5-at-10: Friday mailbag

Our answers to the Rushmore questions we posed this week:

Monday – Rushmore of commercial brands

We view this a little different so we will do two to be clear. There’s the overarching brand, meaning every commercial as they reinvent their model is good. Whomever said Miller Lite, that’s an inspired call. We’ll go All-State, which had “the good hands, Pedro Cerrano and the Mayhem dude. We’ll take Geico, which had the Caveman and the lizard among others. Finally, we’ll go Coca-Cola, which had the Mean Joe Greene and countless others. As for commercial characters, we’ll go the Most Interesting Man in the World, the Time to make the Donuts guy, the Energizer Bunny and Mikey from the Life cereal ads.

Tuesday – Rushmore of A-list movie stars who started on TV

We’ll go Tom Hanks as mentioned by OG. We’ll go George Clooney, who started on Facts of Life. We’ll go Leo DiCaprio, who started on Growing Pains. We’ll go Bruce Willis over Johnny Depp and Will Smith for the last spot.

Wednesday – Rushmore of George

Washington, Ruth, Carlin and Lucas

Thursday – Rushmore of sports stars in movies

We did something like this on Press Row, but we did sports stars’ cameos, meaning they played themselves. That one was Brett Favre in “Something About Mary,” Lance Armstrong in “Dodgeball,” Kareem in “Airplane” and Mike Tyson in “The Hangover,” although we should have had Xavier McDaniel from “Singles” in there if not for his singularly awesome line.

As for former top-level athletes who became actors and then were in good movies, we’d start with Jim Brown in “The Dirty Dozen” and Carl Weathers “Rocky.” Alex Karras as Mongo is there and then of course Arnold in a bunch of them.

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From Chas

As for Bono’s beef, let’s face it. Looks do matter. Question for Friday: Where does Caitlyn hide her candy?Also for the bag: A national column this week listed two SEC teams (Mizzou and Mississippi State) as among the most under-rated in college football. Do you agree? Your recent SEC picks had Pinkel’s boys lower than I would rate them.

Chas –

Thanks for the kind words this week, and thanks to everyone who passed along their thoughts and prayers from the 5-at-10’s mom. It was humbling and greatly appreciated.

As for Caityln, we’re not sure where the candy bar or the M&M’s reside when the dress goes on, but we’re pretty sure that it would not be comfortable. There could be something similar as to what Buffalo Bill does in a very uncomfortable scene in “Silence of the Lambs” but we’re not sure what happens. We are sure that we do not want to see it happening. We do not want to see the sausage being hidden if you will.

I think Missouri and Mississippi State have two of the more underrated coaches. Gary Pinkel and Dan Mullen have worked wonders at each locale, respectively.

As for teams, we don’t think either of those are underrated, per se for the following reasons.

One, yes, Mississippi State was picked seventh in the West, but quite frankly someone had to be. State returns only four starters on each side and more importantly lost a lot of experience in its two deep, especially in the front seven defensively. They will beat someone they shouldn’t because of the job Mullen does, but is there a team in the West that would gladly trade rosters with Mullen and Co.? We’d say no.

And we could pay for this at the end of the year since Pinkel and Mizzou have exceeded expectations each of the last two years by winning the East, but the make-up of this bunch is exceedingly different.

Missouri exploited and maximized its advantages across the defensive line and at wide receiver. Those positions allowed them to dictate games defensively a lot of times and make home-run-types of plays on the perimeter.

Those advantages are not part of this equation, and in truth, we’re not sold as Maty Mauk being a guy that will win big games in this league without the help of several NFL-type wide outs.

As for underrated teams in college football to contend for titles, well here’s the list of Vegas’ odds for teams in college football from VegasInsider.com:

Ohio State 11/5

Alabama 7/1

TCU 15/2

Auburn 13/1

Baylor 15/1

USC 15/1

Notre Dame 20/1

Oregon 22/1

Clemson 25/1

LSU 25/1

Michigan State 25/1

Florida State 33/1

Georgia 33/1

Oklahoma 33/1

Stanford 33/1

UCLA 33/1

Arkansas 45/1

Ole Miss 45/1

Tennessee 55/1

Field (Any Other Team) 65/1

Texas A&M 70/1

Michigan 85/1

Arizona State 100/1

Florida 100/1

Kansas State 100/1

Nebraska 100/1

Oklahoma State 100/1

Virginia Tech 100/1

Wisconsin 100/1

Mississippi State 110/1

Boise State 175/1

Arizona 200/1

Georgia Tech 200/1

Louisville 200/1

Miami, Fl. 200/1

Missouri 200/1

Penn State 200/1

South Carolina 200/1

Texas 200/1

Utah 300/1

West Virginia 300/1

BYU 500/1

California 500/1

Iowa 500/1

Kentucky 500/1

Minnesota 500/1

NC State 500/1

North Carolina 500/1

Oregon State 500/1

Washington 500/1

Of that list the two we’d roll the dice on as underrated – meaning a team we like the combination of winning it all and the odds – among the quote-unquote favorites (teams with better odds than “the field”) we’d pick UGA and FSU. If Georgia gets just above average quarterback, they have the pieces to be really good. FSU has been mired in turmoil, but they are used to that, and remember they have Everett Golson to step in and play. And the ACC is pretty smooth sailing other than Clemson and Georgia Tech.

As for a true longshot, we’d go a little on BYU at 500-1. Schedule makes it possible, so does experience. BYU is routinely the oldest team in college football.

As for overrated among the favorites, we believe that answer is Auburn, even as much as that pains us to say.

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From Jomo

Jay- for the mailbag, 2 things, With the arrest of another UTK football player, it brings their total to 14 players arrested and charged since Jan. ’14 that number according to the Palm Beach Post, leads all college football teams in the NATION. My question, does Butch Jones get a pass from the media, for running an apparent rogue program ?

2nd question / statement. How does the USA lose in soccer to a country like Jamaica ? there are 180 million males in the USA. there are 1.3 million males in Jamaica. what a joke. this would be the equivalent of a school of the size and resources like Carson-Newman beating Ohio St in football. but it also begs another question about soccer itself. I am quite sure that you could take ANY NFL team, take their DB’s, WR’s and RB’s , train them for 6 months in soccer and they would beat the USA national team. Face it, soccer players and the skill level is just not that good. It looks like the USA team is a bunch of 5-9 white guys who run MAYBE a 4.9 40. Once you are a child , can stand up and kick a ball in the living room, you have mastered the skill level of the sport. . . . . . . .ok haters, go crazy

Jomo –

Interesting point about Butch. We’ll see what he has to say about that when camp opens. We had no idea that they have the most players who have been arrested and charged in the last 18 months. In that regard, yes, maybe he has gotten a little bit of a pass.

Rogue program may be a little much, but there certainly appears to be some discipline problems up there in that time frame.

We have no idea why or how the U.S. could lose to Jamaica in anything other than Bong Hits and Bob Marley Karaoke competitions.

We believe that there are hundreds and maybe thousands of great athletes in this country who shun soccer because of the down-the-road opportunities.

And it’s not just the pros, where they make millions compared to the thousands the MLS or whatever soccer leagues in this country pay.

It’s also the college levels. Chalk it up to Title IX in a lot of regard, and watching the women win the World Cup and the men celebrate making it out of group play (and losing to Jamaica) that issue is clear. There are very view men college soccer programs at the major schools because it was an easy Title IX line item comparatively.

Now we could walk out with Odell Beckham Jr., Richard Sherman, LeBron, Mike Trout and whomever the best 11 athletes are in this country and contend because of the ball skills needed to contend at the elite levels.

But if any of those guys had focused on soccer from the start, bend it like Beckham would have dual meanings.

In fact, here’s saying that if he had fouled on soccer from the start, with his speed, athleticism, hand-eye coordination, Allen Iverson would have been Pele 2.0.

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From Sam P.

If you could change places with any professional athlete, who would it be and why?

Thanks and I love you guys on Press Row

• Sam –
• Thanks man, and thanks for listening.
• We’ll do a quick Rushmore of athletes we’d swap with. Since he retired, Derek Jeter is no long on the list, but dude had an impressive run.
• We’ll go Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Andrew Luck and Clayton Kershaw. Anthony Davis is close, but the NBA looks like the toughest road – with the travel and season length – of all the pro sports.
• We can all admit being a top-five golfer in the world in your early 20s with a nine-figure bank account would be pretty sweet, right?
• Thanks for a great week gang and all the kind words and emails.