BID FAILS TO LAND NEW TEAM MEMBER
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP)…Mere-days before his stay at Jerry Jones’ luxury-digs, the newly-anointed Dallas Cowboys’ head-guy, Mike McCarthy, spent a night at the modest personal-residence of the Vegas Vindicator, who was vying for the loyalty of the well-known coach to his 2020 Pre-Season Forecasting Strategy Team. The famous-forecaster pulled-out all the stops, showing his hoped-for recruit a snowy-cabin at Mt. Charleston, a tandem bungi-jump from atop the Strat, Elvis-impersonators, and even a venture on the Slot-Receiver-Zilla zip-line in Downtown Vegas, before returning to Chez Vindy for a hearty-meal of chicken-flavored Ramen ahead of some hot-chocolate and a game of Monopoly: The Wayne Newton Edition. With Vindicator, donning his Frozen Too pajamas, the outing ultimately-ended in McCarthy anxiously-crashing on the sofa in the “man-cave” while Vindicator cuddled with his Carrot-Top plush-doll!
Half-a-century after being scribed, a message was found in a bottle off the coast of Canberra, Australia in July 2019. Turns out it was a precursor to...
THE WEBER KID’S 2019-20 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP PREDICTION
(Being perpetually-stopped-short on 4th-and-goal from the Twilight End-Zone!)
MON. JAN. 13
CFP NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME PRESENTED BY AT&T (@ New Orleans, LA)
#1 Louisiana State (-6) over #3 Clemson: Be advised...we’ve made incorrect-calls on the title-game back-to-back (taking “under” da’ total on both occasions) after correctly-predicting ‘Bama-Clemson “over 50 ½” in 2017). Honestly, Weeziana State looks unstoppable. Granted, Sooners played as little-defense as most other B12 squads, but LSU QB Burrow and his receivers made Oklahoma look like something closer to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (with all-apologies to da’ Golden Norsemen). He was spot-on throwing and his receivers made some seriously-nice catches in the rout. Admittedly, Spooner-penalties and some officiating-blunders helped. Clemson recovered from being 16-points-in-da'-red to win and cover. Buckeyes might have a beef for lost-TD, but water-under-da'-bridge at this point! Looking at statistical-comparisons, not a lot of significant-differences until we get to 1) opponent outright win-loss records...Bengals’ foes tallied 76-66 (ten-games over .500, .535 overall, six teams over .500, five with eight or more victories). CU squared-off vs. cumulative 65-76 (eleven-contests below .500, .458 overall, four teams over .500, exactly two-clubs with eight-wins). Clemson leads the nation at stonewall-worthy 10.6 ppg-allowed. State yielded nearly 11-ppg-more at 21.2 (though bottom fell outta’ that number to 15 ppg over last three games). Tigers prevent ground-games at 106.2 ypg, but that may be deceptive considering only two-victories by less than 17 or fewer. The real-measure will be CU’s pass-D at138.5 yards per contest vs. Burrow, who’s tossin’ fer damn-near 400 yards-per-game. LSU gave-up 20 aerial-scores and grabbed 17 INT. Clemson ceded just 8 passing-TDS vs. 17 picks, but let’s face it, it sat dead-red on throws up-big early! Venue likely puts more Bengals’-backers in the stands at the Superdome than Clemson-fans. CU ain’t takin’ da’ gridiron vs. opponent from the Also-Competed Conference. Clemson has now dodged a bullet twice with Buckeyes missing-out on controversial-TD in 6-point-loss. Burrow and his wide-outs won’t be shooting fish-in-a-barrel this time... nonetheless, we think asking less-than-a-touchdown is reasonable...LSU 41 Clemson 31
2019-20 BOWL RECAP
We never established any traction in what was basically a rugby-scrum between us and da’ bookies throughout Parts I & II, culminating in a 5-5 preferred-picks tally and our “best bets” for that period were anything-but at 1-5 (.167) didn’t improve much ongoing (see Between Da’ Hashmarks below). Part III, however, in particular Cincinnati’s cover (-7 ½), secured a minimum .500 on the bowl-campaign with two contests to be decided and resulted in a 4-1 record and cumulative-not-too-shabby 9-6 (.600)! Looking at conference-performance (or ”performance”) of-note...the Mountain Jest won 4 of 7 outright and beat the line in 5 of those 7. Conversely, the Big Twelve was essentially a no-show, going 1-5 SU/ATS. The lines-makers were once-again on-fleek. Chalk covered 21 of the 39 played thus-far, and 21 of those tilts went “under” the total. ‘Dogs who won ATS were also-victorious straight-up in 10 of the 18 (.556).
BETWEEN THE HASHMARKS
BTW, McCarthy, when pressed fer what he took-away from his “thorough-review” of Vindicator’s weekly-analysis, would later cop to the mistruth he told the Weber Kid that he’d “read every 2019 blog-post fer Vindy’s Picks”, conceding “Um...no...I hadn’t done that. I said I did because, “at the time, I was still interested in the position.”
In early December, Burrow asserted “...we’ll play anybody, anywhere...you can take us to Canada, and we’ll play on a gravel-lot". This just in...two weeks after the National Championship game, the Tigers will face the defending-CFL-champion Winnepeg Blue-Bombers...in Manitoba...on specified-rocky-surface!
Is it just us or does Jambalaya Joe resemble Criminal Minds-regular Dr. Spencer Reid?! Change the hairstyle a bit and...boom...local Las Vegas-product Matthew Gray-Gubler!
If the aforementioned-quarterback was to inexplicably-fall into the hands of the New England Patriots on Draft-Day, would he be forever known as “Joe Foxborough”???!!!
Nick Saban’s recent-appearance with a duck in an insurance-company's ad leads us to utter... ”Alabamaffflaaaaac!”
The Minnesota Golden Gophers coach PJ Fleck has emphasized the mantra “Row Da’ Boat”. Minny played the Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Following the team’s victory, staffers have commandeered the Buccs’ vessel and are sailing-home...up the Atlantic Coast into the Great Lakes, eventually-docking in Minneapolis!
In related news, if Fleck was at the helm fer Louisiana State, would said-motivational-chant be “Reaux Da’ Beuaxt”???!!!
Has anyone else noticed that the Rose Bowl, known as the “Granddaddy of Them All”, ie. GOTA, is just one dyslexic-moment-away from the...GOAT???!!!!
BTW, Outback offered to give-away free Bloomin’-Onions if the SEC club, Auburn, won its namesake bowl...coconut-chips if the B10-contestant was victorious. Because coconuts are abundant in the nation’s “bread-basket”!!!!???!!!
Congrats to the Liberty Flames who won (and covered) their bowl-game in their first season of FBS-eligibility. Fightin’ Falwells are enjoying a nice campaign on the hardwood at 16-1. Likewise, we salute the Alma Mater’s hoops-squad, showing 12-3 SU to-date.
No word yet if a film-crew vetted-by New England will shoot covert-video of the Cincinnati war-room in April to help the Pats gain an unacknowledged-advantage during the NFL Draft!
If Tyrion Lannister meets Tennessee’s NFL-team, would he hear a reference to “the God of Titans and wine”???!!! GoT-fans will know that reference!
On New Year’s Day, SyFy ran its annual “Twilight End-Zone" marathon!
Also hitting the small-screen...a reboot of “Party of Five-Yard Penalty”!
At the theatre...Da’ Rock returns to his gridiron days in...”Jumanji: The Next Level-Da-'Playing Field!”
Takin’ some liberties with a quote by Martin Luther King, the historical-figure-in-question being recognized this month, we propose...”A measure of a man is not where he picks, but how he picks.”
Vindy drew rave-reviews for donning a pair of Vera Wang cleats and matching-uni at the recent 2020 Golden Globes Awards! And with Ricky Gervais making it clear he would not do so again, our odious-oracle was invited to host next year’s gala event!
Shakira will be one of two performers doin’ the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Can‘t wait to hear belt-out “Hip-Checks Don’t Lie” and “Underneath Yer Clothesline-Tackle”!
(We actually have some other stuff that are more-generic, so we’ll keep em’ fer next year!)
Black Shirt: Part III’s colossal-cloth goes to Middies’ K Bijan Nichols fer 23-yard-chippie-FG with :02 left to bring-home our Best Bet of Navy –2 ½ over Kansas State! Honorable-mention to UL-Lafayette head coach Billy Napier for letting his Ragin’ Cajuns just run out the clock, up by 10 with two-minutes to play and already deep in Miami-O territory. (And a tip-da'-hemet to Georgia DB Richard LeCounte for snagging two picks vs. Baylor in the waning-moments, keeping the Bears at-bay enuff to allow the ‘Dawgs’-cover.)
Vindy’s Bowl Predictions Part III Best Bets: 2-2 Bowl Season: 3-7 (.300) Season: 32-27 (.561)
LEFTOVER HASH (Yes, we know that’s redundant. Vindicator now conducts the yearly “emptying of the arsenal” and expends all the stuff he had at his disposal throughout the season that didn’t previously-find its way into the forecast...until now.) In no particular order...
In May, “huge fan” Nick Saban predicted the end of Game of Thrones, calling “Jon Snow is going to wiggle his way in there (to sit the Iron Throne)”. Nice try, Coach. Meanwhile, Vin erroneously took Arya Stark +3 kingdoms. St. Nick went on to quip, “We’d go North and try to recruit some of those guys (White Walkers).” Your prestigious prognosticator, however, got (GoT?!) da’ last laugh, signing some Free-Folk giants and a couple five-star-prospect Thenns, garnering a higher-ranked 2019-recruiting class than the Tide! Hello...are ya’ listening, Big Ten???!! UAB would, at minimum, recruit dragons and da’ Red Witch!
If said-fantasy/drama-series meets football...Vindicator stands-behind Jon Snow...the King of Da' North Carolina...uh...Northern Illinois...er...Northeastern???!!!!
If a certain episode of Game of Thrones had been filmed in Happy Valley, would we have heard..."A Nittany Lion doesn't concern itself with the opinions of the sheep"???!!!
Come to think of it...reading the online Penn State Alumni News, Vindy noticed the headline...“Alumni Association Launches Alumni Plaza”. We initially saw that as “Alumni Pizza”!
Little-known fact fer appropriate-fans...Vindy was Best-Man at the real-life June-wedding of Kit Harrington (AKA Jon Snow) and Rose Leslie (AKA Ygritte)!
Last Spring, Rocky Top professor Molly McCanta was in the midst of a three-year study of previously-unopened moon rocks acquired decades ago. In related news, she will also provide analysis of Volunteers playbooks, written but unused from that same timeframe!
Similarly, a couple of months later, a Rocky Mountain State collaborative discovered 900-year-old inscriptions at some ruins in New Mexico and will try to make some sense of the X’s and O’s left by Lobos coaches that long-ago!
At one-point in the season, the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks busted-out a trick-play and lined-up in the fidget-spinner formation, protecting the ball-carrier in the center while teammates evolved around him, much like a buzz-saw cuts through trees. The play was a major-success, but was called back as the team flagged for illegal procedure/formation for not enough spinners on the line-of-scrimmage!
A judge ruled against Georgia, noting it has to phase-out paperless voting machines by 2020. AP and Coaches Poll-voters from the Peach State immediately filed a formal-complaint!
Prior to the start of Super Bowl 53, Sam Adams honored Tom Brady with a brewski called “Too Old, Too Slow, Still Here.” Patriots officials have adamantly-denied rumors that the carbonation of the beer was intentionally-deflated to make the bottles easier to grasp!
Bruce Willis was booed by the crowd after horrible first-pitch at Phillies’ game in May. Undaunted, Will turned to the stands and reprised a famous-line from “Die Hard”, stating “Yippee-ki-yay, Mutha-F**ka'.”
Had Tyrion Lannister met Tennessee’s NFL-squad, would we have heard a reference to da’ “Gods of Titans and Wine”???!!!
If a summer-blockbuster Marvel Comics-flick meets football meets a popular HBO series in...”Avengers: Tight-End-Game of Thrones”
In May 19, Vindy caught a headline asking “Is Carolina’s Flex-Friday just a way to show Cam is still in shape?” Said-media source’s journalist-piece is inquiring if Vindy’s “Flax-Friday” is merely a publicity-stunt showin’-off your narrator’s Howdy-Doody physique!!!!
That same month, Adam “Pac-Man” Jones ended a career following 14 seasons. Our response...”Wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka!”
July 20, 2019 marked the 50th-anniversary of Apollo 11 moon-landing! “One Euro-step for Man-to-man coverage, one giant-leap-year fer Mankind!”
And finally...as we head-off to replace Taylor Swift’s character in a sequel to the big-screen version of “Cats”, we leave the loyal-readership with our annual Irish blessing...”May da’ road-’dog rise up to beat you.” (Sumthin’ like that!)
Until next August...Air Forecast One has gone wheels-up!