Daily Bullets (June 3): Amen Tests Positive, Sanders Was Right

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Happy Wednesday – we’ll have a Michael Jackson-decision before lunch!

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OSU Bullets

• Chuba Hubbard (via Kyle Porter) shared a pointed thought good for all to hear and chew on. 

What Chuba said is right. There’s a massive cognitive dissonance to decry the Black Lives Matter movement in the present day but throw on a No. 30 jersey come September and saddle up for 13 (or so) games on Saturdays. They matter, but only when it benefits me! [PFB]

I’d take the seven minutes to read the post – it challenged me to be better in 2020 and reminded me why I read this site most days.

• The big news from yesterday: linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga tested positive for Covid-19

• ESPN gave four “if’s” that have to happen for the Pokes to contend for a national championship this year. The low-hanging fruit is Spencer Sanders’ development but this last “if” wasn’t intuitive.

If … Sanders gets shorter fields. When your defense isn’t particularly efficient, you lose the turnovers battle, you get nothing out of the return game and you saddle your offense with bad field position. OSU’s average starting field position was 28.1, 100th in FBS. Giving Sanders & Co. more short fields will quickly plump up the scoring average. [ESPN]

• Posts like this (five things from the OSU facility tour) are why blogs need to exist

• This article on offensive line coach Charlie Dickey and the challenges he’s faced was really good – OSU’s lucky to have an individual like him coaching young men

• This CBS article has Barry Sanders as one of the top-five Detroit Lions ever (shocker)

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Non-OSU Bullets

• Details on NBA season (at least, where it’s headed) are leaking out with a return date
• The loneliness of digital togetherness resonates
• Diving into Ceedee Lamb’s fit with the Dallas Cowboys

These social media thoughts set me back a few steps:

Accordingly, very little good comes from opining—and, inevitably, quarreling—on social media when our time and energy could be used to do something more constructive. On pressing matters we are not informed enough to address, perhaps simple expressions of prayer, grief, and links to helpful approaches by those better informed are best. [Granola]

Opining is fun, right? I sincerely enjoy talking with my dad, my friends, and (bless her heart when she has to act interested) my wife about sports when the tone is what’s interesting, unique, and optimism. The above is referring to larger, more dense topics but I think that principle (avoiding the quarreling) is still true about sports.