Four college football thoughts on a Monday morning, as the stretch run becomes visible from a distance:
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1. Charlie Strong has his guys believing
Good things typically take some measure of time. Sometimes, the first few dates don’t go well and you have no idea she’s the one for you. “Not going well” would consist of losing by 35 to Notre Dame and 43 to TCU. After dispensing of Oklahoma and then burying Kansas State this past Saturday, 23-9, it’s clear all the grave dancing on Charlie Strong at Texas was much ado about nothing. Just watch the players. This isn’t a great Texas team in terms of talent, but Strong is doing what he’s best at doing, which is getting guys to believe. Look out, not this year, but soon.
2. Connor Cook deserves to be more in the Heisman talk than he is
The rub about the “year of the running back” is that we’ve been deluded into thinking all the quarterbacks that normally would be getting the Heisman pub don’t matter because of all this running back talent. The truth is, there are a lot of great quarterbacks, one being Cook. He was hurt in the ribs against Indiana and still threw for nearly 400 yards. Anyone who’s hurt their ribs (and I don’t know the extent of Cook’s injury) knows how much it sucks. It hurts to breathe, let alone hurl a football. Cook has been unreal all season long, buoying State once again into the improbable throng of a college football title hunt.
3. Al Golden is a good football coach, and someone needs to hire him and be very lucky
Yeah, I know, Miami lost by what feels like 150 this past weekend. Golden is gone. Truth is, he inherited a tough situation in the wake of the Nevin Shapiro mess and cleaned that joint up. In the end, it didn’t lead to enough wins, and didn’t lead to enough non-embarrassing losses, but Miami is in a better place when he leaves than when he showed up, and that’s all one can really ask of a coach.
4. Stop being offended by everything
Michigan State’s R.J. Shelton scored a touchdown this weekend and did the ole throat slash gesture to Indiana’s band, eliciting the obvious penalty because we’re offended by pretty much everything. Times were, the slash was just your garden variety celebration. Then, somewhere along the way, we decided that everything was offensive and deserved a penalty. Players should kneel down and pray that no one got hurt feelings on every touchdown every time a score happens. Wait, that’s religion. Everyone would be offended then, too …
Bonus thing
We’ve jumped the shark on being overly sensitive. If you can’t fit in one seat, you shouldn’t get two seats for the price of one simply because you’re large. What the hell are we teaching people anymore? “Do whatever you want, have whatever vise you want, and just complain about things not going your way and someone will change it on your behalf.” Or … I don’t know … eat better?
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