5-at-10: Monster mailbag on college football, British Open picks (and a contest), would you rather be good looking or funny

From Spy

So you referenced Ms. Chastain’s shirt removal.

Does anybody remember who they beat? Or do they just remember her with her shirt in her hands sliding on her knees? Wasn’t that supposed to the takeoff point for women’s soccer in the U.S. too? Instead, isn’t it just kind of taxing on the runway like the men’s game? And that’s way more soccer questions than ever need to be asked.

FWIW, they beat China. I think. Don’t really know. Didn’t care then. Don’t care now. How about your five that could surprise college football teams for 2018? That might generate more interest. It might get BCR to call in.

Spy –

You other folks can debate the soccer merits and while it may feel like the women’s game has found a kind of flat-line place, that place is still among the world’s best. The men’s flat-line place is among the world’s most forgettable.

Now that got that out of the way, five college teams that could surprise, and this brings us to a great place to remind everyone that Press Row will be in the A-T-L for SEC media days next week. Giddy-up.

As a note here, we think Washington is legit good. Like make a run at the playoff good with the best returning QB-RB tandem. But they are preseason top-10 in most people’s eyes, so while the name Washington here may be surprising, the Huskies hardly count as a surprise team, if that makes sense.

Anyhoo, here’s who we got.

We’ll start with Florida. All the suspensions and injuries from 2017 are behind them and a monster upgrade in coaching certainly will help the cause in Gainesville.

Next we’ll go to Arizona. The Wildcats have arguably the best running QB in America now that Lamar Jackson is in the NFL in Khalil Tate, and the last time Kevin Sumlin had a quarterback like that in his system, Johnny Manziel won the Heisman and Texas A&M beat Bama at Bama.

Purdue. HC Jeff Brohm is a dude. That is all. The Boilermakers also play in the awful side of the Big Ten and their schedule (Northwestern, E. Michigan, Missouri, BC all at home to start, then trips to Nebraska and Illinois before a tough stretch of vs THE Ohio State, at Michigan State, and vs. Iowa leads to a home stretch with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Indiana) is completely doable.

FSU. It’s been at least a few decades that you could put FSU on the surprise list but after last year’s unraveling that led Jimbo Fisher to College Station, the Seminoles are looking to bounce back. Gang, that bunch has too much five-star talent to be stinky for long. In fact, if you are looking for the best bet to pull an Auburn from 2013 – a team that went from losing record to BCS title game – the Seminoles are as good a pick as any.

Texas. Again, banking on a coach we believe in – this one being Tom Herman – there’s a lot of talent here and the schedule is workable.

College football is right around the corner friends.

From Scott S.

You ask for mailbag? I deliver. So … would you rather be the funniest guy in the room, or the best-looking? Caveat/Guideline: if funniest, you are average-looking. If best-looking, you aren’t funny.

Scott –

This is a tough one, sir, since we have been both for as long as we can remember.

We kid. We kid.

We’ll take funny every day and twice on Tuesday. Think about the underrated movie “Roxanne” with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, and that’s one of a thousand examples.

Side question here: Doesn’t everyone think that they have a sense of humor? And maybe everyone does, because everyone laughs right?

At some point in time, everyone has to laugh. So that means everyone has to have a sense of humor.

We’ve never been a classic-tell-a-joke guy. We simply can’t remember that many of them other than this one:

If you are American when you walk into the restroom and American when you leave the restroom, what are you when you are in the restroom?

European (as in You’re-A-Peein’)

See what we mean. Inside we like to think we are somewhat witty, and that has served us pretty well to this point so we’ll stick with it.

(Although, regardless of which side you prefer or even fall on, it would be pretty cool to see how the other half lived for a least a little while, right?)

From Steve M.

Here’s a question for ya,

Got in this discussion with a fellow Braves fan over the weekend…if you put together the All-Time Braves team, would Murphy make your team? You would have to consider him at Center Field, the position he played the longest and had the most success for him to have the numbers to make an “All-Time Team”, which would pit him against, among others, Andruw Jones.

Separate question- why didn’t he make the HOF and is his shot at it gone? He was a 7x All Star, League MVP twice, 5 x Golden Glove and multi Silver Slugger. No doubt he was the MVP of that team for many years.

Steve –

This is an excellent question, my man, and one we are extensive qualified to answer. In fact, there’s the answer and the metaphysical reasoning for the answer. L:et’s explore.

First the prelude to the answer. We have been outraged at the lack of Hall of Fame support for Andruw Jones. It’s amazing, to be honest, that everyone in baseball has forgotten how good Jones was for the first 10 years of his career. (Did you know that in 1998, as Sammy Sosa was part of the home run chase with Mark McGwire, Jones had a WAR that was 1.0 better than Sosa and almost dead even with McGwire? Also, did you know that form 1998-2007 the only two players who had a better WAR over that stretch were A-Rod and Barry Bonds? And yes, that means for a nine-year run in which the Braves were the class of baseball, Andruw Jones, not Chipper, Maddux, Glavine or Smoltz was statistically their most valuable player.)

Defensively Andruw Jones had no peer in the first 10 years of his career. According to metrics, his 192 runs above average – a defensive measurement that counts how many runs a player saves his team compared to league average at their position -was 58 runs better than any other player at any other position during his dynamic first full nine seasons.

And if you are not into the modern-day fancy stats – WAR, by the way, stands for wins above replacement and is a stat that measures a player against the league average at his position – then how about this historic hard-core fact: There are four players in baseball history with 10 or more Gold Gloves and 400 or more home runs. Willie Mayes, Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Schmidt and Andruw Jones. Three were first-ballot Hall of Famers with Griffey getting the highest approval percentage ever at 99.32 percent. Mays got 94.68 and Schmidt got 96.52 on their first year on the ballot. Jones? He got 7.3 percent.

We grew up in Atlanta in the heyday of Dale Murphy, and we know that are a slew of folks who campaigned for him to be the hall too. But eye tests for any of us who watched a load each know this: Andruw Jones was way, Way, WAY better than Dale Murphy.

As for the metaphysical, how to debate better between eras, whether it’s the best centerfield for the Braves or the basketball goat.

Resume certainly matters. How does the eye test factor? (Case in point, we believe LeBron is the ‘best’ player in that manner but Jordan or Kareem have better arguments for the ‘greatest.’)

In your debate Steve, Andruw has both even if Murph has back-to-back MVPs.

From Julie

So, any early predictions for The Open Championship? Hoping the regulars are on the leaderboard, want to see DJ or Fowler, maybe Matt Kuchar can make up for the heartbreak from last year.

Julie –

OK, it’s official, we’ll have an Open for Business at The Open Championship Contest (Open for everyone). The rules are the same. Pick five golfers, your best four finishers count. If you pick guys who finish 1, T-3, 9 and 11, that’s 24 points (add all the places together, you see) and the low score wins. Need entries by close of BID-ness Wednesday night.

We have an unofficial wager with Weston Wamp, host of The Pitch from 10-noon on Saturdays on ESPN 105.1 the Zone about which non-major winner will win a major first. He has Rickie Fowler; we have Tommy Fleetwood.

So, not unlike a few years ago in these contests, when we always would pick Jason Day, we are now officially on the Fleetwood mack truck. (See what we did there, Spy?)

Let’s offer five quick predictions for next week’s Open Championship, and yes, that feels a little snooty to take the designation off of it. There’s the Scottish Open, the U.S. Open, the Barclay’s Open, the Open 24/7, the Open and Shut case for Jack McCoy and the Law&Order crew (Dun-dun!) and the all-time great Austin Peay basketball chant for shoot-from-anywhere star Fly Williams: Fly is Open, let’s go Peay. So why do they get to be THE Open exactly?

Predictions:

Some stodgy Euro writer will make a big deal about the rules to Philly Mick.

You are going to get more than your fill of Jean van de Velde, who collapsed on the 72nd hole in the 1999 Open is arguably the worst in the history of major sports. The Open returns to Carnoustie next week for the first time since that year.

Following on the U.S. Open in which no one was at par or better for the tournament, here’s betting that the R&A will have Carn-nasty set up pretty dang hard. Like really hard.

With that in mind, and despite our pulling for Fleetwood, here’s another bet that this major will be won by someone who already has a major. We went a while there – 10 straight majors to be precise – with first-time major champions. As hard as this one’s going to be if the weather is any deterrent at all, here’s betting a household name wins this one.

Our picks: Fleetwood (because he’s our dude now), Koepka, DJ, Rory, Justin Rose.

Who’s in?

From Stewwie

By joining the Lakers, it looks like LeBron has given up on trying to win any more titles. The additions since then help a little, but it also looks like a disaster of dysfunction waiting to happen. And I can’t help but think that Luke Walton is a sitting duck in all of this. LeBron will find a way to get him fired maybe even before the season ends. And does any other superstar want to come play with him? No one seems to have the interest. Bron don’t care though…losing in May instead of June means he can get to Anguilla sooner than before and he’s fine with thatlol.

Stewwie –

We addressed this briefly this week, but wanted to expand.

Interesting points about the superstars who are not overly thrilled with the idea of being the second banana to the leader of the Banana Boat Bunch.

The evidence is there: Kyrie, KD, George, CP3, allegedly Kawhi.

And we think the reason may be KD’s decision to join the Warriors. He got so much grief – way more than LeBron and Bosh heading to Miami to join D-Wade – for joining the Warriors that maybe the idea of joining LeBron makes it seem like the easy way.

(Side note: The accusation that LeBron has “given up on trying to win anymore titles” is the height of Catch-22. If he wanted to chase titles, he could have signed the veteran minimum the Warriors gave to Boogie and the world would have imploded. If he had signed with the 76ers – a move that we both agree did not really fit in on-court basketball sense – he would have been criticism for jumping on some else’s process. He goes to L.A. and he’s apparently stopped trying to win. Danged if you, danged if you don’t.)

Or maybe other superstars don’t like the way the worm has turned that if LeBron loses anything meaningful now, the spotlight turns to his help. That would be a tough shadow in which to operate.

That may add reason to why he picked L.A. If you are a young dude with free agent on the horizon there are a lot of place worse to go than an improving L.A. because if the Lakers are good you are the biggest show in the entertainment capital of the world.

And while this may be a wasted year – a strange fact for a guy 33 and looking to add notches to his resume – here’s betting that at least one and maybe two A-player free agents (Klay and Kawhi possibly) will be in purple and gold by October 2019.

Alejandro –

On a rushmore of over seas sporting events you want to see (yes I know, if its not an Auburn football game, its a no go), would Wimbledon be on there?

Alejandro –

Excellent question and know this: The 2021 British Open – the 150th installment of The Open Championship, which is an extremely confident way to refer to your event – will be at the Old Course. We’re going to make every attempt to go, so start saving now my man.

So yes, that’s far left of the overseas sporting event Rushmore. Wimbledon certainly would make it. We’d pick a World Cup game too, believe it or not. The passion is simply undeniable across the pond.

The last one is a little more difficult. You suggested the Grand Prix of Monaco, and that’s cool. But if we are in Monaco, we’re likely still in the casinos as the cars pass.

Our last one would be a Ryder Cup match somewhere in hostile territory. That could be cool. Great question.

Which leads us to this week’s Rushmores.

Rushmore of “Threes:” Three Amigos (seriously under appreciated and overlooked), Three’s Company (which was light years ahead of its time, although trying to get the laughs Mr. Roper or Barney did on Jack pretending to be gay likely would not fly in our supremely sensitive state), Three Musketeers (If you get a book, a movie AND a pretty good chocolate bar named after you, you’re doing something right), and the movie Three (which was not good but it was about Dale Sr. and we’re sorry, we can’t think of 3 without thinking about Dale Sr.)

Rushmore of bald dudes: Kojak, Yul Brynner, MJ, The Rock

Rushmore of ensemble sitcoms: Modern Family, Cheers, M*A*S*H (the early days are golf; the late years, not so much), The Simpsons. Arrested Development was close and almost went with The Office but as great as all the other characters are/were, when Michael Scott was not involved, it all fell apart.

Rushmore of Tom Hanks movies: Bachelor Party, Saving Private Ryan, Big.

Enjoy the weekend gang. We are across the state at an all-star baseball tournament after the Signal 9/10’s posted a nice 5-0 win Thursday night.