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2020: Last Word  https://mgoblog.com/diaries/mgococktail-michigan-state

2021: Greenskeeper MGoCocktail: Michigan State 2021 | mgoblog

2021 is great rivalry snark, No topping that one from me

2022  Grave Digger  https://mgoblog.com/diaries/mgococktail-michigan-state-2022

When I first heard of the Tucker saga I first felt like it was the 2nd cringiest episode of the Office behind Scott’s Tots.

“Tonight on the Office,  Michael sexually harasses the person hired to talk toe the the Office about sexual harassment in the workplace. “

It was one of the stupidest ways to ever throw away 95 million dollars outside the government buying a F-35. 

“If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college”.  -Anonymous through Lewis Black

Pardon me for ripping off a comedy bit from 20 years ago. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73GKhOwhPzs

Starts around 1:22 NSFW language

The premise of the joke is that you overhear someone say the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard in your life.

Instead of forgetting it your brain goes into over drive trying to figure out what he meant.  But it doesn’t it keeps going around in a mobius strip of thinking, until you have an aneurysm and find you dead in your bathroom,

Seriously don’t spend more than 10 seconds thinking about that statement or blood will shoot out your eyes.

Marcus Freeman is the Head Coach of Notre Dame
Notre Dame is one of the top 5 most prestigious programs in college football and easily one of the best 10 jobs in the country
Michigan State is a school that is not even in the top 7 most prestigious programs in the new Big- Ten and has had to force its last two head coaches out for off the field issues.

Rico Beard is not a no name personality either.  He’s co host of the #1 drive time sports talk show and always portends to be the Michigan State Insider, always dropping names and hinting at inside information. 

When he floated this, his argument was Freeman would be a great hire for MSU.  Thanks Captain Obvious.  But mostly that Freeman could be only making 3 to 5 million a year and MSU will be so flush with cash they can triple his salary.

If Freeman is making only 3 million a year that puts him between Dave Aranda at Baylor and Willie Fritz at Tulane at 58th.   If he’s making 5 million a year (which is what my 2 minutes of research, tripling his salary would make him 15 million per year,  the highest paid coach by 3.5 million. 

It’s MSU’s media, fanbase thinking they are one of the biggest programs in the country, when in reality they are perfectly average, who had a strong 7 year run.  But it’s over.

He also pointed to the new Izzo football facility at a cost of 78 million, which seems like an average power schools facilities.  Amazing a school is so flush with cash with all the lawsuits to pay off and still dumping swimming and diving, which they admitted costs the school 2 million per year.

However, even the reason its so disingenuous, it that it ignores what happens EVERY coaching carousel , it that a team will try to poach a coach, and that coach and his agent will use that leverage to get his school to match.   If you’re Notre Dame and you let your coach be poached by MSU, the 8th or 9th best most powerful in the new Big 10, you might as well fold the football team.

One last thing, since we have the attention spans that can only be measured in nano seconds.  Remember when we could not figure out why Payton Thorne and Keon Coleman would leave their starting jobs for Auburn and FSU respectively.   Maybe just maybe someone in the AD department knew a storm was coming and tipped these guys off so they could have good senior years.  Since Tucker’s and Tracy’s lawsuits and settlements are reliant on who knew what and when and who leaked the complaint.

Now that I’ve explained, the stupidest thing ever said, my brain can move on….

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The Tunnel

The source of all of Michigan State’s troubles then, now, and forever. 

This marriage of a martini and the negroni has a known origin.  Frank Audoux is the owner of the Paris restaurant ‘The Cravan’.   His idea was to Frenchify the classic Italian cocktail.

The negroni was first mixed in Florence, Italy, in 1919. The commonly-held origin story is that it was concocted by a member of the Negroni family asking the bartender to strengthen the Americano by adding gin, rather than the normal soda water. 

That’s my type of drinking.. You know that mixer with Campari and vermouth, let’s just replace that with gin.

Ingredients:

1 oz gin.  I’m using Valentine’s Liberator.  Buy Local
1 oz Campari
.75 oz dry vermouth 
.25 oz sweet vermouth

Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker add ice and stir 15 to 20 seconds .  Strain into a martini glass.  Garnish with a orange or grapefruit twist.

This is quite nuanced drink.  The sweet vermouth kicks back a little against the bitterness of the Campari.  I like it more than the classic negroni.