Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Seattle Insanity Edition

The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl 49 last night due to a great defensive play that produced an interception of a pick/slant on the Patriot’s 1-yard line. The problem is, why would anyone throw a football into the middle of a defense on the one yard line when you have Marshawn Lynch, a player known as "Beastmode" (and for very good reason) in your backfield on 2nd down and goal from the one yard line?

There is no why. It was the stupidest play call in the history of play calling. It would’ve been only slightly more stupid to run a fake field goal or try a fleaflicker. Pete Carroll claimed it was his idea. I hope he’s lying, but even if he is, he let it go out there.

This sums it up pretty well:

The Seahawks went against the identity of the entire team when the entire game was on the line. That senselessness trumped any other reasoning.

It would be like Kentucky trying to outscore Duke and not playing lock-down defense. Seattle is a power football team with a running back who could probably gain a yard against a a D-12 bulldozer. And they threw one of the riskiest passes you can try right into the middle of the defense. Nobody would’ve complained if he had called a fade to former Kentucky wide receiver Chris Matthews, who had the game of his existence, on the outside. But no.

Well, it was an exciting game right up until the end when stupidity and a dumb fight that saw Seattle DE Bruce Irvin ejected from the game turned it into something of a farce, at least from a Seattle standpoint. And it would be wrong not to congratulate the New England Patriots for doing all the right things in the end. That interception was no accident or fluke, it was an outstanding defensive play that capped off a remarkable comeback by the Pats.

Okay, football is over for this season. Anybody know where I can watch a college basketball game? Oh, that’s right — just about anywhere.

Tweet of the Morning

Best thing about dumb Seattle call? When everyone tires of debate, they'll realize there's a fascinating college basketball season underway.

— Michael DeCourcy (@tsnmike) February 2, 2015

This.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Jacob Tamme is honored to be in the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame. I’m glad he’s in there, he’s earned it.

• Kentucky loses one of their top targets to Oklahoma. Well, that’s going to happen. I get a lot more exercised about flips, but losing to a program like OU if you’re Kentucky is not shameful.

• Kentucky football’s Super Bowl ad:

  I like it.

• I’m a little worried about Strowbridge flipping. I hope I’m just being paranoid, but seeing 3 players flip last week will make you that way.

Kentucky basketball

• Dakari Johnson on Coach Cal’s practice antics:

  Johnson: Hmm, I have to think about that. He likes to mock us a lot when he’s mad at us. He thinks it’s really funny. He does impressions of everybody. For example, if I don’t have a lot of energy at practice, he’ll walk around the court with his back slumped and be like, "Ohhh, I’m soooo tired!" Stuff like that.

  Heh. I’ll bet he makes some crazy faces, too. We’ve already seen that. There’s some really good stuff in the interview, you should read the whole thing.

• An Alabama basketball fan’s experience at Rupp Arena on Saturday:

  I know I’ve said this before here, but if you’ve never been to a game at Rupp Arena, as a college basketball fan you need to go at least once if at all possible. The atmosphere and passion they have for the game and their team is second to none, but even more impressive to me is how they support their team in a first class manner. We were the only Alabama fans in our entire section, proudly wearing our Crimson knowing we were likely to be on the losing end of a blowout, but we couldn’t have felt more welcome. Everyone shared their experiences with the state of AL with us, complimented our football program, thanked us for visiting, etc. At dinner before the game, a UK fan came up to our table to welcome us to Lexington and chat basketball, the people around us at the game allowed us to support our team and we never felt the slightest bit uneasy or intimidated for cheering for our team.

• 5-star UK target Malik Newman will commit in April. That’s understandable. We should know by then who’s staying and going at Kentucky.

• Kentucky is underwhelmed to be nation’s lone unbeaten. I am also. I only care about the NCAA Tournament.

Other Kentucky sports

• Women’s Tennis wins their fifth straight by defeating Penn St. this weekend.

• Hoops has a stirring win over #21 Georgia in Memorial. Jen O’Neill was huge down the stretch. Relive the action in Jords’ game thread here.

• Did you know UK had a polo team? Well, apparently, the women’s polo team defeated Virginia Tech on Saturday.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Monday Wildcat Links

• Rush The Court: Morning Five

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

College football

• No wonder their athletics program is in debt: Tennessee outspends entire country on recruiting.

College basketball

• Sad to hear that VCU star guard Briante Weber tor his ACL and MCL in a loss to Richmond this weekend. His college career is tragically over.

• Texas A&M is now on a six-game winning streak. Their last loss was to Kentucky back on January 10th.

Other sports news

• James Young goes off for nine threes in the NBADL:

• We know who Chris Matthews is. Most people don’t, apparently.

• More second-guessing of Seattle’s last play. I think you could safely say it was universally panned by NFL fans and non-fans alike.

• Left Shark was the true Super Bowl MVP.

Other news

• News you can use: 5 myths about travel insurance.

• Punxsutawney Phil makes his Groundhog Day forecast, and it is for six more weeks of winter. Sorry, guys and gals.