Special Edition Skull Session: Welcome to Hate Week, Y'All

By D.J. Byrnes on November 20, 2016 at 4:59 am
Brutus brought the sawed-off for the November 20th 2016 Skull Session.
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You're damn right it's a Sunday special. The B1G is back, baby! (Shoutout to Ben Gellman-Chomsky for the header photo.)

People want to gripe about a one-point win over an unranked seven-loss team in shitty conditions on the road. I get that. Complaining is easy and cathartic.

If only the coaches listened to us, the folks on the couch with alcohol coursing through their blood streams.

Props to Mike D'antoni, though. All week people mangled his name in pedantic disrespect of the man who once defensively coordinated Ohio State to a national title. I have too much respect for my elders to engage in such shenanigans.

D'antoni emptied the ash tray—including the ol' fake punt. He went for two too early but died nobly. No shame in that.

ICYMI: Instacap | Gareon Conley daggers Sparty | Silver Bullets air windmill out of Spartan Stadium | Two interceptions and a sack ruined MSU | If OSU plays like it did against MSU, it won't beat UM | Welcome to Hate Week | ESPN College GameDay coming to Columbus

But enough about the Spartans. It's Michigan week. 

The older I get, the more I realize how much humans crave feeling superior to others. We know it's bad yet we still log into Facebook so we can find salvation by looking down on the socially awkward kid from high school biology class.

I'm in crippling debt and my wife hates me—but at least I'm not that guy.

The good news is sports allow not only for socially acceptable substance abuse, but opportunities to insidiously other swaths of people for their poor choice in college football teams.

Michigan fans don't want the smoke from the local team. Put that on Marion, Ohio, the City of Kings.

And give the Big Ten Coach of the Year and the championship to Penn State. Or at least give James Frankin the opportunity to choke and let Paul Chryst win as many B1G titles as Urban Meyer. I don't care. If OSU dumps Michigan, ESPN isn't sending a cash cow like the Buckeyes to the glue factory.

Why do you think Michigan didn't drop after losing to Iowa? Look who holds the broadcast rights to The Game. ESPN won't let a three-point loss to a top-10 team on the road prevent Meyer–Nick Saban rematch title money.

 WELL? Jim Harbaugh made Wilton Speight, who broke his collarbone against Iowa, throw warm up passes to mask what everyone already knew: John O'Korn would start against Indiana on Senior Day. Indiana, obviously, didn't capitalize.

The Houston transfer looked bad, but he didn't turn the ball over and had a key second-half 30-yard scramble.

Still, Michigan fans won't enter this week as confident as they were two weeks ago, when they talked about the best potential playoff matchups.

Millennials don't remember when Michigan entered The Game as a respectable opponent. I'm damn near 30, and I have to think hard about to conjur the memories.

According to historians, this will be the biggest Game since the No. 1 vs. No. 2 banger in 2006. I was in Nosker Hall at my friends dorm.

The memories are fuzzy, but people swore Michigan was good. That game was never as close as the 42-39 final score indicated.

The biggest question is if Michigan will bring more than 200 fans to Columbus this year. 

 WHO TACKLED THIS DAD? Well, South Carolina State finally did it. The Bulldogs deployed a #dad against Savannah State.

From espn.com:

With a 3-yard gain, South Carolina State running back Joe Thomas Sr., the 55-year-old father of Green Bay Packers linebacker Joe Thomas Jr., fulfilled his dream Saturday.

Joe Sr. took the field in a 32-0 victory over Savannah State on senior day as the oldest walk-on running back for South Carolina State, where Joe Jr. played from 2010 to 2013.

With 4:34 remaining in the opening quarter, Joe Sr. took a handoff and gained 3 yards. He finished the game with four carries for minus-1 yard rushing.

The closest I've seen to that was at Baker Middle School when our middle-aged coach walked us through a run play and our middle linebacker, eventually Marion's most wanted copper thief, speared him in the hole.

The hit flustered coach so much he cussed us. He tried to boot the football he fumbled he missed.

And that's how my team went 2-6 my 8th grade year. I assume soebody will be in jail soon for playing a 55-year-old man in a college game.

 SURE. Yale, the elite college Americans to which Americans want to send their children:

Yale won, 21-14. My sources say it won't be enough to make the playoffs. Maybe next year, Handsome Dan.

 THOSE WMDs. The laborers who keep dick pics and beheadings off your Facebook timeline... Russia's gangster graveyards... Preparing for death newspaper-style with The Washington Post obituaries desk... Collected works of Phil Simms, football poet.

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