Monday Musings: Thoughts From Saturday

On Saturday I woke up around 9:45 (slept in a little bit, I had a long work week) and made myself some coffee. It was a Donut Shop K-cup. Lovely. I added a little bit of cream to it and it was quite enjoyable. I opened my window to let some air in because I live in Boston and the weather has been great this week. Right on the lower end of shorts weather. I sipped my coffee while writing an article that I planned to publish today. It was a hypothetical proposition about recruiting. I’d explain, but you’ll probably read it on a future Monday. No, I’m not publishing it today because I got side tracked on Saturday at 12:30. At 12:30 I turned on my television....

...and found that Oklahoma was playing against Iowa State. Now I really enjoyed watching Oklahoma last year. Big Baker guy. So I thought to myself well, I’ve certainly got nothing else to do or watch or be invested in, let’s give it a watch with this new Kyler fella. Boy am I glad I made that decision, because wow the Sooners were fun to watch on offense. Kyler Murray is really a true talent. They called a lot of interesting designed runs for him that were highly successful. They also had some screens and short passing plays that really got accentuated with stellar blocking by the guys on the outside. Overall they did a great job of spreading the field and making Iowa State defend sideline to sideline. On top of all that, all of the short stuff and designed runs really opened up the field for the deep ball and Kyler took full advantage. In the first half he was 13 of 17 for 268 yards and 3 TDs through the air along with 48 yards on the ground. That’s a pretty nice offensive half.

What Oklahoma did today was a pure display of what a great college offense can look like. They ran the ball well, mixed in some RPOs, made passes at all levels, and really showcased their athleticism and speed. I feel #blessed and lucky to have been treated to such a wonderful offensive display on Saturday. It’s really neat to see an innovative offense run correctly and getting the recognition it deserves. It’s even neater to see an offense perform well and keep up in a shootout game. Man I love watching a good offense. Just love it.

At halftime of the Oklahoma game, I took a quick break to go to my grocery store. I needed to make dinner later. I found a great recipe for slow cooker chicken tortilla soup, so I picked up the ingredients. For the record, it turned out great. Very hearty, great flavor, and a little spicy. Anyways, when I returned home I was flipping channels just trying to catch some good college football. That’s hard to find nowadays, or so I’ve been told. I settled on Clemson and GA Southern. Did this game matter nationally? No of course not. Was the outcome ever in doubt? Psh come on. Still, I instantly fell in love with Clemson’s defense.

I’ve been listening to the media tell me that Clemson’s defensive line is the best in the country for weeks but I haven’t seen it for myself until now. Very impressive. Some say they could rival an NFL line, and I don’t doubt that now. They did a beautiful job stopping GSO’s run-based offense. Through three quarters, the Eagles had gained just 70 yards. That’s astounding. Now certainly everyone knew Clemson would be able to defensively handle them. But it is somewhat unusual to see a run-heavy offense be held to so few yards. Usually in these games you see the rushing team at least break 120 or so yards by the fourth quarter, even if they don’t score. It’s just statistically likely. But Clemson’s D doesn’t appear to care about statistics. They stuffed the run all afternoon and limited the passing to one big play. It was fun to watch. They eventually gave up 140 total yards after taking their foot off the gas in the fourth, but I didn’t mind. They were up big and they’re Clemson. They earned the right to take their foot off the gas. When you’re good and you’re winning by a large margin, you can do that. I can’t really think of any other good time for a defense to give up though. Lemme know if y’all think of one.

Now I’m more of an offense guy, but let me tell you, it is a real treat to get to see such stellar defensive play. Playing great defense is so hard for so many teams, but thank god Clemson figured it out so the rest of us can enjoy watching it.

In the special teams world, LSU’s kicker Cole Tracy was 3 for 4, including an ice-in-his-veins game winner against Auburn. That was pretty neat. Kickers can be pretty great players, can’t they?

Hmmm what else can I talk about. I dunno. Y’all want my Netflix recommendations? Last Chance U is awesome. Chef’s Table is way more interesting and mesmerizing than you would think. Actually you know what, I’m gonna stop there because I’ll probably have the opportunity to do an entire article about it later. So stay tuned for that I guess. I dunno. Week 7? Yeah let’s pencil that in. Probably won’t be much going on by then.

Alright well I’m out of things to say, so bye I guess. Drive home safe.