• The KillerFrogs

TCU-KSU Home Field Advantage

Panther City Frog

Full Member
Wildcats are actually Bobcats that roam the Kansas Flint Hills. Bobcats are carnivores thus preferring an all meat diet. Their food of choice is rabbits, but they will also eat birds, lizards, rodents, snakes.




As for the Sugar Bowl, hopefully K-State gets to play Alabama, as the Cats smacked LSU last year in the Texas Bowl. They beat SEC's Missouri earlier this year and Mississippi State a couple of years ago in Starkville, before that a win over aTm in the Texas as well. Always more interesting when playing SEC teams.

I didn’t know Kansas had any hills.
 

HFrog1999

Member
I didn’t know Kansas had any hills.

dumb and dumber harry GIF
 

tjcoffice

Active Member
Football is different. It's basically a different game. It's way, way bigger. The players are way, way better. The talent pool is wider. The list goes on and on.
Yet, here we are talking about Dutch Meyer, and folks like Tom Landry, Jack Nicklaus, Joe Namath. Babe Ruth. Why do we talk about folks who are form a time when the talent pool was more limited and the game was so different?
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
Ruminate (v) - think deeply about something, possibly including discussion ("we sat ruminating on the nature of existence")
Yes, but the root of the word is ruminant, referring to mammals with a particular style of processing grasses, which happen to be the type of animals large predators prefer to dine upon. (Full disclosure: I have 20-odd ruminants out in my pasture being quite contrary...) Hence, the light jest based upon his wording.

Honestly, Deep, I would have thought you of all people would have recognized a wordplay joke and been at least slightly amused, as opposed to leaping into action to correct a perceived error...
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
Wildcats are actually Bobcats that roam the Kansas Flint Hills. Bobcats are carnivores thus preferring an all meat diet. Their food of choice is rabbits, but they will also eat birds, lizards, rodents, snakes.
...And not a cud-chewing beastie listed on the menu. Alas, I posited a larger size for your mascot, and thus a more varied diet.

We have a resident bobcat on the Ranch who makes an appearance from time to time. In a fit of originality, Mrs. Brewingfrog has named him Mr. Kitty. However, in April of this year, we had a cougar move through the area. I never saw him, but several kills were found indicating a size-large cat, and some neighbors managed to get eyes on him confirming that we had an apex predator in the neighborhood. We took to referring to him as The Big Kitty. Interesting observation: While the cougar was in the neighborhood, the coyotes, pigs, and most other critters cleared out. It was strangely quiet in the evenings. When these critters began creeping back, we knew that The Big Kitty had moved on...
 

Zubaz

Member
Yet, here we are talking about Dutch Meyer, and folks like Tom Landry, Jack Nicklaus, Joe Namath. Babe Ruth. Why do we talk about folks who are form a time when the talent pool was more limited and the game was so different?
It's not binary. You can respect the contributions of those guys while still acknowledging the growth and fundamental change of the game that makes the modern product a bigger deal. Joe Namath is an NFL icon, but if you tried to argue he was a better QB than Brady, or that Super Bowl IIi was bigger than anything of the last 15 years, you'd get rightly laughed at. Same thing here. You can absolutely respect what guys like Meyer and Baugh did, while at the same time recognizing they played a much different, and much smaller, game than what we see in the 21st century.
 

Endless Purple

Full Member
We have a resident bobcat on the Ranch who makes an appearance from time to time. In a fit of originality, Mrs. Brewingfrog has named him Mr. Kitty.

Funny. I have a cat that was abandoned near me so now a stray. I named him Jack Kitty (after Jack Sparrow, so no gentlemanly Mr. in front). He has half his tail missing, and he wags it when happy. This cat acts more like a dog at times. Still need to find him a new permanent home.
 

froginmn

Full Member
At least for me, It's not so much "not impressed" as it is recognizing that the game has changed so so so much, from the talent level to the rules, that trying to compare it to today doesn't really make a ton of sense. Same reason that Aaron Judges 62 is way more impressive than Babe's 60, and I would argue that baseball hasn't changed nearly as much as football has.
Going to disagree on the HR stat. In 1927 one other player (Gehrig) hit more than 30. This year, 20 others did. Babe's 60 was more impressive because he lapped almost the entire field; he was that much better than anyone else.

We tend to compare old history and say, those guys couldn't compete against the players of today. If you brought them into today and trained them the same and gave them the same equipment, of course they could. They analyzed Bobby Jones golf swing on tape and estimated his swing speed at 113 mph, on par with today's pros. He was hitting barely dimpled balls with hickory shafts but if you gave him modern equipment and trained him the same he'd likely be a top pro.
 

tjcoffice

Active Member
They analyzed Bobby Jones golf swing on tape and estimated his swing speed at 113 mph, on par with today's pros. He was hitting barely dimpled balls with hickory shafts but if you gave him modern equipment and trained him the same he'd likely be a top pro.
Yea, in that video clip from the 1938 team, you can see the Frogs were running a veer, counter-veer run scheme, that worked well against the over-pursuing Bears. Then, on defense, you can see a cornerback dropping back with the receiver up to about 10 yards, then the CB pulls up and the safety covers the Bear receiver. They may not have called it a zone defense, but it sure looked like zone coverage. These were more sophisticated schemes than I would have expected from a Depression era team.
 

Bob Sugar

Active Member
Going to disagree on the HR stat. In 1927 one other player (Gehrig) hit more than 30. This year, 20 others did. Babe's 60 was more impressive because he lapped almost the entire field; he was that much better than anyone else.

We tend to compare old history and say, those guys couldn't compete against the players of today. If you brought them into today and trained them the same and gave them the same equipment, of course they could. They analyzed Bobby Jones golf swing on tape and estimated his swing speed at 113 mph, on par with today's pros. He was hitting barely dimpled balls with hickory shafts but if you gave him modern equipment and trained him the same he'd likely be a top pro.
Top amateur. He never went pro.
 
It's not a contradiction, it's a disagreement. The point is that those games, while big at the time, were not as important as the games of the last 30 or so years were. Football is different. It's basically a different game. It's way, way bigger. The players are way, way better. The talent pool is wider. The list goes on and on.

So yes, ever means ever, but what happened in the 30s isn't as big as what is happening now, or what happened 10 years ago.
I don't think you've taken into account how big college football was in the 30s, prior to the NFL becoming a big thing. It was much bigger than the NFL until around the 1950s or early 60s. There may not have been TV, but many of the games had good attendance (during the Depression) and radio coverage was huge. People clung to every word in newspapers written by the likes of Grantland Rice. Ohio State and Michigan were getting 65-70,000 fans back then for some of their games. The US population was about 40% of what it is today. 45,000 went to the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day 1939 (that's 112,000 in today's terms). That's pretty significant.

Now, there's no comparing the athletes then to today's athletes. Kendre Miller would rush for 300 yards by about halftime with this O-Line against a 1938 defensive squad. Kendre would be bigger and stronger than just about every defensive player of that era, not to mention a whole lot faster.
 

froginmn

Full Member
I don't think you've taken into account how big college football was in the 30s, prior to the NFL becoming a big thing. It was much bigger than the NFL until around the 1950s or early 60s. There may not have been TV, but many of the games had good attendance (during the Depression) and radio coverage was huge. People clung to every word in newspapers written by the likes of Grantland Rice. Ohio State and Michigan were getting 65-70,000 fans back then for some of their games. The US population was about 40% of what it is today. 45,000 went to the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day 1939 (that's 112,000 in today's terms). That's pretty significant.

Now, there's no comparing the athletes then to today's athletes. Kendre Miller would rush for 300 yards by about halftime with this O-Line against a 1938 defensive squad. Kendre would be bigger and stronger than just about every defensive player of that era, not to mention a whole lot faster.
A lot of things about the game were the same, though. My grandfather was an OL for Minnesota in about 1920. He told my dad that there was a good DL from Iowa who they hated. The field at that old stadium was made from ash. He said they'd get in their stance, grab a handful of ash, and shove it in the guys face to stop him.

I know there's a lot of jokes about shoving ash in someone's face but that's a true story that shows that players were just as dirty then as they are 100 years later.
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
Now, there's no comparing the athletes then to today's athletes. Kendre Miller would rush for 300 yards by about halftime with this O-Line against a 1938 defensive squad. Kendre would be bigger and stronger than just about every defensive player of that era, not to mention a whole lot faster.
My Dad played for UT in the early 50s. As a safety/receiver (they played one-platoon then) he weighed in at a trim 155 and stood 5' 10" tall. The linemen were weighing in at under 200. People were simply smaller then as nutrition wasn't what it is today. What made those times special was the age of many players was more than now because of Korean War service, so you had saltier players going up against one another.
 

Dogfrog

Active Member
It's not binary. You can respect the contributions of those guys while still acknowledging the growth and fundamental change of the game that makes the modern product a bigger deal. Joe Namath is an NFL icon, but if you tried to argue he was a better QB than Brady, or that Super Bowl IIi was bigger than anything of the last 15 years, you'd get rightly laughed at. Same thing here. You can absolutely respect what guys like Meyer and Baugh did, while at the same time recognizing they played a much different, and much smaller, game than what we see in the 21st century.
It is not respectful to the past players and coaches to dismiss them in this fashion. Comparing long ago athletes to current athletes is a fool’s game. Of course players get bigger and faster and the game gets more sophisticated over time. But the only fair way to grade a 1938 football team is by comparing them with their contemporaries.
 

stbrab

Full Member
At least for me, It's not so much "not impressed" as it is recognizing that the game has changed so so so much, from the talent level to the rules, that trying to compare it to today doesn't really make a ton of sense. Same reason that Aaron Judges 62 is way more impressive than Babe's 60, and I would argue that baseball hasn't changed nearly as much as football has.
I'm not sure I agree with your comparison between Judge and the Babe. Ruth set the single season record of 29 in 1919 when he was still primarily a pitcher. He broke the record in 1920 when he hit 54, in 1921 when he hit 59, and in 1927 when he hit 60. No one else was even remotely close.
 
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Zubaz

Member
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Going to disagree on the HR stat. In 1927 one other player (Gehrig) hit more than 30. This year, 20 others did. Babe's 60 was more impressive because he lapped almost the entire field; he was that much better than anyone else.

We tend to compare old history and say, those guys couldn't compete against the players of today. If you brought them into today and trained them the same and gave them the same equipment, of course they could. They analyzed Bobby Jones golf swing on tape and estimated his swing speed at 113 mph, on par with today's pros. He was hitting barely dimpled balls with hickory shafts but if you gave him modern equipment and trained him the same he'd likely be a top pro.
Judge's next closest competitor was what, Schwarber with 46? Not exactly close here. But yes, I totally agree that Babe changed the way the game is played and is rightly considered an icon, arguably the biggest star the sport has ever had to this day. But he was facing the same pitcher 4 or 5 times a game, who had pitch counts that today would seem absolutely insane. And of course, that's also ignoring the huge elephant in the room that is integration. The game different, but even then I would argue that Baseball in Babe's time is far closer to today's product, compared to the changes made to football.

And sure, you can say "if they were trained the same they could be just as good", or "if TV and the internet were around it would have been as big" or whatever, but....they didn't and they weren't. We aren't talking about "natural talent", we're talking about actual performance, actual importance, actual numbers. And really, in the

Basically, what is more relevant to today's college football? These guys strapping on some leather helmets to beat Carnegie Melon in front of 45,000 people when certain groups were excluded from the game, or these guys playing a pretty much identical game to today and beating Wisconsin in front of 100,000 people and millions more watching at home? I think you would be incredibly hard pressed to say the former.

I don't think you've taken into account how big college football was in the 30s, prior to the NFL becoming a big thing. It was much bigger than the NFL until around the 1950s or early 60s. There may not have been TV, but many of the games had good attendance (during the Depression) and radio coverage was huge. People clung to every word in newspapers written by the likes of Grantland Rice. Ohio State and Michigan were getting 65-70,000 fans back then for some of their games. The US population was about 40% of what it is today. 45,000 went to the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day 1939 (that's 112,000 in today's terms). That's pretty significant.

Now, there's no comparing the athletes then to today's athletes. Kendre Miller would rush for 300 yards by about halftime with this O-Line against a 1938 defensive squad. Kendre would be bigger and stronger than just about every defensive player of that era, not to mention a whole lot faster.
I understand, but I don't think judging it "on a curve" (for lack of a better term) like you do here with the Sugar Bowl attendance. College football was a regional sport certainly beneath Baseball, and probably beneath boxing as well. It wasn't near as big, or as culturally relevant, as it is today.

Also, no, Ohio State and Michigan were not drawing those numbers outside of the games against each other (not unlike today's Harvard & Yale attendances, where they draw meager crowds outside of their own rivalry game against each other. Here's some attendance figures from 1935, the year we claim a national title. They aren't close to comparable to today's games.

1935 Michigan:
1669740317760.png
1935 Ohio State:
1669740340195.png

There's some big games, sure, but on the whole you see attendance that would get them compared to us or Cincinnati. I suppose you could blame the Depression for that, but going back to the 20's doesn't really change it either.
1926 Michigan:
1669740480155.png

It is not respectful to the past players and coaches to dismiss them in this fashion. Comparing long ago athletes to current athletes is a fool’s game. Of course players get bigger and faster and the game gets more sophisticated over time. But the only fair way to grade a 1938 football team is by comparing them with their contemporaries.
I don't consider "really really good for the time, not as relevant to today's product as other more recent games" to be all that disrespectful. If you disagree, that's fine.
 
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