Watch Grid: It's always been a work

Brother.

Sup.

• This week on the Vacation Bible School Podcast’s Patreon feed, let’s talk near-death experiences. What’s science say? What’s the Bible say? Did I have one a month ago? Didn’t exactly intend to mine my medical history for content again, but it felt like the obvious topic. (Sorry for being so dramatic, hospital-wise, over the last year or so.)

• There’s still time to join the thousands of folks who’ll get first-to-know updates from Shutdown Fullbooks. This week, my debut novel took a key step toward availability, plus gained another couple praise blurbs from fantastically beautiful peers whose extraordinary hearts abound with unmatched wisdom.

For whatever reason (Donald J. Trump), pro wrestling lingo has become mainstream over the last few years.

Not necessarily pro wrestling itself (though thanks to both WWE and AEW hitting boom eras, that’s closer to reality than it has been in about 20 years), but the verbiage: kayfabe, heel turn, crowd pop, etc. The other day, I saw comics fans debating which character is the ultimate jobber, and nobody needed the term explained. (They agreed Sentry’s the guy whose entrance is so cool, it seems like a big deal when he gets pinned yet again. The Finn Balor or Notre Dame, if you will. Apologies to Ireland.)

So this season in college football, when constant shit-talk emerged for whatever reason (Deion L. Sanders), everyone immediately knew how to describe it: These are promos, performances meant to enhance the credibility of the speaker’s stable and to hype upcoming events, rather than to convey things that are necessarily factual in our current reality.

This past weekend alone, Oregon got lots of attention with a new not-here-for-lots-of-attention gimmick, Ryan Day worked himself into a shoot about mild commentary by Lou “older than Ric Flair” Holtz, and Washington State went a little CM Punk by inventing a Lee Corso to be mad at. All of it was seemingly inspired by Sanders’ mic work generating endless heat.

I mean, c’mon:

College GameDay screenshot via Bill DiFilippo

Let’s add this one layer: College football has always been pro wrestling. For instance, the Fullcast has years-old episodes about football coaches as wrestlers and wrestlers as football teams (I can’t find that episode, so good luck out there), and before this season began, Spencer and Holly explained the business parallels.

Take the comparison back to college football often having multiple top champions at the same time; character-worker Knute Rockne launching Notre Dame’s carny tradition that’d eventually include “Rudy,” George O’Leary, and catfishing; the Big Ten’s century-long run as an early-2010s-Cena aw-shucks supervillain; beloved bad-guy Miami/Auburn teams becoming our Austin/MJF scumbags; exhausting reign-of-terror championship reigns; million-dollar men engaging in Vince McMahon-worthy labor practices for 150-plus years now; rival leagues consuming each other overnight; a universal obsession with entrance music; developmental (FCS) opponents being brought in just to lose; and the entire machine catering at all times toward whatever is considered cool at the moment by 18-year-old boys.

(And while we’re at it, note WWE’s talent pipeline is largely centered around college athletes.)

If any sport explains America better than college football does, it’s the sport that’s too real to be real, and you should throw a big “and vice versa” on this entire sentence, especially since that’d make parts of it confusing.

• Shutdown Fullbooks.