Keith Strudler

Say this for Rich Rodriguez, the previous and now new head football coach at West Virginia. He did what American Government threatened to do but couldn’t.

I apologize in advance for both the indulgence and getting in the weeds. But last weekend, I went to Ithaca, New York, to watch the Indoor Heptagonal Track and Field Championships, which ran about five hours both Saturday and Sunday in Cornell’s Barton Hall.

It’s not uncommon if you dedicate significant parts of your life to working in or talking about sports and the world feels like it’s on fire, you start wonder if you’re efforts are a bit glib, like you’re picking a new kitchen backsplash when the house just fell down.

There’s a bunch of reasons I like college sports more than professional. Some of it is the imperfection of the craft, like they still make mistakes. Some of it the number of teams and underdogs.

It’s hard to get a headline right now, with the 24/7 news dump out of Washington and the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday. But the NBA managed to get some ink, not with anything happening on the court but instead something in HR.

There are some sports records you’d rather not own. Like longest losing streak. Or most times hit by a pitch. Here’s another. Most NFL playoff game starts by a quarterback without making it to the Super Bowl. That record is held by Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills, who last Sunday lost in his 13th playoff start to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship.

At some point, sports villains do eventually become fan favorites if they persevere long enough. Fans eventually grow to respect and even adore the person who once bore their ire if they rise above the partisanship of sports fandom to the ethereal place of sports legendry.

In full disclosure, I am recording this in Los Angeles, where I’ll be through this weekend for our University’s semester in LA program, which as you can imagine, has been a bit complicated.

As they say, elections have consequences. As the new year brings a new congress and President-elect, we’re already starting to feel the impact – I suppose good or bad, depending on your politics. But like it or not, change is coming.

One of the real virtues of the NFL is that almost every game counts for something. Part of that is because almost half the teams make the playoffs. But even for those that have no shot at the postseason, late season matchups can still mean a whole lot.