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The Rise, The Fall, and The Rebirth: Pikes Peak International Raceway

For the vast majority of my life, I’ve found abandoned places and urban exploration fascinating. I often find myself browsing the internet for hours, discovering places I hadn’t heard of before, or learning about how something had gotten to the state that it’s in. Being a sports fan, there’s no shortage of examples all over the world of venues left to decay after the competition has ceased. NASCAR is no stranger to this. From short tracks like North Wilkesboro and Myrtle Beach, to the intermediate tracks like Rockingham and Nazareth, and even big superspeedways like Ontario and Texas World, NASCAR has left plenty of tracks across the country to die, and in some cases, a slow, painful, and visual death. Most end up demolished, and some end up slowly getting reclaimed by nature.

But that isn’t always the case. Today I’d like to talk to you about a track that graced both the NASCAR Busch Series & Truck Series schedules for a brief, eight-year period, only to be killed off, and against all odds, brought back to life. A one-mile, D-shaped oval, about an hour and a half outside of Denver, Colorado. Pikes Peak International Raceway.

Pikes Peak can trace its origins back to 1964, then known as Pikes Peak Meadows, a horse racing facility located off Interstate 25, between the towns of Fountain and Wigwam, Colorado. The track’s initial run lasted only four years before the then-renamed Pikes Peak Turf Club was sold off. The new ownership struggled to reopen the track, running only a weekends-only schedule in 1971, a schedule that wouldn’t be finished. The days of horse racing at the site were over. It’s been called one of the biggest failures in horse racing history.

Fast forward to 1997, where Pikes Peak would trade horses for horsepower.

On partnership was formed to construct, own, and operate a 1,300 acre speedway complex, with the goal being to attract a “big-time NASCAR race in 1998”.

With wide, sweeping corners, it was described as a smaller version of Michigan International Speedway or Auto Club Speedway. The facility also featured a 1.3-mile road course, and a quarter-mile oval in the infield. A massive 40,000 seat grandstand stretched the entire length of the front straightaway, with trackside camping spots available as well. After the track’s first race, a IndyCar race in dominated by Tony Stewart, people were already starting to call PPIR “the fastest one-mile paved oval anywhere”, a name that would stick with the track, even up until today.

The track would meet its goal and host a NASCAR Busch Series race on June 16th, 1998, a 250-mile event sponsored by Lycos.com (remember them?). Matt Kenneth, oddly enough, driving a Lycos sponsored car, would win the pole, lead 42 of 250 laps, and win the inaugural NASCAR race at Pikes Peak.

The speedway would host its first Craftsman Truck Series race a year later, and would go on to host races for ARCA, ASA, NASCAR Winston West (now the K&N Pro West Series) and other series. PPIR would also serve as a concert and entertainment venue, with the likes of Martina McBride, Jeff Foxworthy, Robbie Knievel, as well as Hootie & The Blowfish performing at the site.

The winners at Pikes Peak are really a who’s who at the time when each respective series raced there. In addition to Kenseth, Greg Biffle won in both the Busch and Truck series. Ron Hornaday and Mike Bliss also won Truck races at the track. Kevin Harvick won a Winston West race there. Mike Wallace once won a Truck Series & Winston West Series race on the same day. And the list of IndyCar winners is perhaps even more impressive, with Eddie Cheever and Gil de Ferran, as well as Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, and the late Dan Wheldon picking up wins in Colorado’s Race.

What held Pikes Peak back was the lack of a Cup Series race date. The track struggled financially, but you couldn’t tell just from looking at the crowds. If you go back and watch some of the Busch Series races there, they always seem well attended. Even for early 2000’s standards. Sure, it’s not a sellout. There’s some empty seats here and there. But we’re talking about a nearly-full grandstand, at a stand-alone Busch Series race, with next to no Cup Series drivers competing at the track. The Cup Series was usually running at Pocono the week of the Pikes Peak race, 1,700 miles away. This meant the race would serve as a platform for the Busch Series regulars to stand out without the Buschwackers stealing some of the spotlight, And despite that, even at the final Busch race at PPIR in 2005, Allen Bestwick of NASCAR on TNT suspected that a record crowd was in attendance.

Colorado is far from the most motorsports-crazed area of the country, but even still, Pikes Peak drew in crowds for second-and-third tier NASCAR races that the even Cup Series would die for today.

Just five years after the track opened, the owners, Lehman Brothers Holdings, INC, who purchased the track in 2001 after the original owners foreclosed, began looking into selling the track. In 2002, International Speedway Corporation (ISC), gained the right of first refusal if the owners did follow through with their plans to sell the complex, and then on October 1, 2005, ISC officially purchased the track for $10.3 million.

With the announcement of the sale came the news that Pikes Peak International Raceway would close. It came as a shock to those who attended the races at the track. ISC would petition NASCAR to move PPIR’s 2006 race date to Martinsville, which they would do, and ISC would begin relocating certain assets, such as grandstand seating and the scoring pylon, to other ISC-owned tracks.

ISC didn’t hide their intentions with the purchase of the speedway. They were planning to build a track in the Denver area, and the purchase of Pikes Peak was to eliminate any competition in the area. The idea for a race track in Denver goes all the way back to 1997, the same year PPIR was built. Penske Motorsports wanted to build a super speedway next to Denver International Airport, with those plans scrapped after the Federal Aviation Administration deemed the site unsafe, citing the proximity to the airport and concerns over large crowds of people sitting directly under landing aircraft.

Penske Motorsports merged with ISC in 1999, and the company set its sights on a new location just off of I-70 in Aurora, CO. This project is voted down by the city council after refusing to use taxpayer money to fund the speedway.

In 2000, ISC announced their intentions to become a tenant at WorldPark, an ambitious and massive 5,500-acre complex, that would’ve included a drag strip, ice rink, golf course, and a Native American arts and cultural center, also proposed to be built in Aurora. With an absolutely absurd cost of $500 million, mixed with local opposition due to the noise and traffic problems the complex would create, as well as a campaign funded by the owners of PPIR to oppose the development, it really shouldn’t come as a big chock that this too was nixed.

The newest set of plans included a one-mile oval speedway, four-mile road course, a go-kart facility, with a capacity anywhere from 65,000-100,000, to be built on the originally planned Aurora site off I-70. The proposed development also includes restaurants, hotels, and other commercial businesses. This proposal comes after the Colorado State Senate passed Senate Bill 173, the Colorado Tourism Act, that has the potential to provide $50 million to the construction of the speedway.

As we know now, those plans never materialized.

To put it bluntly: ISC killed Pikes Peak, to attempt to build a track that’s not noticeably different than PPIR, in a city that didn’t want them, just a one-hour drive up I-25 from the eight year old track that’s already built. I don’t know if there’s a more glaring example of how greedy and disgusting expansionist NASCAR was than this.

Pikes Peak was already wounded, but ISC came along with the dagger.

ISC, founded by Bill France Sr. in 1953, and running as its own separate entity until it was merged with parent company NASCAR in 2019, isn’t a stranger to shady business practices. ISC and NASCAR had been sued by multiple tracks over the years for allegedly violating antitrust laws.

It’s hard to feel any sympathy for NASCAR and their current situation when you read up on things like this. Plenty of fans direct the blame towards the playoff system, or stage racing, but I NASCAR’s thirst for expansion, and more importantly, the way they went about expanding, turned many fans away. NASCAR saw their booming success in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, and tried to expand too big, too fast. They had a perfectly fine facility that was less than a decade old, and they decided it wasn’t it didn’t fit their needs.

ISC would eventually sell Pikes Peak in 2006 to a group of motorsports enthusiasts calling themselves PPIR, LLC. The sale coming with one glaring condition.

ISC was still pursuing the Denver track idea at the time, so to ensure that Pikes Peak wouldn’t take any potential NASCAR attention away from their project, the new owners had to agree that NASCAR, or any other large motorsports series that would bring in more than 5,000 fans, couldn’t race at the track.

That didn’t bother the new owners however, and they officially purchased the speedway in 2007 at a cost of $9 million.

Pikes Peak, now without 30,000 of its original 40,000 teal grandstand seats, lives on, hosting concerts, some smaller races from time to time, such as USAC & SRL, as well as time attack events, the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and even drifting competitions. And similar to the Pontiac Silverdome, Pikes Peak also served as a home for thousands of recalled Volkswagens, stemming from the company’s 2015 emissions scandal. The last of the VW’s was moved off of the property in 2019.

Some people still hope to see NASCAR return someday, but track president Bob Boileau says that’s not their intentions. They’re more focused on making PPIR an experience to be enjoyed 365 days a year, and it seems they’re doing a phenomenal job of that. It’s far from the big league ambitions the track had in the 90’s, but it seems PPIR has found its niche through all of its setbacks. It’s rare to see a race track be given a second chance in life. After all, they’re purpose-built to do one thing, serve as an arena of speed for the best drivers in the world. So many tracks end up being just left to fall to into disrepair like North Wilkesboro, or get demolished like Riverside, but thanks to everyone associated with PPIR, LLC, Pikes Peak International Raceway isn’t one of them.

The days of NASCAR at Pikes Peak are over, but we can still relive the brief, eight year run the speedway had playing host to some of the country’s premier motorsports series.

In the course of researching for this piece, I stumbled across a video that NASCAR published on their YouTube page just one week ago, a few days before I even got the inspiration to write this. The 1998 Lycos.com 250, the inaugural Busch Series race at Pikes Peak. I watched the race as I wrote this, and I invite you all to do the same. The race features plenty or names recognizable to fans that have been around the sport for a while. Of course there’s the eventual race winner Matt Kenseth, but also Tony Stewart, Elliott and Hermie Sadler, Randy LaJoie, and a young Dale Earnhardt Jr., who’s front bumper gets quite a lot of TV time.

With tracks like Kentucky and Chicagoland being left off the 2021 NASCAR schedule, and tracks like Texas Motor Speedway and others on life support, we’re once again reminded of how massively NASCAR’s expansion efforts failed. Those tracks now face an uncertain future, and in the years to come we’ll see what their fate becomes, but here’s hoping they can find a second purpose in life just like the fastest one-mile oval anywhere, Pikes Peak International Raceway.

Thank you so much if you’ve taken time out of your day to read this little project of mine. Please let me know your thoughts on this and any places you thought I could’ve done better in. I’m new to this whole writing thing after all! I hope you enjoyed this journey into the history of Pikes Peak International Raceway. That’s all for this week. I hope everyone has had a good start to 2021, and I’ll see you next week.

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Weekend Jorts V: NFL vs. Detroit

I wasn’t even planning on writing anything for Weekend Jorts this week. I’ve been working on a little passion project article the last few weeks that is about 99% ready to go.

But Jorts care not what my plans are. They just appear with the sole intent of causing as much inconvenience as possible before crawling back to their domain.

The Detroit Lions wrapped up another season this past Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings, losing 37-35 in front of the cardboard cutout fans. Many people, myself included, wanted Detroit to lose. Winning the game served no good purpose for either team, and both squads gave it their best effort (or lack thereof) to chalk one up in the “L” column. Obviously, a Lions win would wreak havoc on Detroit’s upcoming NFL Draft position. And with a general manager and head coaching vacancy still to be filled, we needed to do everything possible to make those job openings as attractive as possible. So you may question why the what happened to the Lions on Sunday had me and so many other likeminded fans upset, and I’ll get to that later, but first... Let’s chat about Tracy Walker’s roughing the passer penalty.

With 10:32 to play in the 4th quarter, on a 4th-and-goal from Detroit’s 1-yard line, Lions safety Tracy Walker seemed to come up with huge sack on Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. The Vikings lead by just two points, and the stop would’ve given Detroit the ball back, with all the momentum on their side.

But NFL official Adrian Hill saw it differently, and flagged Tracy Walker for roughing the passer.

What’s even worse, is that after the game, Hill actually defended his call.

When asked what made Walker’s tackle a foul in his eyes, Hill said “By rule, one of the categories for roughing-the-passer is full body weight, where the tackler lands with his full body weight on the quarterback. That’s the category this play fell into.”

Now this is just absolutely absurd. I haven’t seen anyone other than Hill say that he believes this tackle would fall under that description. Hits like this occur in the NFL every single week, and are not flagged. If the wording of the rule constitutes that as roughing the passer, then the rule needs to be changed. I don’t know why the NFL leaves any interpretation to what roughing the passer is.

The reporter who sat down with Hill challenged him on this, saying “It kind of looked like the defender grabbed the quarterback and his momentum rolled him off.”

Ahh, someone with common sense.

Not so shockingly, Hill didn’t agree.

“The momentum doesn’t play a role, and the rolling off afterwards does not play a role. It’s that initial contact to the ground. If you roll off afterwards, that doesn’t eliminate the foul.”

But when you’re digging your own grave, you’ve got to make sure you dig the whole six feet.

When asked what Walker could’ve done differently to avoid the flag, Hill responded with, “A lot of the techniques that defensive coaches are teaching include kind of a barrel roll, where you grab the player to the side and you take him down to your side and roll, rather than coming down with your full body weight.”

So, let me get this straight. Rolling off of Cousins didn’t eliminate the flag, but his suggestion is to... roll off of Cousins?

The call was an absolute embarrassment to the NFL, and the latest middle finger to the Detroit Lions. Every team in the league gets screwed by a bad call every now and then, but the Lions are screwed more often, and in much grander fashion, than anyone any other team.

There’s of course the infamous “Calvin Johnson Rule”, that made the phrase, “the process of the catch” a household phrase to football fans. Calvin had caught a would be go-ahead touchdown pass from Shaun Hill with 24 seconds to go in the 2010 season opener against Chicago. Both feet in bounds, and had possession as he went to the ground as well, but as Calvin got up to celebrate his touchdown, he left the ball on the ground, and the officials, even after review, decided that Calvin had not completed the “process” even though he maintained possession (one handed, might I add) as he went to the ground.

There’s the 2015 game against Seattle on Monday Night Football, again involving Calvin Johnson. Kam Chancellor had forced Johnson to fumble at the goal line, and Seattle linebacker KJ Wright batted the ball out of the end zone, right in front of a official, but no penalty was called. Had the correct call been made, Detroit would’ve had a first-and-goal inside the one yard line.

In a 2017 contest against the Atlanta Falcons, Golden Tate capped off an incredible two-minute drill with what appeared to be the game winning touchdown with eight seconds to go. This play featured a double kick to the nuts. First off, Tate’s touchdown was overturned, even though you still to this day can’t convince me that Tate was short of the end zone before being touched. But that was the call the refs made, in what would end up being the last play of the game. Since Tate was ruled down in bounds, that meant the clock would’ve continued running, and by rule, a ten second runoff was applied. Had Detroit still had a timeout, they could’ve used one to prevent the runoff. In short, the Lions got screwed because the officials fucked up.

Detroit vs. the refs isn’t a new thing. On the day Barry Sanders broke the 2,000-yard threshold in 1997, the Pontiac Silverdome was rocking. The crowd got so loud in fact, that the officials essentially gave the New York Jets two free timeouts, because they deemed that the crowd was too loud. Jets QB Neil O’Donnell pleaded with officials that the crowd was so loud they couldn’t execute a play, which is just absurd. Head official Dick Hantak got on the microphone asking the crowd to be quiet so they could run a play, and when the crowd did not comply, Hantak threatened to charge the Lions with a timeout. Now there were rules in the NFL at the time that regulated crowd noise, so this was completely within the rules, but I can’t find any other footage of this rule being invoked, and any google search just leads me to this game at the Silverdome.

In one of the few Lions postseason games I’ve been treated to in my lifetime, in the 2014 Wild Card game, the Lions were putting together a late drive against the Dallas Cowboys, and on a crucial 3rd-and-1 play late in the game, Dallas LB Anthony Hitchens was all over Detroit Lions TE Brandon Pettigrew, and initially, the refs agreed, and threw the flag. But for no good reason at all, that flag was picked up and no penalty was issued, and Dallas would end up winning 24-20.

In the final seconds of a 2015 divisional clash with the Packers, Green Bay was pulling out all the stops to set themselves up for a Hail Mary play, when one would be gifted to them. Lions DE Devin Taylor was flagged for grabbing the face mask of Aaron Rodgers, when he actually didn’t. We all know how that ended.

Whether it’s these big notable ones, or other moments that may get lost in the shuffle with the rest of the NFL’s screwing over of the Lions, such as in 2016 against the Bears, when officials called illegal hands to the face on the wrong team, that negated a big run from Dwayne Washington, the Lions have been disrespected by the NFL far too often.

“But you wanted them to lose, right? The blown call made it harder for them to win, you should be thankful”.

Except here’s my problem. One day down the road, just as has been the case in the past, something like this will go against Detroit and cost them, like the picked up flag in the Dallas game. This just continues the utter disrespect shown to the Lions by the NFL, and it needs to change. I mean, think about it, can you remember a moment where the Lions were on the benefitting end of a bad call like the ones mentioned above? Because I can’t.

The Lions are the NFL’s red-headed stepchild, we don’t get the respect the other 31 teams get. Teams like Green Bay, or Dallas, or New England don’t have these type of calls go against them. And if this Sunday is any indication, that won’t be changing any time soon.

Detroit vs. Everybody.

Thank you for checking out this edition of Weekend Jorts, you can follow me on Instagram @motownrundown, and Twitter @MotownRundown_. You can also like Motown Rundown on Facebook. My personal account is @twitchynitch on all social media platforms. I hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you thought of this weeks’ Jorts.

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Weekend Jorts IV: NASCAR’s Playoff System

This Sunday, after the Detroit Lions latest loss to the Green Bay Packers, instead of watching Sunday Night Football like I usually do, I decided to fire up NASCAR Heat 4. When I had left off last, I was in the middle of a season that would see me win 12 races in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series (105 difficulty before anyone makes a ‘turn up the difficulty’ comment). I finished outside of the top ten in only 5 of the 23 races, and only twice worse than 15th. Far and away the most consistent driver on the season. Coming into the series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, I was feeling confident that I would lock up my second Truck Series championship of my career mode. I battled a pretty loose truck the whole race however, spinning late and having to put for repairs and fresh tires. I made a charge up the field in the final two laps to finish tenth, but it wasn’t enough. Brett Moffitt finished second, locking up the Truck title with one measly win on the season. But this isn’t my reason for writing this, merely a reminder of just how broken the current way NASCAR crowns a champion truly is.

For those who don’t follow the sport of NASCAR, they crown their champions the way many sports do. With a playoff system, ending with a championship finale.

This wasn’t always the case however.

NASCAR has had a few different ways of crowning a champion in its 72-year history. Firstly, and perhaps most bizarrely, in the early days of the sport, points were awarded based on prize money earned. More points were awarded for higher paying races, making the marquee events weigh more heavily on the points standings. This was sometimes catastrophically inconsistent, as the points system adopted only awarded points to the top 14 finishers, except for the bigger races. The way they calculated points was also exact to the dollar amount, which meant it was possible to earn half a point.

This system was updated in 1952, and would be used until 1967. Half points were eliminated, and now points would be awarded to the top 25 drivers.

This way of awarding points was abandoned for the 1968 season, only making a one season return in 1974, simplified once again. Race winnings would be tallied up at the end of the season, and divided by 1000. That’s it. That’s how they determined a champion. It’s so simple, I can’t help but love it.

From 1968 to 1971, points were awarded based on the length of the race. Longer races awarded the most points. In ‘72 and ‘73, NASCAR would set a standard points system that gave out equal points per race, but also used a modified version of the mileage system to dish out bonus points, essentially using two different points systems at once. And if you think that’s the last instance of that happening, you’d be dead wrong.

Once 1975 rolled around, NASCAR introduced their points system that would pay out equal points per race without any convoluted mileage bonus points or winnings based formula. The way points were awarded remained relatively unchanged until 2010, only twice giving a points increase to race winners.

The way a champion was crowned however, that all changed in 2004.

The Chase for the Cup was NASCAR’s first attempt at a playoff style system. Once there were ten races left in the season, the top ten drivers in points would have their points reset. The points leader at the end of the “regular season” would start with 5,050 points, second place 5,045, and continue in five-point increments. This came in direct response from a multitude of factors. Firstly, NASCAR championships were often decided before the series final race of the season. It was designed to give purpose to the series finale at Homestead, which in the past had just been a rather unimportant stop on the NASCAR schedule up until this point. Secondly, the sanctioning body believed this system emphasized winning more, and consistency less. It’s no coincidence that this was adopted the season after Matt Kenseth won the championship with just one single race win.

The Chase field would be expanded twice, to 12 in 2007, and to our current, 16-driver format in 2014. This format, renamed to the “NASCAR Playoffs” in 2017, features a playoff bracket not too far off from the style used in other major sports.

While in previous forms of the playoff format, the driver who had the most points at the end of the ten-race Chase was crowned champion, this new format introduce separate rounds, all with ridiculously awful names. We’d start with the 16-driver, 3-race “Challenger Round”, with four drivers being eliminated at the end of each round. Win a race in any of the rounds, and you advance to the next round automatically. Any remaining spots are filled based on the points earned within each separate three race stretch. Painfully making our way through the “Contender” and “Eliminator” rounds, we’ve reached the “Championship Round”, where the top four drivers battle it out in a winner-take-all finale. NASCAR’s built-in Game 7 moment.

There’s a reason Game 7’s in other sports are so special, because they’re not guaranteed. They’re there for the sole purpose of breaking a series tie. Everything’s been so even throughout the first six games and we can’t keep playing over and over, so we need a game to end the series and move on with our lives. The championship race for NASCAR however just seems manufactured, and that’s because it is. It doesn’t need to happen, but yet it does, all for the sake of artificial excitement.

This most recent update to the playoff system, as they seemingly all have been, was introduced by NASCAR to “emphasize winning” and like so many other aspects of the playoff system, it’s failed.

The Xfinity and Truck series adopted the playoff format in 2016, and it didn’t take long for the system to be exposed. 2019 champion Matt Crafton won the title without winning a single race on the season, becoming only the second driver to do so in the history of NASCAR’s top three series, after Austin Dillon’s anomaly of a 2013 Xfinity series season.

Take this season for example, as well. Chase Elliott won the final race of the 2020 season to become champion for the first time. It was his fifth win of the season, so what could possibly be my complaint about that?

Kevin Harvick lead all drivers with nine.

Not only did he win more than anyone else, Harvick was also the most consistent. That gets us into perhaps the biggest problem with the playoffs. It crowns asterisk champions.

17 seasons into NASCAR having a playoff system, and on ten separate occasions, the playoffs have crowned a different champion than the old points system would have.

Ten times. Out of 17.

If you take a look at what could’ve been different had the playoff system not been implemented, it’s truly staggering.

Jeff Gordon would be a seven-time champion, adding titles in 2004, 2007, and 2015

Kyle Busch would be a three-time champion, winning in 2008, 2018, and 2019, with his 2019 title being won by only one point over Kevin Harvick.

Kevin Harvick would be a four-time champion, with titles in 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2020.

Carl Edwards would be a one-time champion, and would’ve won the title in the second to last race at Phoenix, instead of tying Tony Stewart in points after the finale at Homestead, and losing the title on a tiebreaker (most wins).

We’re looking at a vastly different NASCAR, and in my opinion, not a good one. The Playoffs have failed to produce in every aspect in which they were intended to. It hasn’t emphasized winning. It’s made the “regular season” next to irrelevant. It hasn’t improved ratings. I could ramble on all day.

It’s time to admit the experiment has failed, and move forward with a modified version of the traditional system. One not to far off from the pre-playoff system, but with larger point bonuses for winning races, because that sounds like the perfect way to “emphasize winning” to me. Not with a playoff system.

I’ll leave you today with a quote from Kevin Harvick after being eliminated from title contention despite his record setting season.

“These championships aren’t like winning like Petty and Earnhardt used to win them. You have to put them together three weeks at a time. It comes down to one race, and it came down to one race for us tonight. We came up short.”

Thank you for checking out this edition of Weekend Jorts, if you enjoyed, leave me a comment on what you thought, or where you think I could’ve improved. I’d greatly appreciate any feedback. If you want to see more articles like this, following me here is the best way to make sure you never miss an article. You can also follow on Twitter @MotownRundown_, and Instagram @MotownRundown. You can find me on Facebook @TheMotownRundown, and you can follow me personally @twitchynitch on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

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Weekend Jorts III: Kirk Herbstreit

2020 has been a roller coaster ride. And not a good one either. It’s been the “Drachen Fire” of years. As you ascended the lift hill and hit the first drop everything seemed fine. But then it flips you upside down, banging your head on the shoulder restraints. The track straightens out and you think the worst is over, but nope. That’s not in 2020’s agenda. Your world will get turned on it’s head a few more times, each one worse than the last, and by the time you’ve returned to the station, you’ve got a headache and you just want to go home.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench into every facet of our everyday lives, but today I’m going to focus solely on the effect it’s had on college football. Sure, the pandemic has effected all sports, but none more severely and noticeably than college football.

The season has seen schools and conferences starting their seasons late (if they start them at all), with shortened conference-only schedules. The ACC went with a 10 game schedule, the Big Ten went with an eight game tour, and the Pac-12 is playing only seven games.

But 2020 doesn’t do schedules either. The season has seen the postponements or outright cancellations of hundreds of games, with more axing of games surely to come.

We’ve also seen players miss games as his team played on, most notably Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence missing his teams most important game on the schedule, a road test against Norte Dame, after a positive COVID-19 test.

Absolute chaos.

And yet, somehow through the chaos, we’ve managed to have some semblance of a football season this fall. Conference championship games will begin by the middle of this month, and the College Football Playoffs will follow, with the latest round of rankings (1. Alabama, 2. Norte Dame, 3. Clemson, and 4. Ohio State) being released this last Tuesday on ESPN’s College Football Playoff Top 25 Rankings Show.

And it’s a comment that was made in that edition of the rankings show which leads me into the main subject of this edition of Weekend Jorts, and that’s Kirk Herbstreit.

Get your tin foil hats ready for this one.

The Ohio State alum, when discussing this week’s news that Michigan’s game against the Maryland Terrapins scheduled for this past Saturday was cancelled due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at Michigan, suggested that Michigan “waves the white flag and avoids playing Ohio State next week.”

Now that statement doesn’t deserve acknowledgment but hell, I’ll play along.

What Herbstreit is getting at is Michigan potentially using the pandemic as an excuse to avoid further embarrassment in this 2020 season. As touched upon in last week’s Jorts, Michigan football has been an absolute train wreck. But to suggest that Michigan, or any football team for that matter, would rather use a global crisis as a way of forfeiting a game against an opponent that is clearly better than them, is absolutely laughable.

But it gets worse, and this is where Herbie’s take gets real crazy.

He also suggested that this is Michigan’s way of playing spoiler to Ohio State’s season. If this year’s edition of The Game were to be cancelled, the Buckeyes would miss the Big Ten’s threshold of six games played needed to qualify for the Big Ten Championship Game.

Of course, Herbstreit’s comments were met with harsh criticism online, and from Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel, who described Herbstreit’s theory as “a statement by a fool.” Herbstreit posted a video on Twitter apologizing for his comments, saying he “misspoke”, and as is the case with so many of these social media apologies after a public outcry, it’s hard to accept that as sincere.

And this is where I have to give a lot of credit to Rece Davis. He gave Herbstreit an opportunity to clarify his statement, saying “I’m not going to sit here and let this stand that you guys just implied... that Michigan will opt out of the game and dodge the game simply to keep Ohio State out of the championship game,”. Herbstreit did walk back his claim somewhat, stating that he had no inside knowledge of Michigan’s situation, but had heard from anonymous coaches across the country that some teams had used COVID-19 as a way to dodge certain opponents. But that just further amplifies the fact that he shouldn’t have said it anyway.

He said in his apology that he “had no business at all saying that” and . “I have no evidence of that. It’s completely unfair to the University of Michigan, to Jim Harbaugh, to his players and coaches and I just want to apologize.”

Kirk Herbstreit isn’t a stranger to controversy. He was blasted by Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly and for his negativity surrounding the prospects of playing football this fall. Ohio State fans were critical of him and ESPN for a perceived bias displayed in last year’s Playoff game against Clemson, and attacked fans on social media for suggesting as such. And in 2017, he was highly critical of former Tennessee Volunteers DB and current member of the Las Vegas Raiders Rashaan Gaulden, for a photo of Gaulden giving double middle fingers to the Alabama crowd during a 45-7 loss to the Crimson Tide.

Herbstreit said of the incident, “That’s why Tennessee has issues. They don’t have any discipline. He should have taken his uniform off, sent him upstairs and said, ‘Get some popcorn, because you’re no longer on the team’ and sent a message to the whole team.”. Weeks later, Herbstreit would come to the defense of Baker Mayfield, who had caught his infamous public intoxication charge and been criticized heavily for his behavior on the field in the year leading up to this point, with Herbstreit tweeting “My man [Baker Mayfield] is VERY misunderstood! His competitive spirit is special and sure, sometimes has gotten the best of him. But, he is a good man that is driven to be the best. Congrats Baker!” Gaulden didn’t take too kindly to Herbstreit’s apparent double standard, firing this tweet back at the College Gameday host:

But Kirk’s latest controversy seems to take the cake. Suggesting that the arch rival of his alma mater would use a global pandemic (The same global pandemic that, as of writing this, has killed more than 279,000 Americans) as an excuse to get out of playing a football game is in poor taste and is flat out journalistically irresponsible.

As if the Buckeye keyboard warriors needed anymore ammunition for Michigan this season. If the game gets cancelled, they’ll already have their talking points.

Here’s hoping a miracle happens and Michigan is able to go out and derail Ohio State’s season the way it should be done, on the field.

#michigan #football #sports #sport news #goblue #curators

[motownrundown]

Weekend Jorts II: Jim Harbaugh

It pains me to have to do this. It really does.

After Saturday’s 27-17 loss to a winless Penn State team, I think it’s safe to say that Michigan Football has (again) hit rock bottom. After a lopsided win against a win against the Minnesota Golden Gophers to start the 2020 season, the Wolverines have lost four of their last five games, losing to Michigan State, Indiana, Wisconsin, and this weekend to the Nittany Lions.

To make it worse, they’ve lost these games convincingly.

Michigan has been outmatched and outplayed from start to finish in each of their losses. They’re behind from the opening kickoff it seems, and no adjustments seem to be made in the course of the game. They come in with their game plan, results be damned. Loyal fans are left prisoners to this team, tuning in on Saturdays knowing the fate our team will suffer in around three-and-a-half hours time.

But how did we get here? How did things get this bad?

Flashback to November 2014. I’ve been gifted tickets to Michigan’s game against Indiana, my first trip to the Big House. But this year hasn’t been kind to the Wolverines. Michigan is on the back half of a schedule that so far has seen them go 3-5. The writing is on the wall for current head coach Brady Hoke. And the fan base has already picked out their dream replacement, and I’ll let a photo from that fridged fall afternoon tell the story.

The fan base had their replacement chosen. That game against Indiana turned out to be Brady Hoke’s final home win. Brady was fired one month later after finishing the 2014 season 5-7, with Michigan missing a bowl game for only the third time since 1975. Hoke was gone, but there was a problem.

Jim Harbaugh was still employed by the San Francisco 49ers. Harbaugh, at the time, was among the best football coaches in the country. Success followed him wherever he went. His tenure at Stanford resulted in the first BCS bowl win in program history before he jumped to the NFL for 2011, taking over a 49ers team that hadn’t had a winning season since 2002, the year after Harbaugh’s playing career ended.

But in a year where San Francisco where was expected to be rebuilding, they finished Harbaugh’s first season 13-3, going as deep as the NFC Championship Game. Following that up with a 11-4-1 record in 2012, and eventually a date with John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII. The Har-bowl.

After a third straight trip to the NFC title game in 2013, the 2014 season was the only year of Harbaugh’s tenure that San Francisco missed the playoffs. In most cases, one season of regression wouldn’t be cause for the stress between a coach the owner of the franchise, but this wasn’t the case between Harbaugh and CEO Jed York.

And that led to the breaking news that caught the attention of 49ers fans and Michigan fans alike.

Jim Harbaugh was introduced as the 20th head coach in Michigan Football history two days later.

Michigan had their guy, and fans celebrated his arrival. I wasn’t immune to the hype, as evidenced here:

Harbaugh was here. The ultimate Michigan Man. A coach that bled maize and blue, and would lead us to our first National Championship since 1997.

The savior of Michigan football.

But as we’re so often (and unfortunately) reminded, it’s 2020. And as we know, it hasn’t turned out the way we’d expected.

During his tenure, the Wolverines are 49-22, which doesn’t seem that bad at face value. In big games however, Michigan has struggled. Harbaugh is 0-5 against Ohio State. And if this season so far is any indication, that’ll change to 0-6 in a few weeks time. Combine that with a 3-3 record against Michigan State, and the proverbial hot seat has reached record temperatures.

The coach who claims to attack every day with “an enthusiasm unknown to mankind” is a shadow of the coach he was when he was hired. Rival fans and media members often criticized Harbaugh for some of his antics. From throwing child-like tantrums during games, to having a sleepover with the country’s top rated high school kicker in a successful attempt to recruit him to play football at Michigan, or even his appearance in a rap video for a song written after one of his catchphrases, “Who’s got it better than us?”.

And perhaps it’s that criticism that’s pushed Harbaugh to where he’s at now. Appearing uninterested. Afraid of change.

I’m not suggesting that Michigan fire Jim Harbaugh. Because if we’re honest with ourselves, that’s not going to happen. He may leave on his own accord, but Michigan has too much respect for Harbaugh to give him the same fate suffered by Matt Patricia this week.

But things have to change. We need them to change.

What we need is that old Jim Harbaugh back.

There’s a reason we have to listen to rumors that Jim is headed back to coach in the NFL every offseason. It’s because Jim is still thought of as a good football coach, even if the results say otherwise.

Maybe this 2020 season will be the wake up call that Harbaugh needs and this years regression won’t be a permanent one. Maybe we’ll see a return of the loud, bizarre, and borderline annoying man to the Michigan sideline. Maybe Jim Harbaugh can still be the savior we thought he might be.

Only time will tell.