Friday, December 1, 2017

5 Things on a Friday: The Saga of Greg Schiano

As a cadet, I at no time expected that it would ever be easier to be a fan of Army Football than it is to be a fan of the Tennessee Volunteers.  But here we are.



Honestly, I'm glad that my father did not live to see the destruction of his beloved Vols, but I also kind'a wish that I could rub it in, too.


We can argue about whether the majority of the Tennessee fans who revolted to the idea of the Volunteers’ since-squelched hiring of Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano really were incensed—as they claimed—because of Schiano’s alleged role in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. An accusation of a years-ago comment was never investigated and Schiano was never officially accused of any wrongdoing because he was accused by double hearsay. He also has denied it happened. We’ll unfortunately never know the truth in that matter. We also will never truly know if this is why Tennessee fans rose up Sunday or if they were angry for football reasons—because Schiano went 68–67 at Rutgers and got blown out by former Vols coach Butch Jones’s Cincinnati team near the end of his tenure there.
Can we say it was both?  
Because, yes, the stuff at Penn State was truly horrible, and Tennessee fans have every right to choose not to get involved with even the appearance of impropriety.  It seems weird to say that in 2017, when literally NOTHING is too God-awful if one is successful enough, but for whatever reason, Vols fans chose to draw a line, and that is absolutely their right.  This is still a free country, even in Tennessee, and at least for a little while yet we can all still protest.  At a certain level, I think maybe some of the body politic has maybe forgotten that protest is actually supposed to be uncomfortable.
But the other thing is also true.  Which is to say that if Tennessee is going to fire Butch Jones, that implies that they’ll hire somebody who is at least as good as Jones, and Schiano’s body of work doesn’t suggest that he would be.
For what it’s worth, the current media rumor mill ranks national championship alumni quarterback Tee Martin as a leading contender for the job.  Personally, I’d like to see that.  Martin is the offensive coordinator (OC) at USC.  There has also been talk that UT would like to bring back former OC David Cutcliffe, now head coach at Duke.  ButCutcliffe has repeatedly said that he intends to stay with the Blue Devils until he retires, and why wouldn’t he?  After stumbling at Army, he and his team ran the table against Georgia Tech and Wake Forest to become bowl-eligible again for the fifth time in six years.  The Blue Devils have a talented young team and could easily make some noise in the ACC next year if QB Daniel Jones continues to progress.
Other mentions include Mike Leach from Washington State and Mike Norvell from Memphis.  Norvell seems like the obvious choice to me, but media folks all seem to view him as something of a longshot.

Reminder: Army plays at Tennessee in 2022.  I find myself wondering if the Vols will have rebuilt their program by then.
The Play Store on Chromebooks brings Android apps to the formerly "Web only" platform. For Microsoft Office, this means Chromebook users get the Android tablet version of Word, Excel, Outlook, and Powerpoint. Unlike nearly every other Android tablet app in existence, Microsoft's tablet apps are actually great! They offer a big-screen optimized interface that looks a lot like the Windows apps but with a smaller feature set.
Fine, but you still need a $7/month Office 365 subscription to use the “new” aps.  Ugh.  We’re in the market for a new computer for my wife, and I want to cut the cord with Microsoft in the worst way.  Alas, Sally really prefers the Office experience, and that’s making the transition a bit unruly.
Avengers 3 and 4 co-director Joe Russo on just how many characters and story lines will be involved in the two-part crossover films:
We’ll take blame for the scale, because we were pushing for it. We were pushing to make it bigger, we were pushing it, saying, “Look, what you’ve done is an impressive narrative over 10 years, and why shouldn’t this involve every character?” It should be the culmination, so in some way, we have to touch on everyone in their story, or their theme. It has to be woven in, in some way. You can’t really look back and go, Hey, remember the last time that somebody took 12 franchises and blended them together and told the movie with 60 lead characters? So that’s the challenge, and you have to create your own structure for a story like that. You look at Lord of the Rings, or you can look at [Robert Altman’s] Nashville, but there is no real template for it.


Marvel honcho Kevin Feige describes Robocop as “a perfectly structured movie” towards the bottom of the article, which makes me want to go see it again.  
I agree that it’s absolutely terrific.  Very much still of a piece with our times.
4. Giants Bench Eli Manning
Astonishingly, the Giants are going to start QB Geno Smith against the Raiders on Sunday.  I could understand if they wanted to start 3rd round pick Davis Webb, but this thing with Smith is HC Ben McAdoo throwing a Hail Mary pass to try to keep his job.
FYI: I picked up the Raiders’ Defense in Fantasy Football especially for this particular occasion.
Boylan's father, grandfather and uncle all studied at West Point, and like his father Joseph, the younger Boylan started out his career at center for the Black Knights.
"My dad, my grandfather, my uncle all went here, my dad played here, but they never put pressure on me to come here and that was something that I appreciated," he told CBS Sports. "I actually looked into Air Force for a considerable amount of time, took a visit there. I knew that in my heart I wanted to come here and be just like my father, so I pursued this path and that's why I'm here..."
"My dad told me, 'Don't think of this as sacrificing the four years of quote-unquote fun in college,'" he said. "Think about this as an investment in the future. It's about the men next to you, the men you lead, but more importantly your family. When things get tough and you think, 'I don't know if I can do this,' you know this is your investment and I'm going to ride it out until the end."


Navy week!  This should be a terrific game.
* * *
That’s all I’ve got.  Enjoy the weekend!

No comments:

Post a Comment