The Hybrid: Sparty Off

By Bobby Loesch on November 11, 2021 at 12:00 pm @bobbystompy
MS-Who?
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The Hybrid is a weekly Big Ten football preview, plus relevant or whimsy games from the national slate

Brain is barely in football mode right now, which means the intro gets the axe.

The Hybrid

"Words are the first step on the road to deeds."

Friday Night Lights

Cincinnati (5) at South Florida:

Maine South (6-seed) at Neuqua Valley (3-seed): The boys defeated Palatine by a 31-8 margin last week and really seem to be peaking* in a season where they've generally played excellent in every game already. QB Mark Mennecke threw and rushed for 2 TDs each; my fav play:

(* - 91-13 scoring margin in the first two rounds of the playoffs)

We have one common opponent with Maine South (Palatine ironically beat them by one point earlier this year), which ups the confidence; as does being at home. This is only the third quarterfinals appearance in school history, and a win here would guarantee a tie for best ever finish to a season, even if we lose in the semis.

Saturday

New Mexico State at Alabama (2): The exclamation point gives it real work email energy.

Michigan (6) at Penn State: Sparty losing last week really opened up everything again 'control your own destiny'-wise.

So the question becomes: is the backbreaking loss coming before Ohio State or to Ohio State? Fun times! Work emails!

Oklahoma (8) at Baylor (13): Have nothing to say about this game, so here is a cool play from the Jacks.

Northwestern at Wisconsin (18): Wildcard round of our Big Ten only college fantasy football league is this weekend. My tOSU manager and I are a 3-seed, so we just missed out on a bye. Also not ideal: losing Michigan RB Blake Corum to an injury last week... and having our only defense (Nebraska, lol) on bye.

Still, we do have CJ Stroud, Hassan Haskins, and new potential stud Sconnie RB Braelon Allen in the starting lineup, so if we go down, we go down with firepower.

* * *

Rutgers at Indiana: Geez, Rutgers.

That was a vintage Rutgers, Rutgers. Here I was thinking Wisconsin couldn't crack 50+ even without an opposing defense to challenge them.

Georgia (1) at Tennessee: Eh.

Purdue at Ohio State (5): Purdue, you've given us so much. Yet... we need more still.

Look at these cool ass plays:

And I am alllll the way there:

Minnesota at Iowa (20): Watched Iowa-Northwestern with a bunch of my Hawkeye buddies from college, and Petras leaving the game got more of us off the couch than any actual football play did. Obviously, we did not know about the injury situation, and that changes the complexion of a) how we celebrated, and b) any future KF decision about QB1 going forward. My gut says Petras will still be the guy when healthy.

...

that padilla performance though

Unrelated: is this as likable as KF has been since that one New Kirk season?

Source material:

So yeah, the players will always be cooler.

* * *

Hi, Minnesota!

USC at California: Believe it or not, I will be at this game (haha). My cousin is in her first year of grad school at Berkeley, so we are gonna head out there this weekend. Also potentially on the docket: Alcatraz tour, showing the youngins "Scream," Malort (ohhhh yes, we are bringing a bottle), and the 17-Mile Drive, which has long been on my bucket list.

(UPDATE: Game postponed.)

Maryland at Michigan State (7): Ohhhh, Sparty. When I said you'd fall last week, I didn't mean immediately.

/thinks more

Eh, I kinda did.

But. I'm ready to ride for my Green and White peeps, because M being above MSU in the always dumb midseason CFP rankings is, well, dumb.

Comedy, please save us.

Hahaha.

buhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

South Carolina at Missouri:

Arizona at Washington: Speaking of schadenfreude...

hahahahaha

More updates from my best friends:

NC State (16) at Wake Forest (12): /me finding out about the Wake Forest loss last week long after it happened

Notre Dame (9) at Virginia: Not today, no. But on the subject of rivals, thought y'all would like this one:

Washington State at Oregon (3): Someone outlined Wazzu's still alive path to the Pac-12 title game, and... gotta tell ya, that was definitely something.

The Mini Hyball

Don't even know where to start with my takes on Iowa men's basketball going into the post-Garza era. To put some numbers on it:

1) Wooo, Connor to the bench

2) Booo, J-Bo not leaving

3) Keegan Murray is the coolest player I've seen in my 17 years following Iowa hoops; the only other name I've heard to contest this is Doug Thomas, but if he didn't start -- and I can't remember if he did -- we are voiding that

4) And, possibly my hottest take of all: this team will go further than they did last year

/runs out of the building and shuts the lights off so it's harder for you to get out

5) Also, my fav CFB tweet from this week.

Runner up:

Nowhere near runner up:

Undecided:

The Jag Bag

Checking in on a Buffalo Bills reporter...

Wrapping It Up...

This is my favorite football thing to happen in the last eight days or so. Some of your best friends in the world still might 'block' for you like that.

Cheers.

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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