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Weekend winners
Jonathan Taylor. Yes, it was against a Falcons team, so take that with a grain of salt. But in truth, this Falcons’ defense is better than recent years. Still, Taylor was the most impressive American runner in Berlin since Jesse Owens in 1936. He ran for 244 yards, including a walk-off overtime TD over Atlanta. He now has an NFL leading 1,139 rushing yards — 219 more than the next RB — and 17 total TDs. He’s your MVP frontrunner.
Every high school football team getting to practice today. You are one step closer to a lifetime memory, fellows. Good luck.
Unbelievable college football catches. Considering the stakes, the Indiana game-winning TD catch by Omar Cooper Jr. may have been the greatest college football catch I have ever seen. Not to be outdone, Cam Coleman’s one-handed TD catch at Vandy OBJ-esque.
Jon Sumrall. Already one of the hottest names on the college football carousel, the Tulane HC put an exclamation point on his resumed by leaving the Fightin’ Boogers over Group of Five frontrunner Memphis on Friday night.
Texas Tech. The modern-image of an athletic department money-whipping everyone on the NIL trail had arguably its best weekend yet as the Red Raiders thumped BYU with GameDay in town. Texas Tech’s odds to now make the playoff sit at a staggering minus-1200.
Weekend losers
Cleveland pitchers Emmanuel Chase and Luis Ortiz. The Guardians pitchers received serious indictments for their alleged roles in an illegal sports betting ring. They could be facing up to 65 years in prison if convicted, and gang, the evidence is overwhelming.
Atlanta Falcons. Yeah, it’s a Monday, so this makes sense. Did you know the only NFC South team to win this weekend was the Saints — because they were playing another NFC South team?
Hugh Freeze. I’m trying to think of a worse SEC head coach than Freeze’s disastrous time at AU and may need to phone Paschall about it. Maybe Curly Hallman at LSU. He makes Butch Jones look like Bear Bryant.
YouTube-ESPN. You guys are burning a lot of bridges with folks who only turn to you for live sports — especially SEC football — as you continue to hold millions of Americans hostage with this stalemate. For goodness sakes, quit acting like Congress and get a deal done already.
SEC power rankings.
Join us around 11 a.m. Eastern at Southeastern 16 as we break this down, but it was a rather predictable SEC Saturday.
Georgia flexed.
Alabama flexed (and LSU underachieved).
Texas A&M continued to impress.
Fans of teams with a bye week got to take a deep breath.
Ole Miss rolled easily but did not cover.
And of course, Auburn found a way to break its fans’ hearts. Again. And again. Auburn snatching defeat from the jaws of victory has become a shampoo clog. Rinse, lather, break hearts, repeat.
Side note: AU should file the film of the 500-plus-yard offensive showing in the OT loss at Vandy as evidence and sue Hugh Freeze for coaching malpractice to reclaim some of that buyout. What in the bleep? How does a team go from not scoring a TD at home against Kentucky to dropping THAT on a ranked Vandy team?
Either the UK defense is way, Way, WAY better than I knew or Hugh Freeze is worse than Jeremy Pruitt and Derek Dooley combined.
End of rant.
Like the August smell in a high school football locker room, let’s get rank.
1 Texas A&M
2 Alabama
3 Georgia
4 Ole Miss
5 Texas
6 Oklahoma
7 Vandy
8 Tennessee
9 Missouri
10 LSU
11 Miss State
12 Kentucky
13 Auburn
14 Florida
15 South Carolina
16 Arkansas
Thoughts? And now there are only eight SEC teams with a doable path to the playoff and know that all of them other than Ole Miss play at least one of the other eight.
(Side note: The Georgia-Georgia Tech game may be the most playoff-critical game of the regular season later this month.)
This and that
› Eye popper: Coach K says the ACC and the Big East should merge. Hmmmm. And side question: Did we ever think we would get to the point that the Big East should be the one in that conversation to say, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” gang?
› Rest easy, Lenny Wilkies. You were truly a Hall of Famer. He was 88.
› Rest easy, Paul Tagliabue. The former NFL commish was 84.
› Derrick Henry is under-appreciated. Loved this stat over the weekend, as Henry — in his 10th NFL season — has finally passed his high school rushing total from his legendary prep career in Florida. In four high school seasons, Henry had 12,124 rushing yards. In his 10 NFL seasons, he now has 12,127. Add in his 3,591 rushing yards at Alabama and that’s 27,842. Which means over the last 17 years, with defenders trying to knock him out, Derrick Henry has run for 15.8 miles with a football in his hand. Oh, my.
› Rules, people. Here’s Paschall’s SEC wrap up column.
› Sorry, did not watch a single moment of basketball over the weekend.
Today’s questions
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
As for multiple choice Monday, let’s do this: Which NFL division-leader surprises you the most as we hit the NFL’s second half of the regular season?
› Colts leading the AFC South
› Steelers leading the AFC North
› Broncos leading the AFC West
› Patriots leading AFC East.
Discuss.
As for today, Nov. 10, let’s review:
“Sesame Street” premiered on this day in 1969. Good work PBS.
Country music star Miranda Lambert is 42 today. I am a fan of her work.
ESPN sportscaster Linda Cohn is 66 today.
Jon Rahm is 31 today.
Roy Schneider would have been 93 today. Rushmore of Roy. Go.