Monday? Morning? Backup Punter 2018 - Week 1

The Common Man’s approach to CFB, brought to you by the most normal person on any team.

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From Week 1, 2016:

Hey everyone, Backup Punter here. Big time fan of the program. Like many/most of you, I do not possess the athleticism necessary to step foot into the world of College Football. But somewhere in my past, a high school coach convinced me to lace up the soccer cleats and try kicking the oblong ball. The rest is history, and I landed on my feet as a backup punter. While my playbook consists of punt left, punt middle, and punt right, I still appreciate the finer things in the game, and hope to keep you updated on a week by week basis. Here’s my takes for the week, and what you should look forward to in the near future. Enjoy an inside look from the eyes of the most average player on a D1 roster.

[Note: This should come every Monday morning, but I’ll add the “?” to give myself a little leeway]

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Town bizzness breath on me.

Can we talk about how long ago last season was? Cus it feels like I haven’t done one of these in a minute. Like multiple minutes. Y’all know the drill, roll the segments!

Quick Hitters

1) Show me Da Coach O - y’all know we’re going to talk about him later, as is tradition, but can we all ponder for one moment how absolutely baffling it is that only one season into his tenure, people are calling for his job? I mean, it’s [Boston][Styx] crazy Louisiana, but at the same time, the man won 9 games in the SEC West last year. (For those wondering, the SEC hatred hasn’t dissipated in the slightest, it is only the $EC (L)East that gets the proper notation in this publication.)

In the mean time:

HOLD THAT TIGER!

2) Bad teams are bad - Kansasssssssssssssssssssssss. Por quééééééééééééééééééééééé. YOU DADGUM LOST TO (who was it?) Nicols State?? In Overtime? That’s somehow worse than losing in regular time. Just ask App State.

Speaking of bad teams from Kansas, Kansas State took their dear sweet time trying to take care of South Dakota. And lest we forget our beloved ECU. Pretty sure there was a KTHotW winner from ECU at one point. Wide Receiver maybe? Definitely was Zay Jones in 2016.

3) How much money did those yo-yo people pay to get their commercial on ESPN during a primetime game? HOW CAN I GET A YO-YO THAT IS AS UNIQUE AS MYSELF?

Things I Think I Know:

1) Texas is not back. Nor is Miami. Nor is Michigan. Nor is literally anyone that you thought could be considered back. They just aren’t.

2) You can’t take anything away from one result. They play the whole season for a reason. So anybody that tells you it’s over for their team has lied to you.

3) But at the same time... go ahead and gimme all the Hawaii stock my broke [Aerosmith] can afford while still keeping the lights on at the crib.

4) And fire sell anything with a Pac-12 logo on it’s chest. Baddddd losses this week from seemingly everyone except for the one place we expected to find it. If Herm was around as a head coach when people recorded things as opposed to this nifty exaggeration complex called “Oral Tradition”, we would be able to pull some quote here to talk about how football is supposed to be played. But instead, he proves it on the field. Was it UTSA? Yea, but shut up. A win is a win, and look at these standings:

New Segment - Twitter of the Week

I FINALLY GOT JAY FEELY’S ATTENTION. I HATE JAY FEELY. I’m not really sure why. I think there was one time, I wanna say it was the Blair Walsh famous miss. He said something about the laces not being turned right, and I, being the student of the game that I am, challenged him on it (in my head, I was late to the twitters). But when known dumb-dumb Ricky Aguayo missed that first field goal of the FSU game, I knew who to plead to the instant Kirk and Chris, non-kickers, said “oof, the hold wasn’t great on that.” First and foremost, the anger:

Followed by, I was right?

Then I got all sorts of bozo’s in my mentions saying I shouldn’t be so hard on little mental midget Ricky Aguayo:

Then, I grew bored, and had to put an end to this nonsense. Real original username you bush league nerd. I hate your team.

Son, I’ve seen more football games than the number of times you’ve tried to kiss the Tom Brady poster on your ceiling, only to realize you aren’t tall enough. Don’t @ me about football. And if you do, don’t have the gall to do it about kicking. Somewhere in my will, somebody will have to go to Jay’s house and tell him the laces don’t matter inside of 45 yards. I don’t care if you’re kicking with those random square shoes that guy with no toes for the Aint’s kicked with. (No citations during rampages). Inside of 45 yards, if you’re either being paid to kick footballs, or somebody is paying for your college education in exchange for kicking footballs, you should be able to kick it straight enough to where the laces don’t [foreigner]ing matter. The only time I wanna hear an excuse is if the ball is tipped, or there’s some Act of God that keeps you from kicking the ball straight. Man, this really derailed my writing tonight. I apologize. Also, I wrote about this same thing from the kicker’s perspective in Week 7 of last year’s M?M?BP, citing this tweet:

Techometer

Low RPM’s. Like idling in the driveway. Not the carport, we don’t do that anymore, Peter Russo taught us that. We’re doing alright this week. I was encouraged by only allowing 58 first half yards, but I also understand Alcorn’s QB did them no favor in terms of overthrowing guys. Give me Charlie Strong, and show me Orange Bowl levels of defensive ineptitude.

Does Tech need a Tee [Boston]?

Background:

A little background, the single most important position on the team is obviously the Tee Boy. He is the Special Teams player with the least seniority who is responsible for running on to the field after kickoff in order to pick up the tee for the Kicker. It saves the Kicker from making the extra run to get the tee after kickoff and allows him to do even less over the course of the game. So the weekly question here will be: Does Tech need a Tee Boy? I tell you, yes.

[Kansas State’s Tee Boy, who is actually a boy, not an active member of the football team.]

We didn’t employ this sacred guard this past weekend, but I’ve been seeing a lot of other teams get some social media traction out of stupid little side things like this. So I have a proposition. Instead of a turnover blah blah blah. Give me the Tee Tricycle. If Boise State can have a dog on the field, I want a [Duran Duran] freshman to drive a Tech trike on the field and get the [Doors] tee off the field. It can’t be that hard to do, but I want this envelope pushed to the point of thinking to yourself “should I just try and put this in two envelopes instead? I mean, an extra stamp would only be 53 cents...”

This week’s final segments are gonna have to be a lightning round, I feel like Bob. Never move out of the city my friends, your whole life devolves into driving.

Kenny Trill Heisman of the Week (KTHotW)

*googles ESPN CFB Weekly Stats leaders*

*rubs eyes*

What? Until this is proven false. This guy wins. With a picture like this, it has to be true.

Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images

If founded to be earned erroneously (cough cough Reggie Bush), the KTHotW goes to the symmetry achieved in Mason Fine’s performance (QB - North Texas)

Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images

Ok, a little bit faster now:

Tin Horn Team of the Week - Tennessee

Good to see the opening weekend optional defense stuck around despite the coaching change. Early Heisman blah blah, won’t win 11 games, isn’t RGIII, won’t happen.

THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE

I’m literally posting last year’s Week 1 Dennis Green Award quote. Replace Jimbo Fisher with Bobby Petrino and FSU with Louisville lol some things don’t change.

Source (warning - language)

This week, the Dennis Green Award for Outstanding Obviousness goes to...

Jimbo Fisher. He knew the hammer was coming. Turns out, a nail is held in place by another force before getting ultimately driven into its final resting spot. Guess that force would be the $5,000,000 FSU got paid to be the nail in the first place. Turns out, Alabama is who we thought they were, to quote Dan Katz, “a cement mixer”.

(Laughed when I remember writing this, and the applicability)

(Eaux)de to the O

I love this man. He dropped a lot of profanity on the hot mic. You can google it if you’re so inclined, but it was a lot of 80’s bands strung together. Almost like a tribute concert lineup to support relief efforts in “X”. Pretty sure Stevie Nicks was there.

The More You Know

Read about using space. Not the KonMari method. Shoutout @celebrityhotub and @HollyAnderson for what was easily the most underappreciated joke of last week’s Shutdown Fullcast. If you’re currently googling the KonMari method, I’ll save you the time. I’ve got too much stuff at my new place. If you need a queen sized bedframe and are willing to drive to middle georgia to get it and pay me some form of US American currency, @murphey_stephen is all I’ll say. Expect a response in 3-5 business days.

And rounding out the column this week:

Prop Bet of the Week

O/U on carries for Taquon - 22.5

This stat just blew my mind somehow. Could be that it’s late, but I just really don’t get this. Quon (obligatory 4 Heisman following his abbreviated name) had 247 carries last year in 11 games...

I could see him getting a heavy workload come Saturday, but let’s venture and say it’s a #squad effort from the lads. UNDER.

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weekly check to see if the fire emojis work for Chorus: [if you see nothing, it’s not my fault.]

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As always, thanks for reading, and hopefully next week I’ll be bringing you all the column at its normal time, preferably on Monday, preferably in the morning. Just like the doctor ordered.

If there’s anything you want to see in the comments or things I’ve missed, let me know. I get better for y’all, and for y’all only. Top 5 Top 5, PLAYOFFS?!?! , and other segments will be included as the season progresses.

YMCMB,

Your M?M?BP