SEC items of interest
Football is back. Oh blessed day. Here are five things we are watching for:
Welcome back old friends. UT and UTC start tonight - we think each wins rather comfortably, but feel free to offer your take in the comments - and the rest of college football follows suit in a glorious five-day Labor Day weekend that has become one of the best season-opening celebrations in any sport. Yes, the first four days of the NCAA tournament put the madness in March, but the first five days of this holiday week but the Grrrrr in great. Seriously, this is going to be awesome.
Millionaires in the making. Around the SEC there are several high-profile games featuring non-conference foes that deservedly are drawing a ton of national attention. Within those games there are multiple amazing man-to-man match-ups. (How about that alliteration? Mmmmmm, that sounds good, I think I'll have that.) Watching USC corner Adoree' Jackson against Alabama wide out Calvin Ridley go one on one will be a treat. Watching potential No. 1 overall picks in UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen and Clemson QB Deshaun Watson get pressure from future NFL pass rushers Myles Garrett and Carl Lawson respectively will entertaining. How Ole Miss QB Chad Kelly does against an NFL-littered FSU secondary also will be awesome Monday night.
Good times.
Lane Tiffin's present against his past. Some have called Alabama-USC the Lane Kiffin Bowl and it's easy to see why. But amid all the flash and the controversy and the hollow words and sullied reputation that comes with the Joey Freshwater rumors, Kiffin really is an excellent offensive coordinator who has had had great success bring along new quarterbacks each of the last two years. Will the Tide, who have yet to name a starter at QB, pick up right where they left off? That seems unlikely but Kiffin has a way of maximizing his strengths, which likely will mean a lot of Ridley and tight end OJ Howard early this season. Still, with a defense as skilled and athletic as the unit Alabama is tossing out this year, as long as Tiffin's troops get to 20 points, everything else is grace.
A running back league. Yes, the storyline during the summer was the lack of experienced and trustworthy quarterbacks in the always-powerful SEC. And that still hasn't changed. But lost in that shuffle is the avalanche of supremely talented running backs the league has, starting at the top with Leonard Fournette and Nick Chubb and trickling down to the Vols great tandem of Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara and across the league at places like Vandy and Kentucky and Arkansas and Mississippi State, all of which have big-play backs that can hurt defenses.
Season starts this weekend; hot seats come Tuesday. Yes, this is a crazy good opening weekend of college football. It also is a potential chance for three of the SEC coaches who have to be somewhat concerned in places they don't like to talk about at parties about their long-term job security. Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin, LSU's Les Miles and Auburn's Gus Malzahn each face a talented power-five foe, and Sumlin and Malzahn do so at home. No loss for these three is a good loss, but home losses - even to very talented opponents - leave a more lasting and more bitter taste in the moths of fans.
FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2015, file photo, LSU coach Les Miles watches his team warm up before an NCAA college football game against Florida in Baton Rouge, La. That Les Miles could be even considered to be on the dreaded hot seat at LSU entering this season tells you all you need to know about job security among college football coaches these days _ especially those in the Southeastern Conference. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File) Fab 4 (plus 1) picks
Last year we went 71-49. Not too shabby, considering that is a smudge under 60 percent and, even with factoring the bought half-points, returned an impressive 1,730 entertainment tokens if you put 100 entertainment chips on each pick.
With that knowledge, and an overall record of right at 60 percent since the start of the 2011 college football season, we are eager to get to our Fab 4 picks of the 2016 campaign. It's here; it's all happening.
LSU minus-9.5 over Wisconsin. One of the several marquis SEC out-of-conference matches at a neutral site that's really not that neutral. This game is in Lambeau Field, the home of the Green Bay Packers. That said, LSU has way more players who have a future career path of potentially playing in Lambeau Field in the future. One of them assuredly is Leonard Fournette, the monster running back who is unlike anything Wisconsin has seen or will see this year. If this game was scheduled for the first Saturday of October rather than the first Saturday of season, the line could very well be double the current number.
FSU minus-4.5 over Ole Miss. Ole Miss is better at quarterback, as Chad Kelly returns with the surprising stats of more than 4,000 passing yards last year and zero off-the-field incidents. But FSU is better almost everywhere else. In fact, if the Rebels, who have had more distractions than Trump campaign manager, keep this to a one-score game it would be surprising.
Georgia Tech minus-3 over Boston College. Yes, we will buy the half here because it makes good sense both here and abroad. Remember traveler's checks. Man, what happened to those. Also, remember how cool it was when your family first got call waiting on your home phone. Now, my parents don't even have a home phone. Oh well. Where we were. Yes, the Jackets. Each team was a disappointment last year, and normally betting on mid-level ACC football is akin to flipping a coin and as random as a good rock-paper-scissors match. But Tech coach Paul Johnson has to be motivated after last year's debacle, so here's thinking the triple option will be rock through the BC paper-thin defense.
Georgia minus-2.5 over UNC. If you are a regular reader of this space you know we seldom take underdogs, especially when it's less than a TD. This UNC team is good, but its weakness is a run defense that was among the worst of the power-five schools. This Georgia team is young, but its running game is its strength. Sometimes it's just that simple.
Alabama-USC under the 54.5 Barring some sort of overtime fiasco, which seems unlikely because we think Alabama wins the game comfortably, there's no way a new Alabama backfield and a new USC starting QB will close in on eight touchdowns in this game. (And yes we think Bama wins comfortably, but the 11.5 points present a very real chance for a backdoor Trojans cover, and yes, using 'backdoor' and Trojans is testing the bounds of a family-oriented, inter web-based sports column.)
Last week: 0-0
Last season: 71-49 against the spread (59.7 percent)
The 'er' months
We have a baseball theory that standings do not real matter until the 'er' months. September. October. December. Wait strike that last one.
Still, the 'er' months are when the records come into focus and the focus is a matter of record.
Since today's Sept. 1 - and understandably everyone around these parts is in a football tizzy - let's refresh the pennant races as they currently stand. (For what it's worth, there are right at 30 games left for each team.)
In the AL, the Blue Jays (up two in the East), the Indians (up 4.5 in the Central) and the Rangers (up 8.5 in the West) are leading. In the NL, the Nationals (up nine in the East) and the Dodgers (up 1.5 in the West are leading. The mind-glowingly good Chicago Cubs are 15 games clear of the St. Louis Cardinals. That's nuts.
And while half the division races look pretty one-sided right now, what's still up in the air is the wildcard chase in each league.
Adding that second wildcat team keeps a lot of teams in the mix. Ten of the 15 teams in the American League are either leading the division or wishing four games of the second wildcard spot; eight of the 15 teams in the National League can say the same thing.
That means that 18 of the 30 teams in baseball (60 percent) are in a pennant race. (Of course the Braves are not among that 60 percent.) That's pretty good for the game. Welcome to the 'er' months.
Here are the wildcard standings in each league.
This and that
- Let the games and the gamesmanship begin. Hawaii has already played as they get ready to go to Michigan on Saturday. So the Rainbow Warriors asked for some scrimmage film of the Wolverines so they could better prepare, considering Michigan has seen Hawaii in action already. Not surprisingly, Jim Harbaugh said nope. So there's that.
- As the Mocs get ready for tonight's season opener against Shorter, loyal reader Andrew sent this along. Here's a shoutout for stud duck UTC defensive end Keionta Davis from MondayMorning Quarterback - a prominent NFL site operated by Peter King and staff for Sports Illustrated. At the bottom of the article, they talk to an anonymous NFL scout and here's said scout's view on Davis: "High on this guy. Very productive player. Caught my eye after great matchup with [Florida State tackle] Roderick Johnson." Impressive take away.
- The NFL cleared the three current players mentioned in the Al-Jazeera story about PEDs. So it goes.
- Speaking of the NFL, it was 10 years ago today that Roger Goodall took over as commissioner. Wow, time flies.
Today's question
Lots of stuff happening all around us today. Feel free to chime in.
Let's play a little fill in the blank today:
Tennessee wins _____ tonight over App State. (Name the score.)
UTC wins _____ tonight over Shorter. (Name the score.)
Come Tuesday, the best game of this opening weekend was _____.
Come Tuesday, the biggest surprise of this opening weekend was _____.
And if you need a Rushmore, well, let's do this. On this day in 1985, the Titanic was found. What's our Rushmore of ships?
Go and remember the mailbag.