Close your eyes, and just imagine walking into an industrial-sized deep freezer, just to warm up by as much as 40 degrees. Now open your eyes, and calmly remind yourself you don’t live there.

1. That’s Some Good Cookin’: By now, you’ve probably seen or heard of the story of Rams wide receiver Brandin Cooks and the funding of a Super Bowl trip for a team custodian and his son. If you haven’t, then here you go. If you have, read it again. It’s the kind of stuff we dig: https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/01/29/brandin-cooks-rams-wr-surprises-team-custodian-son-super-bowl-tickets
2. This Could Get Interesting: We’ve just found your next icebreaker or perhaps found a way to take up about 3-4 hours at the watering hole with your friends. The soccer magazine Mundial raised a fantastic question to social media overnight. It was posted at 3:30am this morning, which in Europe is smack-dab in the middle of rush hour drive, but hour be damned, it’s a fantastic way to spark some convo and debate across every single sport. The question: If you could pick one player from your team’s biggest rivals throughout history to put in your current squad, who would it be? Have fun with that folks!
3. Winning Is Hard: This next one comes courtesy of @PickSixPreviews further illustrating the point that even though it may feel like every school BUT YOURS is winning consistently, it is, in fact, not the case. According PSP, just 15 FBS programs have won 8+ games for the past four seasons. They are: Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Iowa, LSU, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Stanford, Washington State, Wisconsin. BUT WAIT…that’s only 11…well, yeah–“only” is the operative word, here. What about the other four? Glad you asked! They are: Appalachian State, Boise State, Memphis, and Ohio. Numbers one and four recruit this area heavily, and things look to be paying off.
4. Release the Hound: Auburndale took their lumps last season, but a new season, a new district with some interesting opportunities with *much* different opponents along with some graduation brings plenty of hope for this Class of 2021 OLB, Alex Bledsoe. This young man checked -in at 5-11/180 at the E7 event and has been displaying a tireless work ethic since he started high school ball. Bledsoe registered just 11 tackles, but did come up with a sack and a fumble recovery. Like we mentioned, there’s a little more opportunity this year, so we look forward to seeing what 2019 brings for this young man.
5. PERSPECTIVE!: This is Brandon Collier standing with Coach Mike Elston from Notre Dame, in Frankfurt…Germany that is. Collier is truly doin’-the-damn-thing as the founder of PPI Recruits, which is a recruiting database for international American football players. Why is this important? There’s a TON of gold to mine in central western Europe, most notably places like Germany, Austria, Switzerland and even places like Denmark that really love “our” game over there in addition to their own brand of football. This is important because schools like Notre Dame have established pipelines across the pond, thus GLOBALIZING HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. It is important because the addition of a global market to HSFB recruiting means you’ve got a ton of new competition in all phases. From commitment level and discipline, from educational structure, and from a resources standpoint there are many schools on their “prep” level that can run circles around even our best private institutions. If you thought you were Power-5 material, especially in the tranches, you better start stepping your game up. This is a trend that will continue.