Weekend winners
Phillip Fulmer. Yes he was formally introduced Friday, but the weekend of Tweets and support and unity Johnny Vols Fans enjoyed this weekend seemed amazingly enjoyable all things considered. (And yes, Vols Twitter had a whole lot of fun with the “Now that THE OSU and Greg Schiano are not in the playoff, he can spend a lot of time mulling his many job offers” type of jabs. Amazing how much the “goes around, comes around” aspect of college football fandom always has a place. Because just as Schiano is not exactly high on a lot of lists of people other than John Currie, the name getting the most traction in UT circles right now is Les Miles, who has not been mentioned that high on many lists either.)
The Fab 4 picks. A sizzling championship weekend – way more Georgia than, say Auburn – brought home a highly entertaining 5-1 mark. Yes we got the USC cover by buying the half. And while Memphis (plus-7.5) covered by half a point in a 62-55 double overtime thriller, the Tigers missed a field goal in the final seconds of regulation that would have won the game outright. The lone loss was La.-Monroe (plus-28) not covering in a 42-10 loss to FSU. The others – Clemson (minus-9), Oklahoma (minus-7) and FAU (minus-11) – were easy money. The 5-1 mark means we head to the bowl season with a tidy 48-30-1 mark against the spread. That’s 61.5 percent against the number this year friends. That means if you put 100 entertainment coupons on each pick, and counting the 10 percent surcharge on misses (and the extra fee when applicable for buying the half, which was seven times, compared to two sure winners because of buying the half) that would be +1,420 entertainment coupons. We went back and looked it up, since starting this craziness called the 5-at-10 in October 2010 and starting our entertainment hunting against the spread in 2011, we are now 384-249-5. That’s 60.7 percent. On to the bowl season. (Just for good measure, the NFL picks from this weekend are 2-1 – Texans plus-7, and that late Derrick Henry TD crushed us; Saints minus-4; Patriots minus-9 – heading into tonight’s Monday nighter. And considering that we have rolled with 2-2 for more than a month of NFL picks, well, we’re not overly confident in Steelers minus-5.)
Alvin Kamara. The New Orleans Saints rookie is getting better by the week. Dude is simply crushing it, and he added two more TD runs Sunday. He has 606 yards and seven scores rushing and 614 yards and four TDs receiving, and he is the front-runner now for NFL offensive rookie of the year after the Saints toppled Carolina 31-21 Sunday. Side note: In 2013, Alabama’s running back position group team meetings included current NFLers T.J. Yeldon, Derrick Henry, Alvin Kamara and Jalston Fowler.
Jimbo Fisher. Dude got a monster deal. A bleeping’ MONSTER deal. Ten years, $75 million, guaranteed. We think there are some issues behind the scenes in Tallahassee – you do not give up one of the three best gigs in the industry simply because of facilities – but there’s no doubt that’s the kind of coin that would make all of us listen. (Side question: Wonder if Currie wishes he had dropped that kind of offer on Gruden. Speaking of Gruden, in retrospect shouldn’t that have been a dream scenario for a first-year AD making his first monster hire? Give Gruden eight years and $56 million guaranteed, and if it didn’t work, even the most delusional Johnny Vols Fan would have to admit that Gruden was the name everyone wanted from the jump.)
Georgia football. The Bulldogs won the SEC for the first time since 2005. They got into the college football playoff and the decision to dismiss Mark Richt for Kirby Smart was vindicated for certain. Plus they got to avenge their only loss of the season against rival Auburn. Georgia was spirited and downright choppy at times during the game – multiple personal foul penalties – and after it. Here is Isaac Nauta making fun of Gus Malzahn’s famous “Beat the dog crap” line after the first Auburn-Georgia beatdown. So there’s that.
Bonus pick: We could go Patriots or Saints or any of the NFL blue bloods, but how about those Titans, who are 8-4 while still having a negative point differential?
Weekend losers
Jimmy Haslam. We all know the week that transpired in Tennessee football, and in the aftermath of no Butch or Currie to blame, that falls on the Haslam clan, most notably Jimmy. Yes, the Haslams have given tens of millions to the UTK athletic program, but the last decade of decisions has cost the Vols almost as much as the Haslams have given. Now add in the Pilot/Flying J lawsuit and this amazing stat – Haslam’s Cleveland Browns are 4-45 since Thanksgiving 2014 – and man, everything is unraveling around him.
The Big Ten and the Pac 12. Left out of the playoff hurts the image and the wallet. More on this below.
Gary Danielson. Wow, what was that? Seriously, who let Gary into the Schnapps before kickoff. Danielson’s commentary in the SEC title game was all over the place. We normally prefer when announcers point out questions calls – be them by coaches or referees and occasionally even college players – but Gary sound bitter and wishy-washy. In truth, we were expecting a shot of the booth with Brad Nessler doing his job and Gary in a smoking jacket with a red Solo cup and a Marlboro Light yammering on about, “This game doesn’t matter Nick Saban is a GOLDEN GOD!”
Chuck Cantrell. A guy general known as the UTC spokesman on almost everything who has always been very good to work with when we needed him had a rough weekend.
American people. Man, the stories about the Senate passing the Republican Tax bill are horrifying, and compare to a modern-day Boston Tea Party-level of taxation (reform) without representation’s knowledge. The 500-page bill was made available four hours before the vote, with hand-written pages of amendments at the 11th hour. The stories of kowtowing to lobbyists and donors are staggering – look up Hillsdale College for example – and disappointing for someone in the middle class. And before you @ me about liberal media, most of the regulars know my leanings. For those that don’t, know that I’ve voted Republican all my life. And Trump’s promise that cutting the tax for American business will mean an average of $4,000-increase in salary for the American worker is crap. You can legislate to theory and direction, but we should all know that you can not legislate corporate greed.
Bonus pick: Man the Denver Broncos are crazy stinky. They got housed by a mediocre at best Miami team in a game that included Miami getting two safeties for Pete Carroll’s Sake. That’s hard to do.
If becomes when
Well there you go.
There was going to be history made in the field of the college football playoff teams. Either a two-loss team would make it or one conference would get two bids.
In the moment, we know what happened Sunday. Two SEC teams – Alabama and Georgia – got into the college football final four for the first time. The four are:
1. Clemson, which crushed an injury-riddled Miami offense.
2. Oklahoma, which has the best player in the country and can score on anyone.
3. Georgia, which is the most experienced team in America and used an emotional and salty effort to exact revenge on Auburn.
4. Alabama, which very easily could have taken to the Panhandle, smoked some stogies, kicked back some Co-Colas at the Flora-Bama, and watched the Championship Saturday Madness in peace.
Yes, we know Sunday was stressful for the Tide, their coaches and their fans. Heck, it even rendered the stoic Nick Saban into a somewhat begging politician happy to take veiled shots. Yes, that was Saban, wisely noting “If we lost to a team by 30 points, we wouldn’t be having this conversation; You wouldn’t even be talking to me,” on Saturday’s SportCenter.
And THE Ohio State’s 31-point loss at Iowa was head-scratching and the single reason THE Buckeyes are headed to the Fiesta for a date with Pac-12 champ USC in what certainly appears to be the fifth-place consolation bowl.
But it’s more than a little ironic (and nonsensical) for Saban to play the image card, as if THE Ohio State is somehow higher regarded better or with more esteem than his Crimson Tide. Let’s not forget that the overriding reason we have this four-team playoff is because Saban’s Alabama team got the benefit of the doubt and into the title game without even making the conference title game in the crazy conclusion that was 2011.
So here we are, and we can’t help but be a little bit sad by the happenings of the weekend. (And believe it or not, it had nothing to do with Auburn getting housed. We said it last week, we thought it was going to be at least a two-score game one way or the other, and that direction was going to be determined by the health of Kerryon Johnson. A healthy Johnson serving as that bell cow in that offense, and Auburn is as good as anyone. Without Johnson operating at 100 percent, Auburn lost to Clemson and scored 6 points, barely beat Mercer and scored all of 24 points against a SoCon team, and got blown out in the second half against a motivated Georgia team. So who would you vote for as SEC MVP?)
No the reason for ant-playoff-expansion folks like me is that the events of this weekend will only serve to expedite that process.
And we understand the theory behind the “Five conference champs and three at-larges” and in that event, if we used the final rankings that the committee provided, your field would look like:
1. Clemson-USC in the Orange (or at Clemson depending on how you look at it)
2. Oklahoma-Auburn in the Rose
3. Georgia-Wisconsin in the Sugar
4. Alabama-The Ohio State in the Fiesta, maybe
There are a litany of problems with that:
First, No. 9 Penn State has every bit the argument some of the bottom teams do – like a three-loss Auburn who got beat by three-scores in its title game. Second, if you expand to eight are you going to include an unbeaten non-power-five team, such as Central Florida, which is unbeaten and ranked 12? If so, in that world, with the Pac-12 champion USC in at No. 8, you are now cutting out No. 7 Auburn, which as we covered before has looked as good as anyone as anyone in the country when full strength and went 2-2 against the top four this year.
Third, and most importantly, when this thing expands (more on the when rather than if in a moment) it will devalue the regular season and the conference championships.
By immeasurable marks. It will slowly walk college football and the best regular season in all of sports down the path that college basketball has chosen. And that path leads to five months of dress-rehearsals and attempts to polish the resume and one month of glorious, gripping tournament play at neutral sites.
If there were eight, think of the rivalries and beat downs during this regular season that would be brushed off like a piece of lint, and therefore rendering the meanings of those moments almost completely forgettable. Heck, it has happened for Auburn with the simple expansion to just four teams. (And in truth, with all the hubbub about who should be No. 4, it would be interesting to see under the old system who the the BCS computers would have picked for an epic final two.)
USC got hammered by Notre Dame. No worries, Trojans still in with eight. THE Ohio State lost by 31 at Iowa. No worries.
Under the eight plan, it better served Alabama to lose the Iron Bowl and rest up than to win the Iron Bowl and risk another game. Heck, under the eight plan, you could make an argument Auburn would have been better served to sit Kerryon Johnson and rest its resume on getting an at-large on what it did at full strength in November.
Eight is coming and it’s another step in forever wrecking the best regular season in all of sports. (Side note: Raise your hand if you think it would ultimately and definitely stop at eight. And if you have your hand up, a) we’d like to tell you about some Pacific Ocean property in the greater Boise, Idaho area, and b) it was a little more than 20 years ago that the BCS came into play over a bowl system that vowed to never be buckled and a computer-model that was going to be the end-all of the discussion.)
But, sadly, we believe the question is “when” and “if” has forever left the conversation.
And the motive is the same as everything else: Money. Big, overflowing bags of uncountable sums of money.
For the conferences, which would not be guaranteed of getting a team into the dance. For the programs, which would be a direct benefit of the expanded field and expanded TV coverage. For the coaches – Sweet Buckets of Big Ed McMahon Checks, the cash registers are ringing when Jimbo gets 10 years for $75-plus million and Gus gets seven years for almost $50 million – well it’s obvious.
For the players, well, God no we can’t pay them because, well, college football is about tradition. And education. And the pageantry.
Not when the playoff goes to eight, gang. And it will make it harder and harder for those of us who want to not pay college athletes to defend that position, friends, especially when heading into his 11th consecutive trip to the college football players, Nick Saban renegotiates for a little more than $15 million annually in seven years.
And offer all the “fairness” and “more teams, equals better field” mumbo jumbo all you want, but that’s not finding the best team. Well, if you are going to truly find fairness, then shouldn’t all the major and or minor college basketball programs have the same number of bids? No, because not all leagues are created equal.
Expansion leads to a postseason of finding the hottest team. And occasionally the most healthy team. But not always the best team. That’s playing on upsets in a small sample size and hoping for a David to emerge against the Goliaths. Well the great thing about college football is the David-Goliath aspect of almost every Saturday still matters.
And it will be severely gutted when the field goes to eight.
(And to answer your question, we believe Alabama was the right choice for No. 4 because it’s loss on the road to the hottest team in the country at the time is way better than getting boatraced by four-plus TDs at Iowa.)
This and that
– The average child goes through 720 crayons before the age of 10. So there’s that.
– Not even the Dallas Cowboys are immune to the ratings slide affecting all of the NFL. Here, according to Sports Media Watch, last Thursday’s Dallas-Washington drew a 9.4 rating and 15.6 million viewers. It was down 10 percent from last year’s Thursday night broadcast and down 27 percent from Dallas’s Thursday night game from this week in 2016. It was the lowest-rated Dallas Cowboys prime time broadcast ever.
– In an NFL season filled with unbelievable amounts of craziness, let’s give the best description of the current state of the NFL to none other than renowned Media-hater Marshawn Lynch. When Beast Mode was asked to give a postgame news conference after his best game (101 rushing yards and a TD) as a Raiders player, his answer about skipping for a random drug test was perfect. From the ESPN.com article: “I’m sorry, though, look,” Lynch said as he showed reporters a notice from his locker that he had been selected for a random drug test after the game. “It’s either this, or that, and I can’t afford that. I apologize. But if you do not understand what this is, it’s when you put your ding-ding sauce out and give them a sample.”
– In what could be a game-changing hire, Arizona State has made it official that Herm Edwards is the Sun Devils next coach. Yes, it is filled with potential disasters – Edwards is 63, has never been a college head coach, has not been on a sideline in a decade and was 2-23 in his last 25 games as a head coach – but Edwards has said he is bringing an NFL-type front office, in which there will be a GM-like role. And dude could fill a pretty salty staff with all the people he knows in the game. Hey, it’s not like the same-old, same-old was working all that well for an ASU program that has forever underachieved (minus the Jake Plummer years).
– In quite possibly the biggest sports story of the year getting the least amount of ink, the Supreme Court of these United States of America will dive into the New Jersey gambling case starting today. Seriously, this is a game changer across all sports, and we’ll kick it around more tomorrow.
– As all the hand-wringers in and around college football clamor for the players to get paid, we thought this Tweet from Joe Thomas serves a more pressing issue in today’s game and culture. Thomas, the future first-ballot Hall of Fame tackle for Cleveland, wrote: “I would like to see NCAA FB get an independent second opinion Dr who can help players make big surgical and medical decisions (like the NFL). As a guy who’s had a lot of knee surgeries, it’s unsettling that JT Barrett had knee surgery a few days ago and is playing today.” Amen.
Today’s questions
Weekend winners and losers Go.
If you need some starting points, simply, did the committee get it right?
Are Jimbo and Gus worth $7 million per to Texas A&M and Auburn?
Will Herm Edwards work as the Arizona State coach?
Is Les Miles the front-runner at UT?
There’s a lot to get to friends, so buckle up. As for today’s date, well, on Dec. 4:
In 1619, 38 colonists in Virginia had a formal ceremony to give thanks to God for protecting them in their travels and through their journeys. It is believed to be the first Thanksgiving, and we can report no turkeys were harmed in the crafting of this 5-at-10.
Jay-Z turns 48. The criminally underrated Marisa Tomei (who had an excellent Seinfeld cameo) is 53. The criminally overrated Skip Bayless is 66.
Jeff Bridges is 68. Rushmore of movies with The Dude.
Go, and enjoy the day.