Let’s handle our business first.
Let’s start with the Rushmores.
Rushmore of cousins — Cousin Eddie, Kirk Cousins, DeMarcus Cousins and kissing cousins.
Rushmore of art galleries — The Louvre, the MMA in NYC, Uffizi and a personal pick of the Hunter because we gotta support the 423, right?
Rushmore of women’s basketball players — Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi and the last one is tricky, but I think I go Breanna Stewart.
Rushmore of daytime talk-show hosts — Caveat here, no morning shows. Deal? Deal. Oprah, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and, sadly, Jerry Springer. Leaving Springer off this list — even though he made the genre worse by playing to the lowest common denominator — would be akin to leaving Stern off the DJ list, you know.
More duties to handle.
Here’s Paschall with some UT offensive line news and notes.
Here is an array of the SE16 podcasts we participated on this week. Feel free to check them out.
Let’s bag the ‘bag.
From Mountaintop
Is the WNBA gonna turn people off?
Not so fast, my friend, not so fast …
Instead of hockey and MMA, maybe we should all start watching the WNBA:
Plenty of controversy, nastiness, cheap shots and even edgy racial overtones featuring opinionated and talented women athletes.
It seems to be selling for entertainment to the masses anyway.
AND
From BB
Is her brother named Ampersand? Agree on the WNBA.
Gang
We spilled some ink on the WNBA this week, which is good for the league.
But we did it for pretty much all the wrong reasons.
Did you see that Clay Travis is trying to get a Nashville expansion team and plans to only acquire transgender athletes? He came up with a logo and team name — The Nashville Balls — and they sold $50,000 in T-shirts in about 24 hours.
Travis is the cross-pollination of a modern media mogul and P.T. Barnum.
Anywell, as for BB’s sibling salute, it was centered on the young lady named Asterisk, who won the U.S. Women’s Amateur at The Honors last weekend. Not sure what the rest of the family is named.
But I have secretly wanted Ole Miss QB1 Trinidad Chambliss to have a brother named Tobago, so the family could introduce them as “our sons, Trinidad and Tobago.”
The WNBA’s drama may be creating headlines right now, and that’s good.
But it’s unsustainable.
Look at controversies across sports before — Kaepernick, Astros’ sign stealing, NBA tanking and load management — and those emerged and vanished, and the various leagues moved along because of long histories and fan bases in the millions.
The WNBA is surging in terms of popularity, but all this drama comes at time before it has become ingrained in the sports fabric for most of the country, in my view.
From TT
Jay ole JG. If you are correct and I hope you are, lunch or dinner on me anywhere you like. To answer your question, I do not believe Heup can get them there this year; maybe next. They were picked 8 in SEC. How many teams get to playoffs this year?
AND
From DPJ
How hot is Heupel’s seat this year? He’s getting some big recruiting classes, but how many wins does he need this year?
Guys
I am high on UT primarily because I am super bullish on Coach Josh Heupel’s ability to get good QB play from a grandfather clock if needed.
There are some whispers around the program about Heupel, but I think those are a) silly, and b) from a very vocal, slim minority of UT fans.
I think Heupel is a top-five coach in this league, to be honest.
Would you rather have Heupel or Kalen DeBoer? I’ll wait.
As for TT’s query, I assume you are talking about the number of SEC teams to make the playoff, because this year there will again be 12 teams invited to the tournament.
I think Georgia and Texas are dunks to be in the tournament.
The next collection of teams is led by Ole Miss and LSU, for me.
After that, it’s Texas A&M and Oklahoma and Alabama and Tennessee, and not necessarily in that order.
I think the SEC gets at least four, and just about any Big Ten or SEC that can get to 10 wins gets an invite.
The truly intriguing thing about those two leagues is the schedules filled with potential tie-breaker games if multiple teams listed above finish with matching 9-3 records.
To that end, A&M plays five of the other seven teams listed above. That’s tough.
And it’s a reminder of our adage that the four most important people to build or rebuild a successful SEC football program are, in order, the HC, the QB1, the SEC schedule maker, and the strength and conditioning dude.
Thoughts?
From Matthew
Love the column, Jay, and I started reading after watching your football takes on Southeastern 16.
Not sure if you’ve done this here or on SE16, but who do you think will win the Heisman?
Matthew
Great question.
Hard not to start with CJ Carr, because a) he can ball, and b) there’s already the narrative of being the QB1 at Notre Dame.
I think THE Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith is the best player in the country. But it’s really become a QB1 award, and here’s betting Smith and THE Ohio State QB1, Julian Sayin, will split votes and the spotlight.
Hard not to know who Arch Manning is, right? Say, is he related to anyone famous? Asking for a few million friends.
But let’s expand this with this idea.
Let’s random draft players looking for the Heisman winner. Paschall is ineligible for this since he has a vote, and we do not want to appear inappropriate.
First come, first served, and once a candidate is claimed, well, there you go, so pay attention.
Early bird gets the worm, after all.
If someone gets the eventual winner — I mean we could have gone 30-plus rounds before anyone would have tabbed Fernando Mendoza last year, right? — I’ll pony up some sort of prize thingy.
Deal? Deal.
I’ll start since I am the first one here each morning.
Give me Dante Moore, QB, Oregon.
Who’s next? (And Clint, if you want to play along, you are invited as well.)
Have a great weekend, friends.