The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which feels like it’s been here before. Here we are, in the middle of the summer and in the throes of desperation waiting for LeBron James to simply talk. And I use “we” liberally because so few of you and us actually care. But it’s clogging up our timelines and news feeds and cable programming.

(Aside: It’s remarkable what ESPN and its considerable cast sprinkled around the globe have done in filling a week with absolutely no news. None. It’s been mostly hollow, almost entirely inconsequential and very much the sort of things you and I could conjure up, up to and including today’s headline: Dan Gilbert’s Comic Sans letter is an issue! I love the live shots of a boring city or marina scene beneath words describing an anxious city on the brink. But damn if it hasn’t been thorough, even if it was a lot of putting something where there’s nothing and basically redefining the definition and use of “source.”)

Anyhow, across the board, from the sport to the spectacle, from the actors to the reporting, this isn’t my cup of tea. I have a distaste for a lot of it, but that whole Cleveland thing always gets me. So I side-eye it, watching it unfold, cynical as I may be. I even thought it was done yesterday, based on what I’d watched and what I’d learned from people who are around the story’s periphery. It was going to be Cleveland (he wouldn’t consider the Cavaliers unless he’d granted the fans and the owner forgiveness and embraced a willingness to go back), and that’s a pretty cool arc. A lot was going on unseen and behind the scenes and it would all come to the surface when he made the call.

Except it wasn’t happening. And it’s not. For now. So about 20 chanting fans are camped outside LeBron’s Akron house, never mind he’s in Miami on the way to Brazil. And there are four Rubber City cops there to keep things under wraps. Four! For 20! They’ll need armies from seven nations to control the riot when he picks the Heat. Again.

(No, seriously, he’s going back to Cleveland. I think. And then Mike Gansey will have revenge on Miami for the way that franchise derailed his playing career.)

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, know your audience.

netbros said:

“Our guys don’t have cars. Only a few.”

Unlike those dudes at Kentucky.

It’s good to be back.

Two more preseason watch lists came out today and WVU has another name to note. Junior punter Nick O’Toole made the Ray Guy Award watch list, and will have to be more consistent than he was last year to win in 2014.

The Lou Groza Award list also came out and omitted sophomore Josh Lambert, who was perfect inside 30 yards (6-for-6) and pretty good (10-for-12) between 30 and 49 yards. He was also busy … imagine a Dana Holgorsen kicker making 17 field goals and attempting 23. That’s a loaded statistic, no?

Tomorrow features two more awards. Junior Karl Joseph, already on the Bednarik Award list for a similar best defensive player award, might be included on the Nagurski Award list. Senior guard Quinton Spain could also see his name on the Outland Trophy list for the best lineman.

And Friday? That’s interesting …

“I want to help the team be the best it can be, we want to win a Big 12 championship, but if I could point out individual goals,” sophomore cornerback Daryl Worley said, “I’m definitely looking for the Jim Thorpe (Award).”

That one goes to the nation’s best defensive back and it might include Joseph before it includes Worley, who, to be fair, was referring to the award at the end of the season. Still, a watch list spot for Worley shouldn’t be entirely disregarded. Oklahoma’s Blake Bell made the Mackey watch list Tuesday. He was the Sooners quarterback last season and only started playing tight end in the spring, which was cut short by a knee sprain.

Worley, a sophomore from Philadelphia, played 11 games with five starts last season and finished with 45 tackles and five pass breakups, which ranked second on the team. He played everywhere in the secondary last season out of both necessity and ingenuity, but also because the coaches weren’t really sure until this past spring whether he was a cornerback or a safety.

He’s locked in at cornerback and one just the right side of the field for this fall. So impressive was his performance in the spring, so high is his potential for his second season that he, too, was invited by WVU coach Dana Holgorsen to the conference media days.

“Now, with me being solidified at one position and being at cornerback, I’d like to work to be the best cornerback I can be,” he said. “People can call it a shutdown corner. I just call it doing my job. If there’s a time out there where a receiver one game doesn’t catch a ball all game, I feel like I’ve done my job. With me doing that, I’m doing nothing but helping everyone else around me, from the safeties to the corner on the other side of the field.”