Let’s handle our business.
Here’s Paschall on UT’s high hopes for a big 2024 start Saturday with UTC.
Here’s some fat-faced fella’s coverage of the U.S. Senior Am championship won by Louis Brown on Thursday at The Honors Course.
Rushmore of cartoon mice/rats — Mickey, Jerry, Speedy Gonzales and Remy.
Rushmore of biopic movies (and this one was impossibly hard) — “Schindler’s List,” “Amadeus,” “Patton” and “Goodfellas.” (And that’s leaving some great ones like “Wolf of Wall Street” and “Gandhi” off.) Sports biopics “42,” “Raging Bull,” “Moneybag” and “The Fighter.” Yikes.
Rushmore of Disney musicals — “Lion King,” “Mary Poppins,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin.”
Rushmore of most famous child movie stars of all-time (pre-teens) — Culkin, Shirley Temple, Drew Barrymore, Haley Joel Osment.
To the bag.
From several of you
What game are you most excited about this weekend?
From Matthew
How great was (Thursday night) with college football back?
From Spy
So if you’re a reporter, and you decide to ask the head football coach at Colorado a question by starting with “Coach Sanders” instead of “Coach Prime,” will he acknowledge your question? And if not, does that make him a giant d-bag?
What’s he gonna do, block you on Twitter or some other petty move?
Also, is the Heisman race over after last night? And how high in the draft will Travis Hunter be picked?
Gang,
We grouped the college football questions together.
The Game I am most excited to watch is likely Notre Dame at A&M and with a close second of LSU-USC in Vegas.
I am also looking forward to Auburn against Alabama A&M since we are taking the 5-at-10 clan down for what should be a blowout but likely will scare the pants off me.
As I said earlier, I think Georgia steamrolls Clemson. I think Alabama’s going to score a lot of points as Kalen DeBoer assuredly wants to put his best foot forward in Game 1 A.S. (After Saban).
As for Thursday, other than the Deion sideshow, which we will get to in a moment, I had three primary takeaways:
> Felt awful for UNC, which lost QB1 Max Johnson to what looks likely to be a season-ending injury. And the Fox broadcast crew who highlighted his clearly distraught parents in the stands — his dad is former Super Bowl-winning QB Brad Johnson — did so with grace, in my opinion.
> The two SEC teams did what they were supposed to against cupcakes.
> Finally, Stephen F. Austin pulled a Georgia Tech-over-Cumberland-type of waxing over North American University. SFA was up 70-0 at the half. They had a yardage edge of 565-33 at halftime and three SFA QBs averaged 25.5 yards per pass attempt. Maybe worst of all, the third and fourth quarters were shortened to five minutes in the 77-0 final score.
As for Deion, well, yes, that sounds oddly familiar.
Colorado was lucky to escape — and they needlessly gave the ball back to NDSU because they threw an incompletion in the final minute when the Bison were out of timeouts.
Maybe Deion gets them to a bowl game, which would be a huge accomplishment considering this is year 2 and before Deion showed up, Colorado went 1-11.
Conversely, though, Deion has two of the nation’s top 15 or 20 players. His son Shedeur Sanders looked awesome last night, and Travis Hunter looked better than that.
So if Deion can’t get to a bowl game with a Round 1 QB1 and a likely top-three selection in WR/CB Hunter, will he pack up and move on?
Here’s guessing if you asked that question, Deion would be full of bluster and bitterness.
And then block you on Twitter. And if he thinks for one second that Paul Finebaum gives a flying flip about what Deion has to say, then he’s more delusional than we could ever imagine.
From Patrick
How ’bout Craig Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen for HoF consideration?
They’re up there on the closer list for all-time saves.
Patrick
I think Kimbrel will get there. Not sure on Jansen, but maybe.
Doing a little research on this, I saw a story on MLB.com that from 1955-95, there was roughly an average of 40 future Hall of Famers active per year.
Not sure there are that many, but they could get there with some of the young stars the game has among its ranks.
But the question he had earlier this week was who in the game, if they hung it up today, would hear their name called in Cooperstown in five years.
SignalEsquire is likely right that Trout is first on the list among position players. He has a staggering WAR that rates favorably among the all-timers.
The average Hall of Fame posts a WAR (wins above replacement) between 50 and 70. All-timers have WAR close to 100. Here’s some of the current position players on the path and their career WAR numbers:
Trout (86.2), Mookie Betts (69.1), Paul Goldschmidt (62.2), Freddie Freeman (59.9), Manny Machado (56.6), Nolan Arenado (56.2), Jose Altuve (52.4), Aaron Judge (51.2), Jose Ramirez (50.8) and Bryce Harper (50.0).
As for pitchers, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Gerienke and Max Scherzer are the top three in active WAR at 81.6, 79.6, 77.5 and 75.4, respectively. All of those dudes are Hall-bound if they never throw another pitch.
Wanna guess which pitcher is fourth? Chris Sale at 52.2.
From Chas
Is “The Hustler” a sports movie?
Chas
I have spent entirely too much time batting this back and forth in my oversized melon.
Part of me says yes. Pool is a sport, especially compared to some of the nuts activities in the most recent Olympics.
And no, the “it’s not a sport if you can do it while drinking a Bud heavy” does not apply because John Daly likely could shoot 64 at most courses crushing three beers a side. And no one is going to say golf is not a sport.
Then again, part of me says no because the story of “The Hustler” is only tangentially touched by the sport, you know?
I actually do not think “Field of Dreams” is a sports movie. It’s a guarantee-to-make-it-dusty drama-edy with baseball as the tie that binds father and son.
“No, Ray, it was you.”
Thoughts?
From Paul
How much would you pay Ja’Marr Chase?
Paul
He’s among the three best WRs in the league. He’s better than CeeDee Lamb. He’s a lot better than Brandon Aiyuk, who just got $120 million from San Francisco.
(Side note: Wanna see crazy dollars? Steph Curry reportedly signed a one-year extension worth north of $62 million. That’s more than $5 bleeping million a month, people. Crazy.)
Anyway, Chase wants an extension, as all these WRs who are not as good as he is sign big-dollar deals. But Chase still has two years on his rookie deal, so whether he gets the monster dollar deal is not a dunk right now.
The big one that is still out there is the bank-breaking contract that Dak Prescott is going to demand from Dallas.
That’s the bigger question. Is Dak a top-five QB1? Is he worth a quarter of your salary cap?
And the truth is, for NFL players to be year-in, year-out championship threats, they truly have to consider taking less money and hope to make it up in other ways after you have success.
It’s not fair, of course, but look at what Brady did for decades, and then that success draws free agents willing to take less-than-market-value to your franchise for the chance to win it all.
Have a great weekend, friends.