Weekend winners (too many to name)
Jauan Jennings and the rest of the Tennessee Vols. Now that was a finish, right? Buckets, each team with a 40-plus-yard touchdown pass in the final 10 seconds. How can you dream up something like that? There are times when special things are happening, and right now it's impossible to look at these Tennessee Vols and not think something special could be afoot. (Side note: When you type Jauan, the spellchecker changes it to 'Japan.')
Butch Jones. The emotional roller coaster actually hit the head man of Team 120 Saturday afternoon in Athens, Ga. He crumpled to his knees and was overcome with emotion. (His bouncing torso gave the look of someone either crying or laughing hysterically, and it truth, either could have been the case.) Still for a guy who is far-too-often robotic and scripted, that raw and real reaction was refreshing. And something that resonates with fans.
Patrick Reed and Phil Mickelson (and there rest of the U.S. Ryder Cup team). The NFL is king, and the numbers prove that. Still, the first couple hours of the Ryder Cup was sporting theater. From the antics and emotion that was the front nine dogfight between Reed and Rory McIlory - a twosome who engaged in a passionate pantomime of 'can you top this?' and then followed it with, 'uh, yes, I can' - to the sheer brilliance of the Mickelson-Sergio Garcia match, it was much more entertaining than the early NFL games. How good were Mickelson and Garcia? They halved the match and combined for 19 birdies in 18 holes.
Matt Ryan (and Julio Jones, who is really good at tackle football). Did you know that Ryan and Jones became the first duo to have 500-plus passing yards and 300 or more receiving yards in the same game? Which seems a little odd, since, well, if one dude gets 300-plus yards receiving, you'd think the QB would put up a most total. Jones became the sixth player with 300 or more yards receiving in an NFL game. Also, the Falcons now have 152 points through four games - the fourth most in NFL history, behind the 2013 Broncos, the 2002 Raiders and the 1992 Bills. Wow.
This gal and the entire Kansas basketball midnight madness event. OK, the midnight madness people hitting half court shots and making coin is cool.
Fab 4 (plus 1) picks. We hit on all four of our Saturday games, rising only Friday night's BYU-Toledo shootout. And that miss was by all of half-a-point. Still a miss is a miss, but a 4-1 mark against the spread is entertaining. That brings us to a tidy 18-9 (66.7 percent against the spread) on the season.
Weekend losers
Baseball fans in Boston, Atlanta and L.A.. Saying good-bye to Big Papi can't be easy. Saying good-bye to Turner Field has to be some what bittersweet on a lot of fronts. Saying good-bye to Vin Scully is heartbreaking. Here's a wonderful story about Scully's farewell and his final words to fans, friends and listeners were so pitch perfect it deserves repeating: "You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know in my heart I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me. And I'll miss our times together more than I can say. But you know what? There will be a new day, and eventually a new year. And when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, oh, rest assured, once again it will be time for Dodger baseball.
"So this is Vin Scully, wishing you a very pleasant good afternoon - wherever you may be."
Tennessee Titans. Another Sunday, another strong defensive showing. And still another loss. The Titans defense has allowed five touchdowns in four games; the Titans offense and special teams have allowed three touchdowns in that span. The Titans offense has eight turnovers and is averaging 15.2 points per game. And head coach Mike Mularkey is an offensive guy. Egad.
NaVorro Bowman. Bowman is a great player, who was a huge part of the 49ers defense back when they mattered. He shredded his knee in a playoff loss a few years ago, but rehabbed it got a $42 million extension before the season. Sunday, he went down with what looked like an Achilles injury. Bad break for a great player.
Carolina Panthers offensive line. Man, when you turned the Falcons' pass rush into a formidable foe, then you have done something. Side note: The NFL in recent years likely has had conversations about either Andrew Luck or Cam Newton being the face of the league moving forward. If those two offensive lines continue to be that bad those two dudes may not make it through the season.
Charlie Strong. Wow, it feels like a lifetime ago when the "Texas is back" narrative. Yeah, that was Labor Day. Strong and the 'Horns lost Saturday at Oklahoma State. And the lasting image for Strong - who came up as a defensive guy - is the simple fact that Texas can't stop anyone. OSU scored 49 points and had 555 yards of offense and Texas has allowed 153 points in four games. (And one of those was a 41-7 win over UTEP.)
DJ LeMahieu. The Rockies rookie second baseman won the NL batting title. Wait, strike that. He sat his way to the batting crown. The Colorado season was over look ago, and LeMahieu was leading the NL in hitting heading into the weekend with a .348 batting average but he sat out Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. He got two at-bats Friday and his average dropped to .348, which was one point better than Daniel Murphy's .347. Murphy has been sitting out with an injury, so when LeMahieu got within one point the Rockies planted him and he backed his way into the batting crown. Juxtapose that to Ted Williams in 1941, when he entered the final day of the season hitting.3995, which would have rounded up to .400 heading into a doubleheader. Williams was given the option of sitting and told the staff to stick that, he's a ballplayer. Williams went 6-for-8 and finished the year at .406.
Big 12. Bye, Big 12, the college football playoff committee sends its regrets. Maybe next year, when Texas gets a new coach.
FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2016, file photo, Louisville's Lamar Jackson runs through an opening in the Florida State line during the first quarter of an NCAA college football game, in Louisville Ky. Lamar Jackson and No. 3 Louisville go from playing the main event last week to the side stage this week. The Cardinals head to Marshall after jumping into the national title race by tearing up Florida State at home last week. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File) Crazy September
Wow, college football fans everywhere are trying to catch their breath.
It's been that kind of season. Then you remember it's been all of one month.
Sweet buckets of antacids and Jack Daniels.
Through four games, we have all but crowned the Heisman winner in Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson. We have laid a road map toward the playoff that is filled with potholes and potential unrest to the point that question about four teams rather than six or eight will certainly come up.
And we saw so many amazing finishes Saturday that it's easy to forget some of the great finishes that were render relatively normal because of the craziness that was Saturday in Athens, Clemson and Tallahassee.
Heck Baylor needed a last-second field goal to beat an awful Iowa State team and that may not of made the highlight reel in most locales outside of Texas or Ames. In fact, the wake of destruction has separated the upper crust of college football like few years in recent history.
First, how bad was the preseason poll? Here are the teams ranked in the top 12 who are all but out of any chance to make the college football playoff:
Oklahoma (3) - two losses
FSU (4) - two losses
LSU (5) - two losses
Stanford (8) - a beatdown at Washington Friday
Notre Dame (10) - two bad losses
Ole Miss (11) - two losses, one great and one that gets worse by the week as FSU spirals
Michigan State (12) - a two-week collapse that's been staggering.
We are now faced with a very real scenario of two of the power five conferences without a team in the playoff. Let's explore:
The SEC has three teams left in the hunt with Alabama, Texas A&M and Tennessee. If any of those teams emerge as a no-loss or one-loss conference champ, they get a ticket to the dance.
The ACC has two teams left in the hunt with Clemson and Louisville. Seriously, Saturday night's Louisville loss hurts but does not eliminate them all things considering.
The Big Ten has two bona fide candidates in Michigan and Ohio State and a fringe candidate in Wisconsin, but the Badgers seem like a long shot. The loser of the Michigan-Ohio State game still could be in the dance, but that loss would be very late in the season.
The Pac 12 has one candidate in Washington. And if the Huskies drop a bad loss or fall twice, the Pac 12 may be on the outside looking in.
The Big 12 is out.
Houston is still on the fringe of this thing, but the Cougars need a) Oklahoma to win out; b) Louisville and Lamar Jackson to roll people up to playing Houston in November; and c) Crush Louisville.bThat's nine candidates with a fringe hanger-on in Wisconsin.
So there's that.
Crazy, huh?
This and that
- More college football: The true and accurate 180 of the UTC Mocs under coach Russ Huesman was on display Saturday in a 37-7 win over ETSU. The last time the Mocs went to Johnson City, they were dismantled 68-7 in the last game before the program was disbanded. We'll talk with Russ today on Press Row around 3:10 on ESPN 105.1 the Zone. It's UTC's first 5-0 start since 1979.
- Pretty interesting juxtaposition of a couple of guys in Georgia on Saturday afternoon. Mark Richt had his Miami Hurricanes ready to play - and Richt looked like he was having a lot of fun and 10 years younger on the sideline at Grant Field on Saturday - in a 14-point win over Tech. New UGA coach Kirby Smart could not take advantage of a lot of breaks and mismanaged the final minutes on offense and lost what could have been an early exclamation point win when UT hit the Hail Mary (which was awfully defensed by the Bulldogs secondary, which is kind of Kirby's speciality).
- Lots of NFL stuff to get to, and we'll break more of that down Tuesday when the season hits the quarter-pole. (Man that's pretty crazy, right?) We will say this, Josh Norman certainly had to have mixed emotions watching his friends and former Panthers teammates get humiliated in Atlanta. On one hand there was whipping. On the other was the simple fact that Carolina decided not pay Norman, an All-Pro corner, and let him walk in free agency. In two games following Jones last year, Norman 'held' Julio to 16 catches for 266 yards. Sunday, Jones went for 3 bills and Norman told the Charlotte Observer, ""I'm just gonna sip my tea on that one."
- One more NFL note, after the stroking of the offensive genius of the Patriots, it's fair to note that New England got blanked Sunday.
- Not sure if it's a winner or a loser, and maybe this week before the playoff start we'll breakdown the Braves in year one of the rebuild the Atlanta roster. But Sunday was the final day of The Ted. We could discuss a lot of memories we have enjoyed there - from the Olympics to the magical years in the late 1990s of Braves - but no one will detail the magic and the memories of the downtown park better than TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer does here.
- Playoff baseball is here. Good times. Here's the schedule for the first games of each series this week, and we'll break it down further tomorrow:
ALWG - Baltimore at Toronto, 8 p.m., Tuesday (TBS)
NLWG - San Francisco at New York, 8 p.m., Wednesday (ESPN)
ALCS - Game 1s on Thursday: Boston at Cleveland, TBA, (TBS); Wildcard winner at Texas, TBA (TBS)
NLCS - Game 1s on Friday: Los Angeles at Washington, TBA (FS1/MLB); Wildcard winner at Chicago, TBA (FS1/MLB).
- Real talk from NFL referee Pete Morelli, who dropped a cuss word on a live mic during Sunday's Patriots-Bills game.
Today's question
You know the drill.
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
If you need a Rushmore, well, does the finish of the UT-Georgia game make the Rushmore of college football finishes?
Enjoy the morning and tell someone you love them.