Saturday Skull Session: Go Army, Beat Navy

The big game is finally here; can you believe it, folks? They played a whole season, and it all comes down to this. Army vs. Navy! The unstoppable force vs. the unstoppable force! 

People mocked Army when it appointed Revolutionary War legend Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion as head coach. Well, who's laughing now? Certainly not the broken Redcoats. Their officers are watching this from "King" George's posh dungeons. 

And what can be said about Commodore Perry's Navy that hasn't already been said? The three options it's given opponents led to the bottom of the sea. 

It's the one for all the Battletoads, folks. The last game of the season!

As a Marionaire I back the Swamp Fox, but I'm also anti-Illuminati (my chief beef with them being I'm not Illuminati) and the Army presents a compelling case:

Though I sided with the Black Knights, I'd be lying if I said Navy's rebuttal didn't give me pause).

 BIG BEAR FOR HEISMAN. We all guffawed when the Heisman committee snubbed Ezekiel Elliott, but perhaps we also should've laughed at Joey Bosa's exclusion.

The Heisman Trust's discrimination against defensive players is known, and Bosa's stat line wasn't otherworldly, but his Heisman finalist candidacy can't be dismissed outright.

From profootballfocus.com:

3. Joey Bosa, DE, Ohio State

We know it’s difficult to get any Heisman consideration on the defensive side without posting ridiculous sack totals or having one random highlight play that everyone remembers — but we’ve watched every snap, so PFF can give proper consideration to the defensive side of the ball. Bosa was the most disruptive edge defender for the second year in a row, leading the way with a +45.2 mark as a pass rusher and +26.0 grade against the run. This comes on the heels of leading all edge players with a +73.4 overall mark last year, in a season where a number of his peers were drafted in the first round. If Heisman voters were truly factoring in every snap of the season, Bosa would be in the discussion.

This is why I think people who voted PSU DE Carl Nassib over Joey Bosa as the nation's best lineman deserve to go to prison. James Franklin is a pedestrian to subpar gameday coach, but even he would pick Bosa over Nassib.

Bosa's numbers aren't eye-popping by his standards because it's not a video game and routine double-to-triple teams are no joke. (The makeshift memorial to Mason Cole at the Big House's 50-yard line speaks to the consequences of attempting to block Bosa with one mere mortal.) 

But if the goal is to honor "the best" players, then searches have to go deeper than a reading of 1990s-era stat sheet. 

If they didn't, then Carl Nassib would be the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. (And yes, there are busts as No. 1 picks but it's no contest generally.)

 HOW ARCHIE MADE HISTORY. As Connor Cook found out, Archie Griffin is one of the most beloved Buckeyes on Earth. We all know Archie Griffin went Saiyan where no Mortal(?) had ever gone before (or since). 

Buckeyesportsbulletin.com dropped an excellent #longread on Archie's career, but it begins with a hellacious scenario.

“A lot of people told me I shouldn't come to Ohio State because of my size,” Griffin said in 2014. “I should go to other places where the guys were smaller. I was headed toward Northwestern actually and Woody (Hayes) recruited me and because of him and my parents really I decided to come to Ohio State. The reason I decided to come to Ohio State was I was taking my visit to Northwestern and my dad let me out of the car to go to the airport and one thing he said that stuck out in my mind was, 'We'd love to see you play.'"

Now parents can watch their kids' games from anywhere with a wifi connection, but I don't think watching your kid via iPad will ever replace watching them live. (Parents are free to disagree in the comments.) Thankfully physical distance saved us from the specter of Archie Griffin, The Man Who Built Northwestern Football.

The article should be read entirely for full effect, but perhaps nothing embodies Griffin more than this:

Needing a win to earn a Rose Bowl berth, Michigan stayed aggressive on its next possession, but Griffin’s brother Ray picked off Leach on third-and-19 and returned the ball to the 3. It took just one play for Johnson to run over right guard for the winning touchdown with 2:19 to play.

[...]

Griffin’s streak of consecutive 100-yard games ended at 31.

“I couldn’t be happier,” he said. “We won the game and that’s the most important thing. I feel great. The streak had to end sometime and as long as we won … man, that’s all that counts.” 

That's how we do in Eastmoor, a city in which I've lived for over a year. 

 MAKES YOU THINK. Football is a game played on a football field. But—and stay with me here, folks—what if it were played in a classroom? With a pencil, books, and proctors? 

What would the game look like then?

From lansingstatejournal.com:

Urban Meyer makes no bones about it: If you only practice the 20 hours allotted by the NCAA, then you're "probably not a very good college football player."

Is Northwestern the ceiling for the "student-athlete" unicorn? These standings compared to the real ones make me believe that's the case.

And I don't want to cheer for Northwestern. I will, however, cheer for Army to get this championship trophy.

 THOSE WMDs. Creepy: 1974 K-Mart Christmas music... X-Men: Apocalypse trailer... The guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'... Tokyo police using drones with nets to catch other drones... R.I.P. to Cavs legend John "Hot Rod" Williams... TMNT2 trailer.