d4 eZ sU the washington post.saturday, november 16 , 2019
early shift
noon Vmi at army » cBs sports network
noon no. 5 alabama at mississippi state » espn
noon indiana at no. 9 Penn state » WJla (ch. 7), Wmar (ch. 2)
noon no. 11 florida at missouri » WUsa (ch. 9), WJZ (ch. 13)
noon no. 14 wisconsin at nebraska » Big te n network
noon michigan state at no. 15 michigan » Wttg (ch. 5), WBFF (ch. 45)
noon Kansas at no. 22 oklahoma state » Fox sports 1
noon tCU at texas tech » espn2
noon tulane at temple » espnU
noon massachusetts at northwestern » Big te n network
noon alabama state at florida state » nBc sports Washington plus
penn state still harbors college Football playoff aspirations, even after last
week’s loss at minnesota dropped it from no. 4 to no. 9 in the rankings.
next week’s game at ohio state is the true test, obviously, but it won’t
mean much if the nittany lions can’t get past indiana, which at no. 24
is ranked in the associated press poll for the first time in 25 years. (that
was a one-week stay at no. 25 that abruptly ended after a 49-point loss at
Wisconsin.) the hoosiers have beaten penn state only once in 22 tries,
and indiana will be without usual starting quarterback michael penix Jr.,
who’s out for the season after suffering a sternum injury against
northwestern on nov. 2. peyton ramsey (three starts this season) will take
his place.... michigan has never beaten michigan state at home
under Coach Jim harbaugh, but that could change saturday: the
spartans’ dreary season continued last weekend when they gave up a
25-point lead at home and lost to illinois. defense, once michigan state’s
hallmark, has been a letdown for the spartans: they have allowed at least
28 points in five straight games, tied for the longest streak in program
history.
swing shift
2:30 no. 23 navy at no. 16 notre dame » Wrc (ch. 4), WBal (ch. 11)
3:30 Virginia tech at georgia tech » nBc sports Washington
3:30 richmond at James madison » masn
3:30 no. 2 ohio state at rutgers » Big te n network
3:30 wake forest at no. 3 Clemson » WJla (ch. 7), Wmar (ch. 2)
3:30 no. 4 georgia at no. 12 auburn » WUsa (ch. 9), WJZ (ch. 13)
3:30 no. 18 memphis at houston » espn2
3:30 no. 19 texas at iowa state » Fox sports 1
3:30 west Virginia at no. 24 Kansas state » espn
3:30 Kentucky at Vanderbilt » sec network
3:30 Central michigan at Ball state » cBs sports network
4 no. 8 minnesota at no. 20 iowa » Wttg (ch. 5), WBFF (ch. 45)
4 syracuse at duke » acc network
4 wyoming at Utah state » espnU
4:30 stanford at washington state » pac-12 network
auburn gets three chances to ruin someone’s season. the first was
oct. 26, when it came up just short in a 23-20 loss at lsU. the second is
saturday’s home game against georgia, the default no. 4 pick of the
college Football playoff selection committee. (the third is the iron Bowl
against visiting alabama on nov. 30.) among sec teams, only mississippi
is averaging more rushing yards per game than auburn, but georgia is
fourth nationally in rushing yards allowed per game and is the only team in
the country that hasn’t allowed a rushing touchdown. in fact, georgia is
the first team in at least 20 years not to allow a rushing touchdown
through the first nine games of the season. no team has allowed fewer
than three in a full season since 2009.... the oddsmakers rewarded
minnesota for its big win over penn state and its first 9-0 start since 1904
by... making the golden gophers three-point underdogs at three-
loss iowa? those three hawkeyes losses came against ranked teams —
by seven, five and two points — so it’s not too out of the ordinary, and
minnesota kind of got lucky against the nittany lions: penn state
outgained minnesota by 58 yards and had two more scoring opportunities
(defined as drives that featured a first down inside the opponent’s 40-yard
line) than the golden gophers.
night shift
7 no. 1 lsU at mississippi » espn
7 no. 17 Cincinnati at south florida » cBs sports network
7 air force at Colorado state » espn2
7:30 no. 10 oklahoma at no. 13 Baylor » WJla (ch. 7), Wmar (ch. 2)
7:30 no. 25 appalachian state at georgia state » espnU
7:30 south Carolina at texas a&m » sec network
7:30 louisville at n.C. state » acc network
7:30 arizona state at oregon state » Fox sports 1
8 UCla at no. 7 Utah » Wttg (ch. 5), WBFF (ch. 45)
10:15 new mexico at no. 21 Boise state » espn2
10:30 arizona at no. 6 oregon » espn
11 southern Cal at California » Fox sports 1
power Five teams sitting at 9-0 usually find themselves in the upper
echelon of the cFp rankings. But then there’s Baylor: the 9-0 Bears are
just 13th in the latest rankings, which isn’t as disrespectful as it seems. as
noted this week by ralph d. russo of the associated press, Baylor’s
statistics — points scored and allowed per game, yards per play, various
efficiency measurements — are similar to those put up by iowa state,
which is 5-4. the difference: the cyclones have lost four one-score games
by a total of 11 points, among them a 23-21 loss at Baylor on sept. 28 in
which the Bears needed a last-minute field goal. Baylor has won four one-
score games by a total of 14 points, and regression could be in the
forecast. this view obviously will change if the Bears beat oklahoma and
then te xas next saturday, but until then, the low ranking seems apt....
lsU might struggle to avoid a letdown after last week’s exhilarating win at
alabama, but the tigers shouldn’t have much trouble with ole miss
nonetheless. the rebels’ three wins over Football Bowl subdivision
competition are against teams that are a combined 4-24. they did lead
alabama at the end of the first quarter sept. 28, but the end result was a
59-31 loss. only seven teams have given up more passing yards than
ole miss, and lsU averages 37 9.3, second in the nation.
— Matt Bonesteeltoday’s tV gamesother area games
catholic (1-8) at maine maritime (0-9), noon
seton hill (2-7) at shepherd (8-2), noon
georgetown (5-4) at Bucknell (2-7), 1
Kennesaw state (8-2) at hampton (5-5), 1
Virginia ly nchburg (0-8) at morgan state (2-8), 1
towson (6-4) at William & mary (4-6), 1
norfolk state (4-6) at delaware state (2-8), 2
ciaa championship: Fayetteville state (8-2) vs. Bowie state (10-0), 3
howard (1-9) at Florida a&m (8-1), 4
college football
“I did a good job of incorporat-
ing it into e veryday activities,” P er-
ry said. “We’re riding in the car,
and I ’ll quiz [senior slotback] Ta zh
[maloy] on a play or something.”
Everyone from Jasper to Niu-
matalolo to senior center ford
Higgins took note of Perry’s in-
creased confidence come spring
ball. Perry knew what Jasper’s cri-
tiques i n practice were going to be
before the coach shouted them.
Higgins said the way Perry walks
up to the l ine in g ames i s different.
“It’s not so obvious, because he
isn’t vocal,” Higgins said. “But you
learn details about each other,
mannerisms where you can tell,
okay, something’s going wrong,
whether it’s the first play in Ha-
waii last season where he’s under
me and his hands are shaking.
Now he sees clearly.... It’s a calm,
confident, ‘okay, check into this
play, do this, do that.’ A lot has
changed.”
What hasn’t changed is Perry’s
reticence to stand out. Despite his
accomplishments, he doesn’t like
thinking about how he will be
remembered in Annapolis; it’s too
much pressure, too far into the
future. He would like to win the
rest of Navy’s games this season,
especially to lead his senior class
to its first victory against Army.
“He sees that he’s done some
stuff, but we have a chance to do
special things,” Niumatalolo said.
“He’s got things that he wants to
accomplish as a team, some g ames
on t he s chedule he w ants to have a
W next to. I think when those
things get checked off, he’ll be a
guy that fans will talk about for
years. maybe cemented in h istory.”
[email protected]cause of an illness and thought he
wasn’t going to play. Then starter
Ta go S mith t ore his ACL, P erry w as
yanked from the crowd to relieve
backup q uarterback Will Worth in
the t hird quarter with the g ame in
hand, and thus was born a tidy
origin story for a reluctant quar-
terback-turned-star.
The only issue was it took three
years f or Perry to actually own the
position.
He a lternated b etween s lotback
and quarterback his first two
years and was the starting quar-
terback for t he f irst five games l ast
season until Jasper and Niumat-
alolo pulled him following a par-
ticularly tough loss at Air force.
After that, Perry started i n the slot
for t he final eight games and r otat-
ed under center with seniors Zach
Abey and G arret Lewis.
All t he movement caused doubt
and frustration for Perry, who
didn’t k now whether h e was being
moved around because he wasn’t
good e nough a nd w asn’t s ure what
to focus on to improve.
Navy’s indecision at the posi-
tion last year was the first thing
Niumatalolo questioned this win-
ter when he picked over t he d read-
ful season. But by then, Perry al-
ready was dedicated to being a
quarterback.Confidence boost
Perry spent the months be-
tween his junior and senior sea-
sons intensely studying Navy’s of-
fense and working on his passing.
free time is rare f or students a t the
Naval Academy, and Perry, a quan-
titative economics major who
hopes to join the marines next
year, surrendered his t o football.Such a lofty spot in program
history feels nearly unbelievable
to a player who doesn’t fit the
quarterback mold. Perry is re-
served even among friends, and he
is listed at 5 feet 9 and had to bulk
up to get to 190 pounds. He de-
scribes his relationship to the po-
sition as, “Well, something that
was p ressed u pon me.”
The senior grew up the young-
est of five children in Clarksville,
Te nn., i n the s hadow of f ort Camp-
bell just across the Kentucky bor-
der, raised by parents who spent a
combined four decades in the
Army. Sports weren’t big in his
hometown; most people Perry
knew either went to work in a
factory or enlisted after high
school. As of his junior year, Per-
ry’s plan was to either attend col-
lege at middle Te nnessee, where
he had watched his older sister’s
friends play f ootball, o r enlist.
Perry was recruited to Navy as a
slotback, and it was only midway
through his year at the Naval
Academy Preparatory School that
Jasper decided t o stick Perry in t he
quarterback room as well. Just in
case.
“We always recruit quite a few
quarterbacks, probably more than
most, because of attrition,” Niu-
matalolo said, referring to the
shedding t hat commonly occurs at
military academies as students
strive t o balance the rigors o f acad-
emy life with football.
Just in case happened Sept. 3,- Perry began the opening
game of h is freshman season in h is
dress whites, sitting in the Navy-
marine Corps memorial Stadium
stands alongside other plebes —
he hadn’t practiced all week be-
college football players with
130 .3 rushing yards per game; his
16 rushing touchdowns are fourth
in the country. Saturday’s game at
No. 16 Notre Dame — the
93rd straight meeting in the sto-
ried rivalry — is the f irst time s ince
1978 both teams are ranked in the
Associated P ress poll (Notre D ame
is 16th, Navy 21st).
“The quarterback is the most
important guy,” s aid Ken Niumat-
alolo, Navy’s 12th-year head
coach. “We tend to go as our quar-
terbacks go. And malcolm is play-
ing really, really good f ootball.”Unlikely rise
Perry’s success on the field
didn’t just materialize this year.
The senior captain hasn’t always
been the mids’ No. 1 guy, but he
will go down as one of the best
athletes in team history. He’s the
fourth player in program history
to rush for 3,000 career yards
(3,384) and just the s econd p layer,
after revered quarterback Keenan
reynolds (2012-15), to have three
seasons with more than
1,000 rushing yards. Niumatalolo
called Perry the most dynamic
rusher he has seen in more than
20 years at Navy.
“He’s so dynamic,” Jasper said.
“We were self-scouting last week
[during a bye week], and scram-
bles have always been an X-factor
for us. over the years, scrambles
have been a negative, ended in a
sack or something like that. Now,
it’ll say, ‘Scramble: 12 yards.’ or
20 yards, 30 yards. I think one
even said 60 yards. He makes big
plays out of the pocket.”navy from D1After three years, Navy’s Perry is a true quarterback
al goldis/associated pressPenn State, guided this season by redshirt sophomore quarterback
Sean Clifford, has 21 victories in 22 matchups against Indiana.
BY CHUCK CULPEPPERSuddenly, the pig matters na-
tionally. The pig will matter to
the 13 members of the College
football Playoff selection com-
mittee, who will burrow into
their respective home TV caves
Saturday with heightened curi-
osity about what might happen
with the pig. The pig will matter
to college football zealots well
beyond Iowa and minnesota, the
neighbors who fight annually f or
the pig. The pig has playoff
implications.
Good for the pig.
Among all the nutty college
football trophies for which rivals
scrap with prized contempt, the
pig might just b e the b est, yet the
pig has spent some recent years
largely hushed. Iowa vs. minne-
sota hasn’t mattered much or
often beyond Iowa and minneso-
ta, with the fault going mostly to
minnesota. Iowa has hogged 14
of the past 18 through the early
century, including the past four.
As Coach P.J. fleck takes his
fresh darling of an eighth-
ranked minnesota (9-0) team to
Iowa City and No. 20 Iowa (6-3)
on Saturday, either some Go-
phers or some Hawkeyes will
wind up hoisting the 98.3-pound
floyd of rosedale trophy. That’s
the eight-decade-old bronze rep-
lica of a Hampshire hog with the
belt o f color carefully depicted (if
not in white), and also another
reminder that we are a deranged
people.
All things considered, that
trophy arguably outpaces even
the old oaken Bucket (Purdue-
Indiana), the Victory Bell
(Southern California-UCLA) and
the Golden Egg (mississippi
State-mississippi). It’s arguably
more evocative than even the
two trophies that involve axes
(the Axe for Stanford-California
and Paul Bunyan’s Axe for min-
nesota-Wisconsin) or the two
trophies that involve Paul Bu-
nyan (the Paul Bunyan Trophy
for michigan-michigan State
and the aforementioned), even
as it tells much that a country
could have two trophies relating
to a fictional behemoth of a man
and two relating to a sharp
implement.
After Iowa won, 48-31, in min-
neapolis last year, that states-
man Kirk ferentz, the longest
serving thus longest tortured of
all top-tier coaches, said, “It’s
great that our guys had to fight
hard; we knew that was going to
be the case. And we got the
opportunity to take floyd back
to Iowa City for a year, so that’s
really something to be pleased
about.”
That passage “take floyd back
to Iowa City” demonstrates fer-entz’s keen familiarity with the
pig.
fl oyd’s origins are always
worth retelling no matter how
many times retold. They in-
volved ozzie Simmons, Iowa’s
African American running back
from Texas who left Texas be-
cause, back in dumber times, he
wasn’t allowed to play college
football in Te xas. He starred at
Iowa and even got a socially
accepted yet ignorant nickname,
“Ebony E el.” He also got a central
role Nov. 28, 1934, in Iowa City,
where minnesota walloped
Iowa, 48-12, part of a swath of
history when the G ophers won 17
out of 21 in the series. During
that game, the Gophers used
unusually brutish tactics on Sim-
mons.
Somehow, the officials failed
to penalize this.
Iowans got ticked, and in the
run-up to the 1935 game, also in
Iowa City, Gov. Clyde Herring
talked s ome righteous t rash e ven
without access to Twitter. “The
University of Iowa football team
will defeat the University of
minnesota tomorrow,” he de-
clared, as reported by the Associ-
ated Press. “Those minnesotans
will find 10 other top-notch foot-
ball players besides ozzie Sim-
mons against them this year.
moreover, if the officials stand
for any rough tactics like minne-
sota used last year, I’m sure the
crowd won’t.”
As the multiple accounts of
history have it, the minnesota
attorney general responded by
going on what would have made
a decent tweet thread: “Your
remark that the crowd at the
Iowa-minnesota game will not
stand for any rough tactics is
calculated to incite a riot. It is abreach of your duty as governor
and evidences an unsportsman-
like, cowardly and contemptible
frame of mind.”
With b order war amok for that
most reasonable of reasons —
football — minnesota Gov. floyd
olson went for calm in a tele-
gram, while using one vile word,
given the country’s atrocious his-
tory: “Dear Clyde, minnesota
folks [are] excited over your
statement about the Iowa crowd
lynching the minnesota football
team. I have assured them thatyou are a law-abiding gentleman
and are only trying to get our
goat. The minnesota team will
tackle clean, but oh! how hard.
Clyde, if y ou seriously t hink Iowa
has any chance to win, I will bet
you a minnesota prize hog
against an Iowa prize hog that
minnesota wins today. The loser
must deliver the hog in person to
the winner. Accept my bet
through a reporter. You are get-
ting odds because minnesota
raises better hogs than Iowa. my
best personal regards and con-
dolences.”
Thereby did he join in a repar-tee between governors about hog
caliber, as if a state line delineat-
ed hog caliber.
The bet held, and minnesota
won, 13-6, without incident. The
next week, Gov. Herring turned
up at the minnesota governor’s
office in St. Paul with a hog —
named floyd, in honor of Gov.
olson, and f rom rosedale farms,
near fort Dodge, Iowa. In per-
haps the most glorious detail,
floyd was a brother of Blue Boy,
a hog who acted commendably
in the 1 933 Will rogers and Janet
Gaynor film “State fair,” about
the Iowa State fair. That movie
nabbed a best picture oscar
nomination but no nomination
for Blue Boy in yet another case
of obvious human bias against
animals.
Some accounts have floyd
frolicking some on the carpeting
at the governor’s office before he
proceeded to the University of
minnesota, then went to a farm
in southeastern minnesota. Sim-
mons became all-Big Te n and
all-American but, in a dumber
time, wasn’t allowed into the
NfL. He joined the Navy and
then the Chicago public school
system, where he taught physical
education for 38 years, accord-
ing to his obituary in 2001. When
Iowa named its all-time team at
its 100-year mark in 1989, Sim-
mons shined from a running
back spot.
floyd died of cholera just
eight months after his visit with
the governors, with interment
on the farm beneath spruce
trees, barely above the Iowa line.
Soon minnesota commissioned a
replica as a trophy that, eight
decades on, matters today as
much as it has in a good while.
[email protected]This year, Floyd is hog in the spotlight
hannah Foslien/getty images
Iowa players hoisted the Floyd of Rosedale trophy last year after a fourth straight win over Minnesota.Iowa-Minnesota battle
for one-of-a-kind trophy
has playoff implications“Clyde, if you seriously
think Iowa has any
chance to win, I will bet
you a Minnesota prize
hog against an Iowa
prize hog.”
floyd olson, minnesota governor,
t o iowa gov. clyde herring in 1935UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws