Here’s a Taco Tuesday recommendation for you free-loaders in the parking lot: Chef Hiro at 1297 Parsons Avenue. Thank me later.
We’re running a free week promotion at Meet at Midfield. A quarterly subscription would get you through the rest of football—and life after football season can’t be guaranteed, right? You might as well make the plunge. The banter on the message boards is worth it alone:
- WE WANT BAMA (AND THE BULLDOGS).
I am confident that Ohio State is the best team in the Big Ten. Penn State in Happy Valley is always different gravy, and unfortunately, Michigan won their one game a decade last year, so we have to give them more respect than usual.
Maryland is nice by Maryland standards, but I don’t think they’ll threaten Ohio State’s conference title hopes.
On the national side, I am Dabo Swinney’s No. 1 hater. I will never respect Clemson. Nor will I ever take any team coached by Lincoln Riley seriously.
That leaves two other contenders for a national title, and Ohio State would be favored over both as things stand.
I feel like this is another year where the No. 1 seed will get a cupcake, such as they are in the playoffs, against the No. 4 seed.
I don’t think the pollsters will put Ohio State over the undefeated winner of Georgia-Alabama since its one loss will likely be to the team it just beat in the SEC championship.
That said, the National Guard will not be able to stop me from putting a bet on Ohio State (-2.5) over Georgia or Ohio State (-1) vs. Alabama when the Buckeye State legalizes gambling on January 1. I’m fixing to join the one percent if current trends hold.
- THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WORLD OF MEL TUCKER.
Michigan State decided to pay Mel Tucker $95 million based on one season in which he beat expectations in East Lansing. Unfortunately for Spartans fans, Tucker didn’t win the transfer portal lottery this year, and the team is already 2-3 overall and 0-2 in conference play.
We still don’t know how Michigan State is funding Tucker’s contract.
From Joe Guillen of axios.com:
The closely guarded funding sources of Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker’s $95 million contract will be discussed in court Oct. 25 as part of a public records lawsuit.
Catch up quick: Tucker’s contract is funded with gifts from Mat Ishbia, a member of the 2000 national championship basketball team and president and chief executive of United Wholesale Mortgage, and Steve St. Andre, chief executive of Shift Digital.
The Free Press filed this lawsuit in Dec. 2021, so Spartan fans can’t even cry about this being some hatchet job.
To me, it doesn’t matter where the money came from. Tucker is a public employee, and the residents of Michigan deserve to know how a state institution funds his salary. It makes it seem like the university is hiding something.
Tucker, for his part, doesn’t seem to be in fighting shape ahead of a showdown with the best team in the conference. Yesterday he had to plead with fans not to sell their tickets to Buckeye fans:
Tucker is about to get a lesson on how capitalism works. Spartan fans won’t be shelling out the money to see their team get their ass kicked at home. That will be the Ohio State fans who had the time and money to spend a Saturday in East Lansing in the first place.
Buckeye fans are inevitable in visiting stadiums. That Tucker is pleading for Michigan State fans not to sell their tickets means he can see the ass-kicking coming down the tracks.
He’s already talking in like a self-help guru.
Maybe the three losses were bad luck. Maybe Michigan State will turn into a completely different team on Saturday.
But it doesn’t seem like their fans and coach have much faith in that happening. Why would I?
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- PAUL CHRYST REALIZES THE AMERICAN DREAM.
Well, the jokes about Paul Chryst were nice. Unfortunately, the jokes ended when Wisconsin made the proactive move to fire his sorry ass.
Not because I feel bad the guy lost his job, but because he realized the 21st century American Dream: Being paid $11 million by your boss to do anything else in the world other than return to your current job.
When I was a child, I had dreams of becoming a veterinarian or an architect. That was dumb as hell. I should have put all my energy into becoming a mediocre football coach of a midwestern land-grant university. I could already be on Titty Island instead of selling my mental illness sentence by sentence to internet strangers.
Maybe in the next life…
THOSE WMDs. Five stretches you should do every day… Dryer maintenance tasks you should do every month… A selection of Virginia Woolf’s most savage insults… The $25,000 rookie dinner has the NFL divided… Lessons from a professional password cracker.