5-at-10: Friday mailbag

Great week gang.

Here’s a recap before the mailbag.

This week’s Rushmores in our view:

Monday’s Rushmore of Tennesseans – Davy Crockett, Dolly Parton, Alvin York and Wilma Rudolph

Tuesday’s Rushmore of sandwiches – French Dip, Philly cheesesteak, grilled cheese, Reuben

Wednesday’s Rushmore of local restaurants: Wally’s, Nikki’s, Champy’s and we’ll go Porker’s (personal choices of course, and that’s pretty much our regular lunch rotation)

Thursday’s Rushmore of board games: Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble

Last week’s Rushmore of 5-at-10isms (and this took way more time that we’re willing to admit): Johnny Vols Fan, Ouch-standing, Co-colas and for entertainment purposes only. Such a great question, and “don’t cost nothing'” would have been there but we can’t use that any more since the website now costs something.

So it goes. (Which also was close.)

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From Mark S.

OK, I’m fairly new to your column and I get the feeling you do a lot of Rushmores.

What if you were going to buy stock in the athletes under 25 in today’s professional sports? Who are the top blue-chippers out there?

You can use this in the mailbag if want, and thanks for giving me something to read at work in the mornings.

Mark S. –

Yes, we’ve been known to trot out a few Rushmores. It’s one of the things we do.

I love the buying stock question. We’ll even pull out an oldie but a goldie from the 5-at-10 archives. Yes, the 5-in-10 (top 5 list in 10 words or less) from the 5-at-10:

1. Jordan Spieth. After making $40 million in ’15, he’s a green-chipper.

2. Anthony Davis. Unibrow? Check. Universally talented? Check. That means big checks.

3. Mike Trout. Heavenly talent could earn multiple nine-figure deals.

4. Bryce Haprer. Great hitter – even on his teammates.

5. Andrew Wiggins. Amazing player with an amazing future.

(Side note: We almost put Leonard Fournette on the list, but the potential for injury for running backs makes most football players like tech stocks. High return is possible but the bubble could burst at anytime. You could be Todd Gurley and come back from an injury or you could be Marcus Lattimore and never be the same.)

(Side note, II: American Pharoah also will have a really profitable year, since it was announced he’s going to stud. He could stud as many as 200 times in the next year at $200,000 a pop. Wow. And the double entendres are endless.)

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From Stewwie

Jay, for the bag, who is more in the wrong for the “paid patriotism” at sporting events…the government (with over $18,000,000,000,000 in debt) or the sports leagues for accepting the money for those exercises? Here’s what I’m referring to: http://www.npr.org/sections/th…

Stewwie –

First, there are some things the leagues should charge for, and the military branches should be looking to spend advertising dollars in an effort to expand its message in regard to recruits. That’s OK on both sides.

That said, there’s plenty of blame for both sides and the story is twisted on a lot of levels.

First, the details of the nickel-and-diming some of the leagues did in regard to charging the military for even like tickets for the soldiers and service people that were being honored is embarrassing.

Simply embarrassing.

As for the government, well, in addition to the staggering debt you quoted (that’s a lot of zeros folks), we’ll let this passage from the department of defense report carry you away:

“Over the course of the effort, we discovered the startling fact that DOD cannot accurately account for how many contracts it has awarded or how much has been spent; its official response to our request only accounted for 62 percent of its 122 contracts with the major league teams that we were able to uncover and 70 percent of the more than $10 million it actually spent on these contracts,” the report states. “And, although DOD has indicated the purpose of these contracts is to support recruiting, the Department doesn’t uniformly measure how and whether the activities under contract are actually contributing to recruiting.”

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From Jomo

Jay- Alabama being in the CFP (College Football Playoff ) ranking in the top 4 is a complete JOKE ! They have ONE win against a team in the top 25 , Texas A&M. HALF of Bama’s wins are against teams that DON’T have a winning record. Bama lost AT HOME to Ole Miss, who lost to Memphis ! . . . . .Eye test ?.. Bama looked like crap against UTK, couldn’t protect their QB against a team who set a team season record for sacks. Bama had to score late in the 4th quarter to beat a team, UTK, who had a losing record at the time..”I think if you go look at Alabama and how they won those games that they’ve won against quality opponents,” College Football
Playoff committee chair Jeff Long said, “and I think that sends a strong message of why we ranked Alabama higher than Florida.”..HUH ?….by the way “Jeff”, Florida beat OLE MISS as well as UTK and Georgia the 3 common opponents that Bama has also faced. or is “Jeff” talking about those Bama wins over 1-7 La Monroe and 3-5 MTSU or 4-4 UTK, or the win over struggling Georgia, who wants to fire their coach ? . . . . So basically the committee is saying that ANY team that beats #19 Texas A&M, who is 6-2 should be one of the 4 best teams in the country. . . ..if this is the way the committee is going to do things, we shouldn’t even bother to watch the playoff. they should just pick the 4 teams that give ESPN the best TV ratings and then justify it however they want toand by the way who pee-peed in my Wheaties this morning?

Jomo –

Hold on to your hat, but we agree.

All of your points are valid about the comparisons between Alabama and Florida.

To be fair, Alabama is the only team to have road wins against teams ranked in the top 10 at the time. (And the Georgia win will look watered-down by season’s end, but the Tide beat UGA with Nick Chubb involved, and that matters.)

Still, that’s picking nits, and in the end, Tuesday’s rankings mean very little.

As for your TV ratings conspiracy theory, well, if it were completely about ratings, wouldn’t Notre Dame have been involved. Granted the Irish are No. 5 and are poised to be the biggest fly in the ointment if they win out, but that’s a hand-wringing that can wait for another.

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From several of you

What surprised you the most and the least from the first college football rankings?

Gang –

Alabama being in the top four was a big surprise. All of the Big 12 teams being on the outside looking in was also a mild surprise.

Clemson and LSU being the top two made the most sense. Each set of those Tigers have looked the part from start to finish.

We think Florida is underrated a touch considering that their lone blemish was at LSU by a score. The Gators have a real Auburn 2013 feel to them to tell you the truth.

Here are three story lines to follow from the first rankings:

* Will the Pac 12 have a representative? Utah is in the mix and Stanford could finish with one loss and draw strong Ohio State from last year comparisons. But the early return screams no.

* The Big 12’s round robin starts now. Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma State and even Oklahoma all are in the mix, and they all spend the month of November dancing with one another.

* Notre Dame is the monster fly.

There’s one more, too

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From Chas

Which is worse, Auburn’s feast or famine program or Gawga’s steady mediocrity?

Can either Houston or Memphis sneak into the final four?

Chas –

We may be biased, but we’ll take the roller coaster that is Auburn because no matter what happens, I’ve seen Auburn win a national title.

Don’t know if it will ever happen again, but it has happened.

Georgia fans can’t say the same thing.

And the final story line from above is the AAC representatives.

Memphis debuted at No. 13 in the rankings, and could move forward and has the largest upside because of the win over Ole Miss.

For Houston, which was in the low 20s, the climb is almost impossible.

But for either of them to make the march, they each need Ole Miss to run the table and win the SEC title.

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