proudly represent the laundry can only hope to find their appropriate depth. Ain’t easy. Athletic officials all earn their keep these days.
As we all recall, Day 11 is a bit of a behemoth, so while we eagerly anticipate its arrival, it may take a few more days while robbie reviews the Year du Gheorghe. In the meantime... football!
The college football playoff has been everything everyone most people wanted. (Fans of Oregon, Georgia and a few others... sorry 'bout your bad luck play.)
Irish vs Buckeyes. Danimal vs Buckles. Flynn vs Evan. Catholics vs... Tree Nuts.
Get some. Irish haven't beaten the Bucks since FDR's first term. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again, and the Irish have a man like that in Riley "Don't Call Me Booger Ray" Leonard.
They don't call me the best color guy in the game for nothin'.
Okay, now on to the pros!
Those of you who pay any attention may have noticed a pattern in my gambling. The pattern? I'm terrible. Awful. A travesty. Always wrong. Okay, well, almost always. In fact, FanDuel considered shuttering its doors after giving up a bet like that to me.
Other than that, I've lost many, many bets there. Luckily, I don't gamble high dollar amounts.
That said, I gots a funny feeling about my picks for the playoffs this weekend. Go All In!
Here you go, your 1st Round NFL Playoff Picks brought to you by my betting alter ego, Slapdash Drunkenwager . . . and Alcoa.
Alrighty, here comes Slapdash with his picks!
Greetings sports fans, and welcome to another edition of What the hell is he thinking, I mean my weekly football picks!
This week we're reaching way way back using the flux capacitor and 1.69 gigawatts of mental energy. A salute to the NFL stars of Slapdash's youth. Yep, placing wagers based on complete irrelevance. Couldn't be worse than my usual analysis.
Chargers (-3) @ Texans
Back when Slapdash was a kid, the Chargers had Danny Fouts and his cannon, Chuck Muncie and his specs, Wes Chandler and his wheels, and Charlie Joiner and his Hall of Fame cool. But they also had a little guy named Kellen Winslow who brought his badassed guts. Air Coryell. And for a couple of years, up until 1980, they had The O.C. named Joe Jackson Gibbs. Not shoeless, he commanded a high-flying offense.
Meanwhile... when Slapdash was a kid, the Texans were not a team. Oh, they had been a team. In Dallas. Who, after one crap season, moved to Baltimore to become the Colts. Ohhhh, Baltimorons, you stole someone's team and then got all cranky when the Mayflowergate happened in '84. Slapdash has said it before and he'll say it again, that Mayflower Van Lines still has zero presence in Baltimore and Howard County, MD is hilarious and awesome.
There was, though, a Houston team in my youth... you know them...
They had a fella named Bum runnin' the show. They had a bigger fella named the Tyler Rose runnin' through people. And keepin' on footwear, they had a fella for a few years, up until 1980, called White Shoes.
But they were Oilers. These are Texans. And though these Chargers are in Lose Angle-leez rather than San Dieeego, they're still the same old cHargers!
Chargers cover.
Steelers @ Ravens (-9.5)
Another nomenconundrum here, folks! Weren't no Ravens back when! Bal'mer was the Colts, and boy did they stink back then. Johnny U and Art Donovan were distant memories, and let's not mention the words John Elway or Indianapolis.
The Steelers were the Steel Curtain, aging though they were. Nobody dominated the NFL in the 1970's like this franchise, and they wouldn't post a losing record until the middle of the next decade. And if I think about Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore in an NFL showdown, I think of two men.
L.C. Greenwood and Bert Jones.
Gotta go with L.C. Steelers and the points. (If you'd called Slapdash earlier this week, you could've gotten 10.5 like he did.)
Broncos @ Bills (-9)
Orange Crush defense led by Tom Jackson (pre-ESPN), Rubin Carter (not that one), Randy Gradishar, Lyle Alzado, and eventually Karl Mecklenburg, who it should be noted was actually one of the henchmen who attacked Nakatomi Plaza.
And yes, Craig Morton. And eventually... John Elway. Baltimore's bastard son.
Buffalo... well, Joe Ferguson? A backfield that also included Joe Cribbs, Roosevelt Leaks, Roland Hooks... Cribbs, Leaks, and Hooks is now an upstate residential contracting firm, but collectively they ran for over 1500 yards in 1981. The team was led in sacks that year by Ben Williams and Ken Johnson. I mean, that's what they are called after having gone into witness protection, right?
This was all before they dispensed with Coach K, I mean a coach named Kay Stephenson, and a few years later decided to hire a guy who had coached at William and Mary. No, not Sean McDermott, dummies! Marv Levy. Middling days.
Like or hate Elway and his mule smile, he wins this. Take the points. Broncos.
Packers @ Eagles (-5)
Forrest Gregg versus Dick Vermeil. Lynn Dickey versus Ron Jaworski. James Lofton versus Harold Carmichael. Eddie Lee Ivery versus Wilbert Montgomery.
Slapdash Style True Story: Stevie & Paul's hit tune "Ebony and Ivory" was originally "Eddie Lee Ivery."
Eddie Lee... Ivery / runs through Lions defenses... forcefully / side by side with Gerry Ellis / Jealous? / Fellas, you should be!
Here's what I remember of the Packers of Slapdash's youth:
But the pre-Comms lost that game 48-47 on a last-second FG by Jan "Translation: Nothing Ages in Norway" Stenerud-boy. Monday night game in October. It was insane. And the last time Washington would lose that season. Oh, until they went to Tampa for Super Bowl XVIII and, uh... Squirek-ed their pants. Fun fact: Dave Flynn went with his dad to that game. His pop used to play OL for Oklahoma back when that meant you were a lunatic beast. When the game went bad, and it went very, very bad, his dad got in a fight with a loudmouth Raider fan while 13-year-old Flynn sat there and sipped his Sprite and wondered what was next.
This is what the Eagles of the old days makes me think of:
Celebrate good times, come on. If you're a Philly fan. (But they lost in the Super Bowl that year as well.)
If you compare those two plays, and believe me I have or my name's not Slapdash Drunkenwager, you gotta fly Eagles fly. I will now flush my fingers in the toilette for having typed that. Ewwwww.
Take the Birds giving points.
Commanders @ Buccaneers (-3)
Well, once again the durn name changes throw ol' Slapdash off, but this time it was for a purty good reason. Ask Mike Schur; he dedicates a goodly chunk of his book to that old name and dunk-boothing Daniel Snyder repeatedly and comically. Good shit.
So Washington and Tampa from the olden days of the Carter (RIP, sweet prince) and Reagan years has one bad mofo thing in common. Doug Williams. Remember him? He was awesome. Channeling the CF Show now? Let's go, Slapdash.
So, other than that? Well, in the early 1980's it was all Washington, baby. Riggo! Rev up the Diesel! Vroom, vroom, vroom! More nicknames than a Berman family reunion. Hogs, Smurfs, Fun Bunch, etc. Actually, back in the late 70's when the Bucs leapt up from the dreary beginnings of the McKay/Spurrier era...
"Coach, what do you think about your team's execution?" Head Coach John McKay: "I'm in favor of it."
...and made it to the NFC Championship game in '79, Washington was known as the Deadskins. 'Twixt George Allen and Joe Gibbs was Jack Pardee and Pardee Par Par on a the best days. Double bogey city on the rest. Anyway, you take the good ('79 Bucs, '83 pre-Commanders), you take the bad (other years), you take 'em both and there you have a fargin' close game! This one's gonna be tight. And whoever can channel their best Doug E. Fresh Williams will win.
If you're getting 3 in a game that may be won by a single point, Slapdash takes the points. Commanders.
Vikings @ Rams (+2.5)
Home dog! Speaks to the silly system the NFL now has. Alrighty, then. Minnesota and L.A. It's like Lakers history month.
Fran Tarkenton! Tommy Kramer! Pat Haden! Vince Ferragamo! Bud Grant! John Robinson! Ahmad Rashad! Phylicia Ayers-Allen! Eric Dickerson! Rec Specs!
Slapdash is tired from not doing enough slapdash prognosticating and thinking too hard about these games.
Vikings and rams both have horns. They even hang out together. Maybe even forge a relationship and perform the physical act of lovely on cold, wintry nights like it will be Monday. They belong together.
So why are they fighting?
Minnesota lost 4 Super Bowls in the 1970's. One to the Steelers. The Rams lost one... to the Steel Curtain in January of 1980. They couldn't win one in L.A. so they said meet me in St. Louis. They should commiserate. But... L.A. won a few years ago.
Slapdash says feel sorry for the Vikings, Bud, Fran, Ahmad, Steve Dils, the guy who traded the whole world for Herschel, and everyone freezing in Minnesota.
Take the Vikings giving a few. Do to the rams what you've always done to their kind, ye freebooting rovers of Norseland.
There you go. When you cash in big, like Slapdash Drunkenwager big, gimme a call and I'll let ya buy me a coldie.
Derrick Henry led the league in yards, carries, and rushing TD for the second year in a row. Leroy Kelley did it from 1967-1968. It doesn't appear that anyone else did it since. A guy named Bill Paschal did it in 1943 and 1944; Steve Van Buren did it from 1947 to 1949; and Jim Brown did it in 1958-59. In fact, OJ Simpson is the only post-merger player I can find who led the league in all three categories twice in his career (1973 and 1975--it always comes back to OJ). For the record, Jim Brown did it four times because he's Jim Brown (1958, 1959, 1963 and 1965).
I've been a Derrick Henry fan ever since the 2014 Sugar Bowl. Something happened every time he touched the ball. I couldn't understand why he touched it only nine times. It was like watching a man among boys.
And that reception at the end was his only reception of the season! Incredibly, the guy making those plays was only 18 or 19 years old. Even more incredible: his senior year of high school highlight reel:
Also incredible: he looked like this when he was 14 years old. Here's a link to more footage--the "Derrick Henry Rule" in his middle school league starts around 1:50. According to that video, he never rushed for under 100 yards in any of his 45 career high school games. His senior year game log looks like something from Super Tecmo Bowl. Here are his high school stats:
So it isn't like he came out of nowhere. He was the best high school RB ever! I assumed that he would be the featured back in 2015 but instead he only got 172 carries. He made the most of them--990 yards and 11 TD. Bama was stacked that year with TJ Yeldon, Kenyon Drake, Amari Cooper and OJ Howard. There were too many mouths to feed so Henry didn't get a huge workload. I couldn't understand this, he was unstoppable yet he never got more than 20 carries in a game that year. Bama finish the year ranked sixth.
TJ Yeldon left for the NFL so Henry got all the carries in 2015, picking up 2219 yards (sixth best single-season total), 28 touchdowns (ninth best single-season total), a National Championship, the Doak Walker and Maxwell Awards, and the Heisman Trophy. He was a steamroller. He received high praise from brilliant pundits like me, opining "I said it before and I'll say it again. Just get be the ball to Derrick Henry." I think I was drunk when I wrote "get be the ball." I also posited "As I said here last year, just give the ball to Derrick Henry. He is not human." Mark concurred with "Stumping for Derrick Henry will never be a bad idea." TR, however, predicted that "Derrick Henry will not be an elite NFL running back. #hottake"
NFL front offices listened to TR instead of Mark and me. Henry was drafted #45 overall in 2016. This was the height of the "running backs grow on trees" phase of NFL team-building, but Melvin Gordon and TJ Yeldon went #15 and #36, respectively, the year before. People drafted ahead of Henry in 2016 include Paxton Lynch, Eli Apple, Corey Coleman, Josh Doctson, and Laquon Treadwell. My beloved Bills drafted Reggie Ragland at #41 and he never played a single down of football in a Buffalo uniform.
I knew the Titans had the steal of the draft. I took Henry in the seventh round of my fantasy football league--it's full of sharps, super competitive, and if you want a guy you have to move early. Mahomes went in the fifth round in 2018, for example. Sure, Tennessee had Demarco Murray, but he was 28 and coming off a shitty year in Philadelphia. Surely the superhuman rookie would get the bulk of the work.
I forgot that Mike Mularkey was involved in Tennessee. He's an idiot. He allocated almost three times as many carries to Murray as Henry in 2017, and an even split between the two in 2017.
Mike Vrabel took over in 2018 and made Henry the week 1 starter but he only averaged about 11 carries per game, then Vrabel demoted him for Dion Lewis in week 9. He finally gave the ball to Henry in week 13. Over the last four weeks of the 2018 season, Henry complied 585 yards and 7 TD on 87 carries, good for 6.72 yards per rush. He even threw a 6 yard completion. Then, of course, 2019 and 2020 were laser shows.
How the hell did this happen? Derrick Henry was literally the best high school running back in the history of high school running backs. Then he went to Alabama and put up eye-popping yards-per-carry numbers his first two years but couldn't get all the work because of TJ Yeldon? He had an all-time season his senior year as the featured back on the national championship team and won the Heisman, but didn't get drafted until the second round? And then his team needed over two and a half seasons to realize he was a cross between the Hulk and the Flash, while he languished behind a past-his-prime back averaging 3.6 yards per carry who got benched by his previous team for Ryan Mathews? How is this possible? How was he hiding in plain sight for years?
Mark and I had a text exchange about this. Most of the all-time great running backs were highly drafted and started right away. Curtis Martin's success was a bit of a surprise as a third rounder, but he started fifteen games as a rookie--it didn't take long for Parcells to figure out what he had. Terrell Davis was drafted in the sixth round, in large part due to his history of migraines, but he was able to overcome that with medication approved in 1997. Sumatriptan y'all! He started fourteen games as rookie because Shanahan knew what he had. I don't consider Frank Gore to be an all-time great but it only took him one season to become a starter.
The closest comparables are perhaps Ahman Green and Shaun Alexander who rode the bench behind Ricky Watters for two years and one year respectively. But Watters in Seattle was a hell of a lot better than Demarco Murray in Tennessee.
How do you not realize that you have a guy who can do this?
On the evening of Thursday April 28, 2016, a video of Laremy Tunsil smoking a bong appeared on the internet. The NFL draft began a few minutes later. Predictably, a great deal of hew and cry ensued--Tunsil was a dominant player at the University of Mississippi and was projected to be a top 5 pick but he "fell" (I use quotation marks because this guy would posit that his fall was much worse and more painful) all the way to #13 due to the video. Various talking heads stated that Tunsil lacked judgment, that he needed to get his act together, the he needed to get straightened out, that this would be a wake-up call for him, and myriad other cliches insinuating that Tunsil is a criminal ... despite the fact that smoking marijuana is legal in all of Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, the District of Columbia, and the cities of Portland and South Portland in Maine and Keego Harbor, Michigan, and that possession has been decriminalized in 14 other states including Mississippi! In fact, first-time possession offenders (of 30 grams or less) in Mississippi are merely fined $100 to $250, roughly the same penalty as parking in a handicapped spot on the Ole Miss campus. Clearly the people of Mississippi and their legislators don't think this is a big deal.
In apparent accord, about 48 hours later the leader of the free world said this:
Obama on his approval ratings: "The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide on my major" #WHCDhttps://t.co/cU4YnxkHkv
Everybody laughed. Probably because many other elected officials admit to smoking dope in the past, including Presidents Clinton and Bush 43; Vice-President and former Senator Al Gore; current Senators and Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz; former Senator/Democratic Party Presidential nominee and current Secretary of State John Kerry; former Senators Rick Santorum and John Edwards; former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; current Governor Andrew Cuomo; and former Governors Jeb! "sorry mom" Bush, George Pataki, Sarah Palin, Howard Dean, Jesse Ventura, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
So Tunsil's in some elite company. Literally millions of people voted for these guys despite the fact that they burn. Why the hell should anyone care if a fat college kid in Mississippi--again, where smoking dope is decriminalized--gets high from time to time? You mean to tell me that marijuana use and the potential resulting lack of mental acuity is more important when critiquing offensive linemen than potential Commanders-in-Chief of the world's most powerful military force? Stoners are qualified to have access to nuclear launch codes but not to play offensive tackle for one of the twelve worst teams in the NFL? Get the fuck outta here.
A few hours before President Obama started joking about toking, the New England Patriots drafted Malcolm Mitchell, a wide receiver from the University of Georgia. Mitchell made a name for himself off the field as well. ESPN.com posted a heartwarming story about him last year. Mitchell came to UGA "reading at about a junior-high level." When asked how he expected to survive academically at the flagship of Georgia's public education system, Mitchell said "It's not that hard [to get through]." Mitchell blew his knee out in the 2013 season opener, and with all the sudden free time on his hands he decided to learn to read at the adult level. He read some children's books and grew into more age-appropriate literature--his proudest accomplishment is reading all the Hunger Games books in two days. His love of reading was further nurtured and developed after he blundered his way into a book club comprising middle-aged women. Seriously.
Mitchell went on to write his own children's book, available at readwithmalcolm.com. Predictably, NCAA rules prevent Mitchell from promoting his book on any UGA-related website.
Am I the only person who finds this story troublesome? First, how did Mitchell manage to get into college? Second, how was he getting through UGA before he decided to learn to read at an adult level? Third, why wasn't anyone at UGA working with him to improve his reading skills? Fourth, would he have ever improved his reading if he never hurt his knee (i.e., if he had no free time to practice reading)? Fifth, would he have graduated if he continued to read at a middle-school level? Sixth, why did he have to join a club of elderly women to find people to discuss literature with--couldn't he have found this resource in an English class or with other students or maybe even his teammates and coaches? Seventh, why isn't there an NCAA investigation into all of the foregoing issues?
So Tunsil is a bad guy for engaging in a non-criminal recreational activity while in college (which the leader of the free world laughingly reminisces about doing in college), and the University of Georgia's complete failure to educate a student results in a feel-good story? I just don't get it.
On the fifth day of Gheorghemas big Gheorghe gave to me: Five podcasts for listening Four posts zman meant to write but never did Three French Hens Two in-state rivalries And a dork with a split personal-ity
We have entered what many are calling The Golden Age of Podcasting. This is odd, because the technology and the means of distribution for podcasting have been around for quite a while. All you need is a microphone, a laptop, and a method of streaming an mp3 over the internet. Simple stuff. So why the increase in popularity? There are an abundance of hypotheses. The boom could be because podcasts are just getting better. It might be because of Serial. Or perhaps because podcasts are so cheap to make. And they can reach a niche audience. Commercials and product placement are more effective on podcasts than they are on the radio. It may be technology: cars and phones work well together now, so people don't have to listen to the radio or SiriusXM. There are apps to pull in all you favorites, and you can subscribe on iTunes. So there are a plethora of reasons, Jefe . . . a plethora.
In other words, it's a fantastic time to walk the dog (that's when I do the bulk of my podcast listening-- my commute is only a few minutes).
Here are five podcasts for listening. These are all good shows, but I've selected specific episodes, curated for the niche audience of Gheorghe:The Blog. Each one gets the Official Dave Seal of Approval. Enjoy.
I love Planet Money. It's short, informative, and entertaining, and it makes me feel smart. It's rarely over my head, but I always learn something new.
"Auditing ISIS" goes above and beyond the normal episode-- and it doesn't have all that much to do with economics. It's more about how terrorists think and operate. The Planet Money team analyzes a municipal budget that was smuggled out of ISIS territory. One month of detailed expenditures, disbursements, and collections from the ISIS controlled Deir ez-Zour province of Syria.
You'll learn how ISIS spends its money-- mainly paying their fighters, and how ISIS fighters spend their money-- mainly on hamburgers and chocolate and Ferraris. You'll learn how ISIS makes its money-- oil smuggling and black market antiquities and "licensed" confiscations (the ISIS term for looting). You'll also hear the firsthand account of one man's experience living in this economic nightmare.
I'm guessing that neither of the nerdy hosts of Radiolab (Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich) can throw a spiral, but they do a great job on this comprehensive, funny, controversial, and historically informative episode on American Football. They visit the brutal ghosts of football past-- including Pop Warner and the undersized Carlisle Indians-- and then return to present controversies and future speculation. Highlights include an interview with a Georgia football mom who is firmly on both sides of the concussion issue and her gigantic and talented eight year old son, who decided to spurn the sport in favor of soccer, because he felt like a bully when he ran over opposing players, and wishes he could do some "synchronized swimming." His mom's reaction to this revelation is priceless.
"La Mancha Screwjob" is another fantastic Radiolab with a sporting theme: the episode uses professional wrestling to discuss reality, illusion, and the fascinating meta-reality that lies somewhere between the two.
This is the closest thing to live audio from an actual apocalypse. The fact that it's not exactly that makes it even better.
I am also to partial to The Modern Moloch-- which is an account of how automobile lobbyists won the battle in America and heavily influenced the design of our cities so that they favor the automobile and punish the pedestrian. Zman will hate this one.
This American Life can be hit or miss for me . . . and most of the time it's a miss, but this episode is fantastic. It's the story of a public school maintenance man from Schenectady, NY whose ruthless rise to power rivals Richard III . . . and once he gains total control, his reign is fearful and intimidating, and his fall is appropriately epic.
The most important podcast on this list is obviously The Test.Whitney guest stars on this episode, and I am also partial to Stacey Demands (More) Numbers and all the other "number sense" episodes.
Once you listen to all the episodes of The Test twice, then you might want to check out season two of Serial. The first episode is compelling on many levels and promises the same slow drip of information as the first season, some of it dredged from the past, some of it culled from recent events, and some of it ongoing.
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