Weekend winners
< College football gluttony. Man, that was something right? Starting with the LSU-Texas A&M game Thursday night, the coaching news started circling. Then Friday at lunch delivered an awesome Memphis-Houston shoot-out that jump-started all the action. From the moves to the games to run of "Breaking News" announcements from every direction Saturday morning, it was like Christmas for college football junkies, but only if Christmas lasted like 40 consecutive hours.
< College football opinions. Man, pick a locale, and there's something right. We've pulled the SEC out of the first two blocks because there is so much, but dang there are a lot of college football items out there. We believe Texas got a guy who can win big there in Tom Herman. We believe LSU panicked and settled and if Coach Ed Orgeron doesn't lure Lane Kiffin to Baton Rouge, even with their talent, we believe LSU will be looking again in three years. We believe Washington - and can we go ahead and put Chris Petersen on the list of top-five guys out there today - made a claim for winning the weekend considering they are firmly in the top four now and get a to-10 date in the Pac-12 title game against a team not named USC. How good was Adore'e Jackson, who is a potential first-round pick as a corner yet scored TDs for USC on a punt return, a kick return and a pass reception? Huge win for Kentucky, again more on this below, and a terrible loss for Louisville. What a rivalry week, especially considering the Iron Bowl has as much meaning as a spring game.
< Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys. Man, those two NFL teams are fun to watch. Lots of fun. Dallas made the nation pay attention Thursday with a win over Washington to get to 10-1. Oakland survived Carolina in a shoot-out Sunday afternoon. The NFL needs the Raiders and the Cowboys to be good every year, but this year it is absolutely a God send for The Shield that these are two of three best teams as well as arguably the two most entertaining teams.
< Alabama. This not about the dominating performance in the Tide's 30-12 Iron Bowl win that was as close as it could have possibly been on the scoreboard for an Auburn offense that had no real chance of scoring a TD. Sure, that's plenty good, and we'll have more on that below. But this scene - played out with a walk-on running back moving to the back of the intro line so his Army-serving mom could surprise him on Senior Day after returning from a tour in the Middle East - is awesome. How awesome? It almost made Nick Saban.
< UTC. Way to handle your BID-ness Mocs. Regardless of the number of folks in the stands - a little more than 5,200 - UTC left no doubt against Weber State. Also of must-needed note, each program worked together to raise money for the Woodmore victims. Well-played, UTC. Well-played indeed. Up next for the Mocs, a trip to Sam Houston State. It's go time.
Weekend losers
> Colin Kaepernick. Yes, he could routinely hold this spot for being an Anthem protestor, but there is more this week. After posting his best game of the season - the type of game a lot of folks believed he could drop routinely, especially in Chip Kelly's spread offense - Kaepernick was asked about his defense of Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator who died Friday. During a conference call last Wednesday, Kaepernick said of Cuba under Castro: "They invest more in their education system than they do in their prison system, which we do not do here [in the U.S.] even though we're fully capable of doing that." When asked bout the disintegration of Cuban families under the Castro regime, Kapernick said: "We do break up families here ... That's what mass incarceration is. That was the foundation of slavery. So our country has been based on that as well as the genocide of native Americans." Man, when you are going to sit through the anthem, not vote and praise Cuba over the U.S. of A., man get the Hell out of town with that garbage. Here's a thought boss: Ask those people who looked at two trees taped together with a couple of tires tied to the branches and gladly and hopefully hopped on that freedom raft - and most likely with a baby under their arm - rather than facing the 'education system' run by the criminal known as Castro. Seriously, how is this not a bigger deal this morning? Marge Schott got a year suspension from MLB for telling an SI reporter that Adolph Hitler had good leadership skills for Pete's sake. (Side note here: Kaepernick's 300-yard passing, 100-yard rushing game against Miami came at the expense of my fantasy team. So there's that.)
> Heisman frontrunners. Lamar Jackson still likely wins college football's most prestigious award, but the Louisville quarterback turned it over four times in an inexplicable loss to Kentucky. Plus, Jabrill Peppers, the Michigan Swiss Army knife, was close to make a huge move. He had a pick and a monster kick off return before his team lost in OT. he also shoved a fan after the game, which in truth, we don;t have too much of a problem with, considering if you come on the field, well, that's on you jack.
> Titans defensive backs. What was that? Wow, the Titans escpaed a Sunday date with Chicago because the Bears receivers dropped not one but two TD passes after getting wide open late in the game in the end zone. Perrish Cox needs a refresher course. Yes, there's a fair statement to be made that it's the ultimate sign of progress for a Tennessee franchise that it found a way to win in a game like this. And yes, Marcus Mariota continues to take great strides in a a lot ways. But the Titans did not win that game Sunday as much as the stinkitude Bears dropped it. Literally.
> Jim Harbaugh. OK, we get you're fiery. But dude, grab some control. And this is not as much about the postgame rant about the officials - say what you want, pay the fine, rinse, wash, rinse, repeat - as it is for the 15-yard penalty the coach got and breaking his headset like a spoiled child.
> Butch Jones. Forget all the on-the-field stuff. Forget the final score. Jones sneaky in the postgame news conference and tippy-toeing out before the majority of the press corps got there screams of gutless. And then the highest -paid employee in the state leaves after roughly 300 seconds and let's his players try to answer why in the world he went for it on fourth-and-4 at the Vandy 13 needing two scores late in the fourth quarter.
Alabama sophomore tailback Damien Harris, shown on a touchdown reception during Saturday's 30-12 win against Auburn, insisted the Crimson Tide will remain highly motivated for this week's SEC title game.SEC imbalance
Yes, it's Alabama and everyone else. That's today's SEC, and unless that was a very bad day for Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett, it's that way around the country too.
But the avalanche of power that the Tide in general and Nick Saban in particular have unloaded on college football's most passionate league is unlike anything we have ever seen. There is a an emotional bell curve right now across the SEC, and the vast majority of the teams stuck in the middle of that bell curve are dissatisfied with their current station and current coach.
And that bell curve, believe it or not, swings from the traditional zenith and nadir of the league.
If you polled a majority of the fan bases across the league, we believe Alabama, Kentucky and Vandy are this morning the most pleased with the general direction of their program.
We will give first-year coaches Kirby Smart and Will Muschamp passes, but Smart's honeymoon is assuredly done since the Bulldogs lost to Tech, Vandy, UT and Florida in the same season. (Good thing that Auburn gift-wrapped that game in Athens earlier this month or Smart's offseason would be especially rocky.)
We also believe that even with the disappointing finishes, Mississippi State is happy with Dan Mullen. he has delivered the highest of high times to the Bulldogs and let's face a 55-20 Egg Bowl win buys a lot of smiles, even in a 5-7 year. (Still, the unimaginable success of Dak Prescott as an NFL rookie has to make a lot of Cowbell Ringers wonder if maybe they underachieved some during Prescott's time in Starkville.)
And the fact that the rest of the power programs in the league are chasing the unattainable standard that Saban has laid out makes the divide seem even bigger. And more discouraging.
From the top down:
Alabama. Everything is hunky dory. No. 1 team in the country with a ton of draft picks coming in the spring and likely the No. 1 signing class coming in February. Rinse, wash, rinse, repeat. How happy are the times in T-Town, a national college football columnist named Barrett Sallee thinks Alabama should go to the playoff and Alabama's redshirts and reserves should go to New Orleans to play Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, and we're not sure we disagree with that. Then, according to record, who among this group is truly happy about the present and the prospects of the future.
Auburn - Malzahn will start next season on the hot seat yet again considering he has now lost six straight to Alabama and Georgia, and his only wins over those two rivals are the most improbable (some would say lucky) wins in program history.
Texas A&M - Another late slide and Kevin Sumlin will be on the hot seat too next year, especially if Tom Herman hits the ground running in Austin.
Tennessee - What was that Butch? Seriously. An absolute floater against Vandy leaves the season with the most promise in a generation with the exact record as last year, and no state championship, division championship or league championship. Champions of Life? You bet.
Florida - A lopsided loss to rival FSU and a world-class beating waiting in Atlanta from Alabama hardly puts a bow on an East-winning season. If the Gators do not solve the QB issue, a 4-8 nightmare next year could get McElwain got.
LSU - They are sweating Saban so bad they just fired the winningiest coach in program history to replace him with a tough-talking, shirt-ripping, recruit-stealing guy who went 10-22 in three years with Ole Miss. And they did it in large part because Coach O claims he can bring Alabama OC Lane Kiffin to Baton Rouge and that would hurt Alabama as much as help LSU.
Arkansas - Bielema's seat is hotter than the two dozen chicken wings he had for breakfast.
Good luck with that.
This and that
- The Fab 4 picks again hovered at the 60 percent mark, hitting three of our five selections. And yes, you win some and lose some on the swing of fate, but we were two plays away from 5-0. If the Michigan receiver doesn't scoop that fourth-down catch in overtime, the Buckeyes cover. Even more painfully, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors - giving 6.5, mind you - had a 40-26 lead in the fourth quarter. Two quick UMass TDs tied it before Hawaii drove for the winning TD, only to have the kicker miss the extra point. Less than entertaining.
- OK, normally, if it behooves a team to break the rules, we believe the rule is flawed. That said, the Baltimore Ravens may have found a loop hole that works, considering they had nine players purposefully hold on a punt and take the safety and the punter danced for 11 seconds. Here's the story. Of note, buried in that article is the clarification that an NFL referee can declare a play a "palpably unfair act" and force a team to redo it and reset the clock. Did anyone else know of this loop hole of the "Palpably unfair act" and isn't a lot of the Browns' personnel decisions palpably unfair to their fans?
- America loved it some football over the Thanksgiving holidays. Dallas-Washington drew 35.1 million viewers to rank as the most watched regular-season NFL game in Fox history. Yes, it had the Cowboys star-power (four of the five most-watched NFL games this year include Dallas), but the noon kick of Minnesota and Detroit had 27.6 million to make it the most watched CBS game this season.
- On Saturday, almost 17 million people watched Michigan-Ohio State play into double overtime. That is the most-watched college football game this season across all networks, according to Cynopsis Media. The TV-only numbers of 16,647,000 ranked as the most-watched noon kickoff ever and the second most-watched college football game ever on ABC in its 791 game slots since 1991.
- Side note: Speaking of the SEC malaise beyond Alabama, ABC has the three most-watched games of the season with Saturday's viewer magnet, the Texas-Notre Dame game, which drew more than 11 million on Labor Day weekend and the Clemson-Louisville thriller.
- He can't make the list of weekend losers because this happened in September, but Anthony Michael Hall, who was snubbed Oscar consideration for his Tour de Force work in "Weird Science" as Gary, in "Sixteen Candles" as Ted, and especially as Johnny Walker in "Johnny Be Good" is facing up to seven years in prison on a battery charge. Hall, channeling his bully tendencies from "Edward Scissorhands" allegedly broke his neighbor's wrist and hurt his back in a September altercation.
- Andrew, a regular 5-at-10 spy, sends along another shout-out for UTC defensive end Keionta Davis here in the Monday Morning Quarterback draft recaps.
- Say what you want, but here's betting Tiger Woods' return to golf this week is more interesting than the SEC title game. (Alabama started as a 21-point favorite and it's already up to 24.5.)
Today's question
Well, lots of winners and losers to discuss. Lots. (Side note: We will have Ross Dellenger, the LSU beat writer who broke the story about Coach O becoming the full-time boss for the Tigers today on Press Row around 4:30 or so. Check it out.)
Fair amount of crazy things happened on this day in history. It was the day in 1994 Jeffrey Dammer was beaten to death in the gym at his penitentiary.
In 1997, today was the airing of the final episode of "Beavis and Butt-head" and wow, what an acquired taste/cultural phenomenon that was. Our man William Blake was born on this day in 1757. "Road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" gang. That's his.
If you need a Rushmore, well, Ed Harris turns 66 today. Harris has a way better career than most know, and he's one of those glue-guy actors that almost always brings more to the movie table than he takes.
Rushmore of Harris movies, and considering he's got things that range from being John Glenn in "The Right Stuff" to being a scene-stealing villain in "The Rock" well, it might be tougher than you know. (And of course, he was reportedly The Voice from the cornfield in "Field of Dreams." Go the distance.)