Everybody wants to find "the new Josh Allen" (bigger quarterback who wasn't especially consistent in college), which explains the hype for Levis and to some extent for Anthony Richardson. 

This is going to sound like making excuses, but the team needs to make some noise about officiating. The Browns led the league in being called for holding penalties, and had fewer holding penalties called against them than any other team even though Myles Garrett was basically a dance partner for opposing offensive tackles all season. I just don't think that happens by chance, when you factor in how angry the league allegedly was about the Browns giving Watson a record amount of guaranteed money. 

The funny thing about the Browns' linebackers is that despite all the injuries this season, you almost never noticed it reflected in how the team played -- except during those weeks right after Walker was hurt, and they had Jacob Phillips in there being totally lost. Those games against Atlanta and the Chargers, narrow losses where they allowed over 200 yards on the ground both times because the run defense was so bad, ended up really costing them down the line. 

I think the complaining has mostly come from her fans getting disruptive during meets rather than just after them, although some of this is that college gymnasts almost never have to deal with the pressure of any sort of crowd, and now they do when LSU is in the building. 

I guess I don't get it. She's very attractive, but so are any number of people on social media. She's an excellent college-level gymnast, but not someone who is going to have a career at the international level or else it would have already happened. But apparently, the combination of the two is enough to make her a massive star. 

I don't think Sueing deserves all the blame, but he seems to be worse in most respects than he was four years ago as a sophomore in the Pac-12. 

With the season basically over, it might be time for Holtmann to start prioritizing player development, which means fewer minutes for underachieving sixth-year seniors.

But Sean McNeil, who hadn’t missed a free throw all season entering the game, missed both attempts.

The sort of thing that you see when a team keeps losing close games. They're playing tight That's on the coaches and the team's veteran "leadership."

Nebraska leads us 8-7 over the last 7 minutes. Bumfight. 

Nebraska is so bad they can't put this away even though we haven't hit a basket in several minutes.

I see this point, but if either McCord or Brown were to transfer -- this is not a prediction; there's a reason I said "if" -- then Gebbia in all likelihood becomes the primary backup in 2023. So he's more than just a glorified grad assistant. 

I'd throw in the AFC West too -- while the Broncos are the only team that hasn't moved, all four franchises are original AFL rivals going back to 1960. 

Since we all understand this has little prospect of ever happening and is obviously just hypothetical: while Columbus would be one of the smaller NFL cities, it could definitely support an NFL team, and I know this because the Shoe is bigger than any NFL stadium and routinely sells out at NFL-style ticket prices. 

But clearly, Ohio State football could not keep going in anything like its current form if there was an NFL franchise in town, if only because it would provide an outlet for Columbus residents who don't have ties to OSU but are Buckeye fans because "they're the hometown team." The analogy here is Minnesota, which won its last national championship (and they have a bunch of them) the year before the Vikings started up. The Twin Cities can't support an NFL team and a mega-stadium level college team.

There's no moving the Browns or Bengals into a new division without messing up someone else's existing rivalries, and I think then you'd see how much people care about them. (And the Browns would never move anyway -- their move from the old 16-team NFL to the AFC was contingent on the Steelers agreeing to move with them, so they could keep at least one of their rivalries from the old days.)

This guy has been around forever. I remember seeing him in an Oregon State game one late night several years ago. He struck me as a good athlete; a try-hard guy who is fairly limited. But he fits the description of the sort of veteran QB we would be looking for.

Caleb Williams's backup threw all of 14 passes this season. Stetson Bennett's backups threw slightly more than McCord did, but not a lot more. 

These ideas that backup quarterbacks all over the country are slinging the ball all over the place, and that the Buckeyes can't know anything about their backup players unless they see them in games against tired and badly overmatched opponents, are just not correct.

You're correct in saying that if the Buckeyes had made good plays on defense, we wouldn't be upset about them making bad plays on defense, 

Now, he can be very well paid for the privilege of fans questioning his courage and intelligence 

As for Larsen, I'm not 100% sure why the Blue Jackets haven't fired him already. 

I think a lot of the time, the thinking on midseason firings is "What's the point?" This season can't be salvaged, and he's pretty clearly not in the plans for following seasons. Larsen was elevated from the staff of the previous guy who was fired, which is something you rarely see, which told me that the organization always saw him as a placeholder for seasons that didn't seem likely to be successful.

In Holtmann's case, the complications are 1) college coaches are a lot less likely to be fired in-season; and 2) the unwise decision to extend his contract, which will make admitting you made a mistake kind of expensive. 

Hey, we improved from 5 assists to 7 assists! Yes, it took 5 extra minutes to get there, but this is real improvement! Ugh

I'm going to reject the idea that our only options are "keep losing" or "hire a dirtbag."

This reminds me of the people who accuse high school recruits of "loving the drama" because they won't announce their college decision on someone else's timeline. 

Stroud doing nothing at all is not "trolling."

Bucks have outscored them 19-7 since Nebraska got to within 3. Every game, they do this in the second half. 

I assume Day weighed that factor. My guess is Day also realized Hartline has ambitions and "loyal Buckeye" or not, he was probably nearing the end of the period where he'd be satisfied being only a position coach. 

One thing I took away from Monday's game is that it's easier to see how Knowles could develop a "it's OK to give up five big plays a game" philosophy in the Big 12, since that's going to put you well below the average for that conference. That doesn't mean it's going to work against real teams, though.

Who says Holtmann's teams don't run any sort of structured offense?

Oldtimers will remember that Eldon Miller was fired immediately after a shocking loss to a Minnesota team that had been reduced to 6 scholarship players. Just sayin'.