Al_4_ISU

I love "Merry Go Round" and have really grown to appreciate "All Shook Down" as I've gotten more into Paul's solo stuff the last year or so. I agree with pretty much everything you said. For whatever reason, writing about his little sister brought a certain characteristic out of his writing ("Achin' to Be" is the other one that comes to mind) that's got that mix of wistfulness and tension that just hits you square on. I'm definitely in the "grew into the Mats" camp. Despite growing up very much in the shadow of their influence, they just weren't something people I got musical recs from growing up were into. I started reading about them as an influential band when I was in HS ('99-'03) and continued to see them referenced by bands that I was into. I didn't really get into them until maybe 2009 or so. It was getting into The Hold Steady that made me need to just sit down and listen to the Mats. "Tim" was my first album (it was one of the remastered/expanded editions) and that ragged version of "Can't Hardly Wait" is what really got me into them. I was already pretty into the alt-country thing, so despite my high school punk phase, I've always a bigger of fan "Let it Be" and beyond than I was the "Hey Ma"/"Stink" era. I didn't truly get the Bob era until I heard some of the high quality live shows from the end of it (I think the Ed Stasium version of "Tim" really shows his potential too).

When I was in my early 20’s I lived in a drafty dump with 6 other dudes. It was a really bad winter and after an insane December heating bill, we turned the heat down to the low 40’s. We wore hats and gloves inside. I slept in my Carhartts. So yeah, that’s a thing young broke Midwestern guys are known to do. I never took Skyway to be from the perspective of a homeless person, but rather a low wage maintenance type worker (a janitor perhaps, like Paul was) who walked a stretch of it in his daily commute. This song will always remind me of when my wife were going through IVF. The Mayo Clinic is about an hour south of Minneapolis (an hour north of us) and uses a lot of skyways to connect parking ramps where we’d park for the appointments to the clinic facilities. We were hopelessly pining for kids, not unlike the way the narrator hopelessly pines for the object of his affection. We just put our 13 month old daughter to bed. She spend the past 15 minutes falling asleep in my arms.

LT bumps this thread a lot. It’s definitely weird.

Spoiler alert: we’re gonna run the ball a bunch and get nowhere. Then we’ll have a flukish turnover that gives Iowa a TD. We’ll start throwing the ball with about 10 minutes left, and it will look closer than it is. 13-10 Hawks. Rinse. Repeat.

To be fair 2/3rds of the Big 10 plays in similar stadiums. Once you get past the blue bloods, that conference is no different than the Big 12. Most of those schools are just beneficiaries of Ohio State and Michigan’s altruistic benevolence.

Yeah, no one in the Midwest pronounces “coyote” properly. It’s always “Kiy-Oat”.

Travis Hunter is proof we’re living in a simulation

Pearl Jam and FF are two of my favorite bands from that era and I've never seen either. PJ was my favorite band in my early 20's. FF was right in the mix at that time as well. It would be driven more by the idea if that I don't see them at that point I never would, as opposed to an expectation that it would be a truly great show (although I've watched a ton of both live and have no doubt I'd enjoy it). I've seen a lot of clips of Oasis live and they were always pretty good. They just never struck me as the kind of band where people traded bootlegs of legendary shows and shit like that. The biggest Oasis bootleg is just a recording of Liam and Noel fighting with each other backstage.

This is becoming a recurring theme for with music. With the exception of Pearl Jam and maybe the Foo Fighters, there isn't a single "Big" legacy band that I'd pay the cost of seeing to see. I love Oasis, but I don't think their strength has really ever been being an amazing live show.

You're not wrong on the reason for the South having more good football players, but if you don't think the off the charts "give a shit" level of SEC fanbases hasn't been a major contributor to both the league's on-field success and the way it had completely won the narrative battle off the field long before it actually was the best conference, I don't know what to tell you. It makes a difference, and it makes a difference in Big 12 basketball. It's part of the reason the Big 12 outlasted the Pac 12. Those schools and fanbases just didn't care enough to fight for it and be proactive with their organization.

Most of the people following college sports view this quite differently than you do. You've been wishcasting the Big 12's demise just as hard, if not harder, than Big 12 fans have been wishcasting it's survival.

Look at you, arguing in bad faith like normal. The SEC's tagline RE football is literally "It just means more".

Yeah, that's all logical. I've said before that I think the conference model is really useless at this point. But I do think that the Big 12's push to shore up being the best basketball league is directly tied to those universities doing all they can to continue having a seat at the highest competitive levels of revenue generating college sports.

The Big 12 is stable because the Big 10 and SEC aren't adding any of the programs in it. The ACC has about 4 schools that could work for the other two. The idea that TCU, Utah, KU, etc could work their way in is laughable. The Big 10 and SEC have had a million opportunities to add them and continually passed. The Big 12's play is to be good enough at basketball that whatever iteration of college sports is coming requires their presence for the basketball tournament to continue to be the ratings cash cow that it currently is. This makes it worth the SEC and Big 10's while to not kick them out of the football playoffs. Big 12 basketball is like North Korea having some nukes. They'd never win an all out war, but if they're just dangerous enough to take a bite out of the powers that be's cheeseburger, the powers that be will be more amenable to letting them exist.

1) The schools in the Big 12 care about the sport more than schools in other leagues. That's not going to change quickly. They invest in the sport at a level other programs simply don't care to, and likely won't at the risk of their football programs. It's not an advantage that can't be replicated, but it's an advantage that likely won't be replicated. 2) The NCAA is not long for this world. There will be a day when the college basketball tournament is no longer controlled by the NCAA, and that day isn't far off. The whole point is that long term there will be enough financial incentive for the most powerful football conferences to keep playing basketball against the best basketball conferences. The Big 12 can never financially match the SEC and Big 10, but by being the absolute best basketball conference they can bring enough value to avoid getting cut out of football, which is really all the fans and administrators want. Our doomsday scenario is being shut out of the highest level of college football and the best way to avoid that is by creating enough cumulative value that the Big 10 and SEC find value in keeping others at the table. They'll still get the most teams in football, make the most money, and win the most championships. The CFP, and all college football, will get better ratings by at least having the appearance that anyone can qualify if they take care of business. A formal separation, while still financially viable for the SEC and Big 10, would almost be guaranteed to draw fewer eyeballs than they currently do, but there are an awful lot of people who seem more motivated by the air of exclusivity than by what's actually going to make the most money in the long run, so it remains a risk.

Adding UConn would make Big 12 basketball analogous to SEC football - possibly beyond that. We all know that football is king, but March Madness is massive financially, and it would hurt the Big 10 and SEC financially if that blew up. This move pushes us to a spot where the Big 12 can credibly say “if you cut us out of the football playoff, we’re cutting you out of the basketball playoff”. A Big 12/East/ACC plus the Cinderellas tournament would be a lesser product, but still viable - much like an SEC/Big 10 exclusive football post season. I see this as a move towards a “mutually assured self destruction so let’s all play nice” type arrangement.

Oh hell yes.

Keeler drove me nuts when he wrote for the Des Moines Register back in the early aughts, but watching Prime lose his shit over that dork is incredible.

I’m aware. But a bunch of hammered Midwest rubes in a beautiful European city cracks my ass up

That was awesome. Can’t wait for whatever crazy shit happens in FarmO’Geddon in this slot next year. A bunch of shitfaced Midwestern farmers in Dublin is going to be a hilarious scene.

You see a ton at our games now. The problem is that our players love them and we’ve won a bunch of big games in them, and now a large chunk of younger ISU fans associate it with success.

I hate our black uniforms more than you ever could.

My wife is dead set on a ghost tour this time. I’m not a fan, but I know that acquiescing to this will lead to wild drunk kid-free hotel sex. Whats the best one?

Just booked a trip in late January. Haven't been since 2016. Fucking pumped.

100% agree.