I don’t always think about football in May. But when I do, I drink Dr. Brown’s Diet Cream Soda.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
So, yeah, it’s drizzly, as it is most every Memorial Day weekend it seems. Didn’t there used to be a Reggae Fest at the Water Tower that would get rained upon more often than not.
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So, an old man turns his back on hoops, for a second anyway, and contemplates the upcoming pigskin campaign.
Which is just 100 days away, give or take a few moon circumnavigations.
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Thinking about the Cards first and foremost.
Jeff Brohm’s got a new contract.
$8 mill a year.
We’ll see if he can get the Cards into the Dandy Dozen Playoff?
With that sized paycheck, oughta be able to every once in awhile.
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Speaking of the playoff, the Big Ten guy wants 24.
Certainly would give wannabe schools like U of L a better shot.
Still, I’m nonplussed at the prospect of such expansion.
Saw some algorithmic hypothetical of how many teams around the land would have made a 24 team playdown in the last dozen years.
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The data spit out a total of three seasons the Cards would have qualified.
Insert quizzical question mark face emoji here.
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Anyhow, Brohm’s a QB Whisperer, right?
Isn’t that his rep?
I was frankly surprised at this year’s TP grab.
Lincoln Kienholz. Late of Ohio State. Where he was 11/14 in 7 mop up appearances last campaign. B10 All Academic.
Uh, OK. Less than an upper echelon resumé.
He’s got those Everybody Loves A Football Hero handsome looks. Which is nice, will look good in law firm ads on billboards.
To say that JB’s post spring game assessment of erstwhile QB numero uno’s performance was underwhelming would be understatement.
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After stating “It’s important we improve the quarterback room,” Brohm parried his answer, prevaricating that Kienholz was “not given a lot of opportunities.” Whatever that means.
His take wasn’t even in the same thesaurus as “We’ve got our guy.”
Coach was more complimentary, if not effusive, about Davin Wydner, late of West Georgia — “Big. Strong. Can throw vertically” — and freshman Briggs Cherry, “Young. Strong arm. Poise in pocket.”
One local scribe who pays way more attention to Louisville pigskin than me — ya know, practice, interview sessions, actually attending spring game — used the word “cemented” when indicating Kienholz as top gun.
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I still go back to the comments of the Cardinals’ octo-million dollar mentor. Sounded more like Kienholz needed watch out for quicksand.
We’ll see. Gonna be interesting.
Which is to not even address the OL situation, which has been dicey for a long time here.
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Why is Curt Cignetti soooooooooooo good at coaching football?
He eschews the nonsense.
At the recent Big Ten meetings, he abided a couple of obligatory interviews then cut out a side door to catch a flight back to Bloomington.
IU AD Scott Dotson on Cignetti, who appears to be the best college football coaching hire since Nick Saban signed up in Tuscaloosa:
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“He does not waste any time. I went into his office last July on a Sunday, and he’s watching red-zone plays, like 900 of them, categorizing them on a Sunday in July, when nobody’s around, and that’s because he loves it.”
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Teddy B — my favorite Cardinal QB ever — does it again.
He infamously got suspended for a whole season after winning a state title as coach at his HS alma mater.
For having the audacity and caring enough to buy food for some truly underprivileged players on his squad.
How dare he?
Now the Teddy Bridgewater Act makes such action legal.
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So, peering across the entire landscape, what else will this pigskin pundit be paying attention to?
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Bill Belichick Y2.
Bill Belichick’s GF.
Whether Brendan Sorsby, admitted compulsive gambler who wagered on his own school, will somehow finagle his way onto Texas Tech’s gridiron? Or, if he’ll learn what I assume he was taught in treatment for addictive behavior, even though you get it under control, there are consequences for your actions, some dire. Meaning supplemental NFL draft.
LSU at Ole Miss. September 19. Welcome baaaaaaack, Laaaaaaaaaaane!
Who gets canned first, Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell or Florida State’s Mike Norvell?
Whether the Cards can make it to the CFP for the first time?
An Ed Orgeron interview. The former HC in Baton Rouge is back as an assistant. When he was hired as head guy, one diehard from the bayou said, “Finally we have a coach who talks like us.”
How well favorite son Will Stein does in his first year at UK?
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Plenty more to come.
In the months ahead.
I mean it’s Memorial Day weekend.
— c d kaplan
