Say it ain't so! (Part 2)

I was reminded by nothing in particular that someone of no real importance had told me Charles Nelson Reilly was no longer amongst the living.

I recoiled in horror, as certainly I would have heard that CNR passed away.

Turns out CNR has brought down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. At least he'll have Brett Somers to joke with in the great beyond. And Gene Rayburn. Having watched many an episode of Match Game '7?, it's a bit surprising some of the panelists made it into their old age. Only Richard Dawson - the man who fled Match Game when they wouldn't let him play every bonus round - remains. (Incidentally, didja know that it was Richard Dawson who introduced Bob Crane to John Carpenter? Yes, that is a chill you feel filling the room.)

While looking up that bit of sad CNR news, I got hit with another shot to the solar plexus - Robert Goulet has taken Red Ships of Spain on tour in the afterlife.

No longer will we see his nut ads.

No longer will he urge us to dream the impossible dream.

Sigh.

CNR gone? Robert Goulet gone? I have to say it - Your RHS is a little bummed.

Say it ain't so!

Dominique Douglas (aka Doug E. Fresh) (aka Ocho ocho) tried to steal some DVDs from the Wal-Mart last night.

Apparently, he just took them out of the cases and threw them under his coat.

The Wal-Mart knew exactly who he was, as he had come in to deal with a money order at the customer service desk - meaning they had his name and address and next-of-kin and whatever other information one might need to locate and arrest a criminal.

This comes while he is awaiting trial on other theft charges.

Allow me to be the first to say - DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE THE GOOD LORD SPLIT YOU.

Douglas would have been a very nice component to the passing game this year, but not if he can't keep himself from stealing while, you know, waiting to be tried for stealing.

All last year media outlets talked about him as a character kid. Turns out - and this is SHOCKING - you shouldn't believe everything the sports media prints.

Unbelievable.

On a side note, I swear I think about more than Iowa football. You wouldn't know that by monitoring the recent history of this blog, but I swears to you, it's trues.

Exactly like I drew it up

If you go back and read my previous blog entry about the upcoming Iowa/Michigan State game (don't bother), you'll see that I correctly predicted...

- Albert Young would go off for 170+ yards (hope he isn't too hurt).
- Jevon Pugh would score in overtime.
- Adrian Clayborn would make a crucial sack in the second OT.
- Paul Chaney JUNIOR would catch his first TD of the season in OT.
- Drew Gardner would make the tackle that sealed the deal.

MEMO TO THE IOWA COACHES- GET THE YOUNG GUYS ON THE FIELD!

I am officially withdrawing any "Back up the truck" or "cover the field" comments I made previously. I don't think this team is going to win on the road, but if they win out at home - horror of horrors, they're probably bowl bound.

Don't ask me if they deserve it. That's a question for a more reasoned and logical time. Just celebrate with the following lyrics...

In Heaven there is no beer
That's why we drink it here
And when we're gone from here
Our friends will be drinking all the beer

Amazing rhyme structure. Truly groundbreaking. Go Hawks!

You Know What I Hate?

I hate being so right about an Iowa game.

Getting your ass kicked by the favorite sons of Wilford Brimley is no way to impress Your RHS.

Iowa is a bad bad bad football team. Injuries are a small part of that. Constant off-the-field distractions, sluggish on-field efforts, poor coaching decisions...they make up a bigger portion of the problem.

I won't lie and say wins and losses don't matter to me - they do. They matter very much. If you're not prepared to put a competitive team on the field every year at Iowa, don't bother applying for the job.

What concerns me more is the constant stream of problems that happen off the field. Problems that involve the local constabulary. Players stealing credit cards. Players driving drunk. Players urinating in public then running to avoid the ticket. Players threatening their live in girlfriends. Rumors are swirling now about another pair of players who may have been involved in a significant illegal act.

One thing I know Gary Barta won't do is sit on his a** while this goes on. Iowa fans have patted each other on the back for years telling each other that Iowa wins (or loses) the "right" way. Those days are over. Sure, Iowa isn't paying the players (or they haven't been caught doing it, anyway), but it's high time someone began enforcing some meaningful discipline on the players in the football program. Their place on the team and their scholarships are neither one a right, they're privileges - privileges which many current and former members of the football program seem unable to understand.

My best bet is that as bad as Iowa has been this year, they finish 5-7. Minnesota and Western Michigan aren't exactly setting the world on fire. Still, it's hard for me to put much of an emotional investment in the current band of thugs trotting out and showing no heart on a weekly basis.

That being said, I'll be in my seat at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday hoping the Hawkeyes can beat Michigan State. If they decide to put the game in the hands of a quarterback who is clearly not ready to win a game on his own, they will get blown out. MSU could put up 60 if Iowa doesn't run the ball. If they think that unlike every other game this year, their receivers are suddenly going to start running good routes, getting separation, and catching the G** d***ed ball, the coaching staff is drinking a brand of Kool-Aid I'd like to try.

38-10 Michigan State is my sad prediction for this weekend. I think Iowa could go out and beat Sparty, I just question if the coaches and players will put the team in a position to do so.

Boiler Up

Apparently, as an Iowa fan I was supposed to be discussing bowl possibilities this week. (I wasn't). Good Lord - the team is 3-4! How many times this season have they managed to score more than one touchdown in a game? Twice? Considering they beat a 1-win team in one of those games and got ripped by the Indiana Freaking Hoosiers in the other, I'm not all that impressed.

The offense is - how to put this nicely - still a little "challenged". The defense looked good against the spread option that Illinois runs - an offense which has absolutely gobbled Iowa up in the past couple of years - but they didn't throw the ball a whole lot. When they did, it was generally disastrous for Iowa (or Illinois on a couple of occasions). Purdue is an offense that Iowa is capable of stopping. They've done it before. Hell, they did it last season with many of the same young gentlemen they'll be trotting out on Saturday.

That being said - I have a sinking feeling Iowa is going to come out flat on the road, and by the time they wake up they're going to be buried under an insurmountable deficit - something in the 10 to 14 point range. I'm sure Captain Kirk will take lots of notes during the game and look on stoically while his team plays without emotion in the first quarter.

Iowa is going to need to maintain their steady diet of AY and young Mr. Sims on offense in order to keep their defense fresh. Purdue has been exposed the past two weeks by Michigan and Ohio State as the latest in a long line of Big Ten Pretenders that Joe Tiller has cobbled together in West Lafayette, but Iowa isn't even in the Pretender category.

The spread on this game is hovering around a touchdown, and the over/under is around 45.5. I'd take Purdue and the under.

Random notes:

• Kudos to Dana Brown for his stay at Iowa. Thanks for keeping it classy, buddy.
• Best thing I've read on the message board this week: Matt Carufel is an o-lineman that Iowa went after out of high school. He recently left Notre Dame and seems to have narrowed his transfer choices to Iowa or Mini-soda. One poster posited that a 2010 offensive line of Bryan Bulaga, Julian Vandervelde, Matt Carufel, James Ferentz, and a nameless fifth guy would be ridiculous. Response from an obviously gifted poster: "A line of Blake Larson (sic), Chris Felder, Chris Thomas, Mike Jones, and somebody else could be ridiculous - Unknown, 2003". Until someone is in the starting lineup at Iowa and playing well, I just can't get too fired up about potential recruits. (Except Blake Larsen. Dude won some Leadership awards. And Matt Bohnet. He saw the writing on the wall and transferred to Eastern Michigan in order to free up space for better QBs on the roster. They'll both Always Be A Hawk.)
• Kirk says Tony Moeaki might play this week. I say "BULLS**T" while coughing into my hand.
• Andy Brodell's injury was/is career threatening? Good gravy. I hear it's bad when your hamstring muscle actually tears completely off of the bone.
  

Nobel? Noble?

Reserving comment on whether or not Al Gore's half of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was warranted or deserved...doesn't his picture from their website look like he could have been the head of the Soviet Union between Brezhnev and Andropov?

Imagine him making a fiery anti-American speech in Russian with that silly lisp/accent thingy he has going. I challenge you not to giggle - and if you don't laugh, you probably are a Commie pinko anyway.

Istan-bull

It amuses me greatly that Turkey is so vociferous in its assertion that the "mass killing" of Armenians that the Ottoman Turks perpetrated during World War I was not genocide.

Merely a mass killing.

(Thank goodness that's cleared up!)

While I appreciate the tactic of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and loudly humming "The Stars & Stripes Forever" while someone else points out the truth, this has become just a tad ridiculous. The Turks are quick to point out why it isn't genocide...

A) It wasn't directly orchestrated by the government (unless you look into the matter).
B) Only 300,000 Armenians were killed (or was it over a million? I suppose once you hit six figures, the rest is gravy).
C) The word genocide wasn't coined until the 1940s (best reason yet!).

Turkey wishes so desperately to join the EU and be considered a cosmopolitan European nation yet can't seem to own up to what was done within their own borders 90+ years ago? Let them cool relations with the United States. Let them beat their chests in public and trot out revisionist historians to explain why the systematic elimination of hundreds of thousands of Armenians was simply inter-racial skirmishing during the war. I for one refuse to listen any more. If the prospect of a non-binding resolution terming the event genocide passing a House committee is driving the Turkish government around the bend, then I for one can hardly wait to see what happens when it sails through the full House.

What the Turks need to understand is simple: rational people don't hold the current government responsible for what the Young Turks did during the war - they hold them responsible for refusing to acknowledge the truth. It's hard to consider a state a legitimate voice in the modern world when they refuse to acknowledge their own past faults. It seems to be this would be something akin to the U.S. claiming that they never allowed slavery, but did have an extensive African guest worker program prior to the Civil War. Utterly ludicrous, but that's what we're seeing today.

I wish the Erdogan government would come to realize this and proceed accordingly, but they'll use patriotic fervor and anti-American sentiment to whip up further support for themselves. What this accomplishes outside of a brief wider mandate remains entirely unclear to me. I tire of the notion that there are lists of countries we are allowed to offend and and lists which we are not allowed to offend. I'm rather in favor of speaking the truth, and if that means embarrassing some nation because they refuse to acknowledge their faults, then so be it.

Iowa Won(?)(!)

A recap of what I called for and how it worked out...

A) Iowa commit to running the ball.

They ran the ball fairly effectively, picking up 141 yards on the ground. Albert Young looked good and helped keep a grinding offense on the field - keeping Iowa's defense off the field.

B) Jacody Coleman get significant PT.

He did. The kid apparently has no skills in pass coverage, but I love the intensity he brings to the field.

C) Chad Geary get significant PT.

I didn't see him in on defense at any time. On the flip side, I only saw an Iowa d-end make one play all day. Iowa's defensive ends have been "not real good" this season.

D) THROW THE G** D***ED BALL TO DJK!

2 catches, 27 yards. He also fumbled a kickoff, but managed to bring it out past the 20 anyway.

E) Kirk to show "emotion".

The Press-Citizen claims he was "teary-eyed" after the game. I can not confirm, as I was busy celebrating.

F) An offensive line that has figured out how to pick up a blitz.

They didn't need to figure it out. Illinois played Norm Parker ball and sat back in a 4-3 all game. Uninspired gameplan on the part of the Illinois staff (which, if you've heard me talk about Ron Zook, shouldn't surprise you in the least).

I said if Iowa's offense moved the ball and kept the defense off the field, they would have a chance to win. They won the time of possession battle by almost 10 full minutes, meaning Brett Greenwood was fresh when Eddie McGee threw that duck into his arms in the closing minutes. I by no means expected Iowa would be able to hang on to the ball, but kudos to the team and staff for a well-executed game plan.

Iowa still has a long ways to go to be a good football team, but they showed some desire and heart today. The offense committed to hanging on to the football, the defense played (God help me for saying this) textbook bend but don't break football - even the special teams looked all right (ignoring Ryan Donahue's attempt at a coffin corner that gave Illinois the ball at the 30 with 2 1/2 minutes left).

To quote the illustrious Bibguy, a win is a win. No such thing as winning ugly.

Once more into the breach

Good ol' SUI takes on the Offensive Native American Nicknames of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Saturday.

Keith Jackson liked to refer to Kinnick Stadium as a snake pit for opposing teams; however, as of 2007 Illinois is having a dream season, Iowa is having a nightmare season, and Keith Jackson is shilling Gatorade.

Illinois will come looking for blood, and probably find it the first time little Jake Christensen drops back to pass.

I have little hope for the game on Saturday. I cling to home-field advantage, recent domination of the series by Iowa, and the fact that the Gobbledy Zooker is pacing the Offensive Native American Nickname sideline.

Things I do hope to see...

A) Iowa commit to running the ball.
B) Jacody Coleman get significant PT.
C) Chad Geary get significant PT.
D) THROW THE G** D***ED BALL TO DJK!
E) Kirk to show "emotion".
F) An offensive line that has figured out how to pick up a blitz.
G) More DJK.
H) The Worm! (Where did you go, Worm? The North end zone needs you now more than ever!)
I) Blaise Bryant and his kick-ass high top fade.
J) More DJK, with a smattering of Coleman fist pumping on defense.
K) Kirk to "run out of chewing gum".
L) A backspace button to edit out those quotation marks in point K. I really would like Kirk to run out of gum.
M) Herky to give up looking for the absent Offensive Native American Mascot and go after the Gobbledy Zooker instead.
N) A Hawkeye win.
O) More DJK.

I think that about sums up what I want to see on Saturday. I'm sure I forgot a few things. I'm still saying 27-10 Illinois, because we know Iowa's offense is putrid and their defense will be worn out by halftime.

If Iowa can move the ball and keep their defense rested, they can win this game. If, however, they spend most of the day going three and out...guh.

Yeah

Let's see...how was the weekend in the world of RHS sports?

1. Hawkeyes spanked
2. Cubs spanked
3. Vikings downed by debilitating Bye Week Flu
4. This guy saw GAME DAY RON in the flesh at a local JV sporting contest

Number 4 saved what may have been an unbearable weekend. I had a sinking feeling the Cubs wouldn't be able to win a game in the desert, but I thought MAYBE they could sack up and win one at home. I hate being a delusional Cubs fan.

I suppose that last sentence was a little repetitive, wasn't it?

So - no more baseball, two flailing inept football teams to follow for the next few months... life is really great on the sports front.

This week's tailgate theme is our third annual chili cook off. I'm thinking that my current supply of habañero peppers isn't quite hot enough for this guy's taste, so I guess I'll have to figure out another way to spice things up...

On a side note - I broke out a tilde! What a Monday.

Special Sauce Indeed

I had an underwhelming experience with a "legendary" local restaurant the first time I went, but kept hearing from people, "No! You just caught them on a bad night! Try it again!"

So I did try it again, and it was better. I went back yet again and enjoyed myself. The memories of that first visit was really starting to fade.

Those trips have come to an end for a while, I think. Back to square one, I guess. Maybe I'll cheer myself up with a trip to Sutliff.

Might as well jump

The Chicago Cubs begin their quest to end a fairly long drought this evening when they take on the tradition-rich Arizona Diamondbacks in game one of the 2007 NLDS. The Diamondbacks, it should be noted, have won exactly half as many World Series titles since entering the National League in 1998 as the Cubs have since they became a charter member of the National League in 1876*.

Somehow, the Cubs have been given the tag of "favorite" in this epic 5-game throwdown. I feel compelled to ask whether or not the "experts" picking the Cubs have actually seen the Cubs play this year, but I'm not without hope. If Big Z can out-pitch Brandon Webb and give the Cubs a win in Game 1, I'm going to feel pretty good about the Cubs chances. If, on the other hand, the Cubs throw Zambrano and Lilly in Phoenix and come home down 2-0...guh.

History weighs heavily on a Cub fan's mind whenever the Cubs begin to taste a little success, and this year is no different. Twice in my lifetime, the Cubs were in total command of the NLCS and already selling World Series tickets only to implode (I remember who Tim Flannery is, Leon - do you?). I'm normally not a "JUST GET THERE!" guy, but if the Cubs made it to the World Series - they could get swept for all I care! - I'd be ecstatic. It would be nice to have happy stories to tell my grandkids after I regale them with such epic Cubs tales as "Kal Ran Out of Gas" and "Candy Fell Down" and "Leon Once Did So Much Blow...".

Lastly, memo to Steve Bartman - you and I both know you didn't cost the Cubs anything in 2003. That being said, watch the games on TV, and hopefully when Alfonso Soriano hits his fifth homer of the series in game 3, he'll be hitting it over a Tru-Link fence.

* - In fairness to the Cubs, they didn't start playing the World Series until 1903, and there wasn't a series at all in 1904 or 1994, so ... I have no idea what point I was trying to make here. The Cubs have spent the last 60+ years playing some brutal baseball.

Not again

As some people can attest to, I lost my cool at the end of the 1999 Iowa/Western Michigan game when the Hawkeyes were completely whipped by a MAC team.

I see they're the last game of the 2007 schedule.

Do they run the spread? If so, there's not a single game left on the schedule that I'm confident Iowa will win.

How does a team go from 4 consecutive January bowl games to being the worst team in the Big Ten? I realize many of you think I'm exaggerating, but Iowa's offense is putrid, their defense is stale and predictable, and their special teams wouldn't cut it in the Gateway Conference, let alone the Big 1(1)0.

Unless Iowa proves they can pass the ball, they could be looking at 0-8 in the conference - something which was unthinkable even a couple of weeks ago.

A major house cleaning is in order for the coaching staff this winter, I'm afraid. I'm not sure why any talented defensive recruit would want to play at Iowa, and watching the offense this season, why would anyone from that side of the ball want to play here either?

Things are looking mighty bleak for the Hawkeyes at the moment. Consistently having walk-ons in the two-deeps on the offensive line MIGHT be catching up with them. Maybe. That and a whole slew of other problems.