Bobref

Bat Out of Hell is one of the greatest - and most popular - rock albums of all time. The story doesn’t mention a great movie he was in: Formula 51. I highly recommend it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0227984/

And it clearly was. He’s the poster boy for the Peter Principle.

Worked out for Mike Pence.

The Grobber was a Chicago sports institution. Pretty much a caricature of the old style sports beat reporter. Very entertaining.

Remember Bob well from both his time at Portage and at Valpo U. Great football guy. Never heard anyone say a bad thing about him.

I’ve been watching all the armchair officials on the internet commenting something like this: ”The whistle had no impact on the play, but still, a rule’s a rule so the TD shouldn’t have counted.” This is often followed by demands that all or some of the officials involved should be fired, or tarred and feathered, or prosecuted for obvious corruption, etc. Please save us from “rule book” officials.

Of course, you’re also a coach yourself, so ….

I don’t think it’s much of an issue at the NFL level. There are about 120 officials in the NFL. They all get the same memos, watch the same film, go to the same clinics, listen to the same supervisors. They should be as close to interchangeable as humanly possible. Plus, they are pretty good to start with.

Yeah, someone really pulled a boner.

Wait a minute! I was always told size didn’t matter! 😉

The football world is losing its collective mind this morning over a play in the Bengals - Raiders wild card game yesterday. Shortly before the end of the first half, the Bengals’ Joe Burrow threw a TD pass that has generated a sh*tstorm of controversy. The Bengals were leading by a TD at the time, and that was the final margin of victory. Today, the fans, aided by the media, are calling for the crew chief, Jerome Boger, to be fired … if not tarred and feathered. But if we break down the play, we understand what happened. The video shows the likely explanation. As Burrow scrambled to his sideline, the short wing on that side was camped out on the LOS at the sideline - right where he is supposed to be. Burrow ran right at him, and he was forced to sidestep, turn and rule on the play as Burrow released the ball right at the sideline. He was so close to Burrow that he was unable to see both the feet and the ball at the same time. He looked at the feet, and (I believe — the NFL did not identify the official who blew the whistle in the post game comment on the play) blew the whistle. After the play was over, the officials communicated, and another crew member called him off the play, which was the correct ruling. Then, they had to decide whether the whistle blew before the catch, since a whistle while the pass is in flight would require a replay of the down at the previous spot. When the whistle blew is not reviewable by replay under NFL rules. They ruled the ball was caught first and let the TD stand. Subsequent forensic analysis showed that the whistle blew about .10 seconds before the catch. IMO, this is much ado about very little. The erroneous out of bounds call by the short wing was unfortunate, but understandable under the circumstances, and the crew functioned appropriately in communicating and getting that call right. Human reaction time is about 250 milliseconds to see something and initiate a reaction to it. The YouTube video does not show anyone reacting to the whistle before the ball gets there, and you wouldn’t expect to see that. In other words, the whistle blowing 1/10 of a second before the ball arrived had no effect on the play. An interesting play, but actually handled pretty well, although those officials are being pilloried today.

Just when you think you’ve seen every nutty thing that could happen on a football field, something new comes along. Put on your striped shirt and let us all know how you would handle this. Puns are welcome in expressing your thoughts. But please, no observations on the Patriots “getting shafted” in Buffalo! https://uproxx.com/sports/kendrick-bourne-dildo-bills-fans/ Kendrick Bourne Is The Latest Patriots Player To Have A Dildo Thrown At Him By Bills Fans Kendrick Bourne got the New England Patriots’ first touchdown in their AFC Wild Card game against the Buffalo Bills on Saturday night. Sure, it came in the second half while the Bills already opened up a big lead — the touchdown and extra point made it 33-10 — but hey, it was a cool moment for Bourne, who reeled one in from Mac Jones on fourth-and-goal to keep the team’s slim hopes of a win alive. You might notice at the very end of the clip that Bourne appears to be pointing to something on the ground and is kind of upset about it. Well, the NFL cut it off in their video because they’re a pro sports league that probably doesn’t want this on their socials, but someone at Highmark Stadium threw a dildo at him. If you’re a longtime football fan, you might remember that this is not the first time we’ve seen this happen during a Bills-Patriots game in Buffalo. Back in 2016, someone threw a dildo onto the field while Chris Hogan caught a screen pass and tried to punch one in against the Bills’ defense. Tom Brady — who, you might remember, played for the Patriots at one point — said of the incident, “I thought it was funny the ref didn’t want to pick it up. He was kicking it. Nobody wanted to reach down and grab it.” There is no word on whether or not that dildo did anything before the game to improve its circulation in the cold Buffalo weather.

Turn the clock back about 30 yrs. and St. Joe was playing at Munster, and Digger Phelps’ kid plays TE for St. Joe. Got to chat briefly with Digger before the game. I was crushed that he didn’t remember me. 😂 I was a sophomore at ND when he showed up there to rescue the basketball program. I used to see him occasionally on campus or in the ACC.

Notre Dame would hire me before they’d hire Dabo.

In the days of The Horde that would have been good for about 5 pages.

Now that’s a truly bitter rivalry: smack talking in the off season. FWIW, Roncalli’s schedule was ranked 19th most difficult in the state last year according to Sagarin. That was, by far, the toughest schedule in 4A, and tougher than all but 3 schedules in 5A, and it doesn’t even count their game against Cincinnati Elder, a playoff team in Ohio’s biggest class.

The predictable result of a very clumsy effort on the part of the Biden Administration. There were several other ways they could have netted the same result. But selecting an OSHA regulation as their vehicle to implement nationwide health policy was just plain dumb.

And, he’s out … again.

For those hailing the recent SCOTUS decision as a rejection of the Biden mandatory vaccination in the workplace regulation, I wouldn’t schedule the parade just yet. The ruling made it clear that it was based on OSHA exceeding its statutory authority to regulate safety in the workplace. So, mandatory vaccination won’t work as an OSHA regulation. But there are other ways to skin that cat.

Testify!!!

Chaos is good. Disruption of the status quo is good. That is how growth occurs.

There’s a big difference between the Fords owning the Lions as a sort of hobby, since they made their money doing something else, and the McCaskeys, whose only wealth is the Bears.

If the McCaskeys were to sell the Bears, the sales price would be more than $4 billion. Just sayin’. When Virginia kicks the bucket, we shall see.

I have a lot more faith in the business sense of the Pakistani immigrant behind the counter of the 7-Eleven down the street.

Both of which we have to deal with at the high school level because they see it in the NCAA - where there has been a conscious decision not to enforce those rules. For the life of me, I don’t know why.