And we’re back! Where were we? Oh right… my two favorite non-khaki wearing FBS Head Football Coaches. Let me start out with this: Paul Chyrst and James Franklin are excellent coaches. Chryst has won back to back Big Ten Coach of the year awards at Wisconsin in 2016 and 2017. He split the title in 2017 with… guess who… James Franklin. Wisconsin was excellent last year and should have been even better this year. One disappointing season (They could still end up with 10 wins) does not change my opinion* of your coaching ability. James Franklin took over a program that should have been all but dead after the biggest scandal in NCAA history** He turned that program in a team that won the Big Ten in 2016, and should have won in 2017 and should have gone to the playoffs at least one of those years. They are both good coaches.
But MAAAAAN do they do some dumb stuff on the field. They’re the college equivalent of Jim Caldwell (Except they don’t suck). Let’s start with Paul Chryst. I know it’s hard to say that a few coaching decisions would have much impact on a 38-13 blowout but… You have the ball in the 3rd Quarter. It’s 4th and 2 on the opponents 42 yard line. You have Jonathan Taylor who is the best RB in the Big Ten. I think he is figuratively literally*** physically incapable of running less than 2 yards when you give him the ball. You have literally literally (prior to the Michgian game) not been stopped on 3rd or 4th and short all year. What does the back to back Big Ten best coach of the year do? Punt… which inevitably goes into the end zone for a net gain of 22 yards. Fast forward a couple of drives. Now it’s 4th and 2 with 8 min left in the game and your down 38-7. He again punts. Fine… I get it… you give up… but then when you get the ball back on the next drive… DON’T LEAVE IN YOUR STARTING QB TO GET MURDERED DURING GARBAGE TIME! Hooray you scored a touchdown… how’s Hornibrook been playing since that game? Healthy functional QB? No? huh… weird… Oh by the way.. guess how many times they gave the football to THE BEST RB IN THE BIG TEN in the second half. The answer is six…
Now I promised you off-the rails tangents in the last post so here we go… Story Time. A few weeks ago it dawned on me that the grumpy old angry bastard persona I put on while writing these entertaining footblogs may be seeping into my real life… There are six elevators in each elevator area where I work. As I’m walking up an elevator dings and myself and one other guy walk step in. As we step in 3 other elevator doors ding and open. A group of 4-6 other people are walking up just as our doors are closing but in plenty of time to get to one of the other three opening elevators. Seems like everybody here is on the same page… Then the guy in the elevator reaches into the doors to open them back up for the other passengers… They’ve all already committed to one of the other 3 options because they’re not idiots. The doors close again and the guy gives me a look like “oh well right?” I smile politely but in my head I’m like ‘come on man… you had to have heard the other 3 dings… don’t be an..’ and then immediately my thoughts switch to ‘alright calm down you grumpy bastard… dude’s just trying to be a nice guy…’ Then the guy makes a phone call.. My brain is picturing the “Do you wanna pick me up” scene in family guy. My internal monologue is ‘you son of… you waste my time with your unecessary door holding and then make a phone call on the elevator?! There are SIX elevators! They all got that! Why can’t you?!” Anyway the point is this… I’m a grumpy bastard… and six is a lot of elevators… but not a lot of footballs to give to the best Running Back in the Big Ten.
Now let’s move on to James Franklin. James Franklin likes to use timeouts. He uses timeouts to “ice” the opponent’s kicker when his team is up 56-0. He uses them to “ice” his own kicker at the end of the half. He tries to call timeout to stop the clock after an incomplete pass (but sadly for him his assistants prevent him from succeeding). And he calls timeout on 4th and 5 with two minutes left when he needs to score against Ohio State. Then he has the QB check the sidelines. Then he calls a second time out. Lines up in the same formation. Has the QB check the sidelines twice… and runs this play… He also calls timeout on 4th and 17 to punt the ball and give Michigan 1 min left instead of 20 seconds. James Franklin does dumb things during football games.
The exciting thing is that we get to watch these two coaches do dumb things against eachother this week! Go Badgers!
*Because my opinion is what all NCAA coaches really coach for.
**I assumed everybody knew about this but… There was a couple at the U-M/Penn State game sitting behind me last weekend… The guy was making terrible “jokes” about pedophilia and the girl wasn’t responding… At first I assumed it was just because the “jokes” were super cringey and just making everyone uncomfortable… but as their one sided conversation went on it became clear that she apparently had been under a rock… or on the Miami University Football Boat Of Cocain and Hookers that nobody remembers because everyone else was distracted by… well Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno…
***Turns out some jackass actually added a definition for “literally” because dumb people kept using it wrong… so I’m clarifying which version I am using.