Fab 4 picks
Last week was more like it. A strong showing – our only loss was the UT-Kentucky under – pushed us back to 10 games over .500.
But there is no time to rest. And there are a slew of entertaining opportunities this week.
Oklahoma plus-3 over Oklahoma State. Yes, this is a monster rivalry game. Yes, this game is in Stillwater and that place will be nuts. But you can’t convince me that the Cowboys are better 1-through-22 than the Sooners, and as good as Mason Rudolph is and could be on Sundays throeat the next level, we’ll take Baker Mayfield everyday of the week. The three points – and yes, but the hook – feel like a gift friends.
THE Ohio State minus-17 over Iowa. Iowa simply can not keep up with THE Buckeyes, who have found another gear offensively. And the most one-sided match-up in this one is the clear edge OSU has with a defensive front that consistently hand-cuffed Penn State all over the field in the second half last week.
Miami plus-3 over Virginia Tech. Call this one a hunch. Call it a desire for The U to be back in the mix. But know this: Miami has done nothing but win. Will the sand run out this week? Maybe. But, cue the ESPN 30-for-30 voice, “What if I told you there was a Power Five unbeaten team that was barely in the top 10 and that team craved respect.” Also, and I think this is important: Virginia Tech is 7-1 but through two months has made all of two true road trips – at Boston College and at
East Carolina. The only time Virginia Tech has seen a defensive front this athletics was in the Hokies 31-17 loss to Clemson.
Memphis minus-12 over Tulsa. Yes a weeknight road favorite – especially by double-digits – can be scary, even if Halloween is in the rearview mirror. But let’s review: With Tulsa struggling this much – the Hurricanes are 2-7 – the Friday night frenzy will be muted somewhat. Memphis has found its stride offensively behind former UT quarterback Riley Ferguson. (Hey, the Tigers have a legit claim as the best football team in the state of Tennessee.) One common score of note is Memphis won at UConn 70-31 Oct.6; Tulsa lost at UConn 20-14 Oct. 21. Now know this: Tulsa is playing for the 10th consecutive week with a Friday kick. Less than two scores is a generous price.
Southern Cal minus-7 over Arizona. Yes, Arizona is running roughshod over folks with a new quarterback, and this one will be a scorefest. (The total is in the mid-70s and could get to 80 before kickoff.) But know this: USC has more athletes in almost every spot. USC has a quarterback who will be a bona fide Sunday star. And know that Arizona allowed 500-plus passing yards to Washington State’s back-up last week in the second half alone. USC puts half a hundred on Arizona at home friends. (Buy the half to avoid the back-door cover, but this one will be a wild offensive slugfest.)
Vandy minus-9.5 over Western Kentucky. Yes Vandy has struggled since starting 3-0. Yes, Western Kentucky is 5-3. But WKU is vastly overvalued – it’s 1-6-1 against the spread – and those five wins are against an FCS team, a bad Ball State, a winless UTEP, an awful Charlotte bunch, and Old Dominion. Now know that if Vandy holds any hope for a bowl game, this is a must win.
Last week: 4-1 against the spread (80 percent). This season: 29-19-1 against the spread (60.4 percent)
Florida football coach Jim McElwain, right, stands on the sideline during a timeout in the Gators’ 42-7 loss Saturday to Georgia in Jacksonville.SEC items of interest
The first shoes has dropped in the SEC football coaching carousel. Or maybe we should call it SEC football coaching Russian Roulette.
Florida has parted ways with Jim McElwain. So the inevitable question is Who’s next?
Who’s next at Florida, a perennial top-five job? The clear front-runners are Central Florida’s Scott Frost and Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen.
But the question of “Who’s next?” applies to the rest of the league. Is it Butch Jones? Will it be Kevin Sumlin or Gus Malzahn, the duo who are starring in the “Coaches on the Hot Seat Bowl” when Texas A&M and Auburn play a nooner in College Station. Will it be Arkansas coach Bret Bielema?
All are on the table.
First down. How many will be behind Butch? A Saturday night Homecoming game for the rudderless Vols against a a nondescript Souther Miss team. A fan base so fed up they have taken to social media with the hashing #EmptyNeyland to make sure the powers that be in Knoxville know the levels of disappointment with Jones. The controversy abound sin Knoxville so much that we could have a ton of Gates this side of West Gate. Concussion-gate. Injury-gate. Cliche-gate. Crew cut-gate. Currie-gate. Pick a gate, and there likely is some heavy UT angst somewhere in the middle of it. Now know that UT is less than a TD favorite, and Southern Miss will be happy to cash that seven-figure check and get bowl eligible Saturday night. And they don’t care if the House that the General Built and Fulmer renovated is half full or not.
Second down. Alabama-LSU in prime time. This is not the same Tide-Tigers tussle we’ve become used to. You remember those, right? Tons of NFL players across each sideline. Alabama has had 41 players drafted since April 2013; LSU has had 36 players drafted in the same time frame. Here’s the hard fact of the growing divide: Alabama is a 21-point favorite at home. So there’s that. And then there’s this: Amid all the fan fare of the first college football playoff ranking, here’s betting ol’ Nick Saban, aka the Dark Lord, who by the way turned 66 on Halloween, was smiling ear-to-ear as he was munching on Oatmeal Creme Pies upon hearing his team was No. 2 in the rankings. And here’s also betting he’s reminded his team a time or two about that.
Third down. How does Florida respond? The Gators were completely housed by Georgia last week, something in the neighborhood of 208-to-2. Or maybe that was the rushing difference between Nick Chubb and the Florida offense. Who knows? It was hard to keep up with. Well, it – and those pesky faux death threats – cost McElwain his gig, and the Gators any chance of winning the East. A bowl game now seems like a stretch, considering the 3-4 Gators must find three wins in their final four games to makes sure of a postseason trip. (Now remember that the Gators are a Hail Mary against the hapless Butch Jones and the inexplicable, “Hey, let’s not cover the WR twice” defense Kentucky used twice in Florida’s 28-27 win in Lexington from being 1-6. Ouch-standing.) So, now in just their second true road game of the year, Florida is an underdog as it heads to Missouri to face the best SEC quarterback you don’t know much about. Mizzou gunslinger Drew Lock has thrown for 2,567 yards and 28 TDs in eight games. We’ll see if Florida’s players have quit or not.
Fourth down. Can Georgia handle the moment? In some ways this is a good spot for the Bulldogs, because a flat performance at home this Saturday still likely would not end in a defeat because South Carolina simply can not score enough to topple top-ranked Georgia. But consider this for the 18-to-23 year-olds in Kirby Smart’s program: They hammered a Florida team that has had the best of the program recently; they are No. 1 in the eyes of the college football people that matter; they are hearing how great they are on campus and in class and everywhere else and could be getting friends from home asking for tickets to the college football semifinal. Tough to handle that type of praise and still realize you, you know, actually have to go out there and work and grind.
Houston Astros’ George Springer reacts after hitting a double during the first inning of Game 7 of baseball’s World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) World Series
Many congrats to the Houston Astros, a gutty collection of players who brought home a championship to a fan base that has starved for it and for a city that has needed an emotional lift since the late summer hurricanes.
(Side note: Not sure how many of you are aware, but a friend of ours on Signal named Dan Summerlin died of cancer earlier this year. He was in his 40s and left behind twin teenage sons and his wife Scottie. He was a monster baseball fan and loved the Astros. In fact, the folks who tried to help the Summerlins started #TeamDan and all the logos and shirts and such were in the style of those great old-school Astros jerseys with the multiple shades of orange. Then, last night before the game, on social media comes a photo of Astros star Jose Altuve holding a SUP2C – Stand Up to Cancer, which is an MLB-sponsored organization – that read, “I stand up for Dan Summerlin.” It was pretty magical to see before the biggest game in the history of the team Dan loved.)
It was a magical series from front to back until last night.
Last night, it was like the moment became too big for the Dodgers, and Houston’s early strike of two in the first – aided mightily by a throwing error from first baseball Cody Bellinger, who struck out more times than Ralph Malph in this series – proved to be more than enough.
The three in the second seemed like overkill by the time the Dodgers had left half of Hixson on base through the first four innings.
Yes, it wasted an amazing relief appearance by Clayton Kershaw, who pitched four innings of scoreless baseball. But in the end, the two best teams in baseball played more than seven full games and scored exactly 34 runs in that frame. (Yes through 66 innings in more than a week, the final cumulative score was Astros 34, Dodgers 34. Crazy right?)
There will be so many memories from so many sides.
For the Dodgers, Kershaw failing to protect 4-0 and 7-4 leads in Game 5 will be chief among them.
For the Astros, the fact that George Springer delivered time and time again, and that it seemed every time we turned around Altuve was batting.
It was fitting that Springer was the MVP in some ways, considering he was on the cover of the SI back in 2014 that prophetically said, “Meet the 2017 World Series Champions.”
Good times. And we know somewhere Dan is smiling ear-to-ear.
This and that
– Here’s the latest from the Grundy County High School football sexual assault allegations. Yes, it may have started as hazing, but calling teenagers trying to violate a freshman with a metal mop handle hazing does not seem harsh enough.
– Speaking of the World Series, well, Keith Hernandez made a joke on the Fox pregame show that will be revisited sooner rather than later. When talking about Dodgers slugger Yaisel Puig’s habit of licking his bat, commentator David Ortiz tried to lean over and lick Hernandez, who said, “I’m not from San Francisco, bro” at what certainly can be construed as an attempt to joke about the gay and lesbian population in San Francisco. We were not offended. We also did not think it was funny. We did think it was ironic considering that Hernandez actually is from San Francisco. So there’s that. We also doubt if this will be handled with the same grace that Yu Darvish showed earlier in the series.
– Speaking of the World Series, Atros shortstop Carlos Correa proposed – she said yes – to his girlfriend on the field after the game. Good times.
– Even if Papa John is trying to blame the NFL for declining revenue, the NFL should be worried in general. Papa John is a monster sponsor and this adds fuel to the owners’ claims that the protests are hurting the bottom like of a business in which the players share in the revenue. And it’s especially bad news for Roger Goodell, who is on an ever-heating up seat and has not had his contract extension officially completely.
– Because 2017 needs to be just a touch more bizarre apparently, here’s a story that O.J. Simpson’s houses in Las Vegas was a popular stop for Trick-or-Treaters. In case you are wondering, O.J. was dressed as O.J. with the Buffalo No. 32 jersey. Now if he had the Scream mask and a big knife, well, here’s betting a Reece’s Cup or three is not worth that kind of risk.
– Here’s the announcement of the sites of the college football championship games after the 2020-2023 seasons.
Today’s questions
True or false on a Thursday: You would and your tots would trick or treat at O.J.’s house.
Here’s another one: The Dodgers, who are listed as the favorite for the 2018 title, will be back in the World Series next year.
How about a Thursday over/under. If we put the attendance for Saturday’s game at Neyland at 75,000, would you go over or under? (Yes the announced attendance will be tickets sold not fannies in seats, but you get the idea.)
As for Nov. 2 in history, well, on this day in 1959, Charles Van Doren admits to Congress that he had received the answers on the TV quiz show Twenty One. (Quiz Show is a sneaky good movie friends.)
Official cheerleading started on this day, beginning with some dude named Johnny Campbell starting the cheats at the University of Minnesota in 1898. Go Gophers.
James K. Polk was born today in 1795. Burt Lancaster would have been 104 today.
Daniel Boone was born on this day in 1734.
As for a Rushmore, considering the Astros can now cross off their first title, and that the Cubs ended their run of misery last year.
What professional sports teams in the U.S. are on the Rushmore of the most-title starved?
Go and remember the mailbag.