A little bit was made of Colorado storming the field after beating a middle–of–the–Mountain–West team, and this isn’t about that. You only live once, you only storm the field every time you have an angle to sack the quarterback. This also isn’t about how bad Colorado’s attendance was when the team was losing but how all the fans now in attendance are somehow long-suffering. It might be weird to see fair weather behavior in a state known for snow, but we won’t belabor that point. No, what this is about is how absolutely insane Colorado fans’ reactions were to Henry Blackburn’s hit on Travis Hunter.
Was the hit dirty? Yeah, I’d say so, and the refs said so, and it was flagged. Should Blackburn have been ejected? I don’t know, that seems extreme for what the hit was, but maybe so. I’m not familiar with the rules on that. The most insane punishment I can think of—the furthest place I can see a fan-brain going—would be an assault charge. That’s insane, but it’s within the realm where your most obnoxious wannabe-lawyer friend would try to make a case. It’s also nowhere near as insane as what some Colorado fans did.
From ESPN:
The threats against Blackburn and his family began before Colorado’s double-overtime victory ended, as cellphone numbers for Blackburn and for his mother were published on the internet. Blackburn’s campus address and his family’s home address also got published, (CSU AD Joe) Parker told ESPN.
Oh and that isn’t it, either. That’s the most normal part of this. Death threats, as messed up as this is to say, are a thing fans do. Doxxing is rarer, but it is also seen now and then. The crazier thing a subset of Colorado fans did is baselessly accuse Henry Blackburn of rape, digging up stories about sexual assault at Blackburn’s high school—a school in Boulder—and spreading them around social media like wildfire. The allegation grew so widespread that a Denver Post reporter had to publicly clarify that Blackburn was not the unnamed high schooler referenced in her reporting.
That is new.
That is a new level of being upset about a late hit.
Late hits happen every weekend. They’re bad, this one was on the violent side of an already violent act, but they are something that happens. Using a local sexual assault victim’s real sexual assault to spread a fake accusation against a college student is not something that happens. Not to the level where it requires public corrections. Yes, it may have only been hundreds of Colorado fans. But hundreds is a lot! One is a lot with this. One is a lot with the death threats! Making a false rape accusation, doxxing someone, and making a death threat are all things that are worse than making a late hit in a football game. Were Henry Blackburn to escalate this by as much as Colorado fans have escalated it, nuclear weapons would soon become involved.
This will die down, and people will move on, and eventually the Coach Prime Mania will abate and Colorado will be back somewhere in the realm of conventional college football (which, again, is already crazy but is nothing like this). But fanbases are reflections of their schools, and this is a very bad reflection on Colorado. This is the kind of thing that happens when a school has never been there before. This is the kind of thing that happens when a fanbase had a few good seasons thirty years ago, has done nothing else of consequence in their history, and is now receiving unprecedented attention and praise because of their new head coach’s star power which was developed completely independently of their school. How many of the people spreading these rumors had ever watched a Colorado football game before this year? Now, they are committing malicious acts online.
I’m sure most Colorado fans are wonderful people and are horrified to be associated with this stuff. But when the insanity is this widespread, you start to wonder what the hell is wrong with the broader community. Colorado fans need to settle down. Hundreds is too many.
Lane Kiffin Is So Good at This
In happier college football news, Lane Kiffin is successfully trolling Nick Saban, innocently pointing out yesterday that his program noticed Alabama’s defensive backs coach, Travaris Robinson, was calling plays in the USF game rather than defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. This led Saban to, unprompted, clarify that Steele is still the defensive coordinator, which then led Kiffin to do the “You sure about that??” thing from I Think You Should Leave.
Again, from ESPN:
“I was asked the question, ‘What’s it like going against Steele’s defense?’ I wasn’t trying to start this big thing,” Kiffin said. “We saw things on TV copy just where it was different. First off, of what the play looked like — the calls and stuff. And so we looked into that further. And then it ain’t no secret that people in these buildings know each other, so we obviously got some information that way, too.”
Kiffin then praised Saban and talked about how much he learned while working under him.
Lane Kiffin is an expert needler. Everything about this is executed flawlessly, right down to his offhand implication that he has spies in Tuscaloosa. No wonder Saban had enough of Kiffin. Imagine how much fun Kiffin had at his day job back then. I think Lane Kiffin has the lowest blood pressure in college football. He is the most relaxed-looking person to ever touch a sideline.
Burnley Is Good Again
Look, I’m not a guy who knows what’s going on in soccer. I have a general idea, but I am just cheering for Burnley over here. I don’t know what is or isn’t a handball, and while I did appreciate Sheffield United’s manager’s comments on the general state of Premier League refereeing, that was only because they led me to learn that Sheffield United’s manager is named Paul Heckingbottom. Overall? It looked like Burnley was going to win and not in a lucky way, and I think that means they’re good again. Don’t love that when I look at the schedule all I see are teams that terrify me, but Sean Dyche did not raise this blogger to live in fear. Burnley will find a way. (I’m assuming the lads are going to get crushed on Saturday against Man U.)
The Cubs Might Be Bad Again
Not a good weekend. Not a lot else to add. I think it would be fun if the Cubs won tomorrow, but that’s just a suggestion. Also, I hope my instinctive reaction to assume every forearm injury eventually ends in Tommy John does not bear out for Adbert Alzolay. I need that man in my life.
The Packers Loss Is My Fault
The one piece of this that isn’t my fault is Elgton Jenkins’s injury, because that happened after I left the coffeeshop.
On Sunday, after wrapping up some work, I noticed there was a quarter left in the Packers game and decided to try out a Packers bar nearby. It was great. When I opened the door, they were chanting Go Pack Go because the Packers had just scored a touchdown. I then paid five dollars for a brat, two dollars for a can of coke, and sat in the corner on a pair of stacked chairs (I felt like they didn’t want me sitting on them and thought I would call attention to that if I unstacked them) while watching my father’s favorite team since his childhood waste away a great chance to get to 2–0. After that chant, nothing else good happened. It all got worse once I walked through that door.
Normally, I wouldn’t assign myself too much responsibility for this loss, but I haven’t told you the full story yet. There wasn’t any parking at the bar (very Wisconsin that everybody drove home), so I parked two blocks away, and I guess I’m on a schedule-checking kick, because I checked the schedule and immediately texted my Packers group text that we were going to start 10–0. This is my fault, and if you want to blame me for the Jenkins injury through some wormhole thing, I wouldn’t blame you. If I knew more about time travel I would blame me too.
Bears Fans!
Oh my gosh, the best. Nine days ago, Justin Fields was a future MVP. Now, he’s the biggest problem on the Bears.
I don’t think Bears fans are stupid. Well, I do, but not individual Bears fans.
Well.
Not all individual Bears fans.
The less mean thing I’m trying to say is that I think Bears fans pin all their hopes and anger on the quarterback because they know the real problem is so ingrained in the franchise that they have absolutely no hope. I think the quarterback/free agent sensationalism (Jay Cutler! Khalil Mack! Allen Robinson! Justin Fields!) is a coping mechanism. It buys them a few weeks. The problem isn’t the players. It’s so much bigger than that.
Joe Kelly: Champion
Joe Kelly won the NL West on Saturday night, and it was a little kooky (there was a slippery baseball involved), but he struck out two batters, and when he left the mound, the Dodgers were NL West champions. They weren’t that when he took the mound, they were when he left, you can guess what happened while he was there. (“European.”)
It’s a big week for Joe Kelly, with his Mariachi bobblehead night coming up on Friday. I’m very sad to be missing this one, but I’m glad the Dodgers had Jonas Never paint a Mariachi Joe mural at the stadium in preparation. The Dodgers do things right.
I Cannot Keep Up With Arterio Morris
Goodness, dude. On Friday, we blogged about Arterio Morris’s plea deal (for allegedly attacking his ex-girlfriend a year ago) and right after we clicked publish, news came out that the guy’s being accused of the thing Colorado fans accused Henry Blackburn of doing when he was in high school. It’s terrible, and we hope the alleged victim is ok.
The alleged crime happened a month ago, before Morris’s plea deal was finalized, so it wasn’t really that Arterio Morris went straight from his plea deal hearing to commit a new act of violence. But boy, it came across that way, and it was wild. Kansas has suspended Morris, which is interesting because the other Big 12 school Morris played for never suspended him for the thing which required a plea deal.
“Fake Name, Punching Player in the Face”
This has been a heavy set of notes. Let’s pivot to some sillier allegations. From—you guessed it—ESPN (The Athletic was down this afternoon and I checked ESPN before going through the MLBTR circuit):
Major League Soccer on Monday said it terminated the contract of CF Montreal midfielder Matko Miljevic for “engaging in conduct detrimental to the league.”
…
Reports last week in Canadian media claimed that the 22-year-old Miami-born player had played in a Quebec indoor amateur soccer league under an assumed name and was subsequently banned for life from said league for punching another player in the face.
The article goes on to clarify that the part which violated MLS rules was that he played in another league while under an MLS contract. Not that he got banned for punching another player in the face, nor that he played under an assumed name. I like that, but I also like Miljevic doing this. That, to me, shows that he loves the game he plays. The NBA could never.
Think of the Memes
Mike Babcock resigned as the Blue Jackets’ head coach after allegations picked up steam last week that he was engaging in some violations of privacy involving players’ cell phones. Specifically, he was alleged to have projected players’ camera rolls on the wall during meetings and then scrolled through them.
There has been a lot of talk about what may have been in those photos Babcock showed everybody, but I’m more curious about the memes the guy saw. Which Blue Jacket had the best memes? Were any of Babcock??
More Cricket Drama
Ok, so I learned during this ESPN dig this afternoon that ESPN has a cricket site at www.espncricinfo.com. No, I don’t know why they didn’t just put cricket content on their normal website like they do with every other sport. Yes, that seems like a fake url. We all had the same reaction here.
Anyway, I went looking for more cricket drama, and I found some, and it is very cricket:
Sussex have been docked 12 points in the County Championship and will be without their captain, Cheteshwar Pujara, for this week’s match against Derbyshire. Pujara received an automatic suspension after the club reached the threshold of four fixed penalties in the same season.
Pujara himself? Did nothing wrong, from what I can tell. But Sussex had a guy penalized (“spoken to,” the article says, which I think is a cricket term that means penalty but might just mean the ump went over and talked to him) for trying to trip a Leicestershire batter, and they had another guy spoken to about “excessive appealing,” and there’s a mystery allegation that’s also out there. I understand so little of what’s going on, and I love it. I feel like cricket is what would happen if you threw a bunch of British people in a zoo enclosure and gave them all speed.
Rugby!
All around the world with these.
Fiji—where I think rugby is big—upset Australia yesterday, beating the Wallabies for the first time in 69 years. It is unclear how big this is, but it made these notes in between an acknowledgment that something exciting happened in F1 and a recounting of an incident that cost Sussex its chance at promotion out of Division 2 in the County Championship, so, uh, yeah. Pretty big. Pretty freaking big, guys.
F1 Had a Good Race
Credit to Formula 1, Formula 1 had a good race. Carlos Sainz won, Max Verstappen didn’t, there was excitement involved. It was a shocking twist in the season script, and it doesn’t affect how this season will end, but I think it maybe offers everyone some hope that next year could be kind of exciting again. Either way, I can’t wait to hear about it from 34-year-old men wearing types of shirts I’ve never seen before when that plague descends on Austin in a month.
Bristol wasn’t great, but Dale Jr.’s leg caught fire during the Xfinity race and he was so excited. Never have we seen a man so excited to have caught fire.
How Old Is Dwight Howard?
The Golden State Warriors are a little like those seasons of The Office after Steve Carrell left, and if Chris Paul is Robert California I think that makes Dwight Howard Deangelo Vickers if this signing ends up happening.
Are the Warriors really signing Dwight Howard? I don’t know. But while we wait, let’s guess how old Dwight Howard is. I feel like he cannot be as old as I think he is (I would have guessed 40 or maybe 44 if I didn’t know he hadn’t retired, which I didn’t until I saw he was working out for the Warriors), so I will guess 36. Do you have a guess? Make your guess. Write it down in a note on your phone. Now, scroll.
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Dwight Howard is 37 years old.
That feels too young.
This is kind of refreshing.
Every other athlete in the world is older than I want them to be. Actors, too. Did you know James Marsden is 50? That can’t be, because he looks only a little older than my friend who I’m now realizing is 40. Somebody help.
Austin vs. Portland
I saw a cool Austin vs. Portland graphic on Twitter and thought someone was trying to start a hipster fight in 2018, but then I realized it was about the MLS game, and that was too bad. Austin lost. 2–1. I think I like that. I feel bad for feeling this way, but I think I’d rather have a shitty MLS team than a good one. Having a good MLS team feels wrong for some reason.
I don’t know man, I went to an MLS championship game and that was really cool.