Good morning, folks! It’s Week 3 of the preseason, which means we might see some actual starters in uniform tonight, and college football kicks off tomorrow!
1. The NFL Preseason is nice, but...
The games that actually count start tomorrow. This gif is courtesy of @NCAAFNation247.
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| College football starts Saturday. |
Duquesne at UMass is probably the day’s best game, but I’ll be watching Hawaii at Colorado much more closely. Army hosts the Rainbow Warriors at Michie stadium in just three weeks. Saturday offers our first glimpse at Hawaii’s newly reconstituted run-and-shoot offense.
2. #SBRLLR: Firstie (Part 2)
I’d been exiled to the wilderness.
I don’t like to explain my writing because the joke’s no good when you have to explain it, plus it’s an obvious writing failure when people don’t get the point. Typically, I just try to move on. But I’m gonna break my rule this week because by the time I realized how to fix what I’d done, it was too late. The chapter had been live for nearly two weeks.
First, the confession. The new chapter of “Swim, Bike, Run, Live, Love, Repeat” is much, much too long. I kind of realized that I had a problem when I started breaking the material down for the blog and saw that it was gonna take five weeks. But I was rushed the day I put it up, so I let it go. It’s been bugging me, though, especially since the memoir itself has been better received than I’d expected. I hate to lose interest in a project that’s been emotionally meaningful to me when readers have seemed to be connecting with it as well.
But a long, pointless chapter? Yeah, that’ll do it.
The problem is based in plot design. I opened the story by introducing myself as an alienated “New Kid” who finds a home through swimming. This, of course, is a gross generalization, but a story has to be about something. Having a specific focus told me which scenes to include and what to emphasize in each. Otherwise, the narrative would read like a series of random, mostly true events. The plot creates an illusion of meaning.
The “New Kid” plotline reached a crisis in the Beast chapter, at which point I turned it on its head. I thought I knew what I wanted, but it was a disastrous choice made surprisingly palatable by the presence of unlooked for friends. In a story about swimming and alienation, this is the first time we see legitimate belonging and social acceptance. This development is reinforced by the ending of Beat Navy, and I brought it to a conclusion at the end of Duty - Honor - Country.
So far, so good. I liked that ending.
Firstie was meant to be denouement on the first two acts while setting up the third. As such, it needed to be short. Really, everything through the end ofFirstie is one kind of story, and everything after it, though only a third of the book, is something very different. Firstie links the pieces, but it’s not the place to get bogged down.
Unfortunately, the first two parts of Firstie drag out. It’s obvious right now that these are meandering tales--that I spent entirely too much time reveling in happy memories after drowning myself in memories of alienation--and unfortunately, there’s more of that ahead. Somewhere in there sit maybe 2500 words that the story actually needs.
It’s too late to fix it now, but if there’s ever a print or Kindle edition of this thing, I’ll have to re-conceptualize Firstie from the ground up. In the meantime, I’m asking for your patience. The next piece is actually important.
3. Giants Betting Preview: Defenses Will Have to Pick Their Poison Facing New York's Dynamic Offense (Sports Illustrated)
This is what defensive coordinators will be asking themselves this year when the Giants have two tight ends on the field. Odell Beckham Jr. requires safety help, you need to put defensive backs on Evan Engram and Sterling Shepard. That’s four DBs right there. So, do you leave a linebacker on Barkley to get torched? Or, do you go with a fifth defensive back, at which point Eli Manning checks to a run and you get pulling guard Will Hernandez and blocking TE Rhett Ellison steamrolling the undersized back end of your defense, which would have its hands full tackling Barkley even if it was a fair fight?
Provided the O-Line can hold up. The Giants tried something like this two years ago in the playoffs against Green Bay, and they got smoked. The Packers played their linebackers and safeties ten yards or more off the ball to shut down the Giants’ slant routes to OBJ, and Manning repeatedly checked into running plays to take advantage. Big Blue got a handful of fifteen yard runs that way, but mostly their O-Line couldn’t open holes against Green Bay’s front four.
That sucked.
4. ARMY Football Spring Game: Five Army QBs Compete For Starting Job (Sons of the American Legion Radio)
I don’t know that the issue was ever in doubt, to be honest, and for what it’s worth, I also think the coaching staff made the right decision. Nothing against Luke Langdon, but if it wasn’t going to be Kelvin Hopkins, it needed to be yearling Cam Thomas. Because you’d like to have guys who can grow into the position and give you stability, not a series of one-year firstie starters.
5. Army Head Coach Jeff Monken, And Difference Makers for Army, Navy and Air Force (Yards & Stripes)
Speaking of quarterbacks...
No surprise. Jeff Monken says junior Kelvin Hopkins has earned starting QB job. "Kelvin is really good leader...He's done really good job this preseason camp. He has some improvements to make. He throws ball as good as maybe any QB we've ever had in this offense." #ArmyFootball https://t.co/FmtAC1ApCd— Sal Interdonato (@salinterdonato) August 23, 2018
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Is it Saturday yet?
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