“Is momentum real?”

I tell you what — this is some rabbit hole David Hale fell into.

This is why disproving momentum is so difficult. Ask 100 people to define it and you’ll likely get 100 different answers, but absolutely everyone who has spent any time around sports innately understands the sensation. Show people all the data you want — and there is a lot of it (here, here and here, for example) — and it won’t compare with that tingling sensation in their gut, that adrenaline rush as a team marches down the field for a winning TD, that absolute certainty that destiny is on their side. To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, you know momentum when you feel it.

“There’s an electricity to the thing,” Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach said. “And guys are so tuned in on the sideline, it’s like everybody can finish everybody else’s sentences.”

In the end, he’s no closer to an answer than when he started, but it’s a fun read along the way.

Race against the clock

It came at 12:30 am ET on a Saturday night, but NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline pretty blunt on CNN

"Right now, if testing in the US stays the way it is, there’s no way we can go forward with sports"

Later: "We’re not in a place today where we can safely play sports."

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 16, 2020

Shot.

Auburn football players Anthony Schwartz and Kameron Stutts commenting on what campus/downtown look like now that the entire student body is back. Classes and fall camp both start on Monday. pic.twitter.com/prQbgfURaf

— Josh Vitale (@JoshVitale) August 15, 2020

Chaser.

BREAKING: Great news.

SalivaDirect received approval this morning from the @US_FDA.

This could be one the first major game changers in fighting the pandemic. Rarely am I this enthusiastic. Here’s why.

Follow if interested.

— Andy Slavitt @ 🏡 (@ASlavitt) August 15, 2020

Two thoughts here:

1. A reliable, inexpensive, easy to administer COVID tests would be huge, both for society as a whole and for college football’s 2020 chances.  It’s the first real thing I’ve seen that justifies Greg Sankey’s take it slow and hope approach for playing.
2. But… but.  Can they buy enough time to get this into the mix?  Even Mark Emmert admits that bubbling the players is the best way to keep them safe.  Yet, every SEC school is about to embark on a course of letting them be exposed to a general student population that isn’t fastidious about staying safe.

I’d say it would serve Sankey and his presidents right if their selfish adherence to their business model costs them a season that was salvageable, except that means we fans don’t get one, either.  And that would truly suck.  Get your shit together, folks.  Please.

Another Georgia Bulldog point of pride

UGA’s College of Public Health, doing the Lord’s work:

Light to moderate drinking may preserve brain function in older age, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

The study examined the link between alcohol consumption and changes in cognitive function over time among middle-aged and older adults in the U.S.

“Light to moderate drinking” is defined as 10 to 14 drinks a week.  No wonder I feel as sharp as ever.

(h/t)

The inadvertent whistle

Typical SEC fan:  Man, it’s hard to imagine conference refs being any worse at their jobs than they are now.

Ron Foxcroft, “the most trusted name in North America when it comes to whistles”:  Hold my beer.

Just like being there

Sure, why not?

With fans barred from stadiums due to coronavirus restrictions, sporting bodies around the world are grappling with how to create atmosphere at matches — and the makers of a new app think they have the answer.

The “Remote Cheerer powered by Sound UD” system is made by Yamaha and broadcasts cheers, boos and chants from users’ homes to the stadium via the internet, according to a press release.

Fans tap buttons on an app to make their feelings known through speakers placed around the stadium, replacing the usual crowd noise…

“With the possibility of spectatorless matches and restrictions on cheering in mind, I feel that this system will encourage players on the field by making them feel like their fans and supporters are nearby,” Hiromi Yanagihara, from Júbilo’s business strategy division, said in the press release.

I’m sure this will work great until the first person figures out how to hack it.

But think how Kirby could have used something like this for this past G-Day.  #Virtual93K, for the (recruiting) win!

In the meantime, if schools can charge fans for using the app, I’m sure there will be a market for it here.

No crowds

It will be interesting to look back in a couple of months or so to see if this marked the start of a significant trend for larger collegiate athletic events.

Johns Hopkins says no fans will be allowed for NCAA DIII tournament first/second round games on campus due to Coronavirus: https://t.co/AoaAwmdZXJ

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) March 6, 2020

Mind you, the school made this particular call, not the NCAA.  Then again, considering Hopkins has been in the forefront of tracking Coronavirus…

TFW you can’t hold it until halftime

Technology, for the win.

Oregon’s sideline porta potty is humanities greatest inventionpic.twitter.com/nkfoS8unXQ

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) November 5, 2019

He drinks a whiskey pod, he drinks a vodka pod…

I’m not sayin’.

The pods are a super limited-promotional item, available in a single bar during London Cocktail Week, which ends on Sunday. They were devised by the staid scotch brand The Glenlivet and the award-winning bartender Alex Kratena, who have said the capsules, which are bound by seaweed protein, are a stunt of sustainability marketing. Such boring strictures of reality did not prevent people from making jokes about how the pods would soon be omnipresent at outdoor concerts and frat houses. The pods drew quick comparisons to everything from Jell-O shots to Gushers fruit snacks, in addition to the laundry-detergent capsules that became a meme in 2018 after several dozen teens ate them on YouTube.

Many other people looked upon the scotch pods and saw nothing but pure, open-container law-circumventing brilliance. The capsules seemed perfect for sneaking booze into nearly anywhere. When asked if the pods were intended to be a futuristic evolution of the flask, a representative for Glenlivet seemed vaguely horrified and assured me that the capsules were intended to be consumed by adults as a novelty during the week’s cocktail convention. They’re “almost like a cocktail version of El Bulli’s spherical olive,” she said via email, apparently distressed that the internet had taken up a litany of less luxurious comparisons.

I’m just sayin’.

Tuesday morning buffet

You know you want some.

• “we ‘OR’d them because Tennessee ‘OR’d us first.”  LOL.
• Matt Hinton’s SEC preview is worth a read.
• And Bill Connelly’s updated his 2018 S&P+ projections.  Georgia currently sits fifth.
• If I mention Bill’s, I’ve got to mention Brian Fremeau’s 2018 preseason projected FEI Ratings, too.  He’s got Georgia fourth.
• Every time I read something about Baylor, I just wanna go take a shower immediately afterwards.  Ugh.
• “A college football gambling cheat sheet for 2018“.
• Here’s another handy guide to streaming college football games.
• Anthony Dasher suggests a few new Dawgs to keep an eye on.

Snip, snip

I still get the regular question about how my cord cutting experiment is going — just fine, thanks — so I thought I’d share this article about it than an alert reader sent my way.

For what it’s worth, after trying several options, I’ve stuck with YouTube TV and been quite happy about it.

But, then again, I’m not this guy:

Steve Young of Holly Springs is an N.C. State fan with nine TVs in one room. He says he has researched cord-cutting and it doesn’t make sense for him. “These cord-cutting features are designed for using one TV at a time,” he says.

Shit, dude, nobody’s got a brain designed for nine at once.