Maybe the potluck will go for a burrito after all! // B1G 2019, Purdue Potluck #2

WSR Note: Because BRT is busy with work out with the flu, I’ve been asked to fill in (just like Ron asked Andy to fill in when everyone was out with the flu because he was incompeten...WAIT A MINUTE!).

We apologize for the continuation of Purdue week, but since we’ve already committed to it we may as well try to do our best to carry it out to its inevitable end where we all make predictions and no one is right. Anyway, food and football time!

Ron Swanson is an incredible TV character for many reasons, but one of the reasons is that he’s so perfectly, beautifully Midwestern. One of the ways in which he memorably demonstrates this is by his love of all things meat and lack of interest in all other food items. There are many scenes that demonstrate this: his ongoing love affair with Charles Mulligan’s Steakhouse (of which he has a scrapbook featuring every steak he’s ever eaten there), his attempt to BBQ a pig in a public park with a smoker hauled by his Buick LeSabre, and his triumphant throwdown of a turkey burger made with meat from the local Food & Stuff. But perhaps the most quotable encapsulation of Ron’s love of meat comes in this exchange with office goofball, Andy Dwyer:

Ron Swanson: I haven’t had lunch since yesterday, so I’m going over to Callahan’s.

Andy Dwyer: No, don’t go there. They totally skimp on pickles. Let me go to Big Head Joe’s for you. They have the most insane burritos.

Ron Swanson:I don’t much go for ethnic food.

Andy Dwyer:Trust me. They have one that’s called the Meat Tornado. Literally killed a guy last year.

Ron Swanson: You had me at Meat Tornado.

So in honor of Big Head Joe’s Meat Tornado, tell me this: what’s your ideal meat meal? Bonus: Have you actually eaten this meal, or does it exist only in your head?

MNW: Oh my god oh my god okay. So it’s not, like, the IDEAL meat meal (“ideal” would require at least an accompanying rasher of bacon), but allow me to show you the large steak I had at Milwaukee’s 5 O’Clock Club, right across the street from where Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment once was:

https://i.postimg.cc/26Hdvjfh/IMG-20170425-194008.jpg

God, that was a great night.

BrianB2: I guess I am contractually obligated to say “my ideal meat meal” is a crab cake served on a bed of UTZ chips while Old Bay laced National Bohemian is intravenously pumped into my body. A, perhaps, lesser known “famous Maryland meat meal” is pit beef. I still prefer pulled pork or brisket though. As a former member of the ACC, if you make BBQ “Carolina Style”, I will kindly tell you to “GTFO”.

Boilerman31: For my ideal meat meal, we begin with 8 oz of pulled pork done up right by my brother, having been slow cooked for hours over a charcoal fire in a converted diesel bulk tank until it falls off the bone and then slathered in sauerkraut for another hour or two. Next, comes a smoked pork chop, basted in orange juice as it comes to temp, and served with a baked potato and green beans cooked with bacon and chopped onion. The final course is a Delmonaco steak from the family farm, grilled to medium rare and seasoned to perfection. I wash all this down with some Three Floyds Space Station Middle Finger and wait for the meat sweats.

Jesse: One of the better things I’ve ever eaten is the Wagyu Ribeye at Olamaie in Austin which was served almost rare with just an insane crust that defied understanding, and I’d say that would have been my ideal meat meal until I had the grilled BIG Short Rib at Knife in Dallas. This thing was just unreal. It’s sous vide for three days, grilled to get an amazing crust. I mean… it embodies what I’m looking for in a meat meal. Runner up to all of this (barely) is literally all of the BBQ Beef Ribs in Texas. Look, if you want to eat meat, there are very few places that I’d rather be than in Central Texas.

Beez: My ideal meat meal would just be a combination of all the best outdoor meat meals you can get. Make some barbeque (pulled pork, preferably, with a great spice rub and a totally unnecessary optional saauce, and while you’re spending all day waiting for it, there are hundreds of blue crabs ready to be...shucked? Well, eaten anyway, along with corn and Old Bay of course. Should there be a lull in the crab proceedings, we’re definitely going to fill that with hot dogs, brats, hot italian sausages, baked beans, and some other type of side dish that totally isn’t meat but, like baked beans, makes you think “huh, this is basically as good as meat!”

I haven’t ever had this meal, because how would this even be a thing, but it’d be pretty great.

Aaron: My parents took me out for dinner for my birthday last weekend and I ate a cheeseburger topped with pulled pork, bacon, and a fried egg. Ron Swanon would be proud, but my stomach wasn’t as enthused. And there was no room for dessert.

Creighton: I’m like Mr. Swanson if you replaced the meat with a fiery little compound known as capsaicin, so I’ll combine our two culinary loves. There’s a restaurant in sleepy little Washington, IA (about 30 miles south of Iowa City) known as The Xtreme Smokehouse and Grill. I’ve never been there, but they lay claim to the world’s hottest burger. The meat is infused with ghost peppers, topped with a relish made of fresh habaneros and jalapenos, drenched in something called “hellfire sauce”, and covered in grain alcohol and lit on fire when they serve it to you. They make you sign a waiver before you can eat it. I’ve been wanting to eat one for like 4 years, but have yet to work up the courage.

WSR: So on multiple occasions I have used my smoker to make piles of brisket, pulled pork, ribs, chicken, and red snapper to be consumed all at the same time. And friends, you need to throw that all together on a plate and garnish it with a corn muffin and some tums because it is just incredible. Preferably a jalapeno corn muffin, if you can’t find a way to get some more meat inside that.

Stew: What WSR said, but instead of red snapper and corn muffin, insert better versions of all of those (because I’m way better than WSR), and insert bacon wrapped and (sausage) stuffed jalapenos, a bacon explosion, and pork belly served two ways (pulled and sliced). And clarification on the chicken, they’re wings. This has been brought to you by Stew’s tailgate: We’re just better.

Thumpasaurus: Around 70 miles north of me, there’s a restaurant that is in and of itself the answer to this question. Tony’s I-75 Restaurant is an incredible place that serves tremendous portions of phenomenal meats at preposterously low prices. If they doubled the price of every item on their menu, I’d still be more than willing to leave huge tips. The only drawback of the BLT with a pound of bacon is that once you start eating it, you can’t put it down.

Football: So Rondale Moore, huh? He’s pretty good. Last season he accounted for 25% of the teams total yards, and a rather incredible 57% of the returning yards with the graduation/demise of D.J. Knox and Markell Jones. That seems...prodigious? Even with the addition of a “David Bell” that’s supposed to be good, will that be enough to help the really really good Mr. Moore avoid having other teams put 9-11 defenders on him and continue to make some of the most incredible plays on a regular basis this fall? Will Purdue be able to stay near the top of the offensive numbers, or will they be derailed?

MNW: First: I move that we call Rondale Moore “Meat Tornado” from here on out. All in favor?

Good. Second, Moore is that kind of player who will put a couple highlight reels plays up every game (because he’s that good), but Purdue will need some thunder to go with his Meat Tornado (or lightning, whatever). Remember that Knox ran for 8 a clip in the OSU beatemdown. Can whatever a David Bell is do that? If he can, I’ll believe in Purdue (though I have QB concerns).

BrianB2: Derailed...I get it! Purdue is replacing a number of key offensive contributors from last year (right?). If I was a betting man I would say that his production numbers take a bit of a hit, just by association. Generally, when it comes to me and making predictions, as in life, I refuse to make a hard commitment.

Jesse: I’d hope - for Purdue’s sake - that they get something to take the load off of Rondale’s plate. Those percentages, especially as a True Freshman, are sort of out of control. That said, I do think Brohm will be able to move him around the field enough to get him some looks. Moore’s greatest asset is his ability to make people miss in space, and if Purdue can open up the playbook even more as a Sophomore, I think his impact will be felt even more, even if his raw numbers stay the same or regress a bit.

Beez: If you read more than one of my POTW columns last season, you’ll understand just how in love I am with Mr. Moore. As with Jonathan Taylor or non-CCG Melvin Gordon, Moore is going to get his yards pretty much no matter what you do. There simply are not enough players with enough speed and talent on Purdue’s opponents’ teams to keep him from busting out once or twice per game, especially with Brohm running his gimmicky ass Little Giants nonsense high school playoffs-but-never-champions style offense.

Purdue’s offensive numbers do take a hit though. It kind of snuck under the radar last season, but what’s his name who played QB for Purdue nearly all of last year is gone now, and the offense is really going to miss him more than people might expect.

Yorke: I’d rather Purdue throw an unhealthy amount of footballs Moore’s way than to look back and say, “Gee, I can’t believe how Purdue is wasting a talent like that.” Talented guys are supposed to get the ball a lot, and Moore is a rare talent that we weren’t used to seeing in a Purdue uniform. It made sense that he had a huge impact on the offense. Still, we know that the Boilermakers need more talent around their star in order to keep improving, so fans should hope for that 25 percent to go down. Giving one guy so much volume usually isn’t the most efficient approach, and Purdue will be better off if Moore is doing more with fewer targets. He’s going to make plays regardless, but if there’s enough talent around him, the incompletions and interceptions thrown by Elijah Sindelar will be mitigated.

babaoreally: Purdue as a team should be able to stay in the top half of the conference in offense, but they probably won’t be blowing everyone away. Rondale Moore will continue to be great and if he could get the ball on 100% of the plays, I think that would be good.

WSR: I think Moore will continue to make plenty of insane plays per week and may actually take a step towards being 30% of the total yards, which is an insane number. But the overall offense will take a step back because the running game won’t be as reliable as it was last year. There’s nothing wrong with being decent and Purdue should embrace it.

Stew: Seeing as how David Bell, freakishly awesome, though he may very well be, is not a runningback. I see no reason why defenses should respect Purdue’s running game, at all. Going to see a lot of nickel and dime defenses out there. But then again, Brohm is quite adept at creating mismatches, and there are plenty of way too stubborn coaches willing to put their DBs out on islands.

Thumpasaurus: It’s not like teams were ignorant of Rondale Moore by the time October rolled around. Even if all Moore does during a game is draw double coverage, that’s still value added to the offense, so it’s possible that his numbers go down even as he has an even bigger impact on the game. It’s also going to depend on how well Sindelar executes the offense. Purdue will probably stay high in the offensive rankings simply because they see offensive possessions as opportunities to score points, as opposed to opportunities to prove their manliness by running as much clock as possible while gaining as few yards as possible without actually getting to fourth down. This puts Purdue in the top half of the conference by default.