Tuesday Muse-day 11/26: Things to Do Instead of Watching the UGA Game

Welcome back to the win column y’all. That was both a very fun and very nerve-wracking game to watch. Let’s talk about it.

Game Recap in Three Sentences

The first half offense was the best it’s ever been, scoring 21 points and amassing 252 total yards.

James Graham had a stellar game, throwing for 3 touchdowns and adding another score on the ground along with 112 yards rushing.

Ultimately the game came down to NC State failing a two-point conversion and then the Tech offense putting together a 5 minute game-clinching drive.

#404 Swag Champion of the Game

This one’s a tie between Jordan Mason and Ahmarean Brown.

Mason was spectacular all night, going for 141 total yards on 22 carries. He was routinely breaking tackles and turning 1 yard gains into 6 gains. It was great to see him return to form.

Ahmarean Brown scored twice, officially tying him with **wait for it** Calvin Johnson for most reception touchdowns by a freshman in Tech history. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: this kid is special.

Uniform Rating

2.1/3. This one was tricky for me - y’all know I’m generally anti-navy. Somehow though, it grew on me as the night progressed. I think it’d still like to see more white/gold mixed into it, but all-navy is a very sharp look, especially with the helmets.

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

ATLeast We Ain’t Them of the Week

I’m honestly debating renaming this the “Honorary UMass Team of the Week” because I’m sick of awarding it to them. This week they gave up 56 points on 628 yards. Instead of giving it to them though let’s diversify our portfolio:

Western Carolina was absolutely hilarious against Alabama. I watched some of this game while running at the gym (#flex) and I swear to you that two straight drives looked like this:

• WC runs for 2 yards
• WC runs for 0 yards
• WC quarterback throws an awful interception while being planted by 3 Bama defenders
• Bama scores within 3 plays

It was brutally back-breaking to watch. Since that game was hysterically unfair though I am awarding the prize this week to my geographic second team, Boston College. The Eagles got woodshedded by Notre Dame 40-7. In the process they gained 63 yards passing (and 191 total), had 2 turnovers, and earned just 11 first downs. The best part of this is that BC actually was leading mid-way through the second quarter, 7-6, before the Irish scored 34 straight unanswered. Woof.

Above The Line of the Week

• Death marches. I was mentally preparing myself to get heartbroken late Thursday night but the offense strung together a fantastic 9-play drive to close out the game. It’s great to see these reappearing on the flats; I hope this wasn’t a fluke.
• Bombing footballs. It was a joy listening to Pat McAfee talk so glowingly about Pressley Harvin on Thursday night. PH3 put on his best show for Pat, hitting 4 monsters for a 50.5 yard average. My favorite quote from Pat was “Be quiet, a guy is about to bomb a football”.
• A short Thanksgiving work week.

Stat of the Week

There are actually several things I want to talk about here. On Thursday night, NC State “won” the following comparisons:

• 457 total yards to our 395
• 27 first downs to our 19
• 1 turnover to our 2
• 10:00 more possession time
• A 49% success rate to our 47%

And yet our hometown Jackets came out on top. That’s pretty incredible. By most metrics, NC State played better than us. But we were the ones who found a way to win.

5 Star (7 Star, 5 Star) Developmental Program Haiku of the Week

The world is still good
Its okay to have nice things
More like Stink-pack right?

Things to Do Instead of Watching the UGA Game

Look, there are a few reasons this game won’t be fun to watch. First, they are obviously in fact a lot better than us and it’ll likely be a blowout. Second, they have the absolute worst offense to watch ever. Third, this season has already emotionally drained me enough. So rather than subject ourselves to pain for no reason, let’s just pretend this game isn’t happening and do some other activities.

Get your Christmas shopping done

You never want to be the guy rushing to get his Christmas shopping done on December 10th (aka me in college). Remove some stress from your life and just go ahead and get all your gifts on Saturday, taking advantage of those cyber weekend deals. Plop yourself down in front of your computer somewhere way far away from a TV. Make a list beforehand of everyone you need to buy a gift for, write down some initial ideas, and then start poking around the internet. I’m assuming the average person has at least 4-5 gifts they need to get, so I think this’ll easily take up a few hours of your Saturday (especially if you’re indecisive like me). While you’re at it, buy yourself something nice. You deserve it.

Exercise

As the old adage goes: “if you’re bored, read or exercise”. Get yourself an early lunch (packed with protein) and head to the gym. Make sure to waste plenty of time stretching before you actually start doing anything (at least ~20 minutes). Go through a long, hard workout routine very slowly. Take water breaks. Play on your phone in between sets, but DON’T LOOK AT TWITTER. If you find yourself out of things to do, do everything again. The goal here is to entirely exhaust yourself. If your gym has a sauna make sure to sit in there post-workout for at least 20 minutes as well. By the end of a couple hours you’ll be completely dead and can head home. Maybe you’ll even be tired enough to take a nap.

Do some crosswords

Being the nerd that I am, I do the NYT Crossword on my phone religiously every day. This one is a little tricky because the timing could be way off depending on how easy it is, so you’ll need to adjust: don’t do any crosswords for the entire week. That way, you can start with Monday’s at around kickoff and hopefully be stuck on Friday’s as the game ends. Your brain will thank you for the stimulation and your soul will thank you for the distraction.

Go experience nature

I will be lucky enough to be near a beach and am planning on spending my Saturday afternoon there with my Kindle. If you don’t live near a beach, there are likely still plenty of other geographic topologies near you to visit. Go to a park. Go hiking. Go to a lake. Go to an empty field. Just go anywhere natural and take whatever you need for entertainment (book, podcast, canvas and paint, etc.). This one is obviously better when you do it with someone else, but some alone-time in nature is also quite pleasant and relaxing.

Complete a project around your house

This one is very location-dependent, but if you are at home I guarantee there is a project that will take at least a few hours of your time. Replace a light fixture. Build something out of wood. Detail your yard. Whatever it is, do some solid physical labor. The only issue with this one is if you happen to have other people in your home who are watching the game. If that’s the case, you have to make sure your project is far enough away from them so that you cannot hear what is going on.

Log your personal finances

I keep an extremely detailed record of my finances. I log my exact expenses, payslips, savings contributions, etc. every single month. At the end of the year I put together a pretty detailed report of how I did (expense ratio, net worth increase, etc.). Saturday is a great time to do that, especially if you’ve never done it before. Fiddling with Google Sheets is a wonderfully time-consuming process; you’ll easily eat up a few hours of time (and more depending on how fancy you want to get). By the end of it you’ll have some amazing spreadsheets, a deeper knowledge of your financial situation, and a sense of adulthood.

YouTube rabbit hole

A few things I can recommend:

• Alt-Shift-X’s series on Game of Thrones theories and explanations
• Binging With Babish (and his other series, Basics) will teach you how to cook well and is a joy to watch
• The CinemaSins series critiques popular movies in a funny but also informative way
• Computerphile has a ton of really great videos on core computing concepts (warning, probably only watch these if you’re actually a CS person)
• Not The Expert has a really fun NCAA 14 series where he plays Dynasty Mode and takes the worst team possible all the way to the top.
• Anything about the Denver Airport Conspiracy.

Drop a line in the comments with what your Saturday afternoon activity will be. See y’all on the other side.