It is the voting day. Do that.
Word of the Day: Reverie.
BASEBALL STAR. Justin Fields was born to be an elite quarterback and looks like he was assembled in a lab to play football.
But it turns out, even if he didn't step foot on a football field after high school, he'd probably still be a millionaire athlete.
Back at Harrison High, Fields was a prized shortstop with pop. Perfect Game ranked him as the 237th-best prospect in the game. MLB general managers called Fields’ father repeatedly, to beg him to convince Justin to stay in high school through spring just so they could draft him. But Justin wasn’t interested in money, if it meant missing the chance to prove he’s the best quarterback in America.
“If it was a money thing, he'd have played baseball,” Ivant said. “If he'd have stayed for that spring in high school, he would've been drafted and maybe made a million bucks or so, then gave them 30 days and then off to college. But he didn't want to do that.”
Y'all probably don't realize this, but I too had plenty of other opportunities to earn millions of dollars elsewhere. Instead, I chose to spend my days writing online words for your free consumption. You're welcome.
SEEMS GOOD! I have a strong feeling we're going to get more than a few absurd Justin Fields stats this year, but this is already about as insane as I can imagine.
Stat from Ohio State: Justin Fields has accounted for as many touchdowns (7) as he's thrown incompletions through two games this season.
— Dan Hope (@Dan_Hope) November 2, 2020
And here's the best part – there's a solid, solid keep this stat alive another weekend. And the one after that.
BASICALLY BO PELINI. When Jim Harbaugh arrived in Ann Arbor, Wolverine fans were acting like Michigan had just hired the second coming of Bo Schembechler to ignite another 10-year war with Urban Meyer.
Instead, they hired Michigan Bo Pelini to average a 9-4 record and lose to Ohio State in increasingly epic fashions.
Some will still say that talk is crazy, given that Harbaugh is 48-19 overall and restored Michigan to competency after the failed tenures of Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke.
But you know who else was 48-19 through 67 games? Bo Pelini at Nebraska.
The good news is, that's still a marked improvement from the last two coaches, somehow.
STRENGTH OF THE PROGRAM. These days, an elite football team does not exist without an elite strength and conditioning coach. But that wasn't always true.
Turns out, teams used to share my aversion to the weight room (albeit for a very different reason), before one pioneer came along and changed the whole game.
Strength coaches build more than muscles
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) November 2, 2020
They also build character and most of them are characters themselves. pic.twitter.com/mci6zkQbi2
From no weight training at all to Mickey Marotti's program honesty might be an even more jarring football development than the forward pass.
BUCKLE UP. No sport is going to have a normal season in 2020, but there's a chance the NFL's is going to get even wilder.
NFL competition committee expects to present a resolution to owners based on a contingency of having a 16-team playoff season (8 in each conference) if games are lost due to the pandemic, especially as bye weeks disappear, according to league sources. Committee met by zoom today.
— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) November 2, 2020
(Psssst., college football – it's not too late to expand your playoff field, too! )
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A man who confessed to being one of South Korea's most-notorious serial killers says he's surprised he wasn't caught sooner... Why do printers still suck?... The Russian 'Sausage King' is killed in a sauna with a crossbow... How one of our first 'smart' weapons helped stop the Nazis... A horrifying zoom hack can tell what you're typing from your webcam video... How your brain tricks you into taking risks during the pandemic...
