We’re going to talk about Texas in a Bevo’s Fake Nuts later this week (ideally tomorrow, but we’re behind on everything right now). In lieu of Texas talk here, a quick acknowledgment that Saturday was awesome, that I am very sad for Texas, that I am very happy for Texas, that I am very impressed by both Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card, each of whose hype is certain to only come down from here but is currently at a legendary high, albeit in different arenas (Ewers’s ability, Card’s balls).
Now, BYU.
We’ve been working on a theory that BYU is going to become a national powerhouse soon in pretty much everything. The basis is that demographics and competence are on their side. Mormons have a lot of kids, those kids want to go to BYU, some of those kids are from Hawaii, this is basically the Notre Dame model but with a more clerically-skilled stereotype (in the clerk sense, not the cleric sense, we are not in a position to evaluate clergy), and with no other prominent Mormon schools unless you count UNLV as Mormon, which we do not for obvious reasons. We might be wrong, but nobody can prove that now, so we’re going to keep saying it.
To be a powerhouse, you have to win, and BYU did win on Saturday, beating a probably-overestimated Baylor team but a solid Baylor team nonetheless. From here, they get to play probably-overestimated Oregon, and then in a month they get to play possibly-impossible-to-overestimate Notre Dame, and later they get Arkansas at home on the wildest break from SEC play Arkansas could have chosen before closing the year out against Liberty, East Carolina, Boise State, Utah Tech, and Stanford (the Cougars take a week off before Utah Tech, in case a hurricane hits Huntington and they can schedule Marshall at the last second instead). It is, in other words, a fine enough schedule that you’d guess a 12-0 mark against it would put BYU in the playoffs, from which point we could assume BYU would get smoked but then open next year as the Big 12 favorite and potentially do the same every year after that as well, until either the Big 12 or the United States of America falls into the sea (I want to see odds on that race but I also don’t want to see odds on that race).
So, then, is BYU going to be a beneficent ruler?
I really don’t know. I wouldn’t argue Alabama’s been beneficent. Nick Saban’s been fine, but the fanbase knows we won’t take them seriously as people, even if we take their football seriously, and they respond to this by trying to taunt us into treating them with the respect we refuse to give. That’s really our only sample here. Clemson never got to the point of being our ruler, mid-aughts USC was stopped by the brief inconvenience of BCS confusion, and Urban Meyer did Urban Meyer stuff too quickly for us to become serfs to Florida. We’ve really only been ruled by Alabama in our lifetimes. We don’t know how another ruler would rule.
What we do know, or at least what I think I know, is that people would hate BYU beating them up every year. Much more than they hate being dominated by Alabama.
Folks love to bag on Mormons. Especially folks who like to repeat other people’s jokes which someone laughed at one time fifteen years ago. You know the type. Same person we always make fun of for saying the weather only changes quickly in their own locale. College football fandom is full of these guys. The ones still bringing Lennay Kekua signs to College Gameday even today, in our enlightened, post-documentary era. Simultaneously, Mormons are culturally conservative, which draws the ire of the weird cult of puritanical progressives who spend too much time on Twitter, some of whom like sports and apply their wacky little worldview to sports, leading them to believe the College Football Playoff is rigged against mid-majors even though a mid-major made the College Football Playoff last year. On top of that, you’ve got a lot of college football fans who’ve been convinced that their entire way of life is being threatened by everyone who doesn’t swear fealty to Donald Trump and the Southeastern Conference, two institutions famously untethered from principles. BYU’s whole thing is principles. The Pac-12 never wanted them because they didn’t want to deal with scheduling around a team who wouldn’t play on Sundays. Tennessee fans will loathe BYU.
So, I don’t know, I’m kind of excited for the BYU era. I may not live to see Lake Superior State end it, but that’s ok. It’s the ultimate sports prank by God. Which then makes me wonder. Maybe Jesus did come to America after things got dicey with the Sanhedrin.
Winning Was the Worst Thing the Bears Could Have Done
I was going to lead with this, but I’m a salty betch after the Vikings beat the Packers (Pack will be fine) and making fun of two NFC North fanbases as the lead story of two notes in a week felt too obviously salty. So, here we are, sharing this between ourselves. I’m salty.
The Bears beat the 49ers yesterday in something described as a football game by a select few. There was a lot of water involved. The 49ers stopped trying to win after their running back hurt his knee. Things were strange. Anyway, the Bears did this a week before they play the Packers, and the Packers laid an egg in Minneapolis but still would’ve won had Christian Watson caught the deep ball and had the offensive line gotten some push on 4th-and-goal from the 1, and that’s a bad recipe for Bears fans. There is far too much hope in that fanbase right now. We warned you guys.
BREAKING: Joe Kelly Has Emotions
I missed this when it happened Friday night, being at The Killers concert (they’re the greatest band of all time, still, I retract my erroneous statement on Friday saying they probably weren’t the greatest band of all time, they reminded me with their performance and also the new UT arena is nice, as we expected), but after a particularly nasty seventh inning Friday night, Joe Kelly did this:
Predictably, Astros fans have since lost their minds about this, because Joe Kelly is their dad and they don’t like that so every time he does anything besides strike out the side and bake each of the three batters a birthday cake they squeal, “What a big meanie! My identity is based around a team who’s won fewer World Series in their history than Joe Kelly has in the last five years!” (It’s always weird that they include that second part, but nobody said Astros fans were smart.)
The justification for the outrage is that Tony Kemp has a reputation for being a nice guy. I don’t dispute this. He played for the Cubs for a little bit. I liked him.
The problems with getting upset when Joe Kelly mf’s a nice guy are first that you look sniveling when you do it, because you’re an Astros fan (Joe Kelly already made the face, if you want to know what you look like); and second that Joe Kelly is a flamethrowing reliever in the middle of a pennant race, so having this mindset is part of the job. Asking Joe Kelly to not rage at his opponents during the game is like asking Carlos Correa to bat without the assistance of a complex sign-stealing process involving a hidden outfield camera and a trash can (I wonder if that scandal could have happened in the pre-HD days). You’re taking away his biggest asset. I’m not saying Tony Kemp needed to blow the whistle on his teammates’ cheating in Houston, but it’s not like Joe Kelly was yelling at Gandhi. And within the field of play? If Gandhi signs up to play the game, Gandhi’s getting mf’d. That’s sports.
IndyCar: Another Idea
It’s been a while since we’ve done an IndyCar idea, but after Will Power’s championship yesterday, I had a thought: What if IndyCar had four teams, and they were grouped by nationality-ish? You’d have an Indiana team, a California team, a Down Under team (the Australians and New Zealanders, who for some reason there are a lot of in IndyCar, which makes me wonder a few things), and a World team. These teams wouldn’t be teams in the sense that Penske and Ganassi are, working on the cars and all that. But you could still have a running scoreboard by country, and this would be a good way to make everyone even more confused about whether or not Josef Newgarden’s an American, since he’d be on the World team. Maybe we should do this on our own next year. Maybe we should do it in backward-looking fashion throughout previous seasons over this winter.
On the NASCAR side, good for Bubba Wallace. Happy for him. On the F1 side, I understand people were upset about an officiating decision to end the race under caution, so I’m happy for them too. That’s what every F1 fan wants: Something to get excited about that has nothing to do with real competition.
Oh, also. I hear Kevin Harvick thinks NASCAR should make sure drivers don’t get hurt or die in cars. I agree.
Sens Games This Week
There’s evidently a rookie tournament in the NHL, and the Sens are sending a team. Games Friday, Sunday, and Monday. Sunday’s is against the Canadiens (heard Nick Suzuki sucks, nerds). Jake Sanderson and Shane Pinto are both on the roster, as are Ridly Greig and Tyler Boucher, and if you don’t know what most of this means I’m right there with you but I think we’re going to see Greig kick some ass. I think he’s one of the ass-kicking guys. If not, maybe he can learn. The tournament’s in Buffalo. Or at least this tournament is. Possible there’s more than one NHL rookie tournament.
**
Viewing schedule for the evening:
7:10 PM EDT: Cubs @ Mets (MLB TV)
I’m a sleepy betch right now, and that means we’re putting the Cubs on and scrolling through our phones for a while then going to bed way later than we intended to, exacerbating the underlying issues which include an abundance of screen time and a lack of sleep.
I, for one, welcome our new Mormon overlords.