And the winner is....

Bill Carmody! 

Carmody wins a 30-27 thriller, coming from behind in dramatic fashion.

Wet Paper Bag coughed up a seemingly secure 24-21 lead, meaning you'd rather have Bill Carmody as the head coach of NU basketball than an inanimate object. 

And, look, I know the expression is "Bill Carmody couldn't coach his way out of a wet paper bag", but I thought putting him head to head against the bag would be more interesting. First off, I think we all know Carmody could coach his way out of any sort of bag - with the amount of hilarious overdramatic arm motions he uses to signify various zone defenses, I have a funny feeling he'd penetrate the bag interior and claw his way to freedom. 

But as someone who generally truly loves NU sports, I have difficulty comprehending why Bill Carmody is still our coach. If you do anything for eight years, and in your eighth year, you are 6% successful at that thing, you have no upside. You have failed, and there's no logical way to believe that you will someday be successful. Bill Carmody did that by going 1-17 two presidential terms into his administration. I don't care if he can out-coach John Wooden while blindfolded. Change has gotta come.

The fact that Pat Fitzgerald is universally respected, and won his poll (which asked if the best coach in the nation was "Pat Fitzgerald" or "other") something like 13-2 and Carmody barely beat out Wet Paper Bag is meaningful insight into the way NU fans feel about each guy respectively even if we were overexaggerating a bit with each poll. 

There's gonna be another poll up soon - vote or die!

Since I wanna make this joint as reader-friendly as possible, I'm going to take my time to respond to things people comment every once in a while, and now's one of those times. 

First off, for those of you wondering how to use the comments section, NorthwesternHighlights has got it down. I giggled at his comment on the Craig Moore post. Giggled.

 

Two people sufficiently deaded me in my safeties post, and I feel compelled to respond.

First off, Closso, who contends that Brad Phillips didn't go helmet-to-helmet on Shonn Greene. Now, Closso, you're without a doubt the runaway leader in the "Rodger's favorite commenter" award, mainly for posting a link to this site in LTP's comment section, but, trust me, I've seen that video my fair share of times. Either that was helmet-to-helmet or Brad Phillip's chest is made out of some sort of graphite-titanium composite that they make golf clubs out of, which isn't totally out of the question, but it sure looks like he's leading with his head while Greene is already off-balance a bit and falling head-first. Then again, I thought our fight song went "hit em high" instead of "hit em hard" for about two months, and kept asking people why our fight song condoned things that would likely get 15-yard personal foul penalties, so I'm probably not the guy to trust when it comes to matters of tackling people above the waist.

There was also a guy saying that Brendan Smith isn't as good in pass coverage as I portrayed him to be, citing the OSU game. Well, you're probably right, anonymous guy. To be honest, I remember very little of the OSU game after we tied it up at seven, other than the inability to feel my lower legs and the fact that my mom kept complaining about how cold it was. I was a little hesitant to include a sentence describing Smith as good at pass coverage, but I remembered his two interceptions for touchdowns this past year and decided to throw it in, one of those was a deflection, and one of those was a terrible throw into double coverage where he was just waiting to run it back against Syracuse, both were probably more indicative that he's a good return man than he is a lockdown defender.  

I already called out run-on sentence guy, and the rest of the comments were like "hey, nice blog" or on posts too far back for me to mention here, so, basically, in summary, thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks for voting in the polls. Ask about my reader-friendliness policies, folks. 

1LDTFS, Post 10: Safeties.

Woah, comments on my last three posts? I know that's pretty run-of-the-mill for any normal blog, but, yo, I just started this joint less than a month ago. Three comments on three posts from three different people makes me all warm and gooey inside. Keep it up, everybody.

Oh, and re: Think Blue Crew, who suggests we play someone who isn't Illinois, therefore making the Wrigley game less of a spectacle in which NU happens to be a part and more NU-centric: that's the pipe dream. That would definitely be better for NU, if we could actually get people to make us the focus of the game. But Northwestern just doesn't have the brand recognition to be able to book Wrigley Field just for us, and Illinois has the upper hand here: they want to play at Wrigley, Wrigley wants them, therefore, they're not going to be the one giving up a home game. We have to take what we can get, and what we can get is a home game at Wrigley Field against Illinois. So let's do it.

On to safeties, yo!

Days til Football: 35.

(The Daily had a ridiculously good photo of Brendan Smith about three seconds after this photo was taking wherein he is lifting his hands victoriously, but I couldn't figure out how to actually get it on here. So, you get this photo with a sullen Eric Decker in the background instead.)

Who did it last year?: NU had two star safeties: free safety Brendan Smith, was great in pass coverage and was a huge asset in the returning game, and strong safety Brad Phillips, who became NU's biggest hitter and had three interceptions. Each had plays that won conference games: Smith won the Minnesota game with his last-minute pick six to give NU the 24-17 victory, and Phillips' hit on Shonn Greene, despite being completely illegal, cuz of the whole "helmet-to-helmet" thing, forced Greene to put the ball on the ground, giving NU a chance to score, and took Greene out of the game. Which we won.

When Phillips played nickelback or moved up a few yards to play a sort of hybrid linebacker, Brian Peters came in as an extra defensive back in the strong safety position. Peters is a big hitter too - he knocked Arrelious Benn out of the Illinois game. (By the way, the reason Arrelious goes by "Rejus" in sports columns isn't because it's a nickname of his, but because "Arrelious" causes more spelling errors from lazy sportswriters than Dwyane Wade and Jarrod Saltalamacchia combined. This is what's known as a "Coach K nickname" in the biz.) (I just made that up.) (But it works. Even though I can totally spell K-R-Z-Y-Z-E-W-S-K-I with my eyes closed.)

Who's got next?: Brad and Brendan are seniors this year, and both made it onto the cover of the media guide, so, yeah, they'll be starting. And Brian Peters will also be doing his thing in those aforementioned nickelback situations. I nominate we call this unit "The Killer B's". Here's to not getting sued by an overzealous Brad Ausmus and Lance Berkman.

Song this unit reminds me of: Killa Beez, by... the Wu-Tang Killa Beez, a very uncreative rap group affiliated with the Wu-Tang Clan. Although you probably just thought it was the Wu-Tang because everybody with a verse on this song is, well, also a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. It's for the better: the rapping by the other members of the Wu-Tang Killa Beez on the rest of this album is historically bad. 

Not to tell U-God what's ghetto, but, dude, I have a Chad Pennington jersey in my closet. I don't wear it for a reason. 

And, yes, I'm running with calling this unit the Killer B's. I'm so uncool.

Is this year's unit an improvement? Well, it's the same unit, a year older, a year wiser, and a year better at game-winning interceptions and the not safe for work Chris Tucker quote in Friday-ing of opposing running backs. I like it. 

So, yeah, have a good weekend. Special teams is next. Football season isn't close yet, but it's close to close.