It came from Black Background

Thanks to Steve for tipping me off to the NFL Bandwagon. Such fun: answer a few simple questions and figure out whose tailgate party you should crash the moment the Bears tank, or in case your team was never even in the hunt to begin with. My honest answers produced the team I'm really rooting for — the Saints — so I predict similar bloodcurdling truths to emerge when you sit down for the interview. Come for the Flash Q+A, but stay for the voiceovers. Priceless.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since I have nothing to offer in the way of current rhetorical, tactical, technological, or political guidance, here's my offering to ICBB for Holiday Season: a YouTube posting I just made of video shot over six months ago. Behold!

The moral of the story: flying is fun, fairly easy, and requires precious little exposition unless someone in a white shirt and irresponsibly thin black tie, hailing from the FAA, decides to ask impertient-yet-relevant questions about a recent ground loop. Blogging consistently, with a flair for the magnetic and electric? A much, much more considered and demanding occupation.

Peace on Earth and goodwill toward all y'all,

~M

Posted by Matt Shobe at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It occurred to me the other day when I, you know, looked at my own blog, that I haven't posted anything for over a month. I completely snuffed the month of July. There will never, ever be a July archive listing for It Came From Black Background. The shame is weighty, I tell you.

But hope springs forth! College football season is almost upon us, and good times are sure to be found in increasing numbers as the snare drum rattle echoes ever more loudly across dusty practice fields of America's Division I gridiron powerhouses. Your go-to source for the fan's perspective on the greatest college game remains Fanblogs.com. Longtime FeedBurner publisher Kevin Donahue has made a real microcontent empire out of the place, and I'm proud to be one of the writers there. I'm not terribly prolific; my main post is the after-action reports for Purdue football games, especially the ones I attend in person; I can't help but over-analyze my own team, especially since I seem to have them all to myself. (Hint? None taken. Thanks.) That said, if you review the archives from last season, I think you'll see that I give the bandwagon a wide berth and always give the other guy proper credit when his team found a way to win (which was, more often than not, in dagger-twisting fashion during the 2004 campaign).

I'll be going to the home opener against Akron, and then hopefully to our matchups against Iowa, Michigan State, and Illinois. The Iowa game should be pivotal for both teams. Can't wait!

Posted by Matt Shobe at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's official: this is the worst men's basketball team in Purdue history, not to mention the worst of Gene Keady's 25-year career. Lack of talent, untimely injuries, and a difficult preseason schedule (including Oklahoma, Cincinnati, NC State, and Memphis, all programs on the rise or near the top in their conferences) did 'em in. I'd like to say I'm surprised, but this fall's been in development for some time. Recruiting infractions and sanctions in the late 90s sent assistant (and star recruiter) Frank Kendrick packing, paved the way for Bruce Weber to seek his fortune elsewhere (oh, the pain), and set the stage for the team that's scuffing up the hardwood today.

That said, they seem to be great kids and they've got the Keady mentality -- put tough losses behind you and look to the next game -- and there's not a big ego in the bunch, even (injured) leading scorer Carl Landry. I just wish Keady's Purdue epilogue could've included some storied tournament matchups -- even a rematch with Coach K -- but no way, no how was that gonna happen with this squad.

Here's hoping new head coach (and Keady protegé) Matt Painter can bring the heat, and fast. Purdue needs a healthy men's basketball program -- it's just not right without one. (I also have an unsettling, vague feeling that getting basketball back on track might be timely, as football may be looking at an academic kneecapping in a couple years. Can we ever get this thing going on all cylinders?)

Posted by Matt Shobe at 10:17 AM | Permalink

A nice, out-of-the way editorial from the Herald & Review Newspaper points out the a truism in coaching college sports: it's very, very difficult to go out on top. I'm disappointed that Gene Keady's final season is going as badly as it is, because I remember the back-to-back Big Ten Championships in the early nineties. I guess I can now relate to the many laments of Penn State fans regarding Joe Paterno. Sometimes you have to admit that time and trends have passed you by and that it's time to move on. For Purdue, that peak might've been in 2000, after just missing a Final Four appearance with a loss to Wisconsin.

Purdue could have managed a tremendous succession in the men's basketball program had they held onto longtime assistant Bruce Weber; instead, as this past Saturday reinforced, Boiler fans will only be able to appreciate his efforts on the receiving end. We can only hope Matt Painter has a plan and the will to make the program his own once this swansong season is mercifully concluded. I really like Keady, and I'm pretty sure I would've enjoyed watching him (as the opposition has) even if I had not become a Purdue fan. There's certainly a consensus that he does deserve better on his way out. But Keady himself remarked, "I probably should have left a long time ago...loyalty can be stupid. That's pretty much tongue-in-cheek, but you can stay in one place too long and maybe I did that."

Posted by Matt Shobe at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think you're gonna end up seeing a lot more of this on Gene Keady's farewell tour:

This year's men's team is just bad, bad, baaaad.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Andy Katz's column on the end of the Gene Keady era in the Big Ten has me thinking that college basketball is gonna miss that combover more than it knows right now. I'm still smarting over Purdue's nail-biting loss to Wisconsin in 2000 to secure what likely would have been Keady's only Final Four appearance. Can this year's team get him there? Odds are incredibly slim, but you've gotta figure the players are going to give the ol' man maximum effort -- and you know he wouldn't expect anything less.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 06:53 PM | Permalink

I shot the clip linked below on a Sony Ericsson P900; the final result is a ~176K MPEG-4. It looks worse than the worst videophone transmission out of Baghdad under fire, but it's still good enough to capture the gist of what's going on around you at the moment. (As far as I could tell, I had all of the quality settings maxed out.) I suppose that that's more than enough for the current generation of mobile devices. Still, I wonder if we'll soon reach the point of phones carrying enough combined CCD, megapixel, and storage horsepower to outperform lower-end, dedicated consumer video electronics. According to Steve, we may already be there on the camera end with the new S700I from Sony. (Is that your first '10' rating for camera capabilities, Steve?)

The Video (may require QuickTime to view easily): Gameday Crowd

Posted by Matt Shobe at 10:50 AM | Permalink

I've permanently moved my weekly college football season postings over to Fanblogs.com. If you're passionate about the game, you'll find a lot of great insight, passion, and debate at this blog-centric view of the NCAA season in progress.

This week's posting: Bloom off the Rose for Boiler Nation

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:25 PM | Permalink

A neighbor of mine was digging around in his basement last weekend and he unearthed the following artifact of a seriously bygone era:

1974. What a lousy year for America, and for Purdue. The "grand diversion" in Vietnam was still in the process of collapsing in on itself. Nixon pretty much accomplished the same with the Oval Office. And football players had to wear tinpot helmets like these. What's a self-respecting linebacker to do? Go all communist and quit the team?

Turns out the early 70s weren't exactly the glory days for Purdue football -- at least not as spectacular as you wanted to believe, as we did in a rose-colored glasses way, when the Boilers hit rock bottom in the early 90s. Purdue's Rose Bowl team of 1967 was just a memory (and so was the frantic running game that Leroy Keyes brought to town) and the "Cradle of Quarterbacks" didn't offer a new star until Mark Herrmann in 1978.

However, 1974 is important to Boiler fans for one reason that matters today, and especially tomorrow. It's the last time Purdue left South Bend with a win. That's right -- The Brady Bunch wasn't even in syndication when Touchdown Jesus took a Saturday afternoon off against his in-state rivals.

So am I hoping that my neighbor's housecleaning discovery is some sort of good omen? Shoot, of course I am. I wouldn't be an American sports fan if I didn't assume the outcome of the contest didn't somehow hinge upon a token happening or ritual in my life. Do I expect the game to be close and maddeningly frustrating at times? Absolutely. The field there is pitched so that penalty calls roll down in the direction of the visitor's bench. Plus there's all that Lucky Charms hoodoo-voodoo floating in the air. But you have to believe. Your team is finally better, and it's built to stay that way. You have no option to think otherwise. Waver for even a second and that pipsqueak in the green vest is all fangs at your jugular.

UPDATE: Bliss, elation.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 01:20 PM | Permalink

On some players' flip-flopping injury status:

"I'm told this isn't that serious, that isn't that serious. Then we come out here and the guy goes one series and he's out. To me, he should be practicing. This is a contact sport. It's actually a collision sport -- dancing's a contact sport."

I will cry the day this man leaves Purdue.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This shocking 6-points-in-7-tenths-of-a-second
comeback by Colorado State against Purdue certainly is the end of our run as the anointed Big Ten Unchampion, right?

If you watch this video (Windows Media Player) of the final two CSU plays, you'll see that the Purdue inbounds pass which sealed our fate was made under/near the basket. There's no explaining this one away except to say "do anything BUT inbound the ball nearish to the basket, you clods." Credit goes to CSU's Michael Morris for the clutchmost 6 points he'll ever score in this lifetime. What a moment for him and the home fans. What a long, long way the Boilers are from that November night when they beat Duke. The team defense they played then was unbreakable. Now they're getting undressed on simple fundamentals. Gene, time to step out of the jacuzzi and two-a-day their lame asses all over again.

Here's hoping the Capital One Bowl outcome favorably overwrites my short-term sports memory.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Keady's squad upsets #2 Duke; Coach K graciously attributes win to Kenneth Lowe, calling him a "powerful leader" and crediting him with play that "gives that whole team confidence." I say his 22 points and 7-for-8 from the line (87% career avg.) didn't hurt, either. This win doesn't guarantee anything other than a few happy headlines in northern Indiana on a Sunday morning, but I'm pleased that a team that's shown so much promise in pre-season practices and by its coach's confidence in its depth has delivered an early-season statement of readiness. Keady said "We don't have any kids that are playing that are not as good as they think they are...they're better than they think they are. That's an unusual scenario. They're a little easier to coach." Jeez, Gene, I should hope so!

What's next? Sure bullseye treatment from everyone on the December schedule and a punishing run through a stacked Big Ten lineup. If you've supported the Boilers for one season or twenty, you know better than to take away too much from one win. But a team with this depth, commitment, and confidence seems to converge in west lafayette just once a decade, so you'd better enjoy this run while it lasts!

Sidenote: Gene's combover should soon sport a nativity scene, followed in January by the opening of a brand-new 7 Eleven near the part. My God, that thing's substantial.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i'll leave the therapeutic deconstruction of yesterday's punishing loss to the professionals.

On Ohio State's uncanny knack for the close game:

Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star: "It's always something with Ohio State, a team that gets a perverse charge out of walking this weekly tightrope. The first few times it happens, it feels a little bit like dumb luck. But then you look at the numbers, and realize the Buckeyes have won 11 of their past 12 games in contests decided by seven points or fewer."

Jeff Washburn of the Lafayette Journal+Courier: "Ohio State is, well, Ohio State. They thrive on the sensitive nerve endings that accompany an athletic contest such as the one played deep into the chilly night on Saturday."

ESPN's Maisel: "They call it Tresselball here. If you want pyrotechnics, go to Oklahoma. Tresselball depends on defense, regards field position as paramount and slowly, inevitably pressures the other team until it cracks."

Matthew Zemek at Fox Sports: "Ohio State doesn't impress you with flash and dash; the Buckeyes simply don't flinch. And while they don't blow you out of the water, they almost unfailingly do just enough to win each and every ballgame they play...Just enough, just a little bit better, just a little bit more airtight, just a little more mental toughness - that's the Ohio State Buckeyes for you, and if you haven't gotten used to it by now, you never will."

It's fairly clear to me now that OSU does get its share of breaks, but they're just as capable of manufacturing them as they are in letting the football gods parachute them in at critical moments. During the game yesterday I marveled at how many times an OSU cornerback batted away a sure 7-yard slant pass (OLB Hawk, especially); how many Buckeye punts were downed inside the 10; how the secondary never let anyone get behind them for a big play, no matter how many eons Orton had in the pocket. After a shocker loss to open the season against a quality Bowling Green squad, I stated that Purdue's "seat at the kid's table is now open, and you'll have to beat michigan and osu on the road to get up from it again." I stand by that belief, but it doesn't blunt at all the pain of coming so damn close.

Note from public affairs office to Joe Tiller: It's expected that ranked team coaches use sentences with verbs and a noun or three in postgame conferences. Acting like the pissed off kid on the empty playlot doesn't help the team, the fans, or the institution. Carr, Tressel, and hell, even Bowden would've done better in your shoes today. We still love what you've done over the past seven years, but the real sea change in the program's perception still begins at the top.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, the Boilers went wide left twice today, letting OSU eek out a win without an offensive touchdown. Quite hurtful to lose in OT by missing a tying kick, especially because Ben Jones has been so very solid in converting those three-point tries all season long. This continues Purdue's rich tradition of losing the biggest games on the road, and especially anywhere east of Fort Wayne.

I am grateful for the fact that we made the Buckeyes sweat it out and didn't get rolled like we did at Ann Arbor a month ago, but that's no great surprise to this year's avid Big Ten fan. Michigan remains a force to be reckoned with on both sides of the ball while OSU trundles on with mojo obviously stolen from Notre Dame two seasons ago. How else can you explain ND's slide and the Buckeye's glide?

Urrrgh. Surely Tom Kubat and Jeff Washburn must be reaching for their thesauruses and Pepto simultaneously, wondering what the hell else there is to say about the rest of this season. I bet Joe Tiller doesn't have much left behind the moustache either. We headed for the Food Products Bowl, so let's at least hope it's still gonna be a good New Year's Day game.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend's solid performance against the Hawkeyes leaves my Boilers with a showdown that both Purdue fans and the M-Go-Blue set can relish: at Columbus, against the most fearsome run defense in the nation. We haven't won there since Jimi Hendrix played Montreaux. Nonetheless, if Purdue can beat OSU in its own barn, we can do no worse than a share of the Big Ten title as long as we take care of IU the following week. (That season-ending game better not be within ten miles of interesting.) I'm sure most Meeechigan fans would prefer us to lose at OSU so they can have an exclusive high noon duel with the Buckeyes for the outright title, but I'd like to suggest a non-aggression treaty between West Lafayette and Ann Arbor for the remainder of 2003. Pull for us to win out and get a bigtime bowl -- I couldn't attend any Purdue Rose Bowl this year anyway -- while you guys go ahead and win out for whatever all-the-marbles, top-four BCS bowl you can get. If we can both shove OSU aside, you'll probably get the Roses while we get us a Bloomin' Onion or something, thanks to that 31-3 drubbing in our head-to-head matchup. All told, a pretty fair deal.

How Purdue's local press sizes things up

Posted by Matt Shobe at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was cruising the Lafayette Journal & Courier's usual gameday coverage in anticipation of today's matchup with Northwestern when I came upon this fascinating and sad piece about a 1903 rail disaster that devastated the Purdue team as it was traveling to its rivalry game with Indiana. Few, if any, of my contemporaries are probably aware such a thing had happened or that it is actually commemorated in the school colors and in the 13 steps leading up to the doors of what is now the Computer Science building. I certainly had no idea about this tragedy.

Just when you think your school's traditions and legend seem a little soft or insubstantial, you find out about some real-life events that have informed its history in a way you never expected.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cubs win. Wrigleyville revels in ensuing bedlam.

Notre Dame loses to Purdue. The faithful at Durkin's and Kendall's raise a mug to toast the still-slumbering echoes and Stu Schweigart's two huge picks.

Soldier Field opens to season ticket holders Saturday and to a national audience on Monday night. There has been nothing but controversy surrounding architects Wood and Zapata's insertion of a postmodern design into an existing neoclassical structure that is the iconic old stadium. However, in architecture as in software, I always believe the final test of success is the staying power of the finished design, no matter how painful the birthing process. Early reviews from everyday people (well, season ticket holders) about the seating layout and field site lines are glowing. The exterior treatment will never please everybody, so we just have to accept its polarizing effect. If the new dame graces the public in her Monday night coming-out ball, then the critics, like despondent second place Sox fans, will have to find a new audience in this town for their gripes.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh but we must, we must. I'll be playing my traditional Friday night PS2 matchup to predict the winner. Over the long term, the PS2 has shown an uncanny ability to OUIJA board its way to the same finish as real-life. Last year I lost most of the games Purdue won, but won several they lost for a similar record. No big deal. What rattled me, then, is that my PS2 pitted me against Washington in the Sun Bowl, which is of course what happened in the real world last year. Pete Fiutak has the call of that stunning bowl upset in his stream-of-conciousness notes. One of the great Boilermaker wins caps an otherwise agonizing season of close shave losses with nicks and cuts galore.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the difference between "team" and "program" is usually illustrated in X's and O's as a college football season matures -- often around game 8 or 9, when championships still appear to be up for grabs to the worthiest of the worthy. however, this past saturday revealed both playmakers and posuers in early September, giving fans a feast of great action on the gridiron.

playmakers

• miami. who else gets down by 23 and then scores 28 unanswered, right down to the wire, to prop the gator's jaws with a truly bitter defeat? actually, FSU's missed FG at the end of regulation against the Canes last season might've been more dramatic, but for squandered opportunity and gutsy comeback mettle, this game tops it.
• michigan. they turned houston into a bye week -- that's what you should do in pre-conference play, plain and simple.
• sooners on the road. the 47-yard TD strike after the fake punt wasn't gimmickry, it was high skill on display.
• irish. of course. i can no longer summon the strength to summarize this outfit's infamous good fortune. talk amongst yourselves.

  poseurs
  

• my own boilermakers. we're apparently peerless for believing our own hype. defense allows yet another 4th down, 4th quarter go-ahead touchdown? the only thing that should get behind our senior safeties should be their jersey numbers. and if you still think MAC teams are no big deal, think again. Bowling Green is a good squad with a great quarterback. they're mad with knockoff-fever now, and it would be great to see them play another big squad with a glass jaw. What's that? OSU on Sept. 20th? Could be shades of SDSU.
  
• virginia and nc state. both folded up their top 25 card tables with unacceptable losses, though few should be surprised wake forest found its way -- those guys are fast and have enough flaky formations to befuddle most saturday d-coordinators.
  
• maryland. a darling 3 weeks ago looks to be dirtbagged by week 4. FSU on the rise again?
  

of these 'poseurs,' i'm going with purdue as the day's worst upset even though NC State and Virginia were higher-ranked. As the local Journal+Courier's Jeff Washburn elaborates in his clear-minded after-action report, "if this Boilermaker team is as good as labeled, it does not lose to Bowling Green. Here. In Ohio. In a bowl game. It doesn't happen. Ever.". just when the boilers were fantasizing about the "p" word after a $70 million stadium renovation, a killer comeback bowl win against the Huskies, and a fraternity house full of returning senior starters on both sides of the line, they fail to make two or three big plays they certainly could probably execute blindfolded in practice. and that's just it -- "programs" get mentally tough and never look past an opponent, no matter how orange its away uniforms might be. purdue, your seat at the kid's table is now open, and you'll have to beat michigan and osu on the road to get up from it again.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you trust the homespun analysis of the Lafayette Journal+Courier, Big Ten fans should have a lot to savor this fall. Most of the teams are returning a dozen or more starters, which is unheard of. It's almost like back-to-back NFL seasons with no free agents. Hoo boy.

Posted by Matt Shobe at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)