I commend you all on surviving yet another Thanksgiving.
If any of y'all caught the National Dog Show yesterday, you witnessed the closest Georgia will get to a national title this year:
THE BULLDOG WINS BEST IN SHOW at @TheNatlDogShow, presented by @Purina!
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) November 28, 2019
pic.twitter.com/TTLBrg6aJt
We're one sleep away from The Game. Get hype.
Word of the Day: Abhor.
NO TEAM IS INVINCIBLE. Let me set the stage for you – one of the most dominant teams in Ohio State football history is heading into Ann Arbor undefeated and as the No. 1 team in the nation without even playing a one-score game all season.
No, no – I ain't talking about Saturday's game. I'm talking about the one the Buckeyes lost in 1969 that still has folks rattled 50 years later.
Daniel Wolf, another 1970 alum who attended the game, called it “one of the worst days of my life.”
“I promised myself I would never step foot in Ann Arbor again and have kept that promise,” Wolf wrote.
...
Tom Waltermire was an OSU sophomore attending that game with his future wife and his mother. The undefeated run had created an aura of invincibility around the Buckeyes. With quarterback Rex Kern and four 1970 first-round NFL Draft picks, some observers posted that Ohio State could compete with professional teams.
That day in Ann Arbor, they learned no team is invincible.
“When reality first crashes a youthful cocoon, it is extra painful,” Waltermire wrote. “None of us spoke the entire drive back to Akron, except to order food along the way.”
So uh, let's definitely not do that on Saturday.
The good news is, Woody's squad might have done all future all-time great Ohio State teams a solid by losing that game, because there's not a shot in hell any Buckeye teams is going to sleepwalk through That Game despite any talent disparity after that.
Also, let's not act like this is a regular problem the Buckeyes have fallen into of late. Ohio State has won six-straight games while playing in Ann Arbor as the higher-ranked team.
The Wolverines are getting rolled on Saturday, regardless of what happened 10 years before Ohio State's current head coach was even born.
If there's anything Michigan wants, it's for you to be concerned about things that happened decades ago. I'm not taking the bait.
A THRIVING FRIENDSHIP. Remember this glorious Tweet?
Man I wish everyone stop saying I beat a kid in the hospital 91-35.... It was 98-35, had 91 with 1:26 left in the 4th pic.twitter.com/TAJxefv5A4
— Cardale Jones (@CJ1two) February 10, 2015
Well Cardale Jones didn't just kick the shit out of a hospitalized teen in a video game just to forget about him. Almost five years later, they've got a legit friendship.
You just haven't heard about it because, well, Cardale doesn't need to inform the media every time he hangs out with someone he sees as an adopted brother.
Jared excitedly tells the story of Cardale inviting his family to a Steelers-Bills game for his birthday, when Jones played in Buffalo back in 2016. The Foley family braved a snowstorm to watch, and Cardale visited them in the hotel the night before, lavishing them with field passes, access to free food and an overwhelming feeling of VIP treatment. There was the time Cardale came and picked Jared up to attend the opening of a paintball venue. The time Jared got to sing “Carmen Ohio” with the Buckeyes after the final start of Cardale’s career, a win over Minnesota in 2015. And the time Cardale brought his daughter, who is now 6, to the hospital to visit Jared. While Cardale and Jared played video games, Jared’s dad, Joe, walked little Chloe through the hallways. “He tries to do something with me,” Jared says, “every time he's in town.”
...
Jones has never posted or boasted about his relationship with Jared since their video game battle went viral. This story emerged much on accident, as a reporter called Jones about his old teammate, Joe Burrow, and Jones apologized for calling back a few minutes late. He’d been in the hospital with Jared, which led to the reporter asking if he could write the story. Clearly, the game wasn’t over when the “NCAA Football 14” game ended. It had just begun
Prior to Ohio State’s game with Penn State on Saturday, Jones met up with the reporter at midfield to catch up for a few minutes. He’s done plenty of other hospital visits and charitable things over the years, but always makes it a point to not draw any attention to them. “I’m not going to post every time I do stuff like that,” Jones said. “And say, ‘Oh media, look what I’m doing.’
Cardale Jones is an A+ human being, and there's not much else to be said about that. But I do hope Jared got his revenge for that public beatdown in some capacity. We can't have Dolo's head getting too big.
An underrated part of this story is that it basically confirms reports from my well-placed Columbus sources who tell me Cardale Jones loves to play paintball and is "extremely aggressive."
I would pay good money for clips of Cardale lighting kids up in a paintball game.
URBAN GIVING AWAY STATE SECRETS? Urban Meyer's film studies on BTN are getting a little too revealing for my liking. I mean, he's out here telling folks how to notice when Ryan Day's about to run the greatest onside kick of all time.
Fascinating insight by Urban Meyer on how he used to track the opposing HC on the opposite sideline to get a tell in the kicking game. Also makes me wonder what Bill Belichick was able to pick up on from Sean McVay. He wanted to know exactly where he was in the Super Bowl... pic.twitter.com/u3cbg9MWmR
— James Light (@JamesALight) November 28, 2019
I'd like to be a little bitter about Urban Meyer giving tips that might help combat Ryan Day's sorcery, but I feel like most coaches aren't watching BTN ahead of the last week of the regular season for tips.
And even if they are and this foils all of Ryan Day's future kickoff trickery, I'll forgive the guy who went 83-9 at Ohio State, 7-0 against Michigan and won a Natty.
Also, you can't really hate a man for being good at his job. And really, this is just Urban Meyer being extremely good at his job.
HE'S HUMAN, AFTER ALL. It happened. Michael Thomas dropped a pass last night.
Michael Thomas 3rd-quarter drop snapped his streak of 198 straight catches without dropping a pass, including postseason. pic.twitter.com/g7CZ4qiVU4
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 29, 2019
I'm going to be real with you, I can't imagine doing anything correctly 198 times in a row, much less something somebody else is being paid millions of dollars to stop me from doing correctly.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. Long-ago Thanksgiving prison break has a lasting impact on death row... How an 18,000-year-old puppy could change everything we know about dogs... A man attempted to smuggle $400K of heroin and meth inside rancid goat intestines... Giving thanks may make your brain more altruistic... Video captures a school bus driver drinking a beer while transporting students.
