FILE - In this Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016 file photo, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, right, hands the ball off to running back Ezekiel Elliott during the first half of an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis. The Dallas Cowboys, with rookie sensations Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott, were the hottest team in the NFL before their 11-game winning streak ended last week. Now they’re playing one of the hottest teams in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whose five-game streak is the club’s longest since the Super Bowl-winning season of 2002 The Buccaneers play the Cowboys on Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King, File) Weekend winners
Tennessee Titans. We have been gauging the steps of progress for the Tennessee Titans, who started the season with a second-year QB some nice pieces at running back and high hopes for an offensive line that has a multitude of first-round picks and a defense with a new DC. (And man, Dick LeBeau may be the best defensive coordinator in the history of the league.) Still, steps of progress are one thing; these Titans are now skipping steps in the cycle. Sunday's 19-17 win at Kansas City was the type of big-boy road effort that comes from veteran teams who expect to win. That was impressive.
Youngstown State. Did you know that YSU is paying coach Bo Pelini about $250K to lead it to the FCS title game. Nebraska is paying him about $1.5 million not to coach the Cornuhuskers. Either way, the Penguins - excellent nickname by the way - are in the finals with one of the most amazing game-ending, game-winning catches you will ever see.
Dallas stars. Ezekiel Elliott had a career- high with 159 yards rushing and Jason Witten moved into seventh all time in receptions in the Cowboys' 26-20 win over Tampa Bay. But the biggest star may have been Dak Prescott. Last week was the first bump in the Dallas Cowboys rookie quarterback's magical ride in his first season. He was bad in a 10-7 loss to New York last week, and because the Cowboys are America's team - we'll bet after the Sunday night numbers are counted Dallas has five of the top six most-watched NFL games this season - the questions flowed about whether Dallas should replace Dak with Tony Romo. Man, OK. Prescott completed 32 of 36 throws Sunday night and ran for a score as Dallas all-but locked down NFC home-field advantage in the playoffs.
Mike Greenberg. Sure the deal was done before the weekend, but news was released late last week in a Vanity Fair story. And if the numbers are to be believed Greenberg, one half of the Mike & Mike ESPN Radio show from 6-10 each weekday morning, has won a lot of weekends. Greenberg reportedly got a long-term deal paying him in excess of $6.5 million per year. That would make him right there with Jon Gruden, who makes $7 million, as the names among the highest-paid ESPN talent. Of course when Skip Bayless signs a $5.5 million annual contract, the who's to argue with what Greenie is worth by comparison. Also of note, the reports and rumblings that ESPN is looking to split up Mike & Mike seem like a done deal now, since it's hard to believe that a) ESPN is going to fork over that kind of cash for a radio show and a simulcast, and b) ESPN is hardly going to offer Mike Golic anything in that neighborhood. The stories are out there that ESPN wants Greenberg to host a morning SportsCenter/Today studio show that would boost the network's plummeting morning numbers. It would be akin to an a.m. version of the p.m. thing hosted by Scott Van Pelt, who also parlayed a successful radio run into a big-boy gig - and paycheck.
Bowl game bettors who expected close, low-scoring games. OK, we are all for trends, but if you expected the above, then you made some nice Christmas entertainment o the opening weekend of bowl games. While the favorites went 4-2 straight up, the underdogs covered the number four times in six games. And the under was a perfect 6-0. Cha-entertainment.
Bonus pick: The Frisky 4 picks on NFL games went 3-1 again this week. That's 6-2 since we started this craziness on NFL picks against the number. Our college bowl picks went 1-1 with three games in the next few days. (Side note: For those wondering we will use Wednesdays to update the points on the bowls. Deal? Deal. We have roughly 50 entries. Thanks as always for playing along.)
Houston Texans quarterback Tom Savage (3) passes against the Jacksonville Jaguars after starter Brock Osweiler was pulled during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith) Weekend losers
The NFL. Man, this celebration thing is beyond head-scratching. We let last week's slide with wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders was fined for pretending to be a baseball pitcher and fired a strike from the stretch go. (Nevermind that in the same game, Titans receiver Harry Douglas was not fined for a clearly dirty hit on Aqib Talib. Whatever.) But the refs flagged Elliott for jumping into the Salvation Army bucket after his TD Sunday. Man, with all the problems the league faces, a guy jumping in the SA bucket - and drawing attention to their noble cause - does not deserve a fine.
Brock Osweiler. The Houston Texans are tied with the Titans atop the AFC South in spite of the free agent QB acquisition rather than because of him. Osweiler was 6-of-11 with two picks before being replaced by Tom Savage, who led the Texans to an eye-aching 21-20 win over Jacksvonille. All told the three QBs in the game - Savage, Osweiler and Jags' starter Blake Bortles - had three combined picks and no TDs. Osweiler and Bortles combined for a dreadful, non-Tom Emanski-worthy, 18-of-39 with the three interceptions. NFL quarterback action, it's fantastic.
Gus Bradley. Speaking of the awfulness that was Jags-Texans, afterward news came that Bradley was fired after accumulating a 14-48 record. Maybe Jeff Fisher is interested, because right now the Jags would love to have a 7-9 run.
Oklahoma. Man, the Joe Mixon video is bad. Really bad. And the thing that makes this worse than the whole Ray Rice issue was that the powers that be and the decision makers - the OU president and football coach Bob Stoops - saw the video before letting Mixon into school and on the football team. Remember this is the same administration that expelled some frat boys for a video with those drunken dudes tossing out some offensive racial slurs. Now, with Mixon, and Dorial Green-Beckham and the history of Dede Westbrook, it's clear that Oklahoma in general and Stoops in particular have zero tolerance for hateful words. Hateful, women-beating acts, however, are 100 percent fine and dandy.
The rest of the AFC. Uh, friends, don't look now, but with no Gronk and with little competition left on the schedule, the New England Patriots are now 12-2 and have home-field advantage well-within their grasp. The Pats are 16.5-point favorites over the New York Jets this weekend and close with Miami. New England has a one-game lead of Oakland, which closes against Indy and at Denver. If the AFC playoffs go through Foxboro, man it's tough seeing anyone else making it to the Super Bowl but Brady and his bunch.
Tom ArthNew UTC coach?
Well, we said last week we though there would be a new coach by the end of the weekend.
As TFP UTC beat ace Mean Gene Henley relayed Sunday evening, that name looks to be Tom Arth. Here's the report with some details of Mr. Arth. So what say you, Mocs lovers?
There seems to be a few noteworthy things about this decision.
First, UTC David Blackburn never ceases to surprise, right? There were lots of clamoring and commotion about the dude at Charleston Southern, and he seems to be a name with a bright future. But Blackburn went and found the name with which he's most comfortable and he did so quickly. (Which is far from a surprise for a lot of us.)
Second, Arth has extensive - and successful - head coaching experience, and we believe that to be a true plus. Dude is 40-8 as a head coach, which kind of makes him the opposite of Gus Bradley, which is a great thing for Johnny Mocs Fans everywhere.
Third, dude comes from a place in which creative solutions are needed because the monstrous checkbook does not reside in the right-hand drawer of a power-five monster. That's a paramount skill for any UTC coach, especially football, to own.
We feel relatively certain that Blackburn explored his UT connections and talked with Peyton Manning about Arth, who spent a few years as Manning's back-up with the Colts in the 2000s. And if Peyton is good with it, who are we to say anything different.
Yes, the recruiting differences - his highly successful run at John Carroll was at Div. III where athletic scholarships are not offered - will be something Arth has to handle, but the talent in place and the momentum established by Russ Huesman and his previous staff will help that transition.
We do not know Mr. Arth, and we look forward to meeting him. But we know the following two things:
The hire looks aces on paper, all things considered. And, two, Blackburn has built up enough street cred in the hiring department, that if he's cool with Arth, so are we.
This and that
- There will be more day games in MLB starting in 2018. The new collective bargaining agreement between players and teams has a provision in it that starting in '18, teams that face a flight longer than 2-and-1/2 hours after a game must get an earlier starting time. For example if the Dodgers were playing at the Mets before heading back to L.A., the final game in the series at New York can start no later than 4:37 p.m. rather than the normal 7 p.m. start.
- Speaking of baseball, the luxury tax bills came due, and there were a record six teams which owed extra coin to the coffers for exceeding the MLB threshold of $189 million in team salary. Of course the New York Yankees were over the cap. They have been over the cap in each of the last 14 seasons and have paid a total of $325 million in salary-cap taxes with this year's $27.4 million bill. The Dodgers owed the most this year with a $31.8 million tax. Boston ($4.5 million), Detroit ($4 million), San Francisco ($3.4 million) and the Chicago Cubs ($2.96 million) also have extra checks to write. Something tells us the Cubs were more than happy to sign that one.
- How is this for some context in competitive balance? The Dodgers' payroll tax of $31.8 million is one middle infielder away from what the Oakland A's pay their entire 25-man roster ($35.1 million).
- Kentucky and UNC played a very entertaining and offensive-minded hoops contest Saturday with UK winning 103-100. If you are wondering about eye balls, that game drew a 2.4 overnight TV rating, the highest-rated college basketball game on any network so far this season. It was 50 percent better than any other college hoops broadcast this season. That's roughly 4.1 million viewers.
- For comparison, since the opening weekend numbers for the bowl games have not been released, for college football regular-season numbers this year, that's the same numbers that watched the Nebraska-Iowa game at noon on Friday, Nov. 25.
- The Minnesota players have come back to practice. So crisis avoided. For now. It will happen again, and the only question now is if a team is prepared to cause a school to miss a game. We'll see. Here are some more details about the weekend decision of the team to get back to work in preparation for the Holiday Bowl with Washington State.
Today's question
Weekend winners and losers. Go. You know the Monday drill.
OK, we'll start deep and work backward. Today is the day the Electoral College convenes. If they do not vote like their states, and decide to vote for Hillary instead, well, tomorrow's 5-at-10 will be far less fun. There could be serious reactions and potential riots if that happens. Thoughts?
Wow, Reggie White would have been 55 today. Man, you forget how young he died sometimes because he was such a prominent figure for so long. He's a no-brainer on the Rushmore of Chattanooga in our view and on the NFL defensive lineman Rushmore too. Do you have four that could knock Mr. White from either of those lists.
But what if we went bigger and did a Rushmore of the best defensive players in SEC history? (Still think he'll make it though.)
Go and remember it's Christmas time.