Questions Asked, Questions Answered

Last week, the central question from this blog other than why I continue to post increasingly more deranged stories about a fictional NCAA pants inspector to diminishing returns was whether Northwestern had shown up in Ireland with a renewed purpose and got back on track or whether Nebraska was it the midst of a profound psychic collapse involving their maniacal Barf Coach.  Last Saturday, Northwestern struggled and then rallied against an apparently unbeatable Duke team in a genuinely insane game while Nebraska lost to the Sun Belt's Georgia Southern.  The Huskers could not take it anymore and fired Frost.  I believe when a coach gets fired three games into the season it is fitting to say that they fired his ass.  His ass is now toast.

Frosts's firing closes the book on the reigning funniest coach in the Big Ten.  He came back to the Huskers as a conquering local hero made good after leading the University of Central Florida to an undefeated season, a claimed national championship, and the only parade in Disney World that could be described as spiteful.  Then he got to the Big Ten and went insane.  In the midst of the pandemic, he joined with the conference's most strident meat restaurant protestors and demanded to play football when the Big Ten initially cancelled the season.  He threatened to go rogue and start barnstorming against other conferences.  When the Big Ten decided to play in 2020, Nebraska sucked and got destroyed week after week and got lambasted on twitter by a miserable Illinois team in the death throes of the Lovie Smith era.  He even got show caused by the NCAA for using an Illegal Special Teams Coach, which, like most NCAA violations, is an incredibly stupid and pointless penalty by a toothless organization just trying to get someone for breaking its fake rules, but it is still funny to imagine Frost putting a guy in the Herbie Husker costume who is secretly relaying punt coverages to the booth before he is chased by an NCAA Investigator in a pursuit that involves throwing down shelves and giant cardboard boxes and two Nebraska officials carrying a giant pane of glass through the tunnel for no apparent reason.   

Nebraska got so angry at Frost for his incompetence and general boobery that they incurred millions of dollars of extra penalties to fire him before October first.  They didn't care.  They are giving him a reportedly $7.5 million extra dollars for him to get the fuck out.  That' a lot of money for being bad at coaching college football, but the Scott Frost Hating Community can take solace in the fact that football coaching is a pathological condition and Frost's riches probably don't compensate him for the fact that he doesn't get to make teenagers barf anymore and be a big swinging dick around Lincoln and get up at press conferences every week to condescend to reporters asking him why he his team just ate shit again. 

Scott Frost's greatest crime is being named Scott Frost and never, not once, doing Arnold Mr. Freeze Voice

The Frost firing is a disaster for this blog.  I have not had a villain coach so inept and deeply strange to write about since the glory days of the notorious Beck Man.  Nebraska may or may not hire their way out of their program's very enjoyable quagmire; they almost certainly will not hire a coach this funny.  I don't know what happens to Frost after this meltdown, but I'm sure we have not seen the last of him.  Most importantly, I urge that a Big Ten West team immediately hires another maniac.

NORTHWESTERN IS BECOMING THE TEAM THAT CANNOT BEAT DUKE AT FOOTBALL

Is Northwestern-Duke a rivalry? Is Duke football somehow becoming the Wildcats' most hated nonconference opponent?  It it time to start fearing that D logo on the schedule and not just because the immediate image it conjures up is Coach Kshevsky making the most unpleasant face a human being has ever managed to knit its eyebrows and nostrils into?  

Northwestern has now lost four in a row to Duke.  They have lost with very good teams (the ten-win 2017 team and Big Ten West champion 2018 team) and with very bad teams.  The last two games have gone almost identically.  In each game, Duke raced to an early lead before stymieing a inspiring late Northwestern comeback.  Last Saturday, the 'Cats spotted the Blue Devils a 21 point lead behind a defense that, like last year, seemed unable to stop Duke from doing anything.  But in the second half, Northwestern managed to finally figure out how to get some stops and draw closer as the offense, led by Ryan Hilinsky and Evan Hull, got the 'Cats within striking distance and moved the loss from frustrating blowout to painful but also somehow funny hijinks.

After a week off, the defense seemed to come out a bit rusty

The game seemed to be over with a Northwestern interception down five with less than four minutes left.  The defense managed a goal line stand to only allow a field goal and remain technically alive with less than a minute and a half left.  Hilinsky and Hull somehow led a drive and with only 12 seconds left and no timeouts, Bajakian, cackling in the press box, called an obviously insane running back draw up the middle that somehow worked.  It appeared that Hull had powered through to the goalline leaving Northwestern only a two point conversion shy of tying the game.  Until it didn't.  Five minutes before that I didn't think Northwestern had any chance of getting that close.  But I am refusing to let this game be a referendum on Northwestern's season because Duke somehow is a miniboss for Northwestern football, and apparently will be for the next two years until Pat Fitzgerald can figure out how to beat this team and presumably buy a stuffed animal monkey and performatively destroy it.

This week, Northwestern takes on Southern Illinois.  The FCS Salukis are 0-2 after getting crushed by Incarnate Word and losing a heartbreaker to Southeast Missouri.  Generally, even Northwestern's most disappointing recent vintages have managed to convincingly beat up on FCS opponents with the exception of that extremely funny loss to Illinois State a few years ago, so even a commanding win probably won't tell us much about the team this season.  The most important thing this represents is their best chance at win number two of the six desperately needed for a mediocre bowl game played on the roof of a meat warehouse.  

BUCK DUCKETT IN THE ADVENTURES OF THE SPECKLED HEM

You may have been wondering what has happened to the NCAA's teams of investigators looking out for illegal payments of free socks to college athletes after name, image, and likeness policies? Well, I have no idea.  I did not do any research about this.  But here is another installment of a running series this season of fictional vingettes about Buck Duckett: Rogue NCAA Pants Investigator.

 Of the many cases and adventures on which I have accompanied my friend Buck Duckett, there are few I can recall that vexed him and tested him as arduously of the matter involving “Clump” Hardley and his trouser predicament that scandalized the entire country. The features of this particular situation were so shocking and so outré that it would be irresponsible of me not to chronicle Buck Duckett’s methods and my own small contributions that led to the astonishing revelations that had gripped the papers for months.

It was a languid autumn afternoon when I found myself near the flat I used to share with Buck Duckett. My medical slapping practice had been growing and I spent most of my days whacking people with Railway Spine and headbutting sufferers of various Suppressed Gouts, the result of which was that I had seen far less of Duckett than I cared to. A fortuitous housecall to kick a man in the spleen took me back to the old neighborhood in Indianapolis’s Fog District, and I decided to call on my old friend. 

When I arrived, Buck Duckett was sitting on a couch, his brow furrowed, staring at a pair of trousers with a curious design riding up the hem. “Ah, Pladd, it is good for you to look in on me after vigorously kicking that rheumy man with the cat over on St. Gabbert’s street. I see that the practice is doing well, although you do not seem to believe it yourself. You also left your copy of The Medical Pugilist at Mr Dunnet’s shop,” he said. Even though I had lived with Duckett and saw his methods amaze and stupefy his callers, it was still mystifying when he turned his attention to me, and, despite my attempt to reign in my look of befuddlement, he still whirled on me and began his instruction.

“Pladd surely by now you are familiar with the processes and the simple logic that reveals everything to me with a quick glance at your trousers,” Duckett said. “The seams on your bottom are strained in a way that only comes from vigorous kicking, which I understand is still the latest treatment for rheumatisms. And surely you can see your legs are covered in cat hairs, while you would never keep such an animal at home. The bottoms of your cuffs are stained with gravel that you only see from public works projects, precisely like the one that has the footpaths on St. Gabbert street in a rough condition,” he said, while loading up his lip with mouth tobacco.

“As for the state of your practice,” he continued, “it’s all written there on your slacks.” The backs of your legs, where one expects to see an indication from a hard cab bench, are smooth, which means that you can afford the more expensive, plusher cabs. And your trousers have been let out some, which suggests that you are prospering. But on the other hand, you have not replaced them. In fact, I see numerous small repairs that show that you have kept them, which indicates that you don’t trust your successes and are reluctant to spend money on new clothes.”

“Remarkable,” I said. “But how could you know about the periodical?”

“That is simple,” he said, before spitting a long spray of oral tobaccular juice into a filthy jug he kept for this purpose. “Your pocket reveals the unmistakable shape of Dr Wedcrumb’s Pipe Tobacco, which was featured in an advertisement as the most health-ful pipe tobacco for the vigorous-lunged man in the Medical Pugilist, which I can tell from the protrusion and the small ink stain that you had been carrying around in your right rear pocket. You certainly consulted it when you stopped at the only tobacconist you would visit in this neighborhood, which would undoubtedly be Mr Dunnet. It is all clear from your trousers. You can read them like a newspaper. I believe that the key to understanding a man is in Gluteal Phrenology, the study of the ridges and dimples in his buttocks, but it is nearly impossible to examine a live subject this way. Therefore one must turn to the trousers. In fact, I have written a monograph on it.”

A sudden rasp at the door interrupted the conversation. “Oh, that must be Inspector Fistclough.”

Inspector Fistclough of the N.C.A.A. had worked there with Duckett until Duckett, dissatisfied with the organization’s unscientific method and the new name, image, and likeness policies, left to work as a consultant to pursue trouser related intrigues. But from time to time, Fistclough still asked for Duckett’s advice on more peculiar matters.

Firstclough was a tall, gangly man whose scalp, despite his young age, was advancing on all fronts against his hair and had two tufts pinned into a defensive position just above the ears. Normally a robust man who was all too eager to throw about ruffians who had run afoul of N.C.A.A. policies– he once chased an entire triangular weightlifting team who had been accepting free single-strap singlets into the side of a train– but today he stood before Duckett as a pale and ghostly spectre.

“Have you seen anything in those trousers, Mr Duckett?” Fistclough said, rubbing his arm.

“I do believe these trousers reveal some points of interest, but perhaps some fresh details will come to light if you recite the tale again, this time to Dr Pladd,” Duckett said.

“It is still the most puzzling thing I have ever seen,” said Inspector Fistclough. Now he began rubbing his leg. “We were down on the docks. You see, Dr Pladd, since the new policy, the athletes are now allowed to sell and receive shipments of trousers, short pants, breeches, and pantaloons, but the N.C.A.A. inspects processes, and stamps each article to make everything is above board. No more chasing croquet teams getting free trews into the moors.  Two days ago, we received a shipment of trousers. Ordinary, except for a strange stripe along the hemline. They were for the great rugbyist 'Clump' Hardley.”

“The one who broke the record for most bashings in a single thrashing?” I asked. His feats had been featured in all of the papers.

“The very same, Dr Pladd,” the inspector said. “The records all appeared to be in order, so we quickly checked to see if the trousers were concealing anything.”

“And what sorts of objects to you suspect may be secreted within the them?” Duckett asked.

“We see all various manner of things,” Inspector Fistclough said. “Precious stones, curios, notes. Once we found entire sets of illegal trousers sewn into the very slacks we were inspecting.”

“We moved the crates to a staging area behind the docks and fitted with a paper seal. That is standard procedure. The area remains under constant watch.”

“But not constant this time,” Duckett said.

The inspector lowered his head. “No I am afraid not this time. I called Sergeant Bithe off his post. In one of the crates, the trousers seemed to be moving oddly, nearly writhing. I was afraid that they could be concealing snakes. This had happened several weeks ago. A junior inspector had been badly squeezed and we needed our top bludgeoning unit to free him. I needed all available men with sticks.”

“But you did not find any snakes,” Duckett said.

“No sir,” replied Fistclough. There appeared to be some sort of machinery manipulating the trousers to make it seem like it could be snakes. Bithe was gone for maybe three minutes at most. The rest of the time the crate of trousers was under his watch. But when we went to move them later, the crates were light. We opened them and they were gone. Every last pair.”

“As you can see, Dr Pladd, a very curious set of circumstances,” Duckett said.

“Mr Duckett, please tell me you have unearthed some sort of clue to retrieve these trousers," the Inspector said, scratching at his face.

“Inspector Fistclough, there are certain points of interest in this case that I believe may lend themselves to a scientific explanation. There is only one person I believe fiendish and daring enough to have seized this shipment in this way, one person cunning enough to make a mockery of the entire N.C.A.A. and Mr “Clump” Hardley. Dr Pladd, I believe this may be the work of Jacopo Manheaven. The Napoleon of Pants."