2000 northwestern

ominous news means empty stadium photo [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

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Corona chronicles. How it's going:

  • Missouri-Vandy and Florida-LSU are postponed after outbreaks. They've bumped those games to the open week the SEC implemented before the championship game. Next week's Mizzou-Florida game is in serious doubt since you're supposed to isolate for ten days after a positive test.
  • Ole Miss is having an outbreak but "could play" as of yesterday.
  • Baylor-OSU is postponed after an outbreak at Baylor is blamed on a false negative. An infected person was tested, test threw up a false negative, and then everyone got on a plane. The supposed false negative is from a point-of-contact antigen test. Yikes.
  • FAU-USM is also postponed.
  • Nick Saban and Alabama AD Greg Byrne both tested positive. Saban joins Mike Norvell, Les Miles, and Kevin Sumlin as P5 head coaches who have tested positive.
  • Nebraska announced a free watch party at their basketball arena, and then immediately canceled it. We do not have to revisit our "dumbest way to get coronavirus" gimmicky top five. "Watching Nebraska get hammered by 50 points" was an easy #1 otherwise.
  • CUSA pushed back its title game to December 18th in an effort to get games in.

Saban getting infected is alarming for the Big Ten's prospects. Alabama is Alabama and has been administering daily tests. Saban himself has taken every reasonable precaution. Also alarming: Baylor is using those quick point of contact tests and one false negative blew it all up. Baylor's opsec was insufficient, perhaps inevitably:

Rhoades said his team was "really spaced out well" on the team flight and bus rides and was compliant in wearing masks and goggles in transit. He speculated that spread could have occurred during team dinner the night before the Oct. 3 game or in the visiting locker room at West Virginia's Milan Puskar Stadium, citing "very cramped quarters." Most visiting college football locker rooms are smaller than the home teams' locker rooms.

It is very easy to see this happening in the Big Ten, at which point that team will likely be cancelling three games.

[After THE JUMP: nobody's watching anyway]

Feel ya, BVS [Patrick Barron]

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The Question: 

Games you remember watching in mortifying fear?

The Responses:

Ace: Before anyone protests, I suggested this because I have Cosmic Comeuppance For The Murderwolf Post, The Ulcer.

Seth: I wouldn't have suggested it because this game didn't for me. Even down 17-0 I figured Michigan would score the next 24 points.

Brian: I can no longer just assume those things. I also feel that ulcer games have to be wins? Is that crazy

Seth: There were a few minutes there when I wouldn't let Demorest's kid talk to me. That was it. The Michigan fans in that stadium were LOUD.

Ace: Yeah, I’ll be honest, I was pretty calm for this one.

Brian: Like the JT Was Short game wasn't an ulcer it was a crippling state of listlessness for months.

Ace: And yeah, ulcer games should be wins. The Horror is a disaster, Akron is an ulcer. Speaking of which, that game.

Seth: The Akron game was on Rosh Hashanah, and the second my brother and I left the stadium everything went alright. Sorry about doing that to everyone but we fixed it.

Brian: Well then how about most Northwestern games

Ace: Man this is gonna be a Lloyd-y list.

The Mathlete: The Halloween Minnesota game

Brian: You're supposed to win, Pat Fitzgerald's head keeps getting bigger, you're not even sure you want credit for the W afterwards. Mathlete, that is a superior choice. The Minnesota game featured Mitch Leidner getting extraordinarily lucky about five times and came down to a goal line stand after Minnesota frittered away two downs from the one.

David: Minnesota 2004 is another one for me. I kept thinking "We can't lose to Minnesota." But then we did...the next year.

Seth: UConn was an ulcer.

Ace: Thank you Desmond Morgan for keeping the damage limited to that. I’m not sure some of these Hoke-era wins count because they didn’t feel very inevitable, though. Like, at all.

Brian: I feel like there are two different categories here. One are games where you are dominating statistically but the scoreboard disagrees, and then there are games where the team is playing like inexplicable ass.

Seth: YES.

Brian: Or, in many cases, fairly explicable ass.

[After THE JUMP: Spleen]

The Question:

Taking an old question in reverse: Choose one current Michigan player whom you'd like to take back in time and have him play for a former team?

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The Responses:

David: I think I would put Zach Werenski onto the 2010-11 Michigan Hockey team. 

After Brandon Burlon's injury before the tournament run, freshman Kevin Clare was pushed into Michigan's 3rd defensive pairing...which ended up turning into playing mostly just five defensemen.   After the Tiny Jesus show against North Dakota in the National Semifinal -where Hunwick made a whopping 40 saves- Michigan was just gassed going into the Title Game.  It showed as M took twice as many penalties as Duluth did.  Hunwick played amazing again, but the team was chasing play most of the time.  If you put another NHL first round defenseman on that team and Clare isn't forced into action that might have been a little above his head -or if thy could have rotated through 6 blue-liners more confidently (Clare did have 2 of M's penalties)- Michigan might have been able to stay out of the box more and conserved energy, etc, etc.  Not to mention adding Werenski's offensive prowess...he already has 4-8-12 in half a year, this year.  Would it be a slam dunk?  I don't know...but I would take another shot at that game if I could get it...

Option #2 (if its allowed): Trading Senior LeVert for Freshman LeVert in 2012-13.

Option #3: Adding Peppers/Lewis to the '06 football team...but would either of them (or anyone, for that matter) keep their feet on that hideous Columbus sod??

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[After THE JUMP: we debate which team would most benefit from #HoverPeppers]