Weekend winners
Ronald Acuña Jr. He notched his 40th homer of the season on Saturday, which allowed the Braves right-fielder to become the first MLB player with 40 homers and 60 steals. And he's two steals away from being the only 40-70 club member in MLB history. Everybody altogether now: "M-V-P! M-V-P!"
THE Ohio State. THE OSU landed the signature win of this young college football season with a late score to edge Notre Dame 17-14 in South Bend. It's such a resume builder that as long as there are not four or more Power Five unbeaten teams, THE Buckeyes likely earned themselves a college football playoff mulligan Saturday.
Every Dolphin this side of Flipper and anyone in any fantasy league that played any Dolphin player — other than Flipper. Wow, 70 points and more than 700 yards of offense. And they took their foot off the gas. Check Tua Tagovailoa's numbers, people: better than 71% completion, 1,024 yards and eight TDs in three games. A passer rating north of 121.
Sport's next power couple. Hey, did anyone notice if Taylor Swift was at a football game this week? I didn't see anything about it on social media.
Uh, my picks. While pausing to remember the first rule of Fight Club is "Don't talk about Fight Club," we kinda have to mention this. Suffice it to say that last week was the hottest heater in my gambling/picking career, and it was topped with a smoking Friday-Sunday run that had 10 winners out of 11 picks. All three Braves picks hit Friday, all three NFL picks — Titans-Browns under 40, Miami minus-6.5 and Chiefs over 30.5 points — and five of six college picks landed. Final numbers for last week: 22-4, and the 10.1 units pushes us to plus-80.029 units since we started this. My only loser of the weekend ...
Weekend losers
Auburn's QB play. Yep, I had the Tigers plus-7.5. And they had a chance to cover with a defensive effort in the first half that was salty. Alas, the AU defense may Jimbo Fisher's life easier by knocking his starter out of the game, which allowed Max Johnson — who is, what, 33 years old and started at LSU with Les Miles, I think — to come in remind everyone watching what even average QB play looks like.
Josh McDaniels. The Raiders coach kicked a field goal down 8 on fourth-and-4 with less than three minutes left from inside the Steelers 10.
The Titans offense. Egad, that was dreadful.
The Washington Post. I am not the biggest Dave Portnoy fan — if we're being honest, Dave Portnoy is the biggest Dave Portnoy fan I know of — but the Barstool founder recorded a conversation with the reporter for WaPo who admitted she created parts of the narratives around the negative blowback from some partners who participated in Portnoy's pizza festival. Not a good look.
Chicago Bears. Man, they lost the whole week.
Fore sure
Man, this is a loaded weekend of sports coming up.
MLB winding down the regular season. Week 4 of the NFL. Week 5 of the college football craziness.
And a little thing called the Ryder Cup.
I love the draft; you know this. I love the Masters, the brackets and college football Saturdays in the South, too.
Heck, I love lots of sports, but if I'm being honest the Ryder Cup is way, way, WAY up there on my list.
The pageantry is extremely cool. The passion is even cooler.
And these guys — a collection of the best golfers in the world divided into Team USA and Team Europe — playing the game they love for nothing but pride and country and each other is maybe the coolest part of all.
I will be watching more golf than NFL this weekend. Maybe more golf than SEC football — certainly more than Georgia's 30-point beatdown over Auburn on Saturday — to be honest.
Sure, we'll hear about 2,000 times that the last time the U.S. won the Ryder Cup on foreign soil was 1993. That's OK
We will hear about the top-heavy Euro squad and controversial U.S. captain's pick Justin Thomas will face a lot of scrutiny.
Heck, the driveable par-4 16th at Marco Simone Club could hold the key to the Cup and be the dramatic platform of the weekend.
All of that said, the elephant in the room about this event is the LIV guys.
Patrick Reed was a great Ryder Cup player. Bryson and DJ are at home, too.
The only LIV player on either side is Brooks Koepka playing for the U.S. How he holds up will be interesting and worth watching.
Who am kidding? All of it is well-worth watching to me.
War Ryder Cup.
This and that
— Braves won their 100th game over the weekend.
— Falcons played. Badly. Detroit is salty, too.
— You know the rules. Here's Paschall's SEC wrap-up column.
— UTC continues to roll, which is both a good thing for you Mocs supporters and makes the season-opening floater at North Alabama all the more puzzling in some ways. Here's more from UTC writer Gene Henley.
— This is a cool story to follow all year. If T.J. Watt sets a single-season sack record, Pat McAfee has pledged $500,000 to the charity of Watt's choice. Watt has six sacks in three games and is on pace for 34 sacks, which would destroy the current mark of 22.5.
— Megan Rapinoe ended her USWNT career Sunday night. So there's that.
Today's questions
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
Multiple choice Monday goes this way:
Rank your excitement for the Ryder Cup?
— Stoked, #Murica.
— Strong, will watch most of it.
— Mild.
— Dude, it's football season, put your FootJoys somewhere else.
As for today, Sept. 25, let's review
Well slap my knee, Will Smith is 55 today.
Barbara Walters would have been 94.
Coco the Clown died on this day 49 years ago. Rushmore of clowns. Go.