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Big Football Week 3: Recap and Schadenfreude - Quick Hits Edition

Plus the Rutgers AD shows us all how to chug a beer.

By GoAUpher

The gnomes would like you to know that while they’d love to snark about Ohio State beating up on Oklahoma they just don’t have time to care. So as a change of pace, they’d like to congratulate the following teams on their recent victories and link you to some stories by their respective blogs:

You are all winners

Almost winners (aka BYE WEEK)

ACTUALLY LOSERS (DESPITE WINNING)

Okay, so the gnomes aren’t ready to give up all of the snark.

Bonus Rutgers snark

And yes, the details are as dumb as you’d think.

"My first concern is always for the safety and well-being of our students,'' Hobbs said. "Anyone who was at the (student tailgate) Saturday knows that I was acting to ensure that.''

Hobbs said picking up the beer was "a mistake.''

"I regret that any action on my part can be interpreted as promoting the use of alcohol,'' he said. "That was certainly not my intention.''

While the Rutgers statement gave no indication of whether university officials would revisit an alternative tailgate at a later time, Hobbs said "a number of concerns were raised'' about the tailgate and the Rutgers athletics department "did not feel we could fully address'' the potential issues.

Because if there is one thing that calms down rowdy students it’s an authority figure climbing onto a makeshift stage to chug a beer. Here’s the video:

Seems more legit than the other explanation. Oh, and the University closed the tailgate lot in the middle of this mess and student season ticket holders are talking about boycotting games in protest.

The almost Iowa spot

Illinois: Lovie Smith is doing what non-Illinois fans assumed he’d do in year one. He’s struggling with the leftovers bestowed upon him by the Beckman/Cubit regime. Illinois fans didn’t heed the warnings from everyone else. The gnomes get it and empathize because they remember a time when their chili was hot. Following their loss to Western Michigan (ROW DAMN BOAT!) it’s time to come to grips with the fact that a Lovie rebuild is going to take a while:

Due to the huge size of our 2016 senior class, I have been expecting 2017 to be a down year since before last year. The roster will simply be too thin to field a team that can compete in the Big Ten, and there’s not a whole lot available next year for this coaching staff to work with. In six months with Garrick McGee, the offense clearly hasn’t gelled. This offense was recruited and molded in the image of what Bill Cubit wanted to run, and if this produced a winning Big Ten team, Cubit would still be our coach. Replacing our entire linebacking corps and half our secondary has proven to be a difficult task as well. There isn’t a game-breaking return man (well, not a healthy one) to single-handedly get us back in the game. There’s just not much that could have been done in this situation.

What does that mean for this year then? The dark times have come a year sooner than we’d expected. I don’t think we can completely evaluate this staff’s ability to coach based on this year. Saturday’s game showed me that this a Year 1 Total Rebuild year, like 1997, 2005 and 2012. This is going to suck, and it might get worse next year.

LOLOWA

Iowa: The gnomes have joined everyone in pointing and laughing. In fact, they pointed and laughed for so long that they didn’t get this post up on time. Instead, they’d like to serve you a fresh serving of delicious Hawkeye tears, straight from the Iowa writers and fans themselves. Enjoy!

Black Heart Gold Pants:

In 2012, I remember reading and writing the word “turtling” a lot to describe Iowa’s offense. When saying that word out loud, one’s tongue curls up and attempts to choke you to death—not unlike how Iowa’s offense effectively shot itself in the foot yesterday. There were fingerprints of that 2012 season all over Iowa’s offense (and defense for that matter) against the Bison, and that obviously doesn’t bode well for things to come this year.

You could say this game was a wakeup call for Iowa’s players and coaching staff, but unfortunately this team didn’t need that. This Iowa team wasn’t supposed to be the one that answered such calls. It was supposed to be the team that knocks.

Off Tackle Empire’s Io_a writer:

This game is going to be talked about for the next 10 years. I’m going to cringe every single time. Kirk Ferentz will get made fun of for it a lot and he will deserve every single bit of it.

[snip]

So does NDSU deserve some credit for their effort? No of course not, because I’m a sore loser and because Iowa beat themselves more than an FCS program could ever possibly do. Besides, by giving the Bison any credit for their win I would simply be absolving Iowa of some of the humiliation they deserve for their effort in CFS. No the Bison were not responsible for CFS, they were just present for it.

So Kirk Ferentz hasn’t changed, Greg Davis’ play designs are still deeply flawed, and none of the coaches were able to prepare their players for a team they’ve been told to take seriously since the day they were scheduled 3 or 4 years ago.

Football is dumb. Sports are dumb. Everything is the worst and nothing matters. Have a field day, internet. Iowa deserves the shame. Way to throw your alma mater a bone, Gary Barta. Welcome back, Old Kirk. It’s been a while. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a shower so I can’t tell if I’m crying or not.

SALTY FAN COMMENTS!

Iowa’s Champion Schadenfreude Comment

Good job good effort Iowa!

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