Have you ever realized that where you are now is so far removed from where you’ve been that you can never go back there, even to visit?

Is the glorification of change merely a defense mechanism against permanent loss?

I’m not the only one having an identity crisis

Good Thing We Don’t Have Paper Tickets Anymore!

You know what’s a really cool souvenir? A ticket stub from a game you attended.

Well, you can’t have those anymore in the year 2022 because a lot of P5 football teams have switched to the same ticketing app. It’s great that everything we ever do in our lives these days has to be tied into the same enormous system with no redundancy whatsoever. You don’t need redundancy when everything is a technological utopia.

Unless the app goes down.

This was one of a plethora of such tweets; Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois were among many with the same issues. Illinois didn’t even have that many fans to get into the game!

Nope, there’s no going back to our antiquated and wasteful ways. Everything has to be fragile now.

Misplaced Priorities

Sometimes, injustices happen to you and you need to stand up for yourself. Northwestern corner Cam Mitchell felt this righteous indignation when he was flagged for defensive pass interference against Duke receiver Eli Pancol. He saw the flag and turned to the official who had done him wrong, demanding an explanation.

While he was busy with this, Pancol caught the ball and ran 50 more yards downfield.

Watch this video. He’s all over Pancol until he sees the flag and turns to the ref with his hands up.

Duke still gets a first down if he makes the tackle immediately, but who can say how the drive might have played out from their own 40 instead of the Northwestern 5?

You Can (Not) Redo

There has been no more impressive team in all of college football than the Minnesota Golden Gophers, who built on their Week 1 shellacking of noted football supervillain program New Mexico State with a dominating win over FCS superpower Western Illinois.

Leatherneck quarterback Henry Ogala was so overpowered by the mighty and virtuous Gopher defensive front that he kind of forgot that you can’t throw another pass after you complete one to yourself.

Honestly though, I’m not sure why that’s the rule. It’s a rare enough situation, and it seems like it would be difficult to even do.

Bryce Young Is Under The Gun

Alabama was knocked from the top spot in the AP poll by a concerted but ultimately unsuccessful effort by the Texas Longhorns. Bryce Young was under pressure in a variety of ways, some explicit and others quite subtle:

It’s a good thing there weren’t live rounds in that emoji!

Hook and Fateral

The Eastern Kentucky Colonels took Bowling Green State to the limit last week, surviving the standard parts of overtime and then getting locked in a two point conversion duel that was beginning to threaten the legendary Penn State-Illinois game from last year. The first stop occurred in the opening frame of OT5 when the Falcons failed to score.

Eastern Kentucky now had a chance to bag a win over an FBS program. They needed one play, the one play they were absolutely sure to score on, the single most unstoppable play in the book.

They ran a hook and lateral to the right tackle.

You may think this is a silly play call for the situation, but what the Colonels did was heroic. They decided that they were not only going to win, they would do so in a way that would never be forgotten. Had this play succeeded, it would have been one of the best days of my life.

It was so incredibly short of the end zone.

The Colonels did, however, pull out the win in OT #7, preserving the legacy of 20-18!

KickDeuce

The South Dakota State Jackrabbits had a really cool thing going until some cops showed up and decided we weren’t allowed to have fun.

They got a huge boost in trying to stave off a furious late rally from UC-Davis when they blocked an extra point and returned it for two of their own.

Unfortunately, because life isn’t fair, it did not stand. The Jacks held on to win by two.

The Most Casual Field Invasion Ever

I think the reason security took so long to catch up with this guy at the LSU game is because every time you see a random bystander set foot on a field, they do so with a sense of purpose. About half the time they’re either naked or trying to achieve nudity, but their approach is always to get the most bang for their buck.

This guy tried a very casual, almost stealthy approach, just taking a stroll out to the 10 yard line in the middle of a play. He seemed very confused when approached by security.

Dude was just trying to watch football!

Introducing Jayden de Laura

Jedd Fisch’s Arizona Wildcats have a new quarterback. His name is Jayden de Laura. He’s a shifty athlete and he can make a lot of incredible things happen. Those things may or may not be good for his football team.

Eight minutes into a game against Mike Leach’s CLANGADOGS, Arizona converted a fourth and short at midfield. de Laura was then sacked for a ten yard loss, but on second and 20, he set about trying to get it all back and more. I’m going to try to recap his journey.

He took a shotgun snap at his own 34, faked a give to the back, stepped up to avoid a man, rolled left past the left hash, pump faked into a half spin to reverse direction, lost his bearings, ran backwards to his own 18 before leveling out, planted his feet to throw from the right hash but then thought better of it, ducked to successfully evade tackle attempts from both a defender he saw coming straight at him and another coming from behind that he did NOT see, tucked the ball away and ran back upfield past a very confused offensive lineman, signaled downfield at the left hash past the 20, then uncorked one from the 27 without really ever setting his feet.

By some miracle, the pass got over the corner who was with the receiver stride for stride before the safety got there to blow it up.

However, it went off the hands of the intended receiver straight to a third defensive back.

de Laura would then pick up a personal foul, setting up Mississippi State at the Arizona 22.

I was going to say that this was a better outcome than if he’d been sacked at the 17, but then I remembered that Arizona would still have had the ball.

This play is so beautiful. I can’t stop watching it and tracking the individual journeys of each player. Look at OLB #7. He stays home to spy de Laura, he’s not fooled by the play fake. In the middle of the line, left guard #58 turns away the nose tackle at first but gets beat by a swim move. 7 sees de Laura dodge #22, who totally cooked the H-back that was supposed to chip block him, and briefly steps to his left, not realizing de Laura can’t go that way. As de Laura escapes to the right, 7 sees him and gets on his horse. 58 passes off his man to the left tackle and goes looking for a guy to block. The H-back (88) finally gets two hands to the chest of 22 and finishes with a flourish; look at the full extension on both arms as he circles them back! 22 is of course merely annoyed by this.

Meanwhile, 58 has found his target and de Laura’s fake has given him just enough space to run down #7. He has the angle, but then he goes into his side shuffle before he actually gets in front of 7 and all he can muster is a little push to the shoulder pad. He’s now a spectator in pursuit of 7, who is chasing down the unsuspecting quarterback from behind. As a collision becomes inevitable he pulls up as a thousand regrets rob him of his will to run any farther.

Linebacker #14 has no conception of the drama that has unfolded on the other side of the field. He’s been fighting his own demons. He blitzed the B gap and juuuuuuust may have worked his way around the outside of the right guard 71 if not for an adorable little shunt by the back to seal him off. He spins left to disengage but instead of freedom he finds the ass of the right tackle, who’s low enough in his stance to make Rick Majerus proud. Searching the field for the ball he bounces off this ass directly into another ass, this one belonging to center 75 who is kind of ready for this to be over.

Free from the crowd of lineman ass, 14 spots the quarterback and finds the angle to meet him. 88 is so proud of himself for his emphatic but ineffective shove of 22 that he just lets 14 go by. After shifting left to make sure de Laura can’t break outside he takes off and launches for de Laura to bat down the pass he seems ready to throw.

He knocks back de Laura just far enough to foil the dastardly plans of his teammate #7, who now overruns him. de Laura stays on his feet. This has happened right in front of 58. The two appear to make eye contact, and 58 just throws his hands up.

Me too, buddy.