Welcome to another edition of the #FootballFam mailbag. I hope you enjoyed the first installment, and I really want you to like this in further weeks. I can’t do it without you, and that brings me a sense of pride and joy. This is something that we get to work on together, and every week, it is going to be different.
We had a light batch of questions for Week 5, but that’s okay. The questions that came in were really, really good. And I’m proud of all of you, not just for sending them in, but for being who you are each and every day.
Without further ado…
@eastchoast: You can take one road trip in-season, but have to stay in-conference: Pac-12 for the natural beauty? SEC for atmosphere? Other?
This is a super fun thing to think about. I live in ACC and SEC country, essentially, and I’ve made it kind of a personal goal over the past couple years to visit as many of those schools as I could (barring credential issues, travel problems, budget, etc.). So far, I’ve done okay, and I’d say I’ve hit almost every ACC school and I’m making progress on the SEC, although not as quickly as I’d hope.
But the only Pac-12 venues I’ve ever been to are Arizona and Arizona State. I’ve never been to Autzen, or the Rose Bowl, or the Coliseum, or California Memorial, and something about going up and down the coast, finally exploring California, hitting Oregon and Washington, and Colorado and Utah, and swinging back through Arizona again is so enticing to me. I wouldn’t call it natural beauty, so to speak, because I find the Southeast incredibly beautiful, but it’s the newness of it that I am really drawn to. This is something I really want to do.
@legkicktko: What percent of a marathon will Leonard Fournette run for?
A marathon is right around 26 miles. I’m not telling you this because I think you don’t know. I’m making sure I start somewhere with my math. That’s essentially 45,760 yards. Now, the question doesn’t specify whether it’s this year or in his career, so I’m going with his career for fun.
In high school, Leonard Fournette ran for 7,619 yards (and 88 touchdowns!). He ran for 1,034 yards in his freshman season. The sophomore is at 631 through three games this year, which puts him at a pace of 2,524 yards. Even if we are conservative and say he hits just 2,000 (which is not out of the question at all), that would give him 9,619 before his junior season in college. Let’s say he plays one more year because he has to and the NFL is a bunch of fascists and gets another 1,800 yards. He’s over 11,000 then before he enters the NFL.
This is where it starts to get tricky. There’s no way of guaranteeing a player will be successful at the next level, even a guy as good as Fournette. But if we stay optimistic (and I always do), and he has the type of career he’s supposed to (let’s go with Clinton Portis, that seems like a fun comparison), he’d have close to 10,000 yards before he retires.
So that’d put him at or around 21,000, which is almost 46 percent of a marathon. Go, Leonard, go.
@furrer4heisman: Which punter had the best play in Week 4: Hughes, Hackett or Dixon?
This one is easy for me. It’s Riley Dixon. And it’s not just because of the hurdle, it’s that gigantic FALCON PUNNNNCCCHHHHHHH fist pump at the end that ended up striking the flopping defender.
That being said, Tom Hackett’s skycam destruction, along with his crazy freestyle play on a botched snap that got the first down was incredible. And from a purely “punting prowess” standpoint, A.J. Hughes maybe should get it. That being said, this is my mailbag, so I’m going with Dixon.
@mattrothstein: Please list three things you actively dislike, not exclusive to football.
I’m pretty sure Matt is trying to see if he can get me to blink, but I’m not going to blink. I have a reputation of being pretty nice and liking most things, and this is true, but I am human, and I do get upset with stuff. I just made the conscious decision a few years ago to stop letting resentment get in the way of my life, so I try to stay positive, see the good in most situations, and when something does go wrong try and stop, take a few breaths, tell myself it’s not necessarily my fault or that the world isn’t out to get me, and then try to move on.
This stems from a problem I had for most of my life of being too hard on myself and thinking I wasn’t meant to be happy. That wasn’t fair to myself, and I’ve worked really hard to change that mindset, and it started with being nice to as many people as possible, being understanding and empathetic, and having a short memory on bitterness.
But here are three things I don’t like:
- When cities don’t offer useful or affordable public transit options to their citizens, especially in population dense lower-income neighborhoods, and even more so in cities that refuse to increase their walkability.
- How, in Las Vegas, it’s almost impossible to get water to drink even though the city is very hot (it’s a dry heat) and you’re surrounded by smoke all the time. It’s almost like they forget how important it is to hydrate.
- The way the NFL doesn’t treat its players or its fans like human beings.
@lethalsax: How many banners will it take to fire Al Golden?
I don’t think a banner is going to fire anyone. Banners are inanimate objects, and although I believe anything can have an energy – positive or negative – I’m pretty sure the ultimate decision is going to come down to the athletic director and the big time boosters. It is fun to see people flying banners though. I also like skywriting.
@chip_patterson: Where can a guy get some wireless around here?
Try your local library. Most libraries offer complimentary wi-fi, as well as the use of computers, and you’ll be surprised at the selection of great literature you will find, not to mention a vast collection of publications, music, and movies.
