Lost Lovett

TigerBlog's first football exposure for 2017 was to watch the first episode of Season 2 of "Last Chance U."

If you don't have Netflix, you're missing out. That's where the best shows are these days.

"Last Chance U" is the story of the football team at East Mississippi Community College, located in the town of Scooba, which is about 50 miles east of Philadelphia, the one in Mississippi. It's also 1,000 miles south of the Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and seemingly even further than that - at least figuratively - from the big-time Power 5 football where many of the players at East Mississippi started out and how to get back to at some point.

The school is up front about what it's doing. It's taking players who have all the football talent in the world but are not on major Division I rosters for any number of reasons, mostly including academic or legal issues. East Mississippi is trying to turn them around, get them back to Division I and win some football games in the process.

The first season of the series was a pretty fascinating look into the dynamics that exist at the school, and it made stars out of the coach and some of the players and especially the woman who worked tirelessly and endlessly in the academic support role.

Season 2, at least through one episode, seems like an extension of the first, only with different faces on board. And, TB believes, the woman leaves her role at the school. And, interestingly, the first five minutes introduce all of the new faces - and show why they had to leave where they'd previously been playing.

It continues to amaze TigerBlog the way so many shows are on TV these days in which relatively unimpressive, unaccomplished people have cameras following them around and all of the sudden they achieve fame, notoriety, wealth and everything else, without anything that really distinguishes them. TigerBlog usually isn't a fan of such shows, but he likes "Last Chance U."

Maybe it's because it's about a college football team? Maybe it's because there isn't a whole lot of pretense to it. On the other hand, imagine if you had cameras that followed you around all day and then had that broadcast on television, followed by instant fame as everywhere you went people said "hey, there's that person from that show on that channel."

Wouldn't it make you feel fascinating? How would TB react if there were cameras in his office all day recording his every move? Coming up next week, watch TigerBlog eat his tuna and avocado sandwich - and then everyone did, and found it to be great television.

Anyway, the head coach of the team seems to be the one most aware that cameras are everywhere. The rest of them just go with the flow.

If you've never seen "Last Chance U," check it out. TigerBlog has also watched "Ozark," which was okay, and tried "Gypsy" but never got into it. He's heard "Orphan Black" is good.

Meanwhile, in football news closer to home, Princeton head football coach Bob Surace announced yesterday that John Lovett will not be available for the start of the 2017 season. Here is his statement:

"John Lovett had surgery during the offseason, which stemmed from an injury he played with during the 2016 season and, unfortunately, did not completely heal during the offseason. The surgery was a success, and he will miss time this fall. He will continue to be a tremendous leader for our team, and we look forward to his healthy return to the field."

Lovett had quite a 2016 season, when he was the Bushnell Cup winner as the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year and a first-team All-America. He had ridiculously insane numbers, with 20 rushing touchdowns (and at least one in every game) and 10 passing touchdowns, with one receiving TD tacked on.

Those 31 touchdowns are a Princeton single-season record. They're also more than five league schools had last year.

Keith Elias is the most dominant football player that TigerBlog has seen at Princeton. Lovett last year approached that level of dominance, in a different way, but on the same level.

With Lovett's versatility, Princeton's offense led the Ivy League, and the Tigers went 8-2 overall and 6-1 in the Ivy League, sharing the championship with a Penn team Princeton beat 28-0. In that game, Lovett ran for one TD and threw for another.

Princeton has played a very unique style of offense the last few years, especially with its use of multiple quarterbacks. Chad Kanoff is back for 2017, but Princeton is in the strange position of having only one of its quarterbacks available now, as if they were cornerbacks, not quarterbacks.

Plus, Lovett is an incredibly exciting player to watch.  You never know what he's going to do, but he's usually going to be the focal point of every play. And he's awesome in short yardage situations - not only the ones that took him into the end zone 20 times but the others that kept drives alive on third and fourth downs.

But hey, that's the nature of football. You have to be ready if someone is unavailable. TB is pretty sure Surace and his staff have a Plan B in mind.

At the same time, TB feels badly for Lovett. He had to be primed for a big 2017, and now that's been pulled out from under him.

In football, you need that "next man up" mentality. You also need to remember the last man. What he's going through isn't easy - and TB hopes he can get back quickly.