Tag: ncaa

Football weekend

First the workouts: 2 mile pre-trip walk (14:47 pace) and there was the walk to and from the stadium (about 1 mile each way). Tracy is a fast walker.

Today: 10.2 at 17:04; this was my “down to the river path and back course”

My pace: I walked at a “how little effort can I possibly expend but keep moving forward” pace. The idea was to wander around until I got tired of walking, or 10 miles, whichever came first. The miles came first.

Football

Tracy and I have been to 4 previous Ohio State at Illinois games. She has left happier than I have every time before yesterday. And..to the surprise of absolutely no one, it happened again.

Ohio State came in very business like, played it close to the vest on both offense and defense, built a 20-0 2n’d quarter and 34-10 3’rd quarter lead and coasted to a 34-16 victory. Yes, the Illini made some key errors, including jumping offside at the Ohio State 2 and having the punter go down on one knee to field a slow punt snap. There were 3 turnovers as well, but IMHO, those were caused by great defense: swarming around a batted ball, swarming around a ball carrier trapped in the backfield, and a blind side strip sack.

For most of the game, the Buckeyes didn’t give a hard pass rush but rather played with gap/lane discipline; they didn’t want the mobile Illini quarterback to hurt them with his running.

But the Illini showed rays of hope. When they went to fast tempo on offense, they had a nice drive to get a field goal late in the second quarter, and again on the first drive of the second half, when they capped the drive with a lovely hand-off-pitch option play to score a touchdown to cut it to 20-10.

Of course, the Buckeyes promptly marched it down 75 yards on an agonizing, time consuming drive to go up 27-10. Then they forced a fumble, and turned that into yet another touchdown.

After that, they played a soft “keep everything in front of you” defense, which allowed the Illini to pad the stats a bit.

When I got home I got to watch the end of the Navy at Temple game on TV. I picked it up with Temple scoring to make it 24-14. But the Mids rallied; late in the game the kicker coolly nailed a 48 yard field goal to tie it at 24. But the Midshipmen’s defensive woes continued. They gave up a long drive for a TD and trailed 31-24 with time running out.

The Mids had the ball…and it was now 4’th and 2 at the Navy 49 with 47 seconds left. And this happened:

Then the Mids went for 2 and made it, with a pass to the right side of the endzone. But 39 seconds remained…and the defense did just enough to force a long “Hail Mary” pass and they smothered it.

That evening, I watched USC (the team the Illini beat 2 weeks ago) dominate a perpetually overrated Michigan team, while watching Illinois State beat Murray State 46-32. The Birds rolled to a 28-3 lead early before giving the Racers some life at the half (31-17). The Racers pulled to within 43-32 early in the 4’th quarter but the Birds got an insurance field goal. It is good to win, but giving up 471 total yards and 32 points to a win-less team is not good. The defense will have to do better against a tough Youngstown State squad (3 losses: Michigan State, South Dakota State, and a strong North Dakota team)

Of note: Texas surprised me, whipping Oklahoma 22-6. Evidently the Longhorn defense is good. ND rolled over NC State 39-7 and gets the Trojans next week.

Moving forward: Both Navy and Illinois have next weekend off.

Then: the Illini travel to Washington; I honestly expect the underrated Huskies to win that one. Then the Illini play 4 games in November (plus have a second bye), with 3 of them in Champaign. Though the Illini will be favored in the remaining 4 games, Northwestern is playing good football right now, “good Maryland” can be a tough team to beat, and Rutgers is capable to dragging a game into a rockfight. I see a 8-4 or 9-3 regular season finish for the Illini.

The Midshipmen: after a week off, they host the Florida Atlantic Owls: the 3’rd “Owls” on their schedule and the 4’th “bird of prey” (Air Force is called “The Falcons”). I expect that they win that one.

But then comes a rough stretch of: at North Texas, at Notre Dame, South Florida at home, and at Memphis. I do not see the Mids winning any of these: the defense just isn’t there. But they finish with Army, as usual, and I project the Mids win that one to finish 8-4 and make a nice bowl.

Illinois Football surges

Yesterday: nice 5k commuter walk, with 3 sets of deadlifts afterward:
10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 224 (all low handle)

We then drove to the game. When we got there, I reflected on how my tickets changed over the years. My current seats are my concession to the age of my friends and guests.

The game itself: the Illini moved to a workman like 10-0 lead. Western Michigan tried to rally but missed a 46 yard field goal. And at the end of the first half, a quarterback run got them to the 1 on second down, but they were stuffed on 2 consecutive running plays.

During halftime, the Coach fired the team up, and in the second half, they put the game away as they should: 14 in the 3’rd and 14 more in the 4’th. The one cloud on the horizon that I see is pass protection.

So, how do my teams sit?
Illinois has yet to defeat at team that has won an FBS came. Duke lost to Tulane and is 1-2, WMU is 0-3 (close loss to North Texas, 23-6 lost to Michigan State), and Western actually defeated Pioneer League Valpo (Valpo lost to a D3 team the week before)

ND has lost to two good teams.
Texas lost to Ohio State and defeated dreadful San Jose St. and UTEP (no FBS wins between them)

Navy: wins over VMI, UAB (who does own a FBS win..over Akron), and 42-23 over Tulsa (rallied from 14-0 down)

Illinois State beat Eastern Illinois 42-30

This is tough to sort out but I see it this way:

Illinois: a lot like last year 9-3 or 8-4. Landmines include Indiana, USC, Ohio State, Washington and Rutgers
ND: 8-4 ish finish: USC and Arkansas are probably the biggest challenges
Texas: lacking the offense to compete at the top of the SEC but they MIGHT squeak into the playoffs
Navy: schedule is back loaded with games against ND, Memphis, USF and Army toward the end. 8-4 looks right to me.

Illinois State: definitely in the hunt for a playoff spot, but North Dakota State visits in a few weeks. They have a mediocre North Alabama team next week.

I feel blessed: I have tickets to see USC, North Dakota State and Ohio State in a 3 week period!

Today’s workout: I slept in and didn’t get going until about 9:30 or so. It was 78 F and was to rise to 90 F (46 percent humidity). I did a flat West Peoria course, adding a shady loop here and there when I could. I counted this as 10.1 (Garmin got 10.06).

About 4 miles into it, I thought about bailing as it was getting very warm. But I was NOT dizzy, I was not injured and I even wasn’t that stressed physically. I was just very annoyed by my 17 minute a mile pace (1:26 for the first 5) That was not a good enough reason to quit (I had plenty of water) so I stayed with it and actually picked up the pace just a bit. I am glad that I finished though this was 25 minutes slower than on cool weather pace of last week.

What football has done to me and for me

There are several places on social media that advise future college football players; this is one of them. Much of their advice is of the following variety: “not everyone can be a Big Ten/SEC player, or even D1” and “remember this is a cold blooded business.” It is interesting.

But I’ll talk about things from my perspective: I was someone who didn’t have snowball’s chance in hell of playing at ANY level; not even D3, NAIA, etc.

From the time I was in grade school to high school, I lived and breathed football. By the time I got to junior high: I was lifting weights, running wind sprints, etc. In high school: weights (extra), stadium steps, ALL of the recommended summer workouts plus..every frigging day.

I trained HARD. What it got me: 2 years starting on JV, 1 year starting on varsity (small school), 1 year of playing just enough to letter on the varsity (larger school in Texas).

The cold blooded numbers: all that running got me to a….5.8 40 (not a misprint..just under 6 seconds). Ok, it got me to a 5:54 mile..not bad for a lineman but that wasn’t helpful for football. I didn’t hit 300 lb in the bench until I was 26.

Simply put: the genetics were not there.

I didn’t exactly shine at the other sports either, though I did win a few wrestling matches vs small school competition

So…first year in college, I was in the stands. And frankly, it hurt. The game had progressed without me and I felt discarded. That I did not measure up hurt. I remember seeing a photo of a famous freshman playing (Hugh Greene of Pitt) playing and I was insanely envious.

To this day, at times, I *still* feel like a major failure. Yes, I KNOW what an “outlier” is and I know that it is unreasonable to feel robbed because I wasn’t the outlier that I lusted after being. But emotions are illogical things.

Just because you want something and put in the work does not mean you will get it.

So, would I have been better off had I never cared about football or sports?

Side note about college: I was accepted by Annapolis, West Point, University of Texas, Rice University and Yale, and had financial aid to the latter 3 schools. I went to Annapolis and graduated on time, served in the Navy, and went on to get a Ph. D. in mathematics at the University of Texas. Oh, and none of the schools were interested in my football abilities. 🙂

So, what did this have to do with football and sports?

Ok, let’s talk about the Ph. D. I took that on 4 years after my math degree, and I started my program with an astonishing amount of ignorance. Let’s put it this way: in my graduate algebra class, I did not remember what a “normal subgroup” was. I am not making this up.

Needless to say, my first year of graduate school was very rough. I failed a few exams, felt like a complete idiot in class and, frankly, was intimidated by the smarter, better prepared students. To say that my first semester grades were lackluster would be an understatement. I sure looked as if I were to be one of the 70 percent that washed out.

But here is where football (and other sports) came in: I remembered what it was like to be intimidated…to be assigned to block someone who was too quick for me. I had missed tackles, missed blocks, gotten screamed at by coaches. But I did NOT quit then, and I didn’t quit in graduate school either.

The difference is that, in graduate school, I had the intellectual ability to rise to the challenge. I had to overcome my lack of preparation: I did that by studying insanely hard. I had to overcome being intimidated: this time I was in an arena that I was better suited for.

In sports, I had gotten off the deck numerous times. In my first wresting match, I got pinned in 19 seconds and those on the other team were openly laughing at me! But I learned to either tune out the naysayers or even use it as motivation to keep at it.

And so, I really believe that the resilience that I learned on the football field (and in other sports) served me well, especially in an endeavor where I had at least a little bit of natural ability.

And there was a secondary benefit: in preparing for football, I grew to love working out and pushing myself. I still do that to this day. And the I see the inevitable injuries or “chronic condition flare ups” as normal obstacles to overcome. So, I think that I am healthier because of it. And I still enjoy low key competitions such as neighborhood 5k races (though I now power-walk these).

So, while I regret that I had somewhat of a bad attitude when I played (too selfish) and I wish I had accepted the verdict that I simply didn’t “have what it took” to be a featured football player at a large high school (never mind the higher levels), I do not regret trying and giving it my all. It was a part of my overall “education in life” that I feel served me well later on down the road.