That was an excellent set of The Grades, Wade. Thanks taking the post of honor in the
Commissioner’s absence.
You know, sometimes we have a weird month down here at the
Tire Store. We’ll get off to a really
slow start. Mr. Poole, Pee Wee, and JD
will all just be sitting around by the tire-changing machine watching cars with
four perfectly sound, perfectly balanced, perfectly aligned tires rolling down
the six-lane in front of our place. Instead
of maintenance jobs, Willie will spend his time getting extra grease off his
tools and putting all the sockets back in the right socket sets (he has about a
dozen). We’ll miss them and catch Pee
Wee and Poole out pitching pennies against the wall towards the Complete Cash title
loan place that’s opened up next door.
Moses will be sneaking across the road to the Krystal for two, or maybe
12, sliders, and there’s just not much we can say to any of them.
Usually, though, things will roll back into
shape and before you know it, we’ll get busy.
Maybe the end of the month we’ll be busy in all the bays and it may even
turn into a great month. We don’t really
know it, though, till we sit down and think about it doing books after the
month is over. We’ll end up surprised at
just how good it was. Truth is, it’s
just really hard to get over the queasy feeling that slow start gives you.
That is sort of how we felt after the game on Saturday. The first quarter plus was so worrisome and
starkly bad that it was hard to get over.
A four-and-out, a three-and-out, a lost fumble on first down by a freshman quarterback…. USC was passing and running around like
nobody’s business. But then slowly and
building momentum, things changed. The defense
started to figure out what was going on and clamped down on USC’s offense. The offensive line, which had seemingly been getting
pushed around like the chess team captain at biker rally, suddenly asserted
itself. It really took totaling up
everything at the end of the game to find out just how terrific it had really
been. For example:
·
Did you notice Bozeman block his man all the way
into the end zone on Hurt’s seven-yard touchdown run? Don’t misunderstand. He’s not Ryan Kelly. Yet. But those weren’t the Little Sisters of Mercy
and Charity we were playing.
·
Emmons rushed 9 times for 138 yards. Because we only know our multiplication
tables up to 12, and 138 is more than 9x12, we don’t really know the average,
but it was a lot per carry. After coming
into the game with no proven running back in the backfield, there seemed to be
a bunch of guys who could do a perfectly fine job. None of them are Derrick Henry. Yet.
·
USC set a lot of team records on Saturday, mostly
bad. The most notable one for Alabama
fans was that it was the first time they had given up multiple touchdowns
throwing and running to a single player in two decades. To be honest, we wouldn't have been surprised if any number of Alabama quarterbacks were to run for two or more touchdowns and throw for two
or more touchdowns in a single game against a Top 20 Team. The
last time we were that confident in a freshman
quarterback? Have to get back to y’all
on that.
·
Ho-hum.
Our defensive backs had another pick six. Marlon Humphrey, Reuben Foster, and Eddie Jackson delivered
blows to the ribs of opposing players that will take a lot of time in the hot
tub to get over. USC’s All-American receiver
(and nominee for the USC all-time/all-name team) Ju Ju Smith-Schuster had one
catch for a whopping 9 yards. We do know
our 9s table that high. I’m expecting
you won’t see a total that low for him the rest of this year. Or maybe in the NFL.
·
We need a few back up players on the defensive
line to step up, as well as the short-bus riders up at NCAA headquarters to realize
that not ruling on a player’s eligibility till after the season starts is the
same thing as disqualifying him.
However, we’re pretty confident the starting group is as good as we can
remember seeing in a college game.
Playing to their potential, they should be somewhere between scary and terrifying
for most opposing quarterbacks.
·
Scott dropping a punt inside the three-yard-line
was a big play in the game. Glad to see
him in mid-season form already.
·
Despite how good the defensive front is, Alabama’s
wide receivers may be the best unit on the team. If we can convince teams to forget to cover them
sometimes like happened at least twice on Saturday, it’s going to be a highlight
reel season.
·
USC’s offense has not been in the red zone this
season. You can win a lot of football
games if you keep that up.
·
OK, normally a Nick Saban team would not be
throwing downfield scoring passes to senior receivers with a 30+ point
lead. Normally, however, the offense isn’t
being coached by a guy who owes the other team a bad turn. In case you tuned in late, when Lane Kiffin
was fired from his head coaching job at USC (and we don’t have any argument
with USC making the decision it did) they decided the way to do so was to pull
him and his baggage off the team bus as the team returned from out-of-town
game. They left him standing on the
sidewalk at LAX, without a ride back to campus where his car was parked. At 3 a.m.
And they weren’t terribly shy about letting the Los Angeles media know it
went down that way. So, yeah, we
understand why Coach Saban went over and stood in front of Kiffin with both
palms up in the air in the universal gesture of “what the @#$% are you doing?” On the other hand, although we aren’t saying
it was the right thing to do, we do understand.
Doubt he’ll do the same thing in our next blowout.
One other note, as long as we are wasting time the boss has
paid you to put in. There was some
really horrific behavior on display Saturday.
You all saw a USC player not worthy of the uniform and tradition stomp
on young Minkah Fitzpatrick right where you’d least want that to happen. (At the same time one of their stars was
offering him a hand up.) We were
foursquare in support of his ejection, including the way the official phrased
it -- he “disqualified himself from the game.”
Sadly, that behavior wasn’t nearly as bad as what one of LSU’s offensive
linemen did to a young man who had just picked off a pass that sealed the game
for the Badgers.
So it was little refreshing to see an imaginative display of
class and tribute over in Lincoln. In
case you missed it, Nebraska’s punter was killed in a car crash this summer,
coming home from a camp where he’d been helping aspiring high school kickers
learn the trade. When it came time for
Nebraska to punt for the first time in the game Saturday, they sent 10 men on to
the field, conspicuously leaving the punter position vacant. They let the play clock run down while their
team held formation, the crowd cheered, and the Fresno State players
applauded. They waited for the official to
throw a delay of game flag and then ran their new punter onto the field. In a further classy move, Fresno State
declined the penalty.
On to the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky, whose logo is, as
you’d expect, a fist holding a dishtowel with the letters WKU on it. They quietly had a very good season last year
and can be expected to sling it all over the field. Here’s hoping we’ve settled down enough to
stop them.
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