Month: November 2017

Well, in the end, I’m disappointed in first year head coach Lincoln Riley because I believe he took the easy way out and made a decision based on national optics and overreaction versus what actually happened on Saturday in Lawrence, Kansas.

At today’s weekly presser, Coach Riley announced Baker Mayfield will not start against West Virginia and will be relieved of being a team captain. I find this interesting because Lincoln Riley in reality is the head coach at the University of Oklahoma because Baker Mayfield has been the engine which turned the OU football program around three years ago when he left Texas Tech as a freshman walk-on to compete for the starting job in Norman in what turned out to be Lincoln Riley’s first year as offensive coordinator.

The first rule of coaching never changes despite what some might want to think:
Rule # 1 … Players make the coach. Period.

When Baker Mayfield walked on at OU the Sooners were a mess. The team had just come off an 8-5 season in which they lost a Bedlam game because Bob Stoops repunted to current Kansas Chief Tyreke Hill and blew a game they never should have lost. The team then went to something called the Russell Athletic Bowl and virtually quit in the first period in getting blown out by Clemson the year before Clemson became a national power.

But Mayfield and Riley joined the team the next year and it was magic. Year 1… a Big 12 Championship and an appearance in the College Football Final Four, last year… a 2nd straight Big 12 Championship and an easy Sugar Bowl win over Auburn, this year so far a No. 3 ranking and the inside track to a second College Football Final Four appearance.

One could say Lincoln Riley melded Baker Mayfield into the leading Heisman candidate heading into Thanksgiving, but one could also say Baker Mayfield made Lincoln Riley into a viable candidate to succeed Bob Stoops for his first head coaching job at the DI level… let alone at a blueblood program like OU where seven national championships are in the trophy case.

I thought Lincoln Riley would have Baker Mayfield’s back a little more than this. I mean, if the game officials had done their jobs correctly and ejected Hassan Defence for the obvious targeting hit… would we even be having this conversation?

And my answer is no. If that play had been called correctly I don’t think we’re having this discussion.

So Baker Mayfield crossed an imaginary line which Donald Trump crosses every morning on his Twitter account unscathed, but for Mayfield he’ll now be demoted on Senior Day at a football school which he was instrumental in restoring to greatness these past three years.

Mayfield said he crossed the line at his presser on Monday and is taking responsibility for his actions which is good. I’m a Baker Mayfield fan either way because like I said this line or the planting of the flag weren’t really that much of a line for me.The deal in Arkansas was a line, these weren’t serious lines. I didn’t always like Mayfield, but he won me over with his love for the game and fearless manner in which he plays the game. I’m a passion guy, I want to see the passion and Baker Mayfield has always brought the passion and restored the swagger to the OU program.

In closing, I’ll write this, if you’ve attended an OU football game these past three years you’ve known one thing for certain, that being, Baker Mayfield would bring his A game and give the fans something for their time and money. And, in the end, whether he crossed a real line or an imaginary politically correct line…I’m a Baker Mayfield fan and sad that his Senior Day won’t be honoring the greatest quarterback in OU football history the way it should be honored.

Here’s the end of Lincoln Riley’s press conference on Tuesday.

The Baker Mayfield Story so far.

If you answered yes then I’m hopeful you would suspend the sitting POTUS as well.

I’m not encouraging crotch grabbing and fuck yous to other players on other sidelines, but it’s what we are, who we’ve become, and quite honestly 82% of the Christian Coalition said all of this was okay in our recent presidential election.
Evidently, effective marginal tax rates trump (pun intended) The Golden Rule and Psalm 23… so when did I need to become a moral guardian.

In the heat of battle after being targeted near his head, Baker Mayfield at the age of 22 lost his composure, grabbed his crotch, and said fuck you to the state of Kansas. Not exactly choirboy stuff and bordering on the Johnny Manziel bad side of midnight, but this is exactly what America says they are right now. That being, a country with no moral bar whatsoever separating right from wrong.

If it’s okay for Caligula at the age of 70 to grab handfuls of pussy, belittle Marco Rubio’s dick, brag about seeing Miss Universe contestants half naked, disparage handicapped people, troll Gold Star families, and share with us the thought some Nazis are really nice people–so I’m kinda sitting here asking myself… does it really matter that a college football player is acting as boorish as the sitting prez? And the answer is no, fuck it.

So what I’d say to Baker is no prob, bud. There are no consequences for our behavior in America circa 2017. None. See Sodom, see Gomorraah, see Nero tip toeing through the flames.

Caligula set the bar and it currently resides three feet underground.

You just followed the president’s lead.

Play on, bruh. Play on.

It’s fairly clear what KU coach David Beatie told his team prior to kick-off yesterday,that being, “get Baker Mayfield ejected.” And to be honest, Kansas is truly a horrific football team and with Mayfield on the field they had a zero chance of winning this game. From the poser bogus antics during the coin toss to the dirty play administered by punkboy No. 13 Hassan Defence, this was a clinic in gooning up a football game like inferior teams do in hockey. The only thing missing from Beatie’s arsenal yesterday was the Hansen Brothers.

OU has to learn from this and move on. Baker Mayfield has to know he can’t get ejected or suspended moving forward. It cannot happen.

My favorite hockey scene other than the locker room scene from ‘Miracle’.

OU improved to 10-1 this afternoon with a relatively easy 41-3 win over the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence. Baker Mayfield threw for three TDS, grabbed his crotch, and told the opposing bench to fuck off after not shaking his hand in pre-game, and then targeting him with a cheap hit late in the first half once they got behind 21-3. Normally, I wouldn’t condone the crotch grab and subsequent fuck yous to the other bench, but given what the Kansas players did I feel like Mayfield was ‘somewhat’ justified.

On the ESPN video below, former Alabama QB Greg McElroy goes off on Baker Mayfield. Now, I’m almost certain McElroy being a white male from Alabama probably almost certainly voted for Caligula for POTUS. So, in essence, it’s okay to disparage a handicapped person, to disparage TWO Gold Star families, and pretty much let it be know to women everywhere that it’s okay to grab a handful of pussy whenever.

So, I have to be honest with you, I’m laughing my ass at Greg McElroy for his serious concerns about the effect Baker Mayfield is having on the youth of America.. Seriously….laughing my ass off.

Here’s Baker on the Dan Patrick Show earlier this week. Little did Dan know Baker would be grabbing his crotch and telling the now 1-10 Kansas bench to fuck off after they cheap shotted him.

For the fifth time this young basketball season, OKC’s Thunder blew a double digit lead in losing to the San Antonio Spurs by a 104-101 count. At one point in the second period the Thunder led 43-20, but you could see Gregg Popovich getting on both his players and the zebras and you knew in your heart the 23 point lead was Fool’s Gold.

As in previous blown lead losses, it was evident this lead wouldn’t hold and slowly but surely the Spurs even led by as many as six in the fourth period before OKC made a couple of late attempts to pull out a road win, but when Carmelo’s made basket with 5.6 seconds left was ruled a two instead of a three the loss was sealed.

Let’s be clear, OKC is in the midst of a tough stretch of basketball on the immediate horizon. It goes at New Orleans, then Golden State and Detroit at home the next week of play. This OKC team needs to start winning some games against teams other than bottom feeders. Fifteen games in and OKC’s best win to date was back on Halloween when they beat Milwaukee.

7-8 isn’t what most thought this Thunder team would be fifteen games in. I was thinking 9-6ish or maybe 10-5, but I didn’t think it would still be this awkward 15 games in. The role players seem okay, the stars not as much.

To me, the main problem in this game was Russell Westbrook and Paul George were a collective 11-38 shooting from the field. Westbrook was 5-22, Paul was 6-16. I don’t think you have to be John Wooden to realize that when your top two players go 11-38 from the field it’s going to be tough winning on the road against a playoff caliber team.

So for me…that’s the storyline here…Westbrook and Paul George stunk shooting the basketball.

Carmelo, Steven Adams, Jerami Grant, Abrines, Felton, and Patterson all had decent shooting nights, but when your two Biggest Dogs can’t get off the porch and don’t have any bite it’s hard to win.

To me, the game changed when Popovich went ape shit crazy and read his team the riot act for the way they were playing early. To date, I’ve never seen Billy Donovan do that once in public view as the Thunder coach. You can only argue with the refs so much at some point, at the other point you have too look your stars in the eye and tell them to step up.

The Thunder drop to 7-8 and are now 0-6 in close games, 2-6 on the road—and still the biggest disappointment in the league fifteen games in.

OKC hits the road Monday night to face a team familiar with underachievement as they visit the sometimes dysfunctional New Orleans Pelicans. With Golden State and Detroit sandwiched around Thanksgiving it would be wise for the Thunder to win in New Orleans.

Kevin Durant and Reggie Jackson both in a three day span. This could be interesting.

How much more would Popovich get out of Westbrook? Could they co-exist? I know this, they both agree on Caligula Trump. Wouldn’t it be interesting.

Granted, it’s only Week 5 and our Thunder have 68 games remaining on the regular season slate, but the storyline so far this season isn’t the Super Team assembled in Oklahoma City, rather it’s the Boston Celtics 14 game winning streak.

On Thursday night, the Celtics beat the Warriors by holding the Warriors to 88 points. They didn’t outscore the Warriors, they suffocated them by holding Curry, Thompson, and Durant to subpar nights.

So…the Celtics without Gordon Hayward now not only lead the East, but have the best record in all of the NBA and have this season’s top storyline to date.

Brad Stevens is on course to win Coach of the Year, Kyrie Irving is on the inside track to win MVP, and Jason Tatum is on track to contend for Rookie of the Year honors.

When Danny Ainge hired Brad Stevens with that long contract to lure Stevens from Butler you had the feeling it was only a matter of time. There are only a couple of what I would describe as acute difference makers as head coaches in the NBA currently. Popovich was one. Steve Kerr might be one, but the argument there could be made the Warriors won just as much with Luke Walton and Mike Brown. And now Brad Stevens has emerged as possibly the guy who at Boston should emerge as the next great coach in the NBA.

When Durant made his decision to leave Oklahoma City, I actually thought Boston had a very good chance of landing him because of Stevens. But in the end, Durant and his entourage took the easier path. As a basketball fan…I’m tired of seeing LeBron James in the NBA Finals. Hopefully, this Celtics team is the beginning of a new era in the Eastern Conference.

Sure, it’s early and the Chuckster says no way the Celtics beat LeBron four times in a two week span, but at least there’s hope on the horizon some change might be in store in the East.

The power of positive coaching with Brad Stevens.

With Steven Adams missing his third straight game with a calf contusion, the OKC Thunder went about taking care of business with a 92-79 win over a punchless Chicago Bull team. OKC came out fast hitting the Bulls in the mouth and when the period ended OKC led 27-7. Game pretty much over.

It was an ugly game to watch for the most part. Both teams shot poorly from the field, but OKC is simply the better team.

Paul George struggled shooting the ball on this night after two performances which were Durantesque to the core. Carmelo Anthony returned to the lineup and had a decent game. But on this night the two players who led the Thunder with their overall court energy were Russell Westbrook and Jerami Grant.

Westbrook was fantastic supplying energy with steals, dunks, and chest pumps. It was one of those Bad Little Dude nights when you just kind of sit back and realize what a unique athlete Russell Westbrook truly is. It’s what you expect from the reigning league MVP….leading by example and doing whatever it takes to get his team a win.

I thought Jerami Grant was superb as well. Jerami played 34 minutes and continued his excellent play this season. He does a multitude of things to help this team and his overall game is evolving every night right in front of our eyes. Moving forward—Jerami Grant will be a very big piece of this OKC Thunder team.

The bench played pretty well as Felton, Patterson, Huestis, and Abrines all chipped in with nice nights.

Josh Huestis has been a pleasant surprise for me. He does some nice things out there. You can see some things in his game coming together.

So the bottomline is OKC has righted the ship from 4-7 to get back to 7-7 with three straight wins over three teams under .500 themselves. Three straight wins since the loss at Denver and the subsequent discussion amongst the stars in the aftermath of the Nuggets loss.

You get the feeling the Thunder are feeling more comfortable with themselves and ready to start beating some playoff caliber teams.

The Thunder will have a chance to begin this trend of beating playoff caliber teams when they visit the Spurs on Friday night. On the road, the Thunder are 2-5 and overall against playoff level teams in the West…1-3 so far this young season.

It’s time for the Thunder to start winning some games against good teams.

I’ve seen two wrestling movies in my life and both were excellent. Mickey Rourke won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The Wrestler and it was a film which was my favorite movie the year it was released.

Last week–I watched the ESPN 30/30 film Nature Boy and it floored me. I know nothing per se about pro wrestling, but the movie featured the life of Ric Flair whom many consider to be the pioneer of professional wrestling. The film is a wonderful biography of his life.

It’s a beautifully done film which gives the viewer an insight into the life of Ric Flair the Nature Boy.

There are parts of the film which are tough in regards to the death of Flair’s son Reid, but through it all Flair is a very interesting dude to listen to as he chronicles his life through the course of the film.

Like I said, I’m not a pro wrestling fan, but from the opening of this film, I found myself not being able to not like Ric Flair. I grew up in a family in a constant wave of dysfunction—so maybe that was a large part of it. But as the movie moved along, his story fascinated me and in the end touched me. And in the end, that’s what as a reader or a viewer you want a story to do to you internally.

So… I now understand the whole Ric Flair story and I find myself flexing and doing wrestling poses at the diva lab Pauli while shouting…”I’m Nature Boy and you don’t want any part of me…..Woooo!” Of course, Pauli looks at me and gives me this WTF sigh expression which says…’Please, Mike, this isn’t in our arrangement’.

But still, I can see why it was so fun being the Nature Boy.

If you get the chance, be sure and watch the film.

You know, here’s the thing, historically the Civil War never ended. The atrocities in some instances even worsened during Reconstruction and beyond in the South. Of course, you shouldn’t stereotype, but as I’ve stated ad nauseum on here there’s a swath of southern states which have never really moved beyond the Civil War culturally.

Parts of the South are idyllic. There is a regional ambience which is charming. I married an Auburn girl.My mother is as good a Southern cook as you’ll find. My favorite novelist is John Grisham, an Ole Miss grad. My favorite Anthony Bourdain episode was the one featuring Sean Beck in South Carolina. Melbourne, Florida may ultimately be where my wife and I hide from the world at some point.

But, I mean, Jesus fucking Christ…Alabama you have to be better than this. This is so mind numbingly stupid I thought long and hard before even entering it on my blog.

I mean, for those white men in Alabama who are defending Roy Moore, you have to at some point ask yourself why he was removed from the Alabama State Supreme Court…twice. Ask yourself why even Caligula Trump couldn’t even endorse Roy Moore. Ask yourself why our Groper in Chief endorsed Luther Strange in the runoff. Ask yourself why the POTUS who once said I just grab them by the pussy because I can isn’t on board with you on this one. You might want to ask yourself a few of these questions because quite frankly Alabama…you look incredibly fucking stupid right now. And, keep in mind, I live in Oklahoma, which isn’t ever going to be the mensa magnet of the world, but you guys really look stupid.