Relationships Talk

No team in the Pac-12 needed a bye week more than Arizona — even if the Wildcats entered last weekend’s break as one of the league’s hottest teams.

The UA — and quarterback Khalil Tate — are finally healthy as it heads into Saturday’s game at No. 8 Washington State.

Tate suffered an ankle injury during the season opener against BYU, and the ailment lingered throughout the season. As recently as four weeks ago, Tate was kept out of a game against UCLA.

It wasn’t just Tate who needed the break. Running back J.J. Taylor rushed a career-high 40 times against Colorado, six days after posting 30 carries in Arizona’s 44-15 win over Oregon. Taylor ranks fourth in FBS in rushing with 1,221 yards; he trails ASU’s Eno Benjamin (1,295), Memphis’ Darrell Henderson (1,446) and Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor (1,548).

Arizona’s late bye was a first for coach Kevin Sumlin. Washington State, by comparison, had its bye the second week of October.

“I know we’re one of few teams to play 10 weeks in a row. From that standpoint and just from physical and mental health with the combination of travel and late games 10 weeks in a row, we needed a week,” Sumlin said Monday. “I don’t think there’s been a time in my coaching career in 30 years that we’ve gone to the schedule and played 10 straight weeks in a row.”

What did the UA accomplish during the week off? The Wildcats practiced three times and sought treatment for injuries. Sumlin and his staff dispersed to California, Kansas, Texas, Georgia, Florida and parts of Arizona to recruit. Sumlin said Monday he attended a junior college football game, but didn’t specify which one.

Several players also traveled back to their hometowns for the first time since June, when preseason camp began.

Familiarity with WSU’s Leach

Saturday marks the first time Sumlin and Washington State’s Mike Leach will coach against each other in the Pac-12, but the two have a long history dating to their time in the Big 12 Conference.

Sumlin was the tight ends coach and co-offensive coordinator at Oklahoma from 2003-07. Leach, himself a former Sooners offensive coordinator, was the head coach at Texas Tech from 2000-09.

The coaches have “shared ideas, we’ve visited with each other and we’ve just known each other for a long time,” Sumlin said.

Leach’s quirky personality is part of his charm, whether he’s providing dating advice, referring to slot wide receivers as “elves” or making his picks for which Pac-12 mascots would win if they came to life.

Sumlin said he has plenty of stories about Leach — just none he can repeat.

“Not one that I could share,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of good ones though.”

Minshew’s Cougs chew clock

Washington State quarterback Gardner Minshew is now college football’s top passer with 3,852 yards. Some could even make a case that he’s entered the Heisman Trophy discussion.

Minshew is averaging 385.2 yards per game and completing 69.6 percent of his passes. How does that compare to Tate? Well, Arizona’s quarterback threw for a career-high 350 yards two weeks ago against Colorado. Minshew’s worst statistical performance was a 41-19 road win over Wyoming, in which he passed for 319 yards.

“He has gotten more and more confident throughout the year as he’s played,” Sumlin said of Minshew. “He’s a leader, a competitor, and you see that in games.”

Washington State’s offense is pass-first, but the Cougars have worn down defenses with short passes that serve as runs. The Cougars lead the Pac-12 in time of possession, averaging 32 minutes 54 seconds per game.

WSU ranks 12th nationally in time of possession. Arizona holds the ball for an average of 28:37 per game, the 93rd-best mark in the country.

TV exposure helping Arizona on the recruiting trail

Saturday will mark Arizona’s seventh game (out of 11) this season on ESPN. Next week’s Territorial Cup game against ASU will be televised on Fox Sports 1, marking the Wildcats’ third time on that network this season. Ten of Arizona’s 12 games this season will be played on national television, which Sumlin says has helped the Wildcats in recruiting.

“We’ve been on national TV just about every week, so from a lot of people’s perspective, they’ve seen us,” he said. “That’s been good for us just from brand recognition and people seeing who’s playing and what’s going on. That has helped us.”

Extra points

• Sumlin on Arizona having another kickoff time past 7 p.m. local time: “I don’t control that. It’s my first year in the league, I’ll assess all of that at the end.” Nine of UA’s 11 games this season have had late-night kickoff times, which include this week’s 8:30 p.m. start at Washington State.
• Sumlin shied away from talking about the division race, even though Arizona can win the Pac-12 South if Colorado upsets Utah on Saturday and if the Wildcats win out.

“We’re a better team when we focus on one thing at a time,” Sumlin said.

• Sumlin said he “internally disciplined” freshmen Jamarye Joiner, Dayven Coleman and Darrius Smith after the three were cited for trespassing in the early morning of Oct. 23. According to the Daily Wildcat, which broke the story, Coleman was charged with possession of marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia.

If you’ve been feeling the recent T.I. & Tiny’s Family Hustle recaps we’ve been posting, then you’ll be into this round-up of all the loving fatherly advice Tip has given his six children. From money advice to dating must-knows, Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. is a fountain of inspiration for his children as they navigate their way through life. 

“Do you know how much work goes into making this much money,” T.I. asks his kids in the video below, as he holds a stack of $17K. “Do you know that there are certain people who don’t make this much money in a year?” After he tells his son that it only took him two hours to make that cash, he explains how it took him years to get to that point. “It took years to put myself in a position to where it only took me an hour or two to get this money. You have to work your way up to that position and it takes hard work, dedication, and sacrifice.”

Check out the full round-up of advice courtesy od Tips. 

Among all the things Michael B. Jordan can do well—fashion, for example, and acting—one would not count talking about his dating life. The latest example? When, as part of a profile for GQ’s Men of the Year issue, Jordan, ambulant thirst trap, is asked about his relationship status, the Creed and Black Panther star retreats inside the gray Stadium Goods hoodie he’s wearing, physically shrinking away from the question. “I don’t even know how you’re going to write this,” he tells GQ. “I’m so nervous even talking about this.”

But talk about it he does. First, he says his “career is awesome” and that he is “very mature and advanced at a lot of areas of life.” But then, he concedes, his personal life—his dating life, more specifically—is one of more unsure footing. “I don’t really know what dating is,” he says.

There have, of course, been the rumors that have followed him over the past few years: He was spotted leaving the Met Gala at the same time as Kendall Jenner, so they must be dating; he tweeted at his Black Panther costar Lupita Nyong’o, so ditto; a thirsty fan broke her retainer watching him in Black Panther, so he simply helped her out with the orthodontia bills; he even “sought advice” from none other than Will Smith about how to navigate the apparent rumors that he only dates white women, or that he’s gay. (The former rumor comes up again in the new GQ interview: “It just turned into this whole other thing that it wasn’t,” he describes.)

Still, as Jordan tells it, there’s no truth to any of the above rumors. “I could meet you, right now, boom, right here. Me and you sitting here chilling, whatever,” he says. “Somebody could be over there, see this. And all of a sudden, you’re my girl now.”

“How do you go anywhere normal, chill, just getting to know somebody that you just met, that you may not—may or may not—hit it off at all?” he wonders. “That part of dating is tough.” He concedes that “options” are out there. (As he said in a 2015 interview with the magazine, after starring in Creed, he wouldn’t have to “do too much work](https://www.gq.com/story/michael-b-jordan-gq-cover-story)” to get a date if he so desired, but “the females,” he said, “will always be there.”) Jordan earned his breakout role in The Wire more than 15 years ago, and since then, as he told Vanity Fair earlier this year, he’s had to learn how to conduct his personal life very publicly on his own. “There’s nobody that really helped me,” he said. (Except Will Smith.) So forgive him for taking his time figuring out what, exactly, dating is.

If you’re reading this because you’ve been feeling that twinge of jealousy in your gut when it comes to your friend with benefits dating other people, you’re totally not alone. They literally made a whole movie about this very thing. But since you and your FWB aren’t Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis playing fictional characters, it may be useful to get an expert’s advice on this tricky subject. To figure out what to do in this situation, I talked with clinical and behavioral psychologist, Dr. Joshua Klapow. His advice was super insightful and will hopefully clear up some of the confusion you’ve been having about your FWB.

According to Klapow, it is common and normal to develop feelings of jealousy when it comes to your FWB. He explains that these emotions can happen when you have a physically intimate relationship with someone. Everyone is different, so some folks might be more likely than others to get attached to people they have sex with. That being said, Klapow explains that jealousy is a sign you are developing romantic feelings for this person. And that means you may not see them as just a friend anymore.

Things can change over time, so it’s definitely not wrong or abnormal to develop romantic feelings for your friend with benefits. However, according to Klapow, feeling jealous means it’s time to talk to your FWB about what’s going on in your head.

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It’s essential to communicate openly with your friend with benefits through everything, Klapow explains. It may mean that your FWB will not feel the same way that you do, but denying your feelings could end up hurting a lot worse in the long run. “As a general rule we are very ineffective at denying or reframing our feelings of emotional connection,” explains Klapow. Denying how you feel or concealing these emotions to continue the FWB-ship, you’re currently enjoying can hurt both of you.

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In college, I had an FWB-ship that lasted for months, but I harbored a lot of complicated, romantic feelings for this person. And… didn’t tell him about them. The fun we had together was so thrilling that I didn’t want to say anything to drive him away. However, as time went on, my anxiety was always so high because I was worried that he was dating other people that he liked more than me. That wasn’t the chill-no-strings-attached-no-feelings-here message that I had been projecting to him at all. Back then, it didn’t even occur to me that being honest about my feelings was an option. This was because I was so concerned that saying how I felt would drive him away, I didn’t think my feelings had a right to take up space and be heard. It’s interesting to think about how things would have turned out, and how my general level of stress would probably have been lowered if I had talked with him about everything going on in my head.

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When it comes down to it, Klapow explains, communication is essential to having a healthy FWB experience. And not just any communication, but honest conversations about what both of you want and need. According to Klapow, both partners need to be on the same page to prevent hurt feelings and promote a healthy connection. The best thing to do is establish what you both want from the start so that there aren’t surprises down the road.