Becoming a Grandfather This Week-End

It looks like I will become a grandfather this week-end. What a journey! I can’t believe I made it this far.

A grandfather.

It will be a ‘little’ boy coming into the world at eight and half pounds. His name will be Robert Allen Jackson named after my father.

I bet he looks just like my father, my son, and me.

I can’t wait to go fishing with him. Or watch him at hockey practice or watch him hit his first golf ball. Or watch him curl up and fall asleep with Perk and Tucker.

My son looked like the little boy Jonah in Sleepless in Seattle. I would guess my wife has seen this movie at least a thousand times. It even made my Top Ten list of chick flicks.

God, I feel old…a grandfather.

I feel almost certain my wife will be playing Sleepless in Seattle sometime in the next week to show me how much Robert looks like Jonah.

I wonder what would have happened to me if my wife hadn’t called me from Auburn on that first semester break.

It was destiny.

I’ll probably be watching chick flicks all week-end in between a couple of college football games.

Destiny is a funny thing.

This will be my second pick after I watch Serendipity. Serendipity and Four Weddings and a Funeral have for a long time been one and two on my all-time chick flick list.

Is it still raining? What an epic ending scene.

Donald Trump Polls Mean Nothing

I keep seeing all these polls relating to Trump losing to the top four Dem candidates and I think it’s Fool’s Gold.

It will be the economy, stupid.

It will be the markets. It will be those 180 million Americans with private health care insurance who don’t want Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders screwing with the system.

It will be China. It will be how these trade treaties with China are perceived a year from now.

Does anyone at this point hold on to the thought America has a moral conscience any longer?

The evangelicals, the fiscal conservatives, the military….give me a break. They won’t vote their moral conscience. At least ninety per cent of them won’t.

They’ll vote their economy, stupid.

Most independents will in the end vote their economy if the Dems don’t choose a moderate and go George McGovern circa 2020.

The DNC could have a video of Trump having sex with daughter Ivanka and it will still be the economy, stupid.

Ninety per cent of the evangelicals would still be for Trump as long as the economy is making them money in their 401k’s.

It is what it is.

Here’s the Trump Fight Song for the evangelicals, the fiscal conservatives, the military people…all of them.

It is what it is…at least be up front about it.

Would we be here right now if Barack Obama had been white?

Would we be here right now if Barack Obama had been a moderate white GOP senator from Florida like Little Marco Rubio?

If Little Marco Rubio or Low Energy Jeb Bush had been president and killed Bin Laden, created 200,000 jobs a month, pulled us out of a depression, saved the U.S. auto industry, and had a 97% approval rating would Donald Trump have been the GOP candidate in 2016?

Really?

So while it is the economy…it’s also the fact Donald Trump tapped into America’s inner racial conflicts which still exist.

You think Clay Bennett, Sam Presti, or Billy Donovan would be caught on record like this?

NOT A CHANCE.

Michael Bennet Never Had a Chance

Michael Bennet never had a chance.

He isn’t a pussy grabbing reality television star. He didn’t promise everything from a free home to a free college education to the moon to the millennials.

He isn’t a woman. He isn’t black. He isn’t Hispanic. He isn’t too old. He isn’t gay. His last name isn’t Williams or Yang or Castro.

He’s just qualified and would have made for an interesting president.

He’s a white male moderate and he never had a chance.

I would hope Joe Biden might have Michael Bennet on his short list for vice-president. But for the reasons I stated above I doubt that could happen in this America.

That wouldn’t satisfy the ultra left wing of the Democratic Party which seems intent on making Donald Trump something Bush 41 never was…namely, a two term president.

Elizabeth Warren just drew a huge crowd in New York. So what. Is there any doubt whatsoever the Dems are going to win the state of New York?

The question will be who wins the states of the Rust Belt, Florida, North Carolina, and maybe two or three states in the middle of the country we’re not thinking of just yet.

If you wonder why America is in the hole it has dug for itself with a never ending sequence of political stupidity look no further than the third debate by the current Democratic Party.

They must not understand how Donald Trump got elected in the first place. They must not understand Bernie Sanders and giveaway policies will not play with the independents who will decide this election.

Hillary and Bill Clinton seem like moderate Republicans compared to the list of ten minus Biden and Klobachar who stood on that stage in Houston.

I’m not even sure how Barack Obama would play with this crowd given how they talked about him in the first two debates.

Here’s a clue, Dems….you’re going to win New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and the western coast. You might want to construct a strategy where you can win some senate seats and possibly the presidency in between.

But as I already knew back when this election started, which btw was the day after Trump’s inaugural address…someone like Michael Bennet never had a chance.

Sarah Palin and Todd No More

Well…this is the part of the week when I like to post something on the upcoming presidential election. But since I’m still in a state of depression over the Dems performance in their debate…I just can’t do it this week.

Todd Palin, after thirty-one years of marriage to Sarah Palin, couldn’t take it anymore and filed for divorce from the former governor of Alaska who was John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

Of course, it was Palin who endorsed Donald Trump in Iowa in 2016 and helped make all of this possible.

Best wishes to all of the Palin children…Trik, Tac, Bristol, Ninja, and Tree as they work as a family to get through this as one.

I was just kidding that was sarcasm. Their names are really Bristol, Willow, Track, Piper, and Trig….and therein I think we see what Todd might have been dealing with these past three decades.

Baker Mayfield and Those 2.8 Seconds

The Cleveland Brown are a disappointing 1-1 after two games. The Titans and NY Jets should have been two wins for a team which was favored to win the AFC Central. The Pittsburgh Steelers are on the ropes. The Bengals are the Bengals and going nowhere. Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens have replaced Baker Mayfield as the darlings of the AFC in two weeks into this young NFL season.

The Browns acquired OBJ in the off season to give Baker Mayfield and his offensive coordinator Todd Monken a home run threat to go along with Nick Chubb and Jarvis Landry. To date Baker and Todd Monken have not figured it out.

The axiom in the NFL is that the quarterback has 2.8 seconds to get the ball out his hands. This isn’t happening with Baker right now. He’s holding the ball too long. Like he’s over-reading or over thinking. Nick Chubb isn’t getting the ball enough. The tight end isn’t getting the ball enough to suit me. The offense looks like the second week of preseason should look.

I have no idea why this is a problem. I know this — the problem better get solved this week because the Browns next four games are against the LA Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Baltimore Ravens, and Tom Brady. All four of these teams are 2-0 and appear to be playoff bound. Two of these teams were in last season’s Super Bowl. The Baltimore game one would think will be critical if the Browns are to be contenders instead of pretenders.

I would guess Todd Monken and Baker will pretty much be living together these next few weeks trying to get this offense on track.

I love Monken. Todd Monken was T Boone Pickens’ offensive coordinator on that 2011 O State Big 12 championship team when they beat OU 44-10. Monken went on to head coach at Southern Miss and last season was Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator. I’m pretty sure Todd Monken at some point would like to become an NFL head coach. I would think this next month will be as critical to Todd Monken as it will be to Baker Mayfield becoming the next Brett Favre.

2.8 seconds. Count it in your head. This isn’t the defenseless Big 12. An NFL quarterback has 2.8 seconds to pull the trigger and distribute the ball.

Baker Mayfield and Todd Monken have a big week ahead of them with the LA Rams killer defense as their next opponent.

I love both Baker and Todd Monken, but you have to call it as it is — they need to get it together in a hurry.

Big 12 Football Season So Far

The OKC Thunder aren’t even remotely on my radar screen as we hit the last week of summer. I’m watching college football and a few NFL games here and there.

The Big 12 as always is going to be fun with one would think OU and Texas as the top two teams in the league.

The quarterback play in the league is excellent and there is a great matchup in Austin on Saturday night as O State takes on Texas in an ABC nationally televised game.

Proven Sam Ehrlinger versus freshman Spencer Sanders.

I’ve had this one circled since I saw the schedules. Huge game for both teams and the winner should emerge as the team to challenge OU for the league title.

Big time game for Spencer Sanders as a freshman on the road in front of the nation to show his stuff.

The Big 12 hasn’t won a national championship in football since the 2005-06 season when Texas beat USC in one of the great games in college football history.

OU got to the 2008 title game against Florida and Texas got to the 2009 title game against Alabama, but both teams lost in competitive games.

Since then no Big 12 team has advanced to the title game though OU has made it to three Final Fours.

With Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and LSU are all looking formidable so far—the road to the Final Four will not be an easy one for the Big 12 champion.

But this game in Austin and Notre Dame versus Georgia should give us two very interesting college games to watch this week-end as we finally begin to transition into autumn.

As I sit each week-end and watch Jalen Hurts and Spencer Sanders…I can’t help but think of the season Vince Young had in 2005 for the ‘Horns. I have it as one of the greatest individual single seasons in college football history.

So in honor of Vince Young’s Heisman/national championship season…I’m honoring him with this look back at one of the greatest national championship games in college football history.

Jalen Hurts Continues Heisman March in Rose Bowl

Clay Bennett must have mixed feelings. On one hand, his school OU has a legit chance at winning its third straight Heisman. On the other hand, this means other than O State fans no one will care what the Thunder will be doing if the Thunder unload Chris Paul before the OU football season comes to an end in what could be early January.

Three other quarterbacks as in Trevor Lawrence, Tua, and Joe Burrow will probably have stellar seasons, but Jalen Hurts will have the stats and a compelling story for voters if OU’s defense can just be functional.

Lincoln Riley knows this and he will give Jalen Hurts every chance possible to complete his story with a Final Four appearance and a possible ultimate game of redemption against Tua and the Tide.

But again…that OU defense. Will they really be better? Can we really tell anything just yet? It wasn’t Texas which exposed OU’s putrid defense last season…it was Army. Jim Traber has it right—we probably won’t know until Alex Grinch’s new defense plays Texas Tech.

On Saturday in the iconic setting of the Rose Bowl–Jalen Hurts looked like a Little League ringer playing against Chip Kelly’s awful UCLA squad. As I wrote yesterday…do we really know what Mike Gundy as a coach would have been without T Boone’s economic largesse? By the same token we’re seeing what Chip Kelly is as a coach without Phil Knight’s money at Oregon…and the answer to date is not much.

Jalen Hurts looked like a high school senior toying against JV players on Saturday evening as the Sooners strolled to a predictably easy 48-14 win over the Bruins.

Offensively—the Sooners might actually be better than last season. OU’s O line under Bill Bedenbaugh once again looks like one of the nation’s best. Trey Sermon is running with a cause and punishing opponents. And OU literally has so many receivers I don’t have all their names down yet.

But I have two down for sure….Lamb and Rambo. We knew about Lamb, but what we didn’t know was that Charleston Rambo would make us forget about Marquise ‘Downtown’ Brown by the third game. And the promising thing is we saw this from Rambo against Alabama in the national semi-finals last season. He’s shown he can do this against elite defenders…not just Houston and UCLA.

I’m not Clay Bennett. He can’t openly switch and start wearing a Warriors cap and cheer against his soon to be tanking Thunder. But he can take solace that at least until this OU football season comes to an end if Jalen Hurts stays healthy these Sooners should make a run at a third straight Heisman and a third straight Final Four.

Beyond that—none of us yet know if OU’s defense will be good enough to dream of a team which could hang with Clemson or Alabama.

Georgia, Notre Dame and LSU …yes. But the defense will have to get better every week to hang with Clemson and Alabama. You have to get stops and get off the field against those two powerhouses. You have to play real football.

T Boone Pickens: The Oracle of Oil

What an amazing life!

T Boone Pickens transcends Bedlam football. The man was a pioneer, a visionary, and yes…a corporate raider, but what a life story.

He was the epitome of the boom/bust oil industry mentality. And when he made it back big again in 2000 playing natural gas he said what the heck and just basically leveraged his alma mater Oklahoma State University.

He didn’t donate to O State. No. He with his half billion dollar donation in essence bought enough shares of a state funded university to become the university’s de facto CEO.

I absolutely loved his balls. His audacity. His will to win.

Boone Pickens could very well have been a Dan Jenkins fictional character in Dead Solid Perfect. Pickens could have been the fictional oil tycoon Big Ed Bookman straight out of Fort Worth in Semi Tough.

He bought a state funded university and in 2011 his college football team won a Big 12 championship and almost made it to the BCS National Championship Game at a school which had a high school level stadium before he ‘acquired’ his college football franchise.

That wasn’t Mike Gundy’s team, that was T Boone Picken’s team. Kind of like Neil Gorsuch isn’t Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Justice but is Mitch McConnell’s justice. Same thing.

Mike Gundy is a nice coach, but the 2011 Big 12 championship team was a testament to Boone Pickens not to Mike Gundy. If you doubt me google the locker room celebration and see who the players were centered around in the locker room.

As an OU fan I absolutely loved the guy. He had guts and it didn’t faze him a bit to take on big boys OU and Texas on the football field. I’m sure he wanted to fire Gundy several times for not be able to beat OU more than twice, but I’m to assume Mike Holder held that impulse in check.

His ranch in Mesa Vista in west Texas was amazing. Google it and take a virtual tour. Who else would have done this?

He loved to fish and loved labs. How could I not love T Boone Pickens?

What a shame for O State they have lost their most interesting alum and their team owner. T Boones Pickens was the Jerry Jones of college football and to be frank Mike Gundy has been the Jason Garrett of college football.

Again…I’m not dogging Mike Gundy because the best man at my wedding was a Midwest City guy, but this was not a Mike Gundy era—this was a T Boone Pickens era at O State.

He’d show up in Stillwater and hold his own Boone pressers. He’d hint at more Boone dollars on the away. He’d push Gundy to the side and give his public takes on the team. He dared Gundy to take the train wreck Tennessee job. I laughed my ass every time he got on Gundy for not beating OU.

I’ve always wondered to myself who he would have hired if Holder had allowed him to fire Gundy. I always drooled at the prospect of Boone hiring Mike Leach at some point. Oh my god. Could you have imagined Boone and Leach together?

Bedlam football will not be the same without T Boone Pickens.

I will miss him greatly because he was a larger than life character who made O State relevant on the national stage.

I Fell Asleep During the Dems Third Debate

After Julian Castro made the accusation Joe Biden is too old to remember what he said sixty seconds earlier I lost interest in this 1996 version of Michael Lewis’s book Losers and fell asleep on the couch next to the diva lab Pauli. I curled against her in a fetal position and fell asleep. We looked at each other knowingly. The look shared between us was clear… Trump will probably be re-elected.

I fear these Dems are in history what the GOP candidates in 1996 were when Bob Dole got slaughtered and Bill Clinton won a second term despite the fact Monica Lewinsky evidently gave him blow jobs in the oral office.

None of the Dem candidates I like made this debate’s cut line. Michael Bennet as I wrote earlier never had a chance. He’s qualified, smart, and not a communist. Timmy Ryan from Ohio’s rust belt like me is old school and like Bennet isn’t a communist either. Neither of these reasonable guys ever had a chance.

In case you’re not keeping score the Dems had all progressives except Sleepy Joe Biden and perhaps Amy K who herself has no chance whatsoever.

The Dems just don’t get it. Bill Maher gets it. He knows they’re in deep shit, that this progressive wing of the Democratic party is the best thing Donald Trump has going for him.

Bill Maher was on Morning Joe and nailed it. He knows what I know. That being college educated people who like having their own health care and who aren’t currently members of the Communist Party are going to vote their own economic situation given these Dem candidates even with our democracy and constitution being diminished every day by Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.

If I had to vote for a ticket of the remaining Dems left standing at this debate it would be a Biden-Booker ticket. Moderate independents, you know—the ones who will decide this election are not going to go for a ticket of progressives regardless of how bad Donald Trump is.

In 1992 when Bill Clinton was smarter than his wife and had James Carvell instead of Robbie Mook running his campaign–they understood the landscape. It’s the economy—STUPID. And it always will be. People vote their economy even when the corrupt incumbent has Vlad Putin as his running mate.

How ironic…both the Dems and the GOP are running Communists for the Oval Office in 2020.

In 1992—two things saved Bill Clinton’s ass…those being an economic recession and Ross Perot having a Texas hardon for Bush 41.

So as I see it these Dems left standing need a mini-economic depression and some one like Ross Perot joining the race and draining votes from the Putin-Trump-McConnell ticket.

I have no idea who this person could be at the given moment. You have to think who the Trump base might find intriguing. Maybe Chip and Joanna Gaines could be available. That was sarcasm…kind of.

Obviously…no one now associated with the DNC ever saw War Room.

It’s the economy—stupid.

It you love or hate politics this is must see.

OU Prepares for UCLA

OU is 2-0 and headed to California to play Chip Kelly’s 0-2 UCLA Bruins. I have no idea what the Vegas spread is as of Wednesday night. I would guess something like OU at -19.

Hard to tell what OU is just yet on the defensive side of the ball. On the offensive side of the ball they are once again excellent and the place kicking is somewhat suspect so far.

I don’t think we’ll really know if Alex Grinch’s defense has made impact improvement until we see them play against Texas Tech. Then we might know something.

I know this though…Texas with only three starters back on defense isn’t what they were on that side of the ball last season. People should score the ball on the Longhorns.

But in Oklahoma the story is Jalen Hurts especially after the performance of the Cleveland Browns this past Sunday.

I love listening to Jalen’s pressers. He’s ten years younger than Russell Westbrook and acts twenty years older maturity wise. I can tell Tramel loves these pressers as well. Good for him to be around an athlete this season not acting like a child.

Here’s Jalen after OU’s 70-14 win over South Dakota last Saturday in Norman.