College Football’s Practical Alternative (via WSJ)

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Chrysler hit rock bottom in 2009, plunging into bankruptcy and succumbing to a takeover by Fiat, the Italian brand American drivers used to call “Fix It Again Tony.” It was a dismal time for the iconic U.S. auto maker, but it wasn’t the end of days some had predicted. The unified company recovered financially and this year unveiled its most significant new product: a spry compact designed to help Americans learn to economize with style and zip.

Designers called it the Dodge Dart, after the company’s 1960s stalwart, and backed it with a burst of bold advertisements. The car is Chrysler’s phoenix moment. If you are human, it’s hard not to root for the Dart.

This weekend, as 20th-ranked Michigan State takes on No. 14 Ohio State, the Spartans football program also has emerged from decades of tailpipe-dragging performance. A team that hasn’t had a Rose Bowl season since 1987 or a national title since 1966 is cruising along nicely. The Spartans shared the Big Ten Conference title in 2010 and just produced their first-ever back-to-back 11-win seasons.

They are gaining cred, too, losing the quarterback that led them to a 2012 Outback Bowl victory over Georgia, Kirk Cousins, and still entering this season ranked No. 13. A glass-fronted addition to the football building and a handsome players’ lounge with obligatory pool table show a willingness to keep pace in facilities. The acres of empty seats are filling in. The Spartans have banished the rattles and squeaks. … Read More

(via WSJ)

In the Dawghouse: Vandy no-shows again on the road, loses 48-3 in Athens

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Perched high atop Sanford Stadium, I had the view of Saturday night’s game football nerds have called the Holy Grail: the all-22 perspective. Fans prize this view because it allows them to see the game in its entirety and understand how plays develop, schemes function, and all of the other things blocked out by television’s narrow lens.

What I saw likely could have been apprehended from any vantage point in any of the nearly 93,000 seats, almost all of which were filled, and filled by fans of the home team: an unabated UGA run game set up laughably easy passing opportunities. The visitors were like ghosts on defense and ineffective football players on offense. After Vandy missed a field goal in the third quarter, my hospitable hosts, including Commodawg, took me outside the stadium and, mercifully, out of my misery.

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In reality, I had a great time throughout. While the game itself made all the jostling over who would start at quarterback for Vanderbilt beyond moot, and made it difficult to believe how close this game was a year ago, Athens on a football Saturday is a fun scene, and Sanford Stadium is an impressive place to see a game. Looking ahead, Georgia’s championship aspirations continue to progress, while Vanderbilt has a bye week during which it can reevaluate its approach. As for the series between these two teams, I only see Vandy being competitive in North Georgia when it comes to recruiting, and after performances like Saturday night’s, even that may be in question.

Tracking the best name in sportswriting

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We‘re a pretty modest bunch, but it bears noting, on very infrequent occasion, that the subjects of our content sometimes read our content. When Jalen Rose, in response to a feature on him, tweeted us his approval, I included a copy of the tweet at the bottom of the post because it was relevant feedback and fit within the arc of the piece.

By contrast, some responses bear mentioning separately from the triggering content because, while substantively outside the arc of that content, they require a response, at minimum, in the form of an acknowledgment of receipt. (Sometimes, of course, they create their own conversation altogether.) Such was the case with a tweet we received Saturday morning.  Keep reading…

Picking at the Scabs: Week 3

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The NFL’s replacement official charade certainly has become a tired to quite tired act. The volume of written responsive outrage is headed that way, too. While it’s good that the media is heeding Jim Leyland’s call for them to hold officials accountable, there’s only so much complaining you can or want to read. This new, weekly feature takes care of the latter problem for you. Each week, we’ll sift through the glut of hyperbolic, whining responses and pull out the best snippets for you.

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Charles P. Pierce:

The players are the only redeeming thing about the sport right now. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had a remarkable night Sunday, carving up a good defense for 335 yards, and then that defense reasserted itself, shutting New England down to just a field goal in the fourth quarter as Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco engineered two marvelous drives to bring Baltimore back from nine points down. Salted throughout all this action, of course, were bizarre holding calls, odd interference calls, some purely psychedelic calls, and a game-winning field goal that was so close that, all his frustrations coming to a boil, New England nose tackle Vince Wilfork looked very much like he might eat one of the referees who were standing under the goal posts.

Drew Magary:

These a——- don’t even know the rules. . . . Basic rules. I understand when refs f— up rules that are relatively complicated (anything involving an “act common to the game” makes my head go ouchie), but thus far they’ve demonstrated a poorer understanding of the game than Tony Siragusa, and that’s a problem.

Dan Wetzel:

This is Goodell’s Heidi game, a forever blemish he’ll never live down. The lockout may not have been his idea but it’s on his watch. Someone might as well start pre-production on a documentary now, the image of those two confused refs in the corner of the Seattle end zone is sure to go down in history.

NFL:

I think the replacement officials are, like anyone working at a new job, getting better as they gain experience. They need to pick up their game when it comes to relatively minor issues like spotting the ball, but I think that the NFL could use the replacement officials for as long as they need to. They could even use them for the rest of the season, if necessary.

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Did we miss a good one this week? Post it in the comments below. Know of something that should be included next week? Send it to us at aldland[dot]com[at]gmail[dot]com, or @aldlandia.

Chilly Monday

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Sometimes it’s important to remind yourself that, for the most part, half the teams lose each and every football weekend. Despite what some say about football fandom, most of us are likely to have a couple teams we like, especially between the college and professional levels and, given the number of games played on a weekly basis, we’re likely to have a few winners and a few losers. You see where this is headed.

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The Big Ten is struggling this season. None of their teams were in the top fifteen heading into Saturday, and they didn’t exactly respond well. Notre Dame completed a convincing conquest of the State of Michigan by taking down the Wolverines one week after they did the same to the Spartans, who unconvincingly defeated Eastern Michigan, possibly the worst team in Division I. Iowa lost in overtime to Central Michigan. Northwestern, Minnesota, and the ineligible Ohio State are 4-0. This conference is approaching Big East relegation level lows.

On the topic of relegation, Vanderbilt’s third defeat of the season, a 48-3 drubbing under the lights in Athens more about which later, has Commodore bloggers rising to defend their team’s membership in the SEC. That’s never good. The ACC had the game of the weekend though, in which Florida State defeated Clemson, clearing one of its final remaining obstacles on the path to national championship contention. That path may be clearing further, as LSU barely defeated Auburn. Oregon also started slow before completing a one-sided shutout of RichRod’s inoffensive Arizona Wildcats.

I missed most of the NFL games in transit back from Georgia on Sunday, but I understand the Lions went out with a whimper in an overtime loss in Nashville, the Falcons dominated the Chargers, Darrelle Revis is headed back to his Island after some variety of non-beard-related injury, Peyton Manning’s arm strength continues to be a question, and the scab officials are bad getting worse. (On their account, it also came out during the past week that at least some of them hold personal, financial stakes in the outcomes of the games, which adds a new element of excitement.)

In golf, Vanderbilt alum Brandt Snedeker won $11.4 million yesterday, and in the AL Central race, the White Sox lost once and the Tigers lost twice as part of a statistical phenomenon known as “regression to the mean (streets of Kansas City).”

ALDLAND takes you live to the start* of SEC conference play

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Although conference play technically began when South Carolina survived against SEC East foe Vanderbilt in the first game of the college football season, conference play ramps up in earnest this week, when the Commodores, and yours truly, head to Athens for a night game between the hedges against #5 Georgia.

As indicated in the photograph, these divisional opponents have some history. When they played in the above-depicted game, nearly fifty-six years to the day prior to Saturday night’s meeting, Vanderbilt scored a 14-0 victory at home. Unsurprisingly, that outcome does not predominate; in a series that began in 1893 (with a 35-10 Commodore win, incidentally), the Dawgs have a 53-18-2 record. The series was far more competitive through the early 1960s, but Vanderbilt has only four wins (and one tie) against UGA since the 1961 season.

These two teams have some recent notable history, too. ALDLAND was there, in duplicate, for their last meeting, in which Georgia survived a late special teams error to escape Nashville with a win. It was what happened after the game that most people will remember, though Continue reading →

The future of boxing? M-A-R-S, Ali says

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Unlike my more complete, early assessments of Bill Simmons’ Grantland and Clay Travis’ OutKick the Coverage, The Classical has been subjected to less exacting treatment here, in part, I think, because I have yet to pin down a describable essence of the site upon which to hang a similarly descriptive post. This is due, in part, I think, because The Classical itself hasn’t quite pinned itself down. A quick, supporting example: while David Roth’s emergence as a primary voice on the site is not in any way unpleasant, the apparent vanishing of The Classical’s star editor-in-chief, Bethlehem Shoals, is at least mystifying. If I had to register a conclusion at this point, it would be that, though still finding its way with its general readership, the site at least appears influential as a blogger’s  blog, evidenced, in part, by the emergence of the transcript-style dialogue features at places like Grantland and Deadspin. And now that I’ve wholly unnecessarily exhausted my quota of commas for the week, it’s time to move on to the substance of this post.

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Born of Kickstarter, The Classical does have an early, functional legacy in its support of other Kickstarter projects. One of these is the funded blank on blank, which “aim[s] to take recorded interviews that might not otherwise be heard and give them new, multimedia life.” One such recorded interview, which The Classical recently highlighted by way of updating readers on the status of blank on blank, was a 1966 high school radio interview of Muhammad Ali:

The interview was the result of a happy confluence: a champion who delighted in talking like virtually no athlete before or since, and some precocity cases from Winnetka, IL’s New Trier High School who had the pure high-school balls to cold-call that champion and get him out to a high school campus for an interview.

While Midwesterners certainly are non-shocked by the suggestion that there might have been some “precocity cases” at New Trier, this is a neat clip (and not just because it sends up a more recent, albeit alternative, presidential space program proclamation):

ALDLAND Podcast

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Do you enjoy hearing about Notre Dame football?  Well you better, because this podcast features a lot of discussion about that very subject.  We have a very special guest on today, who you will undoubtedly enjoy hearing from.  It’s not all Notre Dame though . . . some time is spent discussing how Gary Bettman is literally the worst person ever to live. Give this podcast a listen, you won’t regret it.

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Slaughterhouse Monday

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While I was in Chicago, I got into a discussion with a reader about whether high school was too early to read Vonnegut. While the results of that conversation were inconclusive, this post is unequivocally too late. So it goes.

Week three of college football and week two of the NFL definitely stand as prime territory for some on-field slaughters, and this past weekend did not disappoint in that regard. First, Vandy took the Presbyterian Blue Hose to the woodshed in Nashville, where the Commodores claimed their first win of the season by a 58-0 mark behind new starter Austyn Carta-Samuels. It was the Vanderbilt running game, nonexistent last week against Northwestern, that shone this Saturday, when Zac Stacy took the first Vanderbilt play from scrimmage 86 yards to the house and never slowed down.

There was no shortage of lopsided scores around the country Saturday, including Clemson’s 41-7 takedown of in-state team Furman, the expected Arkansas defeat at the hands of Alabama, 52-0, and other top five blowouts, including LSU’s (63-14 over Idaho), Oregon’s (same score, over Tennessee Tech), and Florida State’s (52-0 over Wake Forest). Not all of said slaughters were so favorable for teams this space likes to track, particularly including Notre Dame’s 20-3 takedown of Michigan State in East Lansing, for which there is no excuse. I’m glad I couldn’t watch it.

The NFL wasn’t especially compelling this weekend, even though a number of games on Sunday afternoon came down to the wire, technically speaking. The main NFL topic this week is likely to be the Monday night game, which has already seen its share of storylines, including multiple Peyton Manning interceptions early and an apparent lack of control by the scab referees.

To round out the slaughter theme, of course, we go to the Motor City, where the Tigers continue to lose, first on a blown save by Jose Valverde against the mighty Cleveland Indians, and then in a make-up game this afternoon against the inexplicably division-leading White Sox.

Friday Jams: MAKE PLAYS!

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Some readers out there might not know that the annual Michigan State-Notre Dame game is a big rivalry game.  In fact, it is probably the biggest game on Sparty’s schedule each year aside from Michigan, and the Domers take it pretty seriously too.  They even play for a megaphone.  How fun is that?  Anyway, the point of this intro is that since it is such a big rivalry, emotions often run high postgame.  That was the case in 2006, when Notre Dame came back to win after trailing by 16 entering the fourth quarter.  This inspired Detroit-area radio host and Michigan State alum Mike Valenti to go on a tirade that will undoubtedly stand for years to come as the greatest approximately 18 minutes in radio history.  Give this one a listen, I can promise you will not regret it.

Also, since I likely won’t write anything else before Sunday, I just want to say that Jim Harbaugh still sucks.  In fact, I think this calls for another Friday Jam.  So go ahead and press play on Gridiron Heroes and weep after you realize that your favorite NFL team will never have a fight song that comes close to being this awesome (unless your favorite team is the Lions, like it should be).