4.25 Inches

Common Wisdom:
The culture vultures said The Beatles were just a passing fad. Ponderous pundits said the United States wasn’t ready to elect an African-American president. The bully George Amberson Minafer (in Booth Tarkington’s “The Magnificent Ambersons”) believed the automobile would never replace the horse. Economists drunk on algorithms thought the unemployment rate would never hit 10% again. Football minds stuck in play-action and the West Coast offense opined the wildcat formation was a gimmick that top-notch defenses would soon defenestrate.

As it turned out:
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. The audacity of hope. Whoa, Nellie. The Great Recession. The return of the single wing.

Yep, the New York Jets’ defensive genius Rex Ryan was befuddled by the Miami offense, just as Alan Greenspan never saw the housing bubble collapse coming. We have seen the future and it works. Sure, there are no fullback spinners in the Dolphins’ playbook, but the new single wing (aka the wildcat) is here to stay, so you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone.

Inserting rookie Patrick White into the wildcat in the fourth quarter with the game on the line gleamed with confidence. Ricky Williams as the crossing back (fullback in the old single wing) in front of the tailback (Ronnie Brown) puts the rock into the hands of dynamic runners with an extra blocker at the point of attack, the key attribute of the single wing.

It occurs to me that I need a new blocker at my point of attack – aka the closely cut greensward that surrounds a hole 4.25 inches in diameter. A new strategy is required. Use your mentality, face up to reality, Cole Porter told us. Once the weather clears, it’s off to the practice green with wedge and putter in hand. Mastering these sticks, breaking 100 will be a snap. Once I do some push ups, reaching the greensward in two will be possible and breaking 90 will loom.

Of course, this strategy risks using up all the good strokes God originally granted me, but I’m willing to believe He has some greater plan in mind for my golf game. As a friend of mine reminds me, God hates a coward.

Then I’ll be infallible and qualified to assume the papacy when Benedict is gone, though some lobbying of the College of Cardinals may be in order.

Picks this week: Take road favorite Cincinnati and give the 2 ½ points against South Florida tonight (QB Tony Pike will expose the Bulls). Take Oklahoma and 3 ½ points tomorrow against Texas at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (OK, I’m biased, but with two losses OU has the incentive to play the spoiler). On Sunday, take the Saints and give the 3 points against the Giants (Drew Brees is too good to lose at home).

The T-Bone Formation

Taking a break from Miss Market's wiles today. I've been thinking about the evolution or devolution of football.

Is the wildcat formation a throwback or a leap into the future? The direct snap to a multi-talented back who can run the option, throw on the rollout or dash on a keeper before the defense can adjust is employed more and more by colleges and the NFL since Arkansas dreamed it up for Darren McFadden. I'm awaiting the return of the classic single wing and its running game of beautiful fakes and spinning backfields.

Another thought on football. In the years to come I believe more and more teams will attempt the two-point conversion after every touchdown regardless of the score and time left to put maximum pressure on the opponent. If you succeed just 50% of the time you're no worse off than having converted every place kick. Odds are you're successful more than half the time.

The death of Slingin' Sammy Baugh of TCU and Washington Redskins' fame brought to mind a game called the Oil Bowl, a summertime affair played each year in Wichita Falls, Texas, between high school all-stars from Oklahoma and Texas. I covered one such tilt in the early '80s when the Texas coach was Baugh's son, a lean, rawboned ranchhand, the kind of ex-football player rarely seen anymore in the day of 300-pound offensive linemen and 230-pound quarterbacks.

I don't remember the game too well, but I do remember a succulent 16 0z. T-bone, iceberg lettuce salad with French dressing, baked potato wrapped in foil and smothered in butter and sweet iced tea I had at the diner next to my motel for under 10 bucks. It still beats any meal I've spent a paycheck on at a Manhattan hot spot in the years since. I suppose the taste buds vanish with other appetites as the years roll by.

Well, to mangle Rick's line to Ilsa, "We'll always have Wichita Falls."