Random Ridiculousness

Straight from the files of venting/needing something to do while watching college football before going to work on a Saturday.

The Random Ridiculousness for today:

+During halftime of the NC State-ECU game, I got to hear Lou Holtz make comments about Ryder Cup golf. I absolutely love it. I don't even really remember what all he said, but his analysis included something about the Jim Furyk-Kenny Perry team achieving a win.

+Even the mere mention of Kenny Perry will forever make me laugh. Mainly because of the hatred of him by my friend, Jeff Schaffer, but also because he had so little faith in himself to perform well enough during major tournaments that he dropped out and played small tournaments to ensure his spot playing in his native Kentucky for the Ryder Cup (and for his country!).

+The only reason I was watching NC State-ECU was because I can't even listen to Pam Ward anymore. I'm sure she's a great person, but I just can't listen to the broadcasts anymore. The Ohio-Ohio State game did it for me. Pam Ward in the booth, Chris Spielman doing his best "give me a headset and use camera angles that make me look like a coach" impression on the sidelines. I was kinda sorta hoping the Big Ten Network would make a location mistake and put the Ohio-Northwestern game on. Instead we got Minnesota-Florida Atlantic. I guess the result will probably be the same, though.

+I hate guys who have admittedly awesome girlfriends. And it has nothing to do with "they have a girl and I don't." I say this because a reporter-not-to-be-named that I know has been telling me all week (and really, for about a month now) about how his girlfriend sat down to figure out what food she can make when his college friends are in town this Sunday to watch the Packers-Cowboys game. Mind you, about 99 percent of football-watching, Sunday-sitting men in this country would be perfectly fine getting pizza. But she insists on making appetizers, too.

She also has a fantasy football team and at least "gets" football. And Sunday is the only day of the week that they both have the entire day off together. In fact, he told me a conversation of theirs once that went something like this:

Her: So you're telling me that the only day of the week we both have the entire day off work at the same time, we're going to spend on the couch drinking beer and watching football the whole day?
Him: Yeah, that's right.
Her: That sounds great.

I didn't know these people existed. I mean, I've been hopeful all along, but it never seemed plausible. But it should happen more often. The football season is five months long, which means a majority of the year is spent without it. Every time I hear a new story, though, I can only applaud his efforts.

+If you haven't yet, you should make it a habit to read Bill Simmons's columns on ESPN.com's Page Two. In his latest post, Simmons talks about his first fantasy football league, which is eerily similar in some respects to the league that my best friend, Luke, and I started up this year. We have our own scoring rules and even made up spreadsheets in which we plug the statistics in and it calculates everything for us.

Speaking of Luke, he'll be the next Bill Simmons, mark my word. And that's exciting because I hope to one day be the crazy/stupid/ridiculous friend that gets a mention every now and then in the blog. Luke's well on his way -- and if you want to know a little more about how weird we are, read the weekly installments of our NFL picks on his blog. He also has a weekly debate with Matt Barnes, one of my best college friends and current sports anchor in Georgia. These are full of sports knowledge and are, well, entertaining, if nothing else.

+Lastly a note on a conversation I recently had with my coworker and friend Abby Riese about man crushes. I told her in general I don't have man crushes based on attractiveness, though I'm really not sure what would push me towards one.

After much deliberation, I've decided if I DO have one, it has to be my more or less unfounded man crush for Brady Quinn. The guy's from Ohio (albeit the Columbus area), went to my favorite college team to be the quarterback (Notre Dame), then was drafted by my favorite professional team (Cleveland Browns) as they gave up a lot to get him.

After the Browns drafted Brady (and while I was in Australia, unavailable to make a purchase like this) Luke bought me an orange Browns t-shirt that only says, "Brady Quinn" and just has a picture of his flowing locks of hair and big smile. When Cleveland decided to hang onto Derek Anderson in the offseason, I was a little angry. I want the team to do well and if they thought Anderson was the man who could do that, then I guess they did what they thought they needed to do.

But at the same time, I really wanted my man Brady Quinn to get his shot. In what was determined to be a meaningless game last year against San Francisco in Week 17, I got to watch Brady Quinn's first action in the NFL. I'm hoping he gets MANY more chances from here on out. It's not like Quinn is an Aaron Rodgers sitting behind Brett Favre for years. Quinn is sitting behind a guy who won the starting job in the second week in 2007 because the former starting quarterback, Charlie Frye, got traded after all of one game.

So after all of that, I love Brady Quinn.
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Whew, that was quite a bit. And that's why it's called, "Random Ridiculousness." In the meantime, you can check out my work blog and check back here for a post about the Browns. I'm pretty sure I'll have SOMETHING to say after this week's game against the Ravens, win or lose.

Go Browns and Go Irish