You know what's far too relevant in 2020, in all cases? It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Today's episode is The Gang Wants Football. We've got Bird Law:

Asked him. Small part of today’s story. And spare me the lecture on journalism, bro. pic.twitter.com/2rDD2UMTYz

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) August 24, 2020

Bryan, our resident law-talking guy, refers to this as "possibly the most insane legal theory I have ever read." Says something in 2020.

We've got Dr. Mantis Toboggan, MD, parachuting in from the internet where all things are lies:

Ackerman wedged his way into the discussion via Twitter, posting that shutting down college sports based on data about myocarditis would be “NONSENSE!” He said that, two days later, he received an email from a Big 12 athletic director, whose name he could not recall, who asked “would you be interested in expounding on your 250-character tweet” during that night’s meeting of Big 12 university presidents.

This guy is definitely on the up-and-up!

When asked by The New York Times if he could check his email for the athletic director’s name, Ackerman later replied that it was instead a Big 12 official. Asked for the name of the official, Ackerman said on Friday that the invitation had come through his secretary and that she was not working that day.

Meanwhile the university's plan to re-open bears a strong resemblance to the D.E.N.N.I.S. system. We appear to be on exiting stage four (Nurture Dependence) and entering stage four (Neglect Emotionally).

[After THE JUMP: more baffling quotes from this one New York Times article]

Concealment isn't going so well, but... So you've got a bunch of people who are furious about football being canceled who demand to see the receipts. I find this to be an unconvincing argument about why football should be played. I also think that we should see the damn receipts.

On the other hand, you've got Ohio State front and center in the protest movement—Fields, and Ryan Day is continually amplifying the There Are Dozens Of Us people—while they are prohibiting the release of information. From the Mantis Toboggan article in the NYT:

Daniels said he is prohibited by the school from revealing how many athletes who had the virus have been tested, how many attend Ohio State, what sport they play, the severity of the myocarditis symptoms, what parts of the heart it attacks, or most other questions about the data. He said only that 13 to 15 percent have shown symptoms of myocarditis, which he revealed only because Gov. Mike DeWine had coaxed it out of him during a news conference.

So the same institution that is roaring about football being played and the transparency of the process is refusing to allow timely information from the team doctor from being released. This is what I mean by bullshit processism.

Also in baffling quotes from one NYT article. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who previously issued a quote asserting that the B12 would pull back on football after their wheels left the tracks, on explaining himself:

Meanwhile, Bob Bowlsby, the Big 12 commissioner, said he did not feel compelled to release the medical underpinnings for his conference’s decision to continue playing, even though new infection rates remained high in the counties of half its universities. “Well, if we got to the point where we were going to not play it probably requires more of an explanation,” he told reporters on a conference call. “The decision to continue to move forward and stay the course, I think, is a different one.”

Filed under Reasons This Is Happening To The USA. Bowlsby's the cowboy on top of the nuke right now.

Sitting out. Georgia State's quarterback had COVID, got myocarditis, and is now sitting out the season:

…a trainer advised him to get his heart checked out, due to growing concern about heart issues stemming from COVID-19, so Colasurdo underwent an EKG and a cardiogram on Wednesday.

The trainer called him Wednesday night and said something was abnormal. A visit to a cardiologist Thursday morning confirmed a word spreading across college football: myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that has been linked to the coronavirus and increases the chance of sudden cardiac death.

“The cardiologist was pretty confident it’s a case more on the mild side,” Colasurdo told The Athletic. “A lot of it is going to just be precautionary because they really just don’t know what’s going to happen in the long term. If the cardiologist wasn’t super worried, I’m doing OK.”

The recommendation is that athletes sit out three months, which is the length of a college football season. If there is widespread transmission—a near-certainty—you're going to have something like 10-15 percent of college football knockedout for the season, and that's if they diligently catch all the cases.

There are dozens of us. Randy Wade's protest drew more reporters than protestors:

By my count, 30-plus reporters, 26 family members. https://t.co/5OZ7KaDcwF

— jon greenberg (@jon_greenberg) August 21, 2020

Someone cited the global pandemic as a reason for low attendance. Close, but no potato. Anyway, these people stood in front of an empty building and chanted stuff.

I do have some sympathy for this argument:

"These kids basically self-quarantined for three months," Kyle Borland, father of Ohio State linebacker and co-captain Tuf Borland, and a former linebacker at Wisconsin, told ESPN. "They did everything the NCAA asked them to do, everything Ohio State asked them to do, for a chance to play the season. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Then, to have it pulled out at the eleventh hour, is really disappointing."

That's because I have also done that, and now there is no football. But this isn't the Big Ten's fault. It's everyone who blew off a global pandemic because they have goldfish brains.

Monitoring. Michigan basketball fans who don't follow the NBA too closely (hello) think of Adrian Wojnarowski as the most destructive force in the universe:

ESPN Sources: A possible NBA coaching candidate whose name is gaining traction within front offices: Michigan coach Juwan Howard. Howard has an obviously strong resume as a player and later an assistant under Erik Spoelstra. He interviewed for Lakers, Cavs before taking UM job.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 24, 2020

Anyone who says "never" after John Beilein left a lifetime job where he was adored for the Cleveland Cavaliers—who, uh, did not adore him—isn't paying attention. That said, you would think that Howard is likely to stay around for the careers of his sons Jace and (probably) Jett, if not longer.

UPDATE: Howard released a pretty definitive statement that says "no." 

More enjoyable NBA things. Trey Burke has carved out a role for himself on the best offense in NBA history:

Dallas coach Rick Carlisle made a brilliant switch Sunday by going smaller with his starting lineup and inserting Trey Burke, who has been a revelation since signing with the Mavs as a substitute player before the bubble. Burke destroyed the Clippers’ defense, which isn’t playing a traditional point guard with Patrick Beverley out. He finished with 25 points on 10-of-14 shooting.

Burke has been the perfect tag-team partner for Doncic in this series. Doncic goes from a net rating of plus-16.7 in 53 minutes with Burke to minus-11.6 in 89 minutes without him.

The journeyman point guard gives Dallas a second ball handler who can pressure defenses at the rim. The Mavs’ other primary scorers—Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Seth Curry—are all mostly jump shooters. Doncic can swing the ball to Burke after drawing multiple defenders in the paint and count on him to do the same thing. He doesn’t have to do quite as much on offense with Burke sharing some of the ballhandling responsibility, which has been an issue for the Mavs, particularly in crunch time. Burke’s presence on the floor is stretching the Clippers’ defense past its breaking point. It’s the role Dennis Smith Jr. was supposed to fill in Dallas.

Very happy to see Burke make a home for himself in the NBA.

Etc.: Michigan has not formally submitted a waiver for Chaundee Brown yet. European football as emirate-washing. The New Yorker(?!) on Ultima IV.  Alabama has "entered a 14-day moratorium" on in-person activities. Positive test rates there: 29%.

NCAA issues blanket waiver that says everyone, playing or not, gets an extra year of eligibility. This is going to seriously mess up our depth chart by class. The Onion is not fiction. Iowa discontinues four sports, most of which cost about as much as one Kirk Ferentz bonus.

Oliver Martin walks on at Nebraska.