Editor’s Note: More Northwestern coverage here and here from Joe. Different bent on that side of the site.
Ever since Adam Schefter may or may not have made up that the Browns wanted to interview Condoleezza Rice as a head coaching possibility, curiosity has abounded in the free football world. How the heck would that turn out? In this way, Condoleezza Rice as a football coach is a little like there being aliens hiding on Mars. Yeah, yeah, we know we’ll probably never see it. But what if? You have to let us ask what if.
If ever there were a time for a football team to put Rice at its head, this is that time. Northwestern is a big enough job for Rice to take, occupying that worldly part of the world where Secretaries of State and people of their ilk are common sights on campus. Northwestern is also desperate for a coach, needing to fill the role for the 2023 season when the 2023 season is just weeks away. (Yes, I know David Braun was named the interim yesterday, but Pat Fitzgerald was still the coach at this time on Monday so who’s to say Braun’s going to keep the job?) Perhaps most importantly, Rice has experience navigating a program through a sexual abuse/hazing scandal, memorably taking over the United States’ international relations job right after Abu Ghraib happened.
It makes too much sense not to get a chance. Please, Derrick Gragg. Do this for the sporting world.
It Was the ACC the Whole Time
A few months ago, a report came out that the Pac-12 was considering broadcasting games on the CW. This was very funny. The CW is not a place to broadcast sports. The CW is a place to watch ten minutes of what appears to be a superhero show at the age of fourteen while waiting to make sure your vacationing neighbor’s dog doesn’t barf up dinner before you let them out one last time for the night.
So, we must appropriately ridicule the ACC for sneaking an announcement in this week that the league would broadcast 13 football games this fall (and 28 basketball games this winter) on the network best known for being the ashes of once-wonderful WGN. (In a heroic water-carrying performance, ESPN’s report on the matter refers to the CW as being best known for something called “All-American,” allegedly a series about college football players in Los Angeles. Given I know the name of nothing else the CW broadcasts, it’s possible ESPN isn’t lying here.)
The thing about the ACC is that it’s the Pac-12 but it’s in prison and so it can’t actually hurt itself. It has a few valuable brands, its sports are better than its revenue, its football is terrible, but the valuable brands can’t blow the thing apart because they’re behind the bars of a TV rights deal set to last longer than the Roman Empire did. Broadcasting football games on the CW is the kind of thing you do when you’re waiting to die. The ACC is in the nursing home. It’s only a matter of time.
Invest in Green T-Shirts
In the early 2010s, a hostile power grabbed territory rightfully belonging to a smaller, historically persecuted group. Those in power let it go, too caught up in their own high-minded reputations to earn reputations for doing what was right. Now, that hostile power is launching an assault that can’t go unnoticed. This is why you don’t appease.
Yes, the NCA* *********t is still considering expansion, and while it sounds like it will be incremental and is still a few years out, it’s not the kind of thing we can let slide. The NIT’s sovereign territory is not the NCAA’s plaything. Should push come to shove, we will defend what’s ours.
The Cubs Get a Fourth of July Home Game
Thank goodness we posted that when we did.
Less than two weeks after we pointed out that it was pretty messed up to make the Cubs keep playing in Milwaukee on Independence Day (a day Wisconsinites want to be on lakes and Chicagoans want to be at Wrigley Field), Major League Baseball released its 2024 schedule, and lo and behold, the Cubs are hosting. They’re hosting the Phillies. I am relieved. They’re having the Brewers play on the road, too. Hallelujah.
No luck this year for the Mets and Cardinals, whose respective streaks of not hosting on the Fourth of July are set to reach eight and seven years, respectively. The Blue Jays do host, but they host the Astros, and the Astros are un-American so it’s cool.
Idiocy still abounds concerning other days when people want to be at a ballpark, with eight teams off apiece on Memorial Day and Labor Day. On the Fourth of July, though, all thirty teams will be in action. Even on a Thursday, which is a travel day! From the Manfred administration, we’ll always accept progress.
When Can Joe Kelly Come Off the IL?
I honestly don’t know. I can never remember whether you count the day they went on the IL or not.
Joe Kelly was placed on the injured list retroactive to July 5th, and since he’s a pitcher (the haters, I tell ya), it has to be 15 days. That means he can either come off of it on July 20th or 21st, meaning he could be back at some point on the classic Queens–Minneapolis road trip late next week, but it’s unclear in which city he might appear. What a rush! Imagine living in Queens right now. Take Thursday off work, friends. Maybe take Wednesday off, too. Do you think he’ll fly into LaGuardia? JFK? Would Reinsdorf make him go through Newark so Reinsdorf could use up some Southwest miles??
Burnley’s Got a Collar, Wout Weghorst Is Back
Burnley unveiled its new jerseys this week, and they have a collar, and that collar is light blue. Also, everyone is saying the sponsor, W88, is a betting site, but I trust Wikipedia and Wikipedia says it’s an American thermonuclear warhead, which is pretty darn cool. There are a few ways this can be taken, but one is that maybe the EPL can allow gambling sponsors after all but they should all have to share a name with a nuke. That would be, ahem, a blast.
In sadder news, Wout Weghorst is back at Burnley, and I haven’t really followed all of this but my impression is that literally no other club in the world wants him. I don’t think that’s exactly true, but I do think we’re headed for a year of phantom injuries keeping him off the roster and weird reports on how he’s unhappy because Burnley hasn’t treated him like Messi. (By the way, if Messi liked Publix, wait until he sees Waffle House…) Honestly, that sounds pretty fun. I think it’ll be fun to have Wout Weghorst back.
The USMNT’s Gold Cup Record by President
With the United States men’s soccer team losing the Gold Cup this week, life in Biden’s America has hit a new low. We can’t even beat the Panamanians. We made them! We dug them a canal!! This is like getting foreclosed upon and seeing someone else move into your house and it’s the homeless guy you used to sometimes buy a coffee. Good for them, I guess.
This does provoke the question: How have other presidents fared in CONCACAF’s, well, I guess it’s the biggest CONCACAF tournament, right? Unless you count World Cup qualification as its own tournament, but…man, I don’t know. I don’t know how to word this. Here’s how other presidents have done:
- George H.W. Bush: 1–0
- George W. Bush: 3–1
- Donald Trump: 1–1
- Barack Obama: 1–3
- Bill Clinton: 0–4
I blame NAFTA.
Being Nice to Zion
Zion Williamson went on Gilbert Arenas’s podcast this week and said some humble, mature things, or at least that’s how the readout read. I didn’t listen. Or watch. Does Gilbert Arenas point a gun at every guest? That’d be a good gimmick.
We were kind of mean to Zion a few weeks ago, and I don’t know, maybe he deserved it, not exactly the best judgment to sleep around on someone you’re treating as your prostitute/girlfriend. But if a guy goes on Gilbert Arenas’s podcast and says, paraphrased, “Yeah, I had a lot of money, I was only like 21 years old, and I really like food,” I can’t make fun of them for being fat. They took the air out of the tires. Not because they’re too big for the tires, just—
No, no, fatness isn’t something to make fun of. I don’t know why it’s always been so funny with Zion, though. I guess he’s just always been in-between enough that some people get really mad when you call him fat and respond to you that it’s all muscle, and those people are clearly in a weird place in regards to their Duke fanhood and therefore deserve all the trolling. I want him fatter, to be honest. I want him to be a jolly boy.
Chet Holmgren Has the Right Amount of Beard
Speaking of former top recruits:
If you haven’t seen Chet Holmgren in a while, as I hadn’t, he’s got a little bit of scruff. Not a lot, mind you, it’s only a little, but it’s a good amount for a face that gaunt and pointy. It makes him look like he’s trying to look the way he looks instead of resigning himself to it.
