Weekend winners
Clemson. Everyone was fading the Tigers. A lot of folks loved the home underdog that was Louisville, which had the quarterback many consider to be the best single player in college football in Lamar Jackson. And Clemson rolled them. With two impressive wins in the first three weeks and holding the national title belt to stake the resume, forget the polls, Clemson currently has to be the top-ranked team in the eyes of any group trying to pick a playoff quartet.
Derek Mason. The Commodores are 3-0 and earned a monster, hard-fought 14-7 win over Kansas State. We thought – like a lot of folks – that Mason was in serious trouble early in year two of his time at Vandy. Remember that ugly 14-12 loss to Western Kentucky in the 2015 opener? After starting 3-11 in his first 14 games, Mason and the Commodores are 13-13 since and have a legit defense this year. How big a turnaround is happening? CBS is doing the Alabama-Vandy game this week. Name the last time Vandy was on CBS?
Mississippi State. Now that’s the kind of punch-you-in-the-face win that LSU is used to delivering rather than absorbing. That 37-7 Bulldogs’ rout puts an exclamation point on two coaching theories we have. First, Dan Mullen is the second-best coach in the SEC, and it’s not really close. Secondly, this is the worst collection of SEC coaches of our lifetime. Yep, Ed Orgeron ladies and gentleman and his 3-22 SEC record as a full-time SEC coach (he was 4-2 in the league as the interim SEC coach last year so even with that he’s 7-24 as an SEC head coach against SEC teams). And you know what? He’s not the worst coach in the league either.
Joe Thomas. Yes, the Browns are bad. Have been his entire career. (The fact that Ben Roethlisberger has more wins than any other quarterback at the new Cleveland stadium, which opened in 1999, is one of the most eye-popping stats we can remember.) But Thomas has been a pro’s pro and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and this weekend played his 10,000th consecutive snap. And yes, with the way the experts and former players are reacting to this screams to its impressiveness.
Tennessee Titans. The Titans – along with the Patriots, maybe – were staring at the biggest “We really need this one, even in Week 2” as any NFL team. And after a wretched first half, the Titans looked the part of a team that is playoff-worthy in the second half in Jacksonville. Also, know this: It’s time for Derrick Henry to be RB1 in Nashville. That dude runs it hard. Hard. It also helped the Titans’ image that the Raiders are legit.
Tennessee head coach Butch Jones takes the field before the first half of an NCAA college football game against Florida, Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)Weekend losers
Butch Jones. More on this to come.
UTC. No first downs in the first half of the home opener is a rough start. Tip of the visor to Stewwie, who predicted a slow start to the Tom Arth era in August. That’s a tough schedule that is not getting easier.
The Chargers. Their opener in their new home was filled with ouches. They missed a game-winning field-goal try in the final seconds. They had a very tough time selling tickets – heck the visiting Dolphins had more fans – and parking was reportedly $100. Yes, parking.
Boxing. It was billed as the real fight of the year. Triple G vs. Canelo Alvarez. By most accounts the actual fighting was fine. But there was no winner, and for a sport in which you always believe the fix could be in for financial gains – and what makes better fiscal sense than having a draw between your top drawing fighters which leads to the inevitable calls of a rematch – the “quote-unquote boxing renaissance feels like business as usual.
Reese Phillips. The former Signal Mountain High star is one of our favorite local athletes we have ever covered. Great player and a better guy. After leaving Kentucky for Montana, Phillips had put in the time and waited for his chance to play quarterback for a college football team. In game two as the Grizzlies’ starter, Phillips suffered a gruesome leg injury and had surgery Sunday. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery for a young man who certainly deserved better.
Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks celebrates with fans after he threw a 63-yard touchdown pass as time expired in the Gators’ 26-20 win against Tennessee on Saturday in Gainesville, Fla.What happened in Gainesville
OK, there are a lot of mediocre to bad coaches earning record paychecks in college football. It’s an arms race and a lot of power programs can not afford to be mediocre. Which makes the lack of truly good coaches – especially in the SEC – puzzling and perplexing.
There are now fewer than three hot seats in the West – Kevin Sumlin and Bret Bielema face off Saturday in what could be called the Pink Slip Bowl; and Gus Malzahn will get his chance to turn off the heat or be consumed by ut soon enough – and that does not count Coach O, who was and still is overmatched in this league.
That does not cover the East, which is a traveling sideshow of unknowns. Right when you think South Carolina is a contender, Kentucky hammers them. When you expect Vandy to be Vandy, they look like the ’85 Bears against a Kansas State team that could win eight or nine games. Missouri may be the most consistent team in the East, and that is consistently bad. George looks the part, but what do we really know about them beyond the fact that the Bulldogs appear to be the most talented bunch in the East.
That brings us to the coaching anti-clinic that happened in The Swamp on Saturday.
Yes, Tennessee’ most-tradition-filled rival is Alabama, but for the last two decades or more, the measure of Tennessee coaches has been scaled by what happens against the Gators. It means more in terms of getting to Atlanta. Alabama since the mid-1990s has in most years either been way too good or way to inferior for Tennessee fans to put real emotional equity into the game.
But the Gators, other than the Urban Meyer and Dooley years, is different.
Until it’s not.
Florida won Saturday despite being the least talented Florida team since Zook and despite getting outplayed in almost every facet of the game. And Florida won because Butch Jones underwhelmed on Saturday. Again.
It was not luck, good or bad depending on the view, even if you believe luck favors the prepared side. It was bad coaching across the board, and that was the case long before the final TD pass. Side note: Let’s stop calling it a Hail Mary. UT beat Georgia on a Hail Mary. This was a terrible play on an even worst play call that let a guy get behind the secondary for a 63-yard post pattern for six. A Hail Mary is a prayer lofted into the end zone with a mob of folks jumping in a crowded mass.
And as bad a defensive call as that basic cover-2 was, it may not even crack the list of bad coaching moves. Let’s start with the possession that allowed UT to tie the game. Terrible clock management there – and clock management in a game of this magnitude is a direct reflection on sideline preparation and prowess friends – and it allowed Florida the chance to break UT’s heart.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room.
Who was far and away the best player on the field Saturday? It was Tennessee running back John Kelly. And the misuse and mismanagement of Kelly and the entire offense inside the Florida red zone was appallingly awful. (OK, Butch defenders, if you are out there, yes, that starts with the OC. But two things: One, Butch picked that OC and two, ever watched Saban or Meyer or Harbaugh on the sideline when the OC is not doing right? It’s not text messages and suggestions. It’s “Run the Bleeping Ball” and butt slaps.)
It was a performance that gave me pause and caused reflection.
We do believe that Butch will be the coach of UT for the start of next season (unless he decides to leave for some reason). The seat is nowhere near as hot as say Fayetteville, College Station or even Auburn. But the angst is real and reality is that the angst is deserved.
Quick, what was Butch’s highlight win? Georgia last year?
Now, and the lasting pain is always quicker to recall than the joy, name the most painful loss? There are a flood of them, right?
Butch is an elite recruiter, which makes it even more painful on the Saturdays that he shows he’s not an elite coach. All-too-often he and his staff lose with the better team, and it happened again on Saturday. To say he’s better than his predecessor no longs carries water. I’m better than his predecessor.
In fact, here’s the best analogy we can offer: Butch is the person you date after a truly awful relationship. Yes, there are fine moments, and you realize that you can find someone who doesn’t cheat on you, spend all your money and almost always lets you down by not showing up to big moments like your brother’s wedding or gets hammered at your grandmother’s funeral.
The bridge significant other reminds you that being decent is not that hard and occasionally really makes you smile. But you know in heart, he/she is not the one you are going to marry. The question is, when do you break up with that person?
This and that
– Very blah-tastic weekend of picks. Started 2-0 in college and got burned by a couple of West Coast over/unders to finish college 2-3. NFL picks went 2-2 because, well, Denver is way, Way, WAY better than I thought.
– Bobby “The Brain” Heenan died this weekend. There were few wrestling instigators who were better than The Brain.
– Sergio Garcia. Dude took 18 minutes trying to figure out a way to get a ruling on a ball he hit in the creek on the final hole Sunday. It was strangely intriguing as Garcia tried to explain to officials that he was going to hit the ball off the grand stand and needed free relief. He actually got it – here’s thinking they just said, “Whatever dude, let’s just get this going” – and made par. Still, it was surreal and it’s part of the problem with golf. It takes too long – and this is from someone who loves to play. As a comparison, Wesley Bryan teed off in the first group Sunday and played in an hour and 28 minutes and shot 69.
– Speaking of golf, former Baylor School star Luke List also shot 69 on Sunday and finished tied for 20th in the BMW Championship. That earned him $91,250 and put a cherry on a career-changing year. List made 20 cuts in 31 events with three top-10s and eight top-25s. He finished 50th in Fed Ex Cup points, which means he did not make East Lake, but he racked up more than $1.8 million this season.
– Clay Travis said he believes in the First Amendment and boobs on CNN on Friday and the interweb melted. Seriously. Man, there are a lot of folks doing some smart things, position themselves as the face and voice of a passionate subculture. There’s a theory that Jemele Hill did it. Shaun King has done it. CNN and Fox News have long been the poster networks of this posturing. Now Travis has found a spot too.
– Here’s the good and bad for Fox Sports: The USC-Texas game on Fox was the most-watched college football game of the weekend with an overnight rating of 3.6. It’s the first time since Fox started broadcasting college football that a game on its network took the top spot. College football ratings were up almost across the board, which is a strong statement in today’s climate of smaller audiences for almost every sport on TV. On the otherside – and this is good news for writers, I guess – Fox’s decision to fire its online writing staff and focus on videos has turned out to be a brutal one. From May 27-June 25, Fox Sports Digital reportedly had 143.9 million views, and that’s considered a pretty slow sports time. From Aug. 19-Sept. 17 – as football kicks off and baseball hits the home stretch mind you – Fox digital had 16.7 million views.
– Yes, the Falcons were impressive and hammered the Packers in the kickoff of Mercedes Benz as an NFL venue. But it was not all bad for Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers recorded his 300th TD pass Sunday night. He hit that milestone in the fewest number of games and attempts of any quarterback to reach that plateau. (He also has the fewest interceptions of any quarterback at the time of his 300th TD pass.) If you take rings from the discussion, we think Rodgers is the best we’ve ever seen at the position.
Today’s question
Happy National Cheeseburger day.
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
On this day in 1783, George Washington laid the cornerstone brick of the Nation’s Capitol. (You can argue that every other effort there has been flawed since.)
James Gandolfini would have been 56 today. Ryne Sandberg is 58 today.
Jimi Hendrix died on this day in 1970.
Lance Armstrong is 46 today. Unless he lied about his age too.
Let’s go there: Rushmore of athletes playing themselves in movie cameos. Go, and Lance’s turn in Dodgeball is going to get a lot of consideration.