Monday? Morning? Backup Punter 2019 - Week 1

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

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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]

We’ve entered into a new dawn. Cortana woke us up, and we’re stuck here floating in the wreckage of the Halo event (that’s definitely after Halo 3 maybe, I couldn’t play that game to save my life). Sorry, still shaking off the cobwebs, it’s been a minute huh?

So for those unfamiliar, we’re writing about tangential college football week to week, I’m going to cover the things you don’t get just sticking to the ESPN mothership and suckling at the teet of Matt Berrie.

Oh, this is also the point in which I tell you nothing that I hyperlink in these articles isn’t worth at least looking at for 5 seconds. (checks last hyperlink, ok maybe not).

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So, I 100% meant to write one of these last week as a season primer, but you know how that goes. The literal entirety of the article I was going to post was to explain that EDSBS (Every Day Should Be Saturday) - one of the greatest college football conversations on this blue ball we’re slowly turning whatever color a whole lot of carbon dioxide is, has passed.

Every year, Spencer Hall at the mothership (now at Banner Society - go check them out, they don’t post bad articles) would pen an epistle for the masses, bringing with him the start of a new college football season. They’re some of the greatest things I’ve read on the internet, and I’m going to link each of them here as some small way of doing my part to make sure people recognize the talent this man possesses to write. Not always about football, but with a level of importance and touch of humanity that I’ve yet to find in the words written by another human. Here’s the list. These go in chronological order, and with each, it would help to familiarize yourself with the current events of the time to understand the mindset at the time. Seriously, if you haven’t read any of these, sorry to have taken up an hour of your time today:

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Now that everyone has had a good cry on an incredibly sobering workday after a long weekend, let’s get to some segments.

Quick Hitters

1 - hahaha the SEC. So, for you long-timers, I wrote this prior to the Tennessee Kickoff game, as somewhat of a response to one of the Rocky Top Talk writers saying something that I’m sure wasn’t that inflammatory regarding Coach Paul Johnson (gone, but not forgotten). I just wanted to remind everyone of this quote from that article:

So, since August 2017, there appears to have been an even farther fall from grace. Let’s call it Week 1 and agree that this Week 1 will stand out among all others in the same sort of what that Fat Tuesday always stands out as the day we eat King’s Cake and say “oh crap, what am I giving up for Lent?”

Ole Miss (i don’t care about your sanctions - you’ve got half the Gospels as your head coach), Mizzou (yes that is the Modelo Especial music I think), South Carolina (only included because UNC went 2-10 last year), and my dear old Rocky Top.

Y’all are got housed, and Arkansas almost joined you by beating Portland State by 7. You ain’t as good as you once was, and it’s showing. Everybody is talking about how Tennessee just doesn’t have the bodies, there’s no talent in Knoxville, etc. I watched Joey Galloway spew that forth yesterday on College Football Final. Here’s the talent gap between Tennessee and Georgia State:

Things to note here: THERE IS TALENT AT TENNESSEE.

They just don’t know how to play. There is no excuse for being beat that bad at home by a team who has had only 2 classes in their last 6 over the 100 mark out of 130 FBS teams.

So, that’s like 600 words on the SEC and the media perception about what’s actually going on, so that’s enough quick hitters for the time being. Consider yourself enlightened, and if you cite any of this in argument with your so called friends that cheer for SEC teams, tell them to yell at me on twitter @creespaschal.

Things I Think I Know

1) We’re all in on gamblin’ this year

2) Nothing in this world hits quite like getting both Northwestern and Auburn this weekend

And y’all all saw the Auburn game. Tell me something is better than that feeling.

3) It’s all gonna be lost this week when I bet on LSU by any point spread against Texas. 6:30pm God’s time this Saturday. More on this to come.

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.]

I didn’t pay enough attention to the 3 times we kicked it off to tell you if we had a Tee [Boston] last week, but I will be reporting live this coming week. Harvin, I need you to dictate who this tee running is going to be. I’ll be taking tee-to-sideline splits throughout the game, and will include them next week.

Kenny Trill Heisman of the Week (KTHotW)

*googles ESPN CFB Stats and Info Weekly Leaders*

Step on up into this Prestigious Hall Mr. Cedric Byrd II. 14 catches for 224 yards in a win over Kevin Sumlin and the Wildcats (not so fun not running the option now is it? Should you have fired Rich Rod? I don’t know, and I might get in trouble for that take. I don’t remember what he got fired for at this point because him and Todd Graham were both sketchy from what my cloudy memory of that state conjurs up.) These helmets are sick.

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Tin Horn Team of the Week

Wait we get to talk about Tennessee again? Fantastic! They got beat by Georgia State. They gave up 38 points at home. They couldn’t stop a 2* running back who was the #230 player in Georgia the year he got out of high school. They might lose this week at home to BYU. Oh, and they get two other shots at glory this season by also hosting UAB and UT Chattanooga later this season. It might be time to just set fire to the corn field up on ole Rocky Top, it’d be more entertaining than watching an offense run by Jim Chaney, noted innertube.

(Eaux)de to the O

Forget your oatmeal cream pies Saban, we’re a cream puff family now. End of story.

I WILL DIE FOR THIS MAN.

Prop Bet of the Week

Rounding out the column this week since it’s 11:00 and I’m going to be a cranky boy tomorrow.

O/U on the attendance for the home opener - 34,000

That seems fair. And I’d like to specify the turnstile number, not the advertised number. There’s a difference, ask Orlando United.

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This was previously put in a thread - after doing this on a meritocracy basis for 3 years, my brain is going soft with creative juice. I’m gonna start this sooner next Sunday, that’y my promise to you all.

That’s all we’ve got folks, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE COMMENTS - GOOD VIBES ONLY. Variety is the spice of life, and my mind only takes me down like 3 avenues of thought daily. Two take me to that scene from Archer set up like Family Feud (NSFW). The other just loops through bites of a bacon-wrapped date and a glass of E.H. Taylor Small Batch sitting at Louvino in Louisville (real original name I know). Y’all are creative as Tech fans can be (except for 1 Disney employee I know, super secret shoutout, text me this gif if you read the article), and given a writing prompt, I can construct you a 700+ point SAT essay on the subject using the words ameliorate and insipid.

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.

- M?M?BP