The Daily Dose/October 15, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
HUT, HUT, HIKE: Last time in the feature we talked about how silly it is the NCAA does not sponsor a major division football playoff and warned you our own solution would be forthcoming.
There’s really no argument against it. There are too many bowls played in frozen baseball stadiums in front of too few fans for the system to be taken seriously as anything more than a way for ESPN to make a pile of cash. The games themselves, which occasionally feature 5-win teams, have long been meaningless exhibitions.
Basket Weaving 101: Arguments about how much class time players would miss – and any other argument, really – are dismissed because the NCAA conducts football national championships in three other divisions. The two teams that play in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl – the NCAA Division III national championship game – play five playoff games, and these are real college students paying their own way who have to fit football around actual classes and scamming coeds.
Let’s See What’s Behind Door #3: So let’s get down to business. As we’ve noted, a 32-team tournament – not an unreasonable amount when you have 130 major division teams – could begin on Thanksgiving weekend and end on New Year’s Day.
Dry, Technical Matter: A minimum of 25 teams get automatic bids:
– Power 5 champions and runners up.
– Group of 5 conference champions.
– Remaining teams ranked in Top 25.
The remaining teams can be picked by an NCAA selection committee, who will then seed them and I don’t think anybody would complain if they used genuine regions so some lower seed that gets hot doesn’t have to cross the country five times.
More Dry, Technical Matter: Since Thanksgiving weekend is a long holiday, half the games can be played on Friday and half on Saturday.
Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: Now, if this plan were in place this season, conference champions would have to be determined by Nov. 23. Even allowing for conference championship games and a 13-week season (12 games and a bye week) the season would have to begin on Aug. 24, which is when Miami and Florida, kicked off the season this week.
Participation Ribbon: We frequently fault the NCAA here but the one they do well is run championship tournaments and an NCAA Division I Football Playoff would become a cherished part of the American landscape so quick we would all be wondering why we didn’t do this 50 years ago.
Final Answer: As long as we keep watching the Frito Bean Dip Bowl Presented by Nabisco we’ll keep getting force-fed these postseason scrimmages. We’re not going to get a real, NCAA-sanctioned playoff until we start demanding one.
Today At The Site:
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has a moderately funny line at the hotel. Today’s Diary.
Ol’ Sparrow had a funny line, too…Not a Line of the Year candidate, perhaps, but a not-too-bad one nonetheless…After everything was taken care of, the man started prattling about how he had no idea why the home office had extended him and the guys because all they did was sit around the hotel “doing nothing” anyway…The line from ol’ Sparrow:
“Wow…You taking applications???…That’s the kind of job I’m looking for…”
It got some chuckles from the guy, Tammy and Gloria…As it should have because it was a decent line…Then I asked what he and his crew did do when they actually got around working and he said installing pumps or something similar yours truly has no skills for and I waved it away.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
The Bottom Ten/NCAA Week 8: The race for the ESPNCup rolls on.
Here are some funny lines from this week’s NCAA Bottom Ten:
Commodores still hampered by turn-of-century decision to merge Athletic, Student Affairs departments as coaching staff replaced by Rabbinical Studies faculty that continually pesters officials over ball placement, resulting in NCAA record 935 delay-of-game penalty yards.
Everyone just waiting for chick basketball season to start as remaining home football giveaways include Geno Auriemma refrigerator magnet, Geno Auriemma water bottle and Geno Auriemma throw blanket.
With strong 13-13 conference play mark, MAC officials optimistic conference can maintain frantic .500 pace for rest of conference season.
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On This Date
In 1783 – Man flies above the earth for the first time as a tethered balloon designed by brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier and piloted by Jaques-Etienne reaches a height of approximately 80 feet. There was a second tethered flight later that day and the brothers would conduct man’s first untethered flight on Nov. 21. The Montgolfier brothers were paper manufacturers by trade who also invented transparent paper and a hydraulic ram, that raised water at their paper mill.
In 1989 – Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings establishes a new NHL record for most points in a career, scoring late in the third period in a 5-4 overtime victory against the Edmonton Oilers. Gretzky’s goal tied the game 4-4 and gave Gretzky 1,851 points, breaking the mark established by Gordie Howe and Gretzky later scored the game-winning goal in overtime. Gretzky retired in 1999 with 2,857 points, a record that still stands.
In 1976 – Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for their only week with Disco Duck. At the time Dees was a disc jockey at WMPS-AM in Memphis, where Dees was not allowed to play the song and was later fired for mentioning this fact on the air. The song also went to #1 in Canada, peaked at #6 in Great Britain and also peaked at #15 on Billboard’s soul chart. The duck vocals were done by a friend of Dees named Rick Pruitt.
Quotebook
Amid world beating hearts, the tumult and the shouting starts.
Grantland Rice
From The Start
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Besides Jack Christiansen, Eric Metcalf and Jermaine Lewis are the only other NFL players to return two punt for touchdowns in a single game twice in a career.
Today’s Stumper
Where does Gordie Howe now rank on the NHL’s career point list? – Answer next time!
