Bizarre Football Play, Clint and Romney: Things to Know 8/31

1. To Tackle or Not to Tackle? - A Towson special teamer tackled a Kent State linebacker who was in the process of returning a muffed punt THE WRONG WAY. The video is hilarious, with Kent State players blocking for their teammate as he runs the wrong way and Towson players trying to catch him. To make the play even more bizarre (although somewhat less fun) the whole thing was the ref's fault. In college football a muffed punt is a downed ball wherever the other team recovers it, so it was first down for Kent State at the Towson 7.

2. Clint Eastwood Steals the Show - If you happened to tune into the Republican National Convention on Thursday evening, around 10 p.m., you likely caught Clint Eastwood talking to a chair. Slate's David Weigel described the speech like this: "You've been to weddings, right, where the best man starts getting too real, and less funny than he thinks, but everyone's instinct is to root for him and try to find humor? That was what happened." That's pretty spot on, even if you didn't agree with what he was saying, it was hard to watch the Hollywood Icon stumble through the speech.

3. Romney Humanizes Himself a Little - New Yorker's John Cassidy points out that perhaps the most effective part of Mitt Romney's RNC speech was when he talked about being a young father, raising five kids and juggling a consulting career: 

Those weren’t the easiest of days—too many long hours and weekends working, five young sons who seemed to have this need to reënact a different world war every night. But if you ask Ann and I what we’d give, to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in our room. Well, every mom and dad knows the answer to that.

4. Weather - It'll be hot today, sunny, high of 95, according to weather.com.

5. Featured Blog Post - Last night, Columbia politician and state delegate Liz Bobo announced she would not be running for her seat again in 2014. Dennis Lane of Tales of Two Cities blog points out that it may be Howard County Council chairwoman Mary Kay Sigaty who runs for her vacated position.