Don’t get me wrong, as you’ll see below, there is a lot worth talking about, including some really hilarious peak college football. Without Shane though, if I’m going to riff by myself, the written word seems like the better medium.

The Other Shoe Drops

While I don’t think that we will ever top last year’s dog-pissing Egg Bowl celebration, that fired two coaches and perhaps set off the butterfly effect of the shit-show that is 2020, college football blessed us all with a supremely stupid moment. Plus, in true beautiful and stupid fashion, this landmark moment in Florida Man history overshowed a whole host of other supremely stupid efforts by the Gators to jettison themselves from the playoff conversation.

Before we get to the other moments of Gator derp, we have to talk about THE MOMENT that was the 20-yard shoe toss that extended an LSU drive that would’ve been an LSU three-and-out, clearly too-big-moment for true freshman QB, Max Johnson. As soon as the play ended I saw Marco Wilson chuck something, and, when two flags came flying in shortly after, the old ECW “YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!” chant was blaring in my head.

What I didn’t expect, was that the object was TE Kole Taylor’s shoe and that the officiating squad would determine that it was extremely important to let us know it travelled 20 yards downfield. This prompted a true moment of Twitter joy, in which my timeline was full of laughter and glee about the stupidity, inquires into what the yardage threshold of shoe flight triggers a penalty, and GIFs of George W. Bush dodging shoes while dueling GIFs of Austin Powers pondered the age-old question of “who throws a shoe, honestly?!”

LSU then drove down the field for what ended up being the game-winning FG, which you may forget was a 57-yard absolute BOMB, prompted LSU to posterize Florida on Twitter after the game. The Gators then responded with a short drive to attempt a 51-yard kick that sailed wide left. Game over, playoff hopes dead, and a whole host of people in College Station likely pissed their best win lost to a Bo Pelini defense that gave up over 600 yards while the third and Grantham meme died, actually holding LSU to only 8 conversions on 19 attempts.

But like I said, diagnosing their Achilles’ heel is no easy task as Florida happily shot themselves in the foot repeatedly even outside the shoe toss. Kyle Trask likely shooed himself out of Heisman contention as his two interceptions overshadowed his 474 yard, 2 TD effort. Prior to the shoe toss, a DPI delivered another swift kick to the third-down junk which led to a Tiger TD late in the fourth. Dan Mullen also tripped over himself to call a timeout before LSU’s game winning field goal attempt while the Tigers were scrambling to get their field goal unit out with no timeouts (and it looked like no holder to me). There was also a highly questionable series of play call choices in the fourth when Florida found themselves feet from their own endzone: three straight passes in as fog rolled continued to descend to field-level.

All credit to LSU for the win, but Florida absolutely snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

One more hilarious note, all day ESPN had been running a bottom line about the playoffs, with a note that Texas A&M and Florida were looking for their first playoff berth. Just a few minutes after the loss, Florida had already been edited out of that line.

Sarah Fuller Makes History, Again

Just a couple weeks after becoming the first woman to play in a Power Five football game, Sarah Fuller booted two extra points, making her the first woman ever to score in a Power Five football game. For anyone thinking this was some stunt that the team wasn’t on board with should check out footage of the team celebration (also, shout-out to the center judge for making sure the historic ball was handed to Fuller directly and not Vandy staff). Fuller also found herself taking photos with her opponents after the game as well.

Seems like the whole narrative over this being a stunt and a slap in the face of other players might just be a load of misogynistic garbage!

Of course, that won’t stop people from trying to shit on this really cool moment. Assholes will happily show you who they are by pointing out that Vandy was able to get another kicker on the roster this week to handle kickoffs and also attempted a 39 yard field goal, which was outside Fuller’s publicized 38-yard range.

The bottom line is that Vandy’s interim staff believed Sarah earned a chance to have her moment. It wasn’t her fault that Vandy got shut out, forcing her to attempt to write history via a squib kick. After taking loads of unwarranted armchair kicking from internet experts, she deserved a chance to get on the score sheet.

The only real disappointment here is Vandy didn’t get into her FG range to prove she could do even more. Trotting her out there for a 39-yard attempt would’ve put her in a position to fail and would’ve been horribly irresponsible by the coaching staff when they need to try to win a game. THAT would’ve been a PR stunt.

So good on everyone involved. This was a very cool moment in a year full of garbage. I genuinely feel sad for anyone spending the energy to drum up outrage over this.

In 2021, the senior will take a grad transfer a few minutes north of me to the University of North Texas to play goalie for the Mean Green. Here’s hoping she might get a chance at a couple more field goals as well.

Fire Gus Season

The annual “Duck Season! Rabbit Season!” is finally over out on the plains. Gus Malzahn’s hot seat reached the boiling point and Auburn has fired the maligned coach. Showing that, even during a pandemic, all Americans have things properly prioritized, Auburn announced they would pay Gus’ $21 million-plus buyout in full. Inspiring.

As I’ve described in pervious weeks on the pod, I felt this was coming. Bo Nix became yet another disappointing QB, failing to show any signs of developing under Gus. Auburn’s offense consistently became more inconsistent despite having some ridiculous weapons at their disposal and, this year, even the usually solid defense took a step back.

Auburn’s 6-4 record could easily be flipped. Two of those wins came thanks to some questionable officiating against Arkansas and Ole Miss, two teams Auburn should have outclassed rather easily.

Simply put, it was time. For whatever reason, things weren’t working out. Auburn will also probably rightly get what they deserve for their malcontent as I not-so-eagerly await for the galaxy brain hire of Hugh Freeze.

Start Up the Carousel

Gus wasn’t the only one to receive his walking papers this weekend. Arizona bid farewell to Kevin Sumlin after giving up a 70-burger to their in-state rival. Lovie Smith, who should’ve never shaved his beard, is gone from Illinois as well.

Huge shoutout to all these universities who will shell out millions for their next hire while complaining about athletic budget shortfalls due to COVID-19.

The Fog of War

The Amry/Navy game delivered a glorious rock fight that not only hit the under of 38 that was discussed on the picks podcast, but did do easily, staying under 20.

Much like LSU/Florida, fog was a player in this game, forcing a heavy use of skycam giving us the classic Madden view, which I’m on board with. When NBC announced their skycam experiment with ND, that is what I was hoping for. Find a way to put the yellow line on the screen and it’s perfect, in my opinion.

As for the game, Army dominated in a 17-0 win. Navy had a lone chance to really make a game of this, but stumbled over themselves after a pitch was swatted by Navy’s defense. Instead of getting a gift scoop and score, Navy failed to recover at all, allowing Army to keep the ball after it rolled out of bounds.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially since this was the first Army/Navy game that I’ve consumed in years due to typically doing my Extra Life marathons during this weekend.

Luck of the…Trojans?

Southern Cal did it once again, somehow winning in the last minute despite being dominated for the majority of the game. A 20-point fourth quarter, ending with a final drive that featured a 56-yard kickoff return, 35-yard pass (with a ridiculous Tyler Vaughns) catch, and a quick 8-yard TD strike to Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Every week it looks like SC will finally be pantsed, only for their talent to finally take over just long enough to secure a win. While it’d be nice to believe the luck will finally run out, there’s no guarantee Friday’s Pac-12 Championship tilt against Washington will take place due to COVID issues on the Husky side.

That would then leave the Rose Bowl, which may not be played in the Rose Bowl, and could likely feature Northwestern as their opponent. What a charmed season.

If anything, I think this means Clay Helton has secured a lifetime extension. Lock him up.

Mack Brown Still Hates Manny Diaz

Mack Brown fired Manny Diaz after he gave up 550 yards to BYU while at Texas. Mack apparently didn’t forget as he Tar Heels put up 554 rushing yards against the creator of the turnover chain. Just hate to see something like that to Da U.

A big shout out to Mack’s pettiness as the 62-26 victory made Notre Dame look like a million bucks. While it’ll be interesting to see what the playoff committee has to say tomorrow about specific scenarios, it’s hard to imagine anything put a complete blowout by Clemson to keep the Irish out of the playoffs at this rate.

Can You FedEx a Gift Suite?

In what I’m sure is going to be a potential trend this week, four power five teams have announced their intention to opt out of bowl season:

• Boston College
• Pitt
• Stanford
• Virginia

The reason is largely the same to this point: everyone is done with the heavily restrictive season. A trip to a bowl that will feature little, if any, of the fun events that make the trip worth it, on top of needing to stay away from family and friends, just isn’t worth it.

I can’t blame anyone for this. Honestly, outside of the New Year’s Six, I don’t see much of a point to any of the bowl games. I say this as someone that loves every single dumb bowl game with all his heart. These are typically great rewards for the players after a long season, but it just isn’t there this year. It’s more work. I’d want to go home too.

Dabo Still Sucks

Greg Stankey of the SEC was doing some playoff politicking and took some shots at the ACC for “protecting” Clemson and Notre Dame. Of course, Dabo was asked, and of course he showed his ass AND BROUGHT UP FLORIDA STATE AGAIN:

“I would’ve loved to play this past weekend,” Swinney said. “I had no problem with that. I didn’t make the decision. We wanted to play when we were down in Tallahassee and were about to get on a bus and go play. Things happen.”

Via ESPN

I’ve gone over this before, but Dabo’s game is so old. Politick for your teams. Fine. Stop bringing up the same old crap over and over again, you man-child.

And Right Before I Was Ready to Publish…

Vanderbilt and Clark Lea might just be happening.

Glad I took the week off. Gonna be drinking a lot, it seems.

The post HLS Recap (Text Edition): Soled Out appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

While the Irish kept on trucking, others weren’t as lucky. We were close to a blood weak with multiple ranked teams finding themselves on the wrong side of the score sheet. We were also blessed with what had to be the most insane Red River Shootout and Mike Leach setting a record he probably never expected to.

Podcast

Twitch VoD

The post HLS Recap: Keep on Truckin’ appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Next, you immediately pivot to Fr. Jenkins showing up at Washington D.C. without a mask. An act of “leadership” that I’m sure went over real well for every Notre Dame football player sitting at home this weekend as well as students that aren’t allowed to go see their friends in any type of situation that resembles normal.

Finally, you top it off with the most epic edition of #snacktalk possible as it was the true highlight of football this week.

After that’s all done, then, and only then, do you actually stick to sports.

Podcast

Twitch VoD

The post HLS Recap: Sticking to Sports? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Notre Dame promoted Tommy Rees to offensive coordinator. Penn State found their way into a brand new scandal. Southern Cal fired everyone in the athletic department besides their football coaches. Joe Brady bolted to the NFL after extinguishing his victory cigar with LSU. Phil Jurkovec saved me from having to memorize the spelling of his name by transferring to Boston College.

Hilariously, that’s all only scratching the surface.

Enjoy a longer than usual episode (if you’re wanting the ND stuff, head to the 49 minute mark) as we take our long winter podcast nap. 2020 is going to be one hell of a ride.

Broadcast

Twitch Broadcast

The post HLS Podcast: Welcome to the Offseason, Everything’s Crazy appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Come join Eddie and I as we look back at our pre-season futures picks. Come enjoy how wrong we were as well as discovering that I may just have a Madden Curse-like superpower.

Plus, will Eddie and I join the fake bandwagon of Clemson disrespect that lives in Dabo Swiney’s head? Come join us and find out!

#HAILGAMBLOR

Podcast

Twitch Broadcast

The post HLS Podcast: Back to the Futures Plus National Title Pick appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Shane and I hopped on the mics shortly after the final whistle of Clemson’s defeat of Ohio State to recap the entire wonderful day.

Come join us and savor the final Irish victory of 2019.

Podcast

Twitch Broadcast

The post HLS Podcast: First New Year’s Six and Camping World Bowl Recaps appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Coach O didn’t stop there though. He said Texas pulled the same stunt on Louisiana Tech. In fact, he called them to scout the conditions and brought extra blower fans to combat the under-handed tactic.

Problem is that Skip Holtz, head coach of Louisiana Tech, said that Coach O never called him and he had no recollection that Texas attempted to stoop so low.

Texas of course denied all the allegations and athletic director, Chris Del Conte, launched–and I can’t believe I’m about to write this–an internal investigation on their HVAC functionality. The report came back stating the A/C was working just fine and–I also can’t believe I’m about to write this–those records were FOIA’d:

But don’t worry, y’all, we can get dumber. Because our Austin correspondent and fellow degenerate game picker, NDEddieMac, received third-party confirmation from…*checks notes*…a BBQ vendor:

Friendly reminder, LSU won this game.

For some reason though, Coach O decided to go down this fabricated rabbit hole. Why? I honestly have no clue. It was originally triggered by questions about his players cramping on the field, which, you know happens in upper-90-degree Texas heat. He didn’t even have to mention this insanity at all.

But nope, here we are, complete with spreadsheets and BBQ joints calling bullshit.

Never change, college football. Ever.

The Roundup

Note: Some links are from The Athletic and require a subscription to read. These are denoted with ($). If you are considering a subscription, please use our discount!

Friendly reminder if you are looking for ND/SC tickets: HLS is doing a charity silent auction for a pair. Details are here.

Winning is hard, but losing is harder. And losing so badly that it’s clear the season is done after just a couple of weeks? That’s a whole other level ($).

California passed a bill that would allow players to profit of their image and likeness. So, naturally, the NCAA responded to this first domino of the Olympic model falling by calling the thing unconstitutional and threatening to kick all California schools out of the NCAA. Makes sense.

Tennessee finally got a win. In response to the news that a Florida boy found himself bullied because he made his own Tennessee shirt since he had none, Tennessee not only sent him a care package of swag, but are now selling the very shirt the boy designed to benefit anti-bullying groups. They are selling like hotcakes with over 16,000 sold as of Tuesday.

Mark Richt has lost control of giving a single, solitary fuck:

Want to read a story entirely about an epic punting performance? You know you do ($).

RIP, T. Boone Pickens. While many know him for his contributions to Oklahoma State, it’s well worth reading more about one hell of a full life that includes him going to the grave with a promise that 90% of his wealth will go to charity.

Opponent Watch

Regardless if he’s on the sidelines or not, this weekend is about Bob Davie. While his tenure at Notre Dame absolutely went south, the coaching staff that he had here was nothing short of incredible ($) and all the more maddening that it never worked. While I’m happy to hear he’s recovering from his undisclosed health issues, it is worth bringing up his rather rocky legacy that includes unceremoniously firing Joe Moore and orchestrating a spying operation.

And always remember, now and forever, the hot dog machine incident.

The post Friday Roundup: The HVAC Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

During our Hot Dog Bye Week podcast, this Loyal Reader revealed that he would spend his bye week Ubering around Ann Arbor during Army/Michigan weekend. Here’s his playlist:

For those keeping score at home, that’s Army’s Fight Song, The Irish Tenors, “Here Come the Irish”, and the Rudy soundtrack. There’s trolling Michigan and then there’s this next-level, real-man-of-genius moment.

I can only imagine the stream of reactions from Michigan fans as they climb into his car and slowly realize the personal hell they have entered. May his Uber rating rest in peace.

As someone who steers this entire site straight into not just the silliness of college football, but also the pettiness and trolling opportunities it offers, I respect the hell out of this effort. Further, I hope his final Uber ride is given to a group of Army fans still buzzing over an upset over the damned Skunkbears.

The Roundup

The misery index is always a fun read, but typically you don’t see “how is this school a festering corpse?!” in week 2, but I guess Tennessee was just willing to jump on that grenade.

Another fun weekly read is the “top whatever” column. However, I think we can keep the absurdity of Hugh Freeze coaching from a hospital bed at #1 forever. It’s all downhill from here–UPDATE: maybe this dumb ride will keep going.

The silly season of the coaching carousel is always a wild ride. But Tom Herman/Coach O saga a couple of years ago at LSU was a damn rollercoaster.

Ian Book is a unicorn. Maybe not the thing you expected to hear from anyone after his performance against Louisville, but he’s a part of a ever-shrinking percentage of college QBs that actually bide their time before they win the starting job.

Notre Dame did take a hit in one poll. Anxiously awaiting a certain subset of fans that trash #sportsmath to now point to the SP+ as the one true poll that actually reflected ND on the eye test.

Bill C had some other non-stat stuff that you should read. This piece is basically a national primer to some of the biggest storylines for various teams around college football and how week 1 affected them.

I think I have a Beaver correspondent now. Had another line dropped about Oregon State’s next game against Hawaii. It will be aired on Facebook Live; however, no one is quite sure exactly where on Facebook it will be. Regardless, my bet is the answer is “in more homes than the Pac 12 network.”

Offer this kid a scholarship immediately. The all-name champion is here and I don’t know how you top this.

Get me back in school. Notre Dame is offering a course discussing The Good Place. Can I take this online? Please?!

#snacktalk has reached epic proportions. Little did I realize our silly podcast would set off a seismic event of a Rudy parody done by KFC, featuring both actual Rudy (meh) and Sean Astin (YAY!). Not only does this fever dream exist, IT’S AMAZING.

Opponent Watch

Number of former ND coaches to roam the opposing sideline: still zero.

If you’ve ever wondered how Southern Cal has ended up in their current state, you should absolutely read this fascinating piece about the booster that is likely responsible.

The post Friday Roundup: The Trolling Michigan via Uber Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

The post HLS Podcast: We Demand More Citrus! (aka, The Sickcast) appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Still, a game with rainy conditions, in Florida, on New Year’s Day, facing an opponent with a solid defense, especially in the secondary against a shaky passer, with multiple key ND players suspended, and seeing a last minute stripping of a captaincy from a defensive star didn’t inspire much pre-game confidence. An opening 35 yard strike from Brandon Wimbush to Equaniemous St. Brown restored it. Watching Josh Adams rush for a loss of three on a 4th and 1 behind the Joe Moore Award winning offensive line snatched it back away.

And so started another ride on roller coaster that is Irish fandom. The defense, as they have so often this season, upheld their part of the bargain. While they failed to register a single takeaway all game from an LSU team that does a fantastic job protecting the ball, although in this game, it appeared they really wanted the Irish to recover one of their many fumbles, they forced the LSU offense to enter in to a first quarter punt fest.

The problem: Notre Dame decided LSU needed another team to tango and joined the dance.

But with the maddening frustrations the first half, Wimbush failing to complete the easiest of passes, the Irish running questionable trick plays, and #33Trucking trying to figure out how to start its collective engine came glimmers of hope. The Irish defense stood tall on the goal line to force an LSU field goal which they promptly missed. After the Irish forced another LSU field goal attempt, this time with a different LSU kicker missing the try, Ian Book took the helm in the two minute drill and, showing shades of Thomas Rees (I cannot believe I just typed those words), led the Irish down the field for successful Justin Yoon field goal.

The 3-0 Irish lead at the half still wasn’t much to inspire confidence. Whether Wimbush was still suffering from migraines or just flat-out failing to execute, it was hard for us to all believe that Notre Dame once again was staring a QB controversy in the face. Not only that, it was abundantly clear that Book had to take over.

And, in seemingly true Irish fashion, the QB issue that we all thought would dominate the second half ended up being the last thing on anyone’s mind. An almost inexplicable error on a rolling punt saw a ball careen off an Irish player’s leg and into the waiting arms of the LSU punt team. The Tigers made the Irish pay for the mistake, scoring the first touchdown of the game via a pass completion to stud LSU RB, Derrius Guice.

If 7-3 didn’t seem an already insurmountable task to come back from in this sloppy game, Ian Book threw an interception after leading the Irish into LSU territory. Not only that, the play preceding the interception was a fantastic nine yard run from Tony Jones Jr. that put the Irish into the red zone that was promptly wiped out by a terrible illegal shift penalty that made the already nearing purple-faced Brian Kelly want to explode on the sidelines.

All the nightmares for Irish fans came rushing to the surface. Notre Dame found themselves trailing. They made far more mistakes than their opponent. LSU looked content to bleed the clock, showing the Irish they could dominate on a 75 yard TD drive that lasted 6:34 to bring the lead to 14-6 in the fourth quarter. Hope was all but lost. Painful reminders of past failures from this team and this coaching staff swelled to the surface. Same song, second verse. We’ve all seen this story before and we know how it ends.

Little did we know Book would rewrite the ending to this story.

An impressive 75 yard TD drive, highlighted by a 31 yard Dexter Williams run (who, sadly was promptly yanked after having far too big a role in a sack the next play), a 29 yard completion to Miles Boykin and a career-first TD reception from Louisiana native, Michael Young, brought the game to 14-12. We all knew what was coming next: a two-point try in the rain. If thoughts of the failures in a rain-soaked game at Clemson weren’t already in the front of my mind, my wife made sure that I would by asking me why ND would do this with about half the fourth quarter to go.

This time around, the Irish executed on a beautiful play call. It was a pass, but a high percentage shovel. It put the ball into Josh Adam’s hands. It called upon the strength of the Irish team, the offensive line, to blow LSU off the ball and Quentin Nelson gets all the bonus points in the world for his effort.

pic.twitter.com/xGQVI3kbeX

— OL Watchdog (@OLineScout) January 1, 2018

With the game tied up 14-14, LSU did their best to rip out hopeful Irish hearts. Then the unthinkable happened. We saw an opposing coach play not to lose, kicking a field goal just inches away from the goal line. Coach O’s inexplicable desire to not go for the throat after a review confirmed Guice fell just short of the goal line, on a similar shovel pass that the Irish just converted their two-point conversation, gave a Book-led Irish team one more chance.

After complaining all season that Irish receivers failed to make big plays, we got an all-timer:

ABSOLUTELY JUKED 2 DEFENDERS FOR THE NOTRE DAME WIN. #SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/AQ0wY0ZLbw

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 1, 2018

One of the best secondary’s in the nation flat out got dunked on. An offense led by a Purdue QB transfer, despite how good a game he played, wasn’t enough regardless of how much time the Irish left LSU. Book ended the game with a single kneel down and that was that. The Irish had their first fourth quarter comeback of the season to claim their first January bowl victory since the 1994 Cotton Bowl against Texas A&M.

I will absolutely revel in this fantastic start to 2018 (especially considering Michigan and Stanford both blew leads in their bowl games, Southern Cal got embarrassed in theirs and, if your pettiness extends to Miami and Boston College, you can laugh at them as well); however, you won’t see me walking around in a Citrus Bowl Champion gear. There is still much work to be done and this game alone had examples of every issue that plagued the Irish all season. Plus, ND now stares yet another QB competition this season that will see four horses in the race, a trend that is getting highly concerning in the Brian Kelly era.

Still, this win is quite sweet. Notre Dame beat another quality opponent on a rather decent stage at a neutral site. LSU came to play and threw one hell of an effort at the Irish. Personally, I’m excited to see whether or not the Irish will be able to build off of this victory into the 2018 campaign.

The post There and Back Again: A Citrus Bowl Tale appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.