EAST CAROLINA
Sunday, September 3, 2023
MINNEAPOLIS - Dog days of September continue on the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, with temperatures reaching the mid-90s yesterday and expected to do the same today. The low overnight was only 75, meaning I kept the AC unit running all night long; in fact, it ran most of the day yesterday, too, except for the hours during the Michigan game, as the white noise of the machine made it hard to hear the football broadcast. This morning I’m listening to a biography of JFK on audiobook while waiting for Northwestern v. Rutgers (11:00 a.m.) to kick off a second day of the college football weekend marathon. Jack’s dad, Joe Kennedy Sr., residing in London as the U.S. Ambassador to England, sides with Neville Chamberlain and his policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany; Jack, a rising junior at Harvard, rejected his father’s views on the matter, a stance that clarified Jack was his own man, an independent thinker, by no means chained to his father’s affairs or bonded thereby.
CBS had the Rutgers v Northwestern game, so I had that channel on in the background for an hour or two before kickoff. Pregame narratives centered around the turbulent offseason in Evanston. Northwestern, who fired longtime head coach Pat Fitzgerald after hazing allegations surfaced this summer, named David Braun its head football coach in July. Commentators thought this transition gave Rutgers an edge in the contest. They predicted a rough year for the Wildcats.
Yesterday Michigan Football kicked off its 2023 campaign against East Carolina at 11:00 C.T. on Peacock. My lack of a Peacock account created an obvious predicament. At the last minute, Al sent me the login and password for a throwaway Peacock account, which I hastily typed into my Roku in time to watch the kickoff. I had planned, as a last resort, to listen to the game via Mgoblue.com's radio feature. I figured the game should be over for all intents and purposes by halftime, anyway.
The big story before the Michigan game -- and the season at large -- was Jim Harbaugh’s absence. ESPN salivated over his suspension for weeks; the College Gameday Crew covered it extensively. JJ McCarthy wore a “Free Harbaugh” shirt during pregame warmups, alluding to his coach’s three-game suspension for dubious recruiting infractions (supposedly Harbaugh bought a recruit a burger). McCarthy has the swag and the attitude, for sure; it has changed the culture. Defensive Coordinator Jesse Minter, previously an assistant under John Harbaugh in Baltimore, assumed head coaching duties for the ECU game. Michigan announced that Mike Hart and Jay Harbaugh would split head coaching duties by halves in the second game against UNLV, and Offensive Coordinator Sherrone Moore would take on those responsibilities for the third game of the season against Bowling Green. Expected to roll over its first three opponents -- cupcakes, really -- Michigan expected to have Harbaugh back in time for the meat and potatoes of the Big Ten schedule. Having won back-to-back conference championships but failed twice in the College Football Playoff, the Wolverines had their sights set on more than just the conference title this season.
“They’ve been coming here since 1927,” Mike Tirico declared as cameras panned over Main Street in Ann Arbor, then the maize-out crowd. “The Big House is full. College football Saturdays are back.” Minter’s defense took the field first after Tommy Doman kicked off to the Pirates. They forced a quick three-and-out. The ECU punter pinned Michigan at their own 2-yard line, creating a dilemma the offense failed to resolve; Michigan, too, went three-and-out on their first possession, failing even to get the ball out of the shadow of the endzone. Doman punted.
Then, on the third play of the Pirates’ second drive, a 3rd and 9 scenario for ECU, Pirates quarterback Mason Garcia misfired. The errant pass ended up in the hands of #0, Mikey Sainristil, a converted wide receiver and Michigan’s emotional leader on defense. An auspicious start for Jesse Minter’s Ravenesque defense.
Again J.J. and the offense took the field. Concern mounted as Michigan threatened to go three-and-out again, but on 3rd and 7, JJ found Roman Wilson for a sixteen-yard gain. Following a 2-yard pass on the ensuing first down, Blake Corum broke loose for a run of 23 yards to the Pirates' 15-yard line, giving Michigan their first red zone opportunity of the young season. Then on a 3rd and 9 from the 14-yard line, McCarthy found Roman Wilson in the endzone for the first points of the season. 7-0 good guys. JJ looked crisp and clean to start the game.
Michigan forced another punt on defense, then went 90 yards in seven plays for their second touchdown. A quintessential Michigan drive, it included a 20-yard pass reception by Cornelius Johnson and a 37-yard run by Corum. From the ECU 2-yard line, Sherrone Moore went to Corum, Mr. Automatic from close range. Blake punched it in for his first score (of many) of the year, making it 14-0. He had 18 touchdowns in 2022.
Later in the second quarter, the passing game opened up to my relief. On a drive that started with 9:48 left in the second quarter, JJ completed 5 out of 5 throws, including one for a touchdown, his second of the game. One ball went to Donovan Edwards for 12 yards. Another went to Cornelius Johnson for 16. Two went to tight end Colston Loveland, the rodeo sophomore from Idaho – one for 24 and one for 15. Good to see the big guy getting involved in the passing attack. And the last pass went to Roman Wilson for a 10-yard touchdown, his second of the game. That put the game pretty comfortably out of reach at 20-0, but kicker James Turner prompted worry about a potential Jake Moody hangover by missing the extra point. Impossible to replace Moody, probably the greatest kicker in Michigan history (Jay Feely is up there), but Turner responded by hitting a 50-yard field goal as time expired in the first half. Maybe there wouldn’t be a hangover, after all. It was 23-0 Wolverines at half.
The second half played out like a formality. In the 3rd quarter, McCarthy yet again connected with Roman Wilson for their third touchdown, this one a 16-yarder. “Wilson! The hat trick,” Tirico wittily mused. Wilson, who donned the iconic number 1 jersey for the first time on Saturday – having switched from number 14 before the season started – said he wanted to play a game worthy of the other great Michigan receivers to earn the jersey. That select group includes David Terrell, Braylon Edwards, Marquise Walker, and Anthony Carter. His three-touchdown performance proved he belonged among them. Michigan led 30-zip. Second-stringers started filing into the game.
On the last play of the game, East Carolina kicker Andrew Conrad booted a 33-yarder through the uprights, thereby negating the shutout. It was scrub time, and the field goal mattered not a lick, but I still wanted the shutout. No matter. Without their head coach, Michigan starts the 2023 season 1-0.
JJ McCarthy went 26-30 for 280 yards and three touchdowns in the game, posting a solid passer rating of 95.9. His performance might have been worthy of some early Heisman Trophy hype had it not been overshadowed by a simultaneous performance by Shedeur Sanders, quarterback of the Colorado Buffaloes and the son of head coach Deion Sanders. Deion Sanders, who took over the helm at Boulder in the offseason and brought son Shedeur with him, created waves in the college football world by implementing an unprecedented roster overhaul in the offseason. In total, Deion brought in over 50 players from the transfer portal to join the new-look Buffs. The old-fashioned among the sports media scoffed. Without having coached a single game, Deion had brought intrigue back to Boulder, Colorado for the first time in two decades. The eyes of the college football world were thus on Fort Worth for Colorado’s road opener against the Horned Frogs of TCU. I switched to this game, televised on FOX as part of the network’s Big Noon Kickoff show, when Michigan went up 30-0 in the third quarter. It turned out to be the game of the day from a competitive standpoint, with the Frogs and Buffs battling back and forth in a shootout.
It looked like another one of TCU’s patented thrillers from a year ago, when they danced like Cinderella all the way to the National Championship Game, but this time they did not have quarterback Max Dugan. More importantly, Colorado had Shedeur Sanders, whose fourth down, 46-yard touchdown pass with less than two minutes left in regulation put the Buffaloes ahead for good. Shedeur amassed more than 500(!) yards passing and accounted for five passing touchdowns, both school records. Instantly he shot up the way-too-early Heisman Leaderboard as a dark horse.
“Do you believe now?” Coach Prime said emphatically in the post-game presser. The Buffs are here.
All that excitement and we hadn’t even gotten to the second wave of Saturday games. Probably the biggest game in the 3:30 time slot was tenth-ranked Washington versus Boise State in a battle of Pacific Northwest powers. Boise State scored first. They held a 6-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, but Washington owned the final three quarters. UW scored 28 points in the second quarter and rolled to a 56-19 victory. Huskies QB Michael Penix Jr. nearly matched the stats posted by Shedeur Sanders. One of the favorites for the Heisman, he threw for 450 yards and 5 touchdowns. In other scores, #3 Ohio State defeated Indiana 23-3 at The Horseshoe, Iowa prevailed over Utah State, and Joe Milton and the Volunteers from Rocky Top beat Virginia, a team still reeling from a shooting tragedy last November that took the lives of three players. Bama beat a cupcake, Georgia beat a cupcake, OU beat a cupcake, et. al.
Before the 6:30 nightcap, the Duke’s Mayo Carolina Kickoff featuring Drake May’s North Carolina Tar Heels and Spencer Rattler’s South Carolina Gamecocks, I drove to the Target in St. Louis Park for the first time. First time there because the Uptown Target, which I liked to walk to, recently closed permanently. It had to be Target because my bank account is empty and I got a gift card to Target from one of my students on Friday. As I pulled into the Target parking lot, a sherbet sunset colored the sky with pretty shades of purple, pink, and tangerine. This Target felt like one on a college campus, with a full-sized store (as opposed to the mini-Target Uptown had) and lots of college-aged students roaming the aisles. As a treat, I bought myself dairy-free ice cream to enjoy while I watched the Carolina Bowl, which the Tar Heels ran away with.
In Piscataway, Rutgers ended up downing Northwestern 24-7. When the Knights took a 24-0 lead in the third, I decided to walk to the park. I found Mueller Park, my go-to, mostly empty. The temp, at a sizzling 95 degrees, explains that. A kid’s birthday party is taking place across the street on Bryant Ave.: a string of colored balloons hangs over the garage door opening, where tables are set up for the party, and there is a kiddy pool and water games in the driveway. The sounds of the kids at play remind me, somehow, of the Roller Coaster Tycoon game on CD-ROM.
The sunflowers on 26th Street, reaching upwards of twelve feet tall, have started wilting in the heat. The grass at Mueller Park is yellowed and dried out, no longer lush or wavy but mostly flattened out. Some hobos sleep on this grass, after all. Airplanes roar overhead every ten minutes or so. Cicadas rattle in the treetops. A police siren wails from downtown. A basketball bounces on the cement court within the park. 50 Cent blares from a passing car, its windows rolled down.
Sweaty, I walked home for more football. The Beavers of Oregon State, who enjoyed a season for the ages in 2022, look to rekindle the magic as they start the season against San Jose State. DJ Uiagalale, once a Heisman hopeful at Clemson, transferred to Oregon State in the offseason. He accounted for five touchdowns – three passing, two rushing – in a 42-17 rout of the Spartans from San Jose State.
At 6:30, I turn the channel to the Camping World Classic, a rematch from last year, pitting #5 LSU against #8 Florida State in the first top-ten matchup of the season. Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler called the game for ABC, giving the broadcast an air of exclusivity and importance. Last year the Seminoles prevailed by a point, handing former Irish coach Brian Kelly a loss in his first game coaching the Tigers of LSU. Quarterback Jadyn Davis marched the Bayou Tigers downfield on the opening drive only for FSU’s defensive front to put up a goal line stand. Noles QB Jordan Travis subsequently marched downfield just as easily, scoring on a slant pass to Keon Coleman, a transfer from Michigan State, that went for 40 yards. Daniels and the Tigers answered with a 9-play, 75-yard drive to make it 7-7 in Orlando.
LSU took a 17-14 lead into the half, but the Seminoles dominated the second half. Jordan Travis wound up throwing for 342 yards and 4 touchdowns. Three of those went to Keon Coleman, who made a statement in his first game in a Seminoles uniform. In the post-game presser, Brian Kelly called his team’s performance in the second half a “collapse.” Florida State wins a statement game 45-23. In Baton Rouge, they have to be wondering why they chose Brian Kelly when Deion Sanders is in Boulder rebuilding that program from the ashes.
Monday, September 4 - Labor Day
I just smoked a Marlboro (a snowcone, actually) and walked around the block, listening to the cicadas rattle. The sun is going down in the direction of Hennepin and Lake of the Isles, but the heat refuses to let up – as if the heat is a mass or force unrelated to the sun.
At 7:00, Duke v. #9 Clemson from Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, North Carolina wraps up an excellent opening weekend of college football. Dabo Swinney’s team looked vastly overrated. Tigers fans were high on quarterback Cade Klubnik, a five-star recruit from Austin, Texas, who replaced DJ Uiagalelei, but the sophomore disappointed in his first game as Clemson’s true starter. He went 27-43 for 209 yards passing, throwing one touchdown and one interception. After trailing 7-6 at halftime, the Blue Devils scored 22 unanswered points in the second half to topple the Tigers 28-7. For Clemson, the season already looked like a downer.
Goodbye, summer. Gone forever.
