I Have Done the Undone: I Bought Six College Football Magazines. Summer. 2026 Part II

    Okay, how does IU get picked by the next five magazines? How will it play out according to these experts? Phil Steele does not put his predictions... Wimp.

    So, Mr. Steele has Indiana at # 5. Which implies that he thinks that the eventual champ of '26 (in 2027) will be, in ascending order: Notre Dame, Georgia, Ohio State, or Texas. Looks a bit similar to the Dennis Dodd driven Sporting News, except for IU not the numero uno. BYU? #10, just after new nemesis Texas Tech at 9.

    Who next?

    Let's go with... Athlon Sports! Maybe the one that I have purchased the most over the years, to include basketball and even a little major league baseball, maybe.

    Sorry that I care this much... Sort of.

    Athlon has Indiana at number 5, like Steele above, but they at least take a shot at the prediction of the College Football Playoff unlike scaredy Phil. No wimps here! Just very wrong soothsayers. IU will play #12 Boise State, beat them, then play # 4 Notre Dame, who will then play and lose to #1 Ohio State, which will finally beat the #2 Georgia Bull Dogs. Hmm. BYU is not in the top twelve, but Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Miami, LSU, and Texas Tech are. Hmmm.

    Next we have the smaller magazine from Prime Sports. They predict, starting with the championship: #4 Notre Dame versus #6 Oregon, with the Irish beating the Ducks. Pretty high seeds to win it all in the end. IU is rated #1 but will be upset by #9 seeded Ohio State, which will have eliminated # 8 Texas the week before. Prime Sports also has USC in the top twelve, as well as Ole Miss and Hawai'i. Rainbows and Rebels and Trojans? Oh my! No, they are Warriors, not Rainbow Warriors.

    Weird. The Hoosiers (SN), the (maybe PS Irish), the Buckeyes (Athlon), with the Irish getting it done as a four seed (PT).

    The last two mags last, next post.

    

    

I Have Done the Undone: I Bought Six College Football Magazines. Summer. 2026

    Where did this start? Recently and over time, both. I can explain it. Mostly.

    Recently, this summer, I had some time with my wife. The kids were away. That is what happened to us, more or less, our first summer together as newlyweds, the California Inland Empire summer of 2000. Technically, still the 20th century. Way back then.

    My football teams helped connect me to home. To passion. To nostalgia. To love. What loves do we empower? Who knows. Unrequited silly things.

    I liked, or loved, college football. It has been a thing. I will try to explain.

    I started to really like college football in 1983. Or, maybe a bit in 1979. It was pretty solid by 1984. LaVell Edwards and the Brigham Young Cougars did some of the unthinkable, while guys in Bloomington like Lee Corso and Sam Wyche, and then Bill Mallory started the juices flowing.. closer by.

    IU could be a thing? Like basketball, a world beater? Why not? We beat the Buckeyes two years in a row! Yes. And Michigan at home! We were "too noisy". Hahaha, Schembechler at the Big House. Too much noise from a rain-soaked 30, 000 at Assembly Hall.

    Ha! I loved it.

    BYU won it all. Take that, establishment of the big boy network!

    Ha ha!

    Okay, so as I said, I bought a whopping six magazines. In July. In a normal fall/summer I buy one, maybe two.

    I blame a few things. The Indiana and the BYU football teams. They are good, competitive, really fun to watch. Perhaps more than ever. I will keep this one to Indiana and Cignetti, and then on to Kilani. Sitake. Great names.

    Great games. 

    I have explained enough of the why for now.

    The Sporting News: They had not published since 2009 or something like that. But they did this season (maybe Indiana awakened some ghosts, like mine?), and Dennis Dodd went after Curt Cignetti and Lee Kiffin, the two sexiest stories in all the land. LSU Tigers. Geaux geaux geaux! Gag me, I do not care much for them. Just to lose to my teams when I need them to.

    The Sporting News picked IU to beat Notre Dame. # 1 Indiana would beat # 5 Texas to get there, while the #3 Irish would beat #5 Georgia. They have BYU at #11 losing to number Six Oregon. Okay, more Cougars later. 

    The newly re-printed Sporting News picks the Hoosiers! Like, nobody else. The other Five. I bought them all!

    Eesh.

    

    

Four of the Five Never Winners have a Chance 100 Games In - 60 or So to Go

    I am a fan of the Nationals and the White Sox. They both are playing well enough to make the post-season. But, I admit, I have enjoyed watching them both win the World Series. The D.C. Nats in 2019, the same year I went to Louisiana the last time, and 2005, when I was ensconced in Angol, Chile. The Pale Hose had their year. 

    Who is left, these Never Winners? They are the fingers and thumb of one hand. 2026 may change some fates. Perhaps the Old Man and the Sea watches for such white whales or fish? A catch is a catch, an obsessive passion for bringing in the beast, whatever it is (m-dashes needed), to capture and conquer. A ring, a win, a bounty 

    The woebegone Colorado Rockies are down and out. When will they ever have a championship caliber team? Who knows? My daughter has not been in the state quite a year, yet. However, she nor her boyfriend care for baseball, so that is two less fans of the game in the mountainous climes surrounding Denver. Alas, the mile high city must suffer with the forlorn and the vanquished Rockies. Long gone are the days of Larry Walker, Vinny Castillo, and other greats. No pitching, or not enough in the high elevations of the Rockies, the same moniker curses them to mediocrity.

    The ball flies and pitching is forever pained and bruised. How can a World Series come here? It snows in October, right? Somewhat cursed, these would-be ski bums. Well below .500 with a week to go in July. No chance.

    How about the okay, middling, but talented San Diego Padres? No reaching the dynamic Dodgers up the coast, but a wild card team can get hot, as the Nationals did seven years ago. They have talent, as we know. Machado, Merrill, having a down year but could rebound, and the once-caught cheating Fernando Tatis. They need better clutch pitching, I am sure. It would be really dandy to see these lovable losers do the thing this fall. Go Pads. Pods.

    Three more with even better seasons and chances: the Milwaukee Brewers, playing lights out. Tampa Bay Rays, doing so well. And last, but not least among them, are the Seattle Mariners. What could be if the Pacific Northwest were to bring home a crown of the World Series?

    What will be this fall? Los Angeles again? The Braves? The Yanks? The Beantown Red Hose? The Phillies? 

    Let's get some new blood, some new legends of the Fall Classic. Padres versus Mariners? Rays versus Brewers? No beer, only victories. 

    We do not need Kurt Kobain Jimi Hendrix drugs to get high. We just need some beautifully played series and games.

    See you this fall. 

    Baseball.

 Which of the Sins Have Hold of Me?

    A close friend asked me yesterday, Sunday, what sins or bad habits do I have. I listed a few, maybe four. Then I realized that the Seven Deadly Sins are applicable to a lot of us, so I volunteered that I am affected by 6.5 of the seven. What are they?

    

1. Pride, or vainglory
2. Greed, or covetousness
3. Lust, or inordinate or illicit sexual desire
4. Envy
5. Gluttony, which is usually understood to include drunkenness
6. Wrath, or anger
7. Sloth, or acedia

8. Yes, I have suffered from all of the above.

9. And the sins are sub-sins of the above.

 Scotland 1268

    There once was a noble family in the highlands that had a parcel of children. They had raised them successfully and most of them into adulthood. Their third child, a son, went to be a preacher in the mainland, to work for the Lord in the southern Mediterranean, where he mixed with Moors and Mohammedans. He enjoyed inviting them to partake of the sacraments of Christ.

    They were the McNamaras; their name was good. Their son, Scotty, returned and met with a young lady that he fancied. She came from the coastal lowlands. She was nice, and pretty, and they both liked and loved each other, but they were not completely sure of their future together, so they held off from becoming fianced to one another.

    One day, almost tragically, but not quite, Scotty fell from a horse-driven cart, and hit his head tremendously. He did not die right off but things were serious. His family drew him in and got him the best medical and spiritual treatment. His beloved, or near beloved, but not fianced, came to see him bedridden.

    But the McNamaras were not sure that this was best for him. Maybe the passions or feelings that he had for her, Melinda, would agitate him and cause him further ruin, and rather than allow him to rehabilitate, the connection would worsen him.

    Melinda had a hard time understanding. But she had faith in God, and she forbeared, and felt that Scotty would recover as God almighty would want him to.

    But it hurt not to see him, or speak to him, even though she felt that she knew that he wanted her to be there. The family wanted what was best for their son.

    30 years later, the tale was written.

    And faith withstood the test of time.

 What Languages do You Get? What Cultures do You Partake In?

    I speak English. My parents are from Massachusetts, so we have that affectation from New England. Funny stuff. Almost wicked funny.

    Booth and Hall are from there. Some connections. Like I have through professional colleagues. A couple from Maine.

    My cousins still up there.

    Mark and Karen.

 Glad I am Not Elon Musk - Let Me Count the Ways

    Call me a hater, sure. I do not like this guy, who I have never met, for a few reasons. Part of me is jealous for a few reasons, like intellect, power, and wealth.

    But I am truthful when I declare that I am grateful not to be him. Why

    1. Not cool to be partially responsible and associated with at least 700,000 people suffering and dying.

    Not cool. Has this happened? USAID disruptions and defunding alone have led to many deaths. Mostly in Africa. The facts are largely findable, and the numbers may vary. 

    Musk is a year younger than me. I hope to outlive him, but we shall see. But I am willing to bet by the end of his days, he will resent and regret the influence that the president had in pushing him to cut off millions of dollars of humanitarian and medical aid to desperate, sick people, in likely dozens of countries.

    Shame on him and us. Deplorable. Sick. Sad. Wrong. We do not let people die like that.

    Hitler does. Stalin does. Pol Pot does. Idi Amin does. The U.S. president and the wealthiest man in the world?

    What in the world. Where are we? Who are we? When are we?

    I have children, so does Musk. I am luckier by far.

    I feel bad for him in some ways. As much I can be down on some of my own luck and wondering about savings and the economic hopes that I have for me and mine, Musk has a lot of weird or crazy legacies that I would not want for me.

    I am not perfectly normal; I have failed in many ways. But I would not trade my fate for his.

    Ex-wives and lovers?

    No. I am blessed.

    Counting my blessings that I am not him.

    Strange way to account for things, but true.

    Blog it.