Is Bob Stoops the Tom Izzo of College Football? Baver Answers the Question and More

Colin: Before getting into the Buckeyes, why does Les Miles have so much trouble putting an offense together at LSU? He has the best running back in the nation, loads of talent, but no offensive philosophy year after year. Can't he just hire some guy to figure it out?

Baver: Amazing. This should be LSU’s best team in years and I was thinking it would be one of Wisconsin’s worst teams in years. Miles has an offensive coordinator in Cam Cameron that was an OC in the NFL for 10 years, but Cameron appears to be part of the problem. And we know Brandon Harris is a BIG problem at QB. You mention the talent… the 2017 NFL draft for LSU prospects may play out similarly to the way the 2016 draft played out for Ohio State prospects.

Colin: As long as we are talking about coaches on the hot seat, could Bob Stoops be in trouble after taking a beating from the upstart Houston Cougers?

Baver: I would seriously doubt it. Stoops seems to be CFB fans’ whipping boy. The perception is so different in CFB than it is in CBB. Stoops’ accomplishments in football, to me, look like Tom Izzo’s accomplishments in basketball. And Izzo is considered a coaching genius, right? I usually find myself defending Stoops who seems to take a bunch of abuse when he loses, yet gets little to no credit when he wins.

Colin: Is there any chance Alabama doesn't make the football playoff this year?

Baver: They are sick. OSU may do some catching up to Bama talent wise with the 2017 recruiting class, but as for the 2016 season, Bama’s talent is in a league of it’s own. And their road trips to Baton Rouge and Knoxville, no longer look so daunting, do they? A lock for the playoff? Alabama looks like the closest thing to it, but they’ll have to guard against complacency.

Colin: Onto the Buckeyes, Wow. I've seen many ass a whoopins' in the shoe but that was the most yards EVER. Could this offense be that special or was it just a good day?

Baver: I don’t care if it was Bowling Green; this Buckeye offense is much farther along than I think even the coaches could have imagined five months ago. But being so young, I think you will still see some ups and downs out of this offense, and we’ll of course learn a lot more the Bucks when they head west to Norman.

Colin: Losing Sprinkle depletes a thin D-line  further. After watching the Badgers run it down LSU throats, could that be the Achilles heel of the 2016 Buckeyes? 

Baver: Maybe. They’ll soon find out. By the end of October, they will have faced the Perine/Mixon combo, Corey Clements, Saquon Barley, and Justin Jackson. According to Phil Steele, that’s the best tailback in the Big 12 (Perine) and the 3 best backs in the Big Ten.

Colin: After watching film, which Buckeyes jumped out at you and what was your take away both good and bad? And what area do we need to improve before heading down to Norman?

Baver: Samuel’s huge day overshadowed Mike Weber’s very nice start to his career at Ohio State. It wasn’t just his running; the kid more than held is own as a blocker. And it was amazing to see JT and the receiving corps clicking that well together in game 1. They did get help too from the O-line that kept JT upright (I believe) the entire time he was in there.

As for the D, the tackling was very good, and I was surprised at how well Joe Burger played while subbing for an injured Dante Booker. And Malik Hooker? You can take away his 2 picks and he was still amazing to watch; the kid covers so much ground and does so at light speed.

Where does Ohio State need to improve prior to the OU game? The Bucks did not do a great job pressuring Bowling Green QB James Knapke. I would think the pass rush and DT depth is the biggest concern for the OSU coaches right now.

Colin: Tulsa has no chance right? 

Baver: Little chance, but remember the Northern Illinois game last year? The Bucks were a 34 ½ pt favorite and won 20-13. And this seems like a spot for a letdown sandwiched between the opener and Oklahoma. Tulsa has a good one at QB in Dane Evans, but likes to run their tailbacks out of the spread. They averaged 37 ppg last year, putting up 38 on Oklahoma and 52 on Va Tech. Problem is, their defense can’t stop anybody.

Colin: OK, rough week picking last week after going 24-14 last season. Let's chalk it up to an unpredictable first week and scratch them from your record. What games and lines will you be watching this week?

Baver: Ugly slate of games this week… Gotta take Arkansas getting 7 1/2 at TCU, one of the few half-decent games of the week. The TCU defense stunk up the joint last week and they are built to stop Big 12 passing attacks; not a good matchup against a power-run Arkansas team. I like Kentucky catching 16 ½ at Florida. Can Florida’s offense even top 16 ½ points? If I’m a bettor, I stay away from the Ohio State game again this week, but hold a gun to my head, and I’ll take the Bucks laying the 29, with a score somewhere in the ballpark of 56-24. (Editor's note: with severe storms now expected around kick-off, Baver is switching this pick but the weather has made the game too tough to call)

Browns Kickoff Party at Four String Brew with The League Bowlers

The Cleveland Browns will be kicking off the season at 1 pm on Sunday September 11th  against the Philadelphia Eagles. To celebrate the occasion, Pencilstorm Browns bloggers The North Coast Posse will be converging on the Four String Brew Taproom (985 W. 6th) at noon to begin their annual tradition of heavy self-medication to survive another Browns campaign. Four String Brew will be the NCP home of the Browns for the 2016 season.

Follow @northcoastposse (The NCP were named a Top Five follow by the actual Cleveland Browns)

As if watching two of the NFL's worst teams play while day drinking wasn't enough, The League Bowlers (featuring Four String Owner Dan Cochran on the 4 string bass, duh) will be performing a set of rock n roll at noon. The event is FREE. See you there!

 

 

Space Ace at the Motor City Food Fest - by Jeremy Porter

Concert Review: 
Ace Frehley - Motor City Food and Music Fest
Farmington Hills, Michigan
Sunday August 28, 2016
By Jeremy Porter

On a warm & humid Sunday night in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, Michigan, the Spaceman himself - original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley - landed with his band to close out the first Motor City Food and Music Festival. The setting was the parking lot of an old Sam’s Club that has now been converted into the shiny, slick, enormous Motor City Harley Davidson store, and the festival served as the grand opening celebration. Those driven to purchase VIP seating enjoyed rows of folding chairs in a fenced-in area in front of the stage, while those of us less-convinced it would be necessary stood behind, about 25 yards back. It didn’t seem to matter much - the vantage point proved adequate and our sightlines were fine. The 4-year old blonde kid with a mohawk and full Spaceman face paint, however, was glad to be up front with his dad, both clearly loving every moment.    

Just after 7:30, Fractured Mirror, the instrumental closing track from Frehley’s 1978 KISS “solo” album (his career high-watermark), faded in over the PA as he & his band gathered behind the stacks and walked out on stage. “How ya’ doin’ Detroit Rock City?” he asked in his trademark New York accent as they broke into Rip It Out, the opening track from the same record. OK, I’ll confess: I had goosebumps. I spent YEARS of my early youth locked in my bedroom listening to that album and the KISS records that preceded and followed it - over & over & over again. Ace was always our favorite - my friends and I. We liked The Demon too, and the Catman and the Starchild a little less, but Ace was the coolest. 

Opening with Rip It Out set the bar pretty high and established a momentum difficult to maintain. The set was a bit of a roller coaster ride - with other peaks like the Alive II-side 4 studio gem Rocket Ride and the unexpected Strange Ways from 1974’s Hotter Than Hell, and a coupla stinkers too, like the terrible song Toys from the 2014 Space Invader record and an unnecessary, extended bass solo integrating bits of God of Thunder, Black Sabbath’s NIB, and the theme from Halloween. I was probably in the minority, rolling my eyes when they went into classic KISS songs like Deuce, Love Gun and Detroit Rock City. All fantastic songs and crowd favorites - but none written by Ace or executed with the tenacity they deserved. All of this fluff was especially disappointing when there are several other options he could have pulled from his own catalog - including the great track Cold Gin, which Gene always sang, but Ace wrote, and other gems from that '78 solo album like What’s On Your Mind or Speeding Back to My Baby. 

I'm not sure that drumhead would have been approved by Sean Delaney. -Colin G.

I'm not sure that drumhead would have been approved by Sean Delaney. -Colin G.

Ace always had the look and the guitar chops, but he never had the vocal pipes of Stanley or Simmons. His voice always worked when called upon, though, thanks to a charm and character that matched his goofy, fucked-up personality. On this night, however, his vocals often came across as weak and tired, almost spoken at times, compared to the more energetic performances we’re familiar with from albums past. Maybe it was exhaustion from the road, or perhaps at 65 he (understandably) just doesn’t have the wind he once did, but it seemed like a little more effort at the microphone would have gone a long way. The drummer sang a few songs and had a more traditional and energetic rock and roll delivery (think Derek St. Holmes meets Paul Stanley), but less historical correlation and therefore less ultimate command of the material than Ace.    

The band was loose, occasionally to a fault, sounding at times a bit unrehearsed and sloppy. At their best they cast a very New York sleaze-rock shadow and came across as a cool, modern version of the groups that defined that city’s punk-glam sound in the '70s. Ace’s 3-pickup Les Paul cut through the mix nicely and he brought out the smoldering, smoking guitar for his extended solo and worked in bits of his Alive II Shock Me solo to the crowd’s delight. For a brief moment, I was myself transported to the upper deck of the Houston Summit in 1977, looking down through the clouds of marijuana smoke at this alien being from outer space ripping an amazing lead from a guitar about to explode in front of 16,000 fans.  

Despite the super-fan dissection of the setlist and the at-times lackluster and sloppy performance, it was a fun set. I mean, who doesn’t get a little nostalgic when their childhood hero is a few feet in front of them for the first time (I never saw KISS with Ace), or nod their head forward and back to the opening chords of New York Groove? Can’t say I’d go too far out of my way to see him again, or pay that $30 to be 15 feet closer, but it was a beautiful Michigan night, the price was right, and those familiar songs and great riffs are just ingrained into my blood.

Setlist:  

Fractured Mirror (Pre-recorded)
Rip It Out
Toys
Rocket Ride
Parasite
Love Gun
Emerald (Thin Lizzy cover)
Rock Soldiers
Bass Solo
Strange Ways
New York Groove
2 Young 2 Die
Shock Me
Ace Frehley Guitar Solo
Detroit Rock City
Deuce


Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road-blog chronicling their adventures and see his photo series documenting the disgusting bathrooms in the dives they play. He's a whiskey snob, an unapologetic fan of "good" metal, and couldn't really care less about the UofM - OSU rivalry since he once saw The Stones at the Horseshoe. Still, go blue.     

www.thetucos.com
www.facebook.com/jeremyportermusic
@jeremyportermi
www.rockandrollrestrooms.com

Tuesdays With Ricki - week one / Rock & Roll Stars Selling Their Songs (and Souls) in Commercials

When I first came up with the idea for Tuesdays With Ricki – in which I will endeavor to entertain and/or bother the Pencilstorm readership with a semi-regular Tuesday column – I ran the title “Tuesdays With Ricki” past my lovely wife Debbie, saying, “It's a play on Tuesdays With Morrie, that John Steinbeck travelogue book.”  (Steinbeck is one of my three favorite authors.)  Debbie just looked over and said, “John Steinbeck didn’t write Tuesdays With Morrie.  That book was about a sports writer visiting his old professor.”  “Uhhh, I don’t think so,” I replied, “I’m pretty sure it was Steinbeck.”

It didn’t take Google long to straighten me out that I was thinking of Travels With Charley by Steinbeck, and the professor in Tuesdays With Morrie is losing his memory, so I’m probably definitely closer to Morrie than Steinbeck.

Anyway, Tuesdays With Ricki will be a hodge-podge of topics – my late-night TV rundown (literally), some music, some books (the Springsteen auto-b comes out September 27th, I’m hyped for that), movies, rock stars selling their asses to the highest bidder to get their songs into commercials (obviously a continuing boil on the skin of my universe), some Ricki C. rock & roll stories, etc. – whatever I feel like babbling about that week.  Let’s see how many Tuesdays I can get in before I drop the ball or Colin decides he’s had enough of my guff.

 

Rock & roll stars selling their songs (and souls) in commercials.

It’s getting so I can’t get through a single evening of television viewing without being confronted with my favorite rock & rollers selling out their birthright to the Lowest Common Denominator of network commercials.  Actually, in the case of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” being used by fucking PETSMART for God’s sake, we’ve actually found a way to go BELOW the Lowest Common Denominator – something my fifth-grade math back at St. Aloysius tells me is impossible, but here we are.

I fully realize I’ve bored readers with this subject before, but now it’s not just alt-rockers & pop stars peddling their asses to the Highest Bidder, it’s the BIG THREE of bands I formerly loved – The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Clash – offering up their tunes on the altar of the Big Bucks.  Of course this is nothing new, Pete Townshend has been selling out The Who tunes for DECADES (and, in fact, called an album The Who Sell Out back in 1967, but back then he was being all arty & ironic, it's only now we realize he was merely peering into his future).  Just last night in the course of one evening of TV I caught “Eminence Front,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” being trotted out to sell Disposables to The Masses.  Even by Pete’s rather dubious commercial standards, this might be approaching overkill.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” was formerly my FAVORITE rock & roll song of all time.  I find now I can’t even listen to it when it comes on oldies radio in the car, let alone put it on my stereo at home.  And I fully realize that many Pencilstorm readers will say, “Jeeez, Ricki, it’s just a commercial.  It’s only rock & roll.  Lighten up.”  But I find as I grow older I find I CAN’T lighten up on this topic.  It’s hard to explain to regular people just HOW MUCH these songs once meant to me, and HOW HARD it is to hear them being used to sell dog food.  “Sympathy For The Devil” for Petsmart?  HOW BADLY could Mick Jagger & Keith Richards have needed that money?  It’s one thing for Mick & Keith to sell “Satisfaction” to whatever commercial that’s in, it’s quite another to peddle their paean to The Prince of Darkness to Petsmart.  What do cute cartoon puppies, “The Secret Life of Pets” and Satan have in common?  How many millions is too many millions?     

Which brings us to the next point: I’m thinking that all of a sudden we’re hearing Clash tunes – “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” “London Calling,” etc. – in commercials because Mick Jones and whichever widow of Joe Strummer’s has control of his publishing have finally signed on the dotted line.  I still have a problem with The Clash – who actually BACKED UP their early radical political leanings with action, the Rock Against Racism shows & such – being used as fodder for hotel reservations, but someone who married Joe Strummer probably still has his kids to raise, so maybe that woman gets a pass.  Do I believe we would have heard these songs on commercials if Joe Strummer were still alive?  Lord God Jesus, I hope not.  

Okay, one of my self-imposed limits on Tuesdays With Ricki is that no post will go over 750 words and we’re coming perilously close that barrier so let me just say two things: 1) Artists are fully entitled to do whatever they want with their creations, but just don’t come crying to me for my Concert Buck after you do.  You made your money, you lost my respect, I guess we’re even.  2) The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Clash all used to believe in something – the righteous power of rock & roll – and now they don’t.  I still do.  How quaint.  – Ricki C. / September 4, 2016.

Why Is Michigan Getting So Much Love? Is Harbaugh Nutz? Baver Answers and Picks Some Winners.

Colin: Why Is Michigan getting so much love? Who is their quarterback anyway? 

Baver: Michigan probably deserves more respect than Buckeye fans are giving them. But they need to beat at least one of Ohio State or Sparty on the road this year, two schools that absolutely own them, to deserve the love they are getting. As for the QB, Harbaugh is of course doing things in atypical fashion, not naming a starter in fall camp for the 2nd year in a row. But it looks like Wilton Speight will get the first shot. He played against the Bucks last year and did not impress. It’s either Speight, Houston transfer John O’Korn, or a combination of both of them against Hawaii tomorrow. The Wolverines are suspect at QB, RB & LB, but look strong everywhere else, and actually upgraded with Defensive Coordinators with Don Brown replacing DJ Durkin.

Colin: Harbaugh seems to be acting a little extra crazy these days and a couple of recruits have recently jumped ship. Is his act going to fly or do you think his eccentric behavior could become a problem with recruits sooner than later?

Baver: Colin, usually it’s you shooting from the hip and me sugar coating it. It’s not eccentric behavior; it’s a complete freak show with Harbaugh. I watched his interview with the BTN media guys at the Big Ten Media days…and the guy is out there. He didn’t say anything crazy in that interview, but his facial expressions, his delivery when he talks….he is just a bizarre guy. The guy can coach; I’ll give him that, but his strange ways don’t help him in recruiting.

Colin: How would you rate the Big Ten compared to other conferences? What teams have a shot at making the playoff?

Baver: I think it’s the SEC and then a bit of a drop-off, as much as I hate to admit it. The other four Power Five conferences are all neck and neck in my mind – I could see the Big Ten finishing anywhere from 2nd to 5th in terms of conference computer ratings at year-end. I think Michigan and Ohio State have legit shots at the playoff, and maybe even Sparty. But Sparty isn’t going to win any tie-breakers from the committee after laying the egg they laid against Bama in last year’s playoff. Iowa has a longer shot at the playoff, but does play all of their big games at home

Colin: If Pencilstorm could send you to cover five games anywhere in the country this season, which five would you pick?

Baver: I don’t need to necessarily leave Columbus for all of ‘em do I?  Because OSU-Michigan in the ‘Shoe goes without saying; LSU-Bama down on the bayou; Clemson-Florida State at Doak Campbell Stadium.  Ohio State-Oklahoma in Norman (and I was actually there with my old man in ’83, and remember it like it was yesterday). And Bama-Tennessee in Knoxville. When is my prepaid expense check coming?

Colin: Looking around the country, do you have any dark horse picks for the CFB playoff or do you expect the usual suspects?

Baver: I like Clemson to win it all. On paper, they are a top-3 team in the country (in my mind) and have the easiest road to the title of all the big boys. As a dark horse, I think Louisville is worth a flyer, and I said that before Lamar Jackson put up video game highlights last night. I’ve got Clemson & LSU in the title game. I think this is Les Miles’ best team since his ’07 team that beat Ohio State in the title game. I think Bama’s schedule probably puts them in the loss column twice this year, but it of course wouldn’t shock me to see them win their 5th title in 8 years.

Colin:  Some interesting match ups in week one. Which games will you be keeping and eye on and who would you put $ on if you did that sort of thing? If I remember right, you lit it up against the spread last year, right?

Baver: 24-14-1 against the spread a year ago, but I am due for some duds this year after knocking ‘em down two straight years. I like Florida State laying 4 ½ as the best play on the board. They’ve got so much coming back and Ole Piss is breaking in a new team that won’t be ready in Wk 1. I like Clemson (-7 ½) to win and cover at Auburn, despite Clemson struggling a bit on the road (ATS wise) last year. I like LSU (-11) to roll Wisconsin in Green Bay. And I picked Bowling Green to cover the 28 against our Buckeyes in the OSU Q&A we had, but I think that spread is pretty sharp.