The Hybrid: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

By Bobby Loesch on October 7, 2021 at 12:00 pm @bobbystompy
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The Hybrid is a weekly Big Ten football preview, plus relevant or whimsy games from the national slate

Before we get started, it needs to be made very clear I do not like to tear people down.

Most people.

Celebrities included. I try to lead with love; give the benefit of the doubt. I always think "Would I say what I'm typing here to that person's face?" If the answer is no, it always gets modified.

I believe your problems are your problems, and everybody has problems, regardless of circumstance.

This... this isn't any of that.

To pull back a little bit, what a great god damned weekend. Urban took a last minute L on Thursday. My high school alma mater moved to 6-0 as Iowa simultaneously thrashed Maryland on Friday. Michigan took out Wisconsin on Saturday, Notre Dame lost, and, though I love me some Oregon, the comedy of losing to David Shaw was real.

It really felt like one of those stretches where literally everything breaks your way. Even the losses bounce right off; I took a $50 hit on a Michigan-Sconnie O/U under bet -- but only because the play that pushed it over was vaunted QB2 JJ McCarthy completing a cool-ass deep pass for an exclamation point TD; it's like getting fired then being handed a winning lotto ticket as severance.

Then, later that night, a boulder sized cherry on top of the sundae:

OHHHHHHHHHH BOY. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Obviously, "rich dickhead might be unfaithful to wife" isn't the most salacious news to ever hit the stands, but has it ever happened at his own restaurant while she tweeted through it?

"But that was earlier in the night, surely she stopp--"
"Don't call me Shirley."

My head is spinning. You want to feel bad for her, but then you see the M crossed out and this as her Twitter bio:

Faith, Family, Football (learned it from Timmy Tebow) and my other favorites are spinning, laughing, and twitter.

As my idol Jesse Michaels once sung, "There are no heroes in the room."

Obviously all of this was the best on its own, and I could've coasted on it for years, but then we got the presser (please watch all or stop reading this column).

I love him. I love him like you love the political pundit you hate most for being so talented at spewing toxic sludge. There is no basis for actual respect, yet... god damn, there is some sort of warmth you feel within the hurricane of consternation.

In many ways, Urban Meyer represents a lot of what's wrong with America. He's been a pud nearly everywhere he's gone, faced no ramifications, and continued to ascend. His only conviction is self-aggrandizement wrapped in moral bankruptcy.

Like probably the majority of you, I was actually pretty excited when he got the Jags job -- even creating The Jag Bag to track his weekly jag baggery -- solely due to the absolute certainty he would fail supremely. And it never once wavered.

While I expected said failure to manifest a) on the field...

and b) in the "act like he's a doctor trying to save 100 wounded soldiers at once" pity me quotes:

and c) in the overlooked details:

I really never thought d would happen. As in HE GOT HIS D ***GRINDED ON***.

Late Saturday night, I was spiraling. But it was the rare upward spiral. Made me wanna kiss a dog.

Because where do we go from here?

That's where.

The Hybrid

“There are no rules when you're flying this high."

Thursday

Coastal Carolina (15) at Arkansas State: 

Houston at Tulane: 

Friday Night Lights

Temple at Cincinnati (5): I know it got a little close at the end, but it was pretty validating to see Cincy go into ND, take of business, and murder their season.

Charlotte at Florida International: 

Stanford at Arizona State (22): Gotta give credit where credit is due:

Also have had this moment before watching Wisconsin, but it is so spitefully beautiful to watch non-passing teams in a hurry up, frantically trying to come back. When it fails, it seems preordained. When it succeeds, it feels more like an accident.

Neuqua Valley at Waubonsie Valley: The Wildcats travel to Death Valley to play our biggest rival in a game we call the "War of 204" (school district is 204, natch). I'll spare y'all the deep dive this week and just link a sick Mikey play from eight years ago.

So much speed.

Saturday

Oklahoma (6) vs. Texas (21): Not The Game Of The Week. 

All You Need To Know

Maryland at Ohio State (7):

Michigan State (11) at Rutgers: My buddy Lebs went to MSU, won a natty playing water polo, and roots for them in college and the Washington Football Team in the pros. He's long maintained the two squads ebb and flow with each other. This week, he sent me a text which was a picture of something he wrote in Microsoft Word (?!) that laid out a case in 2021:

Continuing parallels between WFT and MSU

  • Both have young mobile QBs are who pass first and white
  • MSU played Nebraska last week in which we had lost the previous 5 or something and used a punt return TD to come back in final minutes
  • WFT played Atlanta and had lost the previous 6 games and used a kickoff return to come back in final minutes
  • Both have capable defenses playing well below capability
  •  

That's not a typo, he just left the last bullet point blank.

Arkansas (13) at Ole Miss (17): 

Defector always perfectly deploys "grim men's evening".

Vanderbilt at Florida (20): 

South Carolina at Tennessee: 

West Virginia at Baylor:

Northern Illinois at Toledo:

Akron at Bowling Green: 

Georgia Tech at Duke: 

Old Dominion at Marshall: 

Virginia at Louisville:

Georgia (2) at Auburn (18): Positive Georgia tweet.

Positive Auburn tweet.

Final take: this game is cool, and I like Auburn but prolly shouldn't; might be baseless, but I'm weirdly skill skeptical of Georgia as elite. It's probably only because Clemson stumbled and ruined their strength of schedule a little bit. I'm in if they win here.

Boise State at BYU (10): 

haha

Wake Forest (19) at Syracuse: 

SMU (24) at Navy: 

Florida Atlantic at UAB: 

Middle Tennessee at Liberty: 

Florida State at North Carolina: 

Wisconsin at Illinois: Me, if anyone says "Stop beating this Urban Meyer thing to death!"

Me, once I'm done beating this Urban Meyer thing to death.

Me, rebounding the next day to continue beating this Urban Meyer thing to death.

UConn at UMass:

Miami (OH) at Eastern Michigan:

Ball State at Western Michigan:

Central Michigan at Ohio:

San Jose State at Colorado State: 

Penn State (4) at Iowa (3): Game of the Week. But before that, we shall stunt after last Friday's party in primetime. You've all seen this stat. I do not care. Read it again:

It's not like it's Week 2, you know?

And this... this is just...

/chef's kiss

Ross met Hawkeye Elvis!

The defense did some math.

Let's count even higher.

Sheeeesh.

Even the tweets making fun of us felt good.

Even I (sort of) got what I wanted:

Sidebar: though I truly believe Petras will be who does us in, I'm not sure he shouldn't be the starter (Padilla looked a lot further behind during his garbage time snaps). The recent sample size is good, with our jam band-loving signal caller coming off his best game yet. But... I need to see so much more. I'm sorry.

* * *

OK, Penn State. People are comparing it to tOSU coming to IC in '06 or some sort of game in 1985 that probably ended with a boring field goal.

/googles solely to not get slandered in the comments

OK, seems good.

But I want this game to be its own thing. And I really think it can. I'm worried about Spencer and probably always will be, but this defense is like this lightspeed spaceship, and I keep thinking "There's no way we can keep it up at this pace," and they somehow continue to outdo themselves. I am all in on the D, I am all in on Goodson, and I am all in on this team. Picking Iowa, in which we shall Go Awesome. Let's do it.

North Texas at Missouri: 

Oregon State at Washington State:

East Carolina at UCF:

UTEP at Southern Miss:

UTSA at Western Kentucky:

TCU at Texas Tech: 

Buffalo at Kent State: 

Georgia Southern at Troy:

South Alabama at Kent State: 

Wyoming at Air Force: Reaaaally shoulda saved Urban Cowboy for this one, eh?

Michigan (9) at Nebraska:

* * *

Moar Aidan Hutchinson:

Much moar Desmond Howard:

I will be watching this game with my stepdad and his family (all Nebraska fans) after being at a bar three hours before with my Iowa buddies watching Iowa-PSU. I'm ready to walk into my parents' house like a professional wrestler if and when we hold serve in IC.

Notre Dame (14) at Virginia Tech: Eat shit, you donkeys.

LSU at Kentucky (16): 

Alabama (1) at Texas A&M:

Georgia State at UL Monroe:

Utah at USC:

New Mexico at San Diego State (25): 

Memphis at Tulsa:

If you're looking for a joke, there isn't one. Included solely to keep you on your toes.

Here is the joke:

UCLA at Arizona:

New Mexico State at Nevada:

The Jag Bag

There will be no Jag Bag this week.

Wrapping It Up...

Fresh news captivates, but it's the old classics which give us our true foundation.

Urban Meyer Pizza

/takes a bow

Bobby Loesch is a weekly contributor to Go Iowa Awesome. Follow him on Twitter @bobbystompy or email to bobbyloesch [at] gmail.com.

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