Weekend winners (college football version)
SEC in general, Georgia in particular. The Bulldogs handled their BID-ness and completely whipped Georgia Tech in a manner that does not happen often. The final was 45-21 and the game was not that close. It was a powerful season-ending run, that as TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer points out here, has Georgia looking to topple mighty Alabama. And buckets if that happens, well, the college football playoff committee has some serious thinking to do. If UGA beats Alabama in a one-score game, I see the SEC getting two spots friends.
Tua. Man, that dude is amazing. And know this: In any other year over the last decade, with the possible Kyler Murray would be walking away with the Heisman Trophy. But Tua has been so good all season, there's no way it's anyone but him? And how about this stat from Ryan Brown of WJOX in Birmingham: Tua attempted 10 fourth-quarter passes against Georgia in the title game last January. He's attempted three fourth quarter passes since.
THE fans of THE Ohio State. Yes, they are sneaky, SEC-elite-level obnoxious and their backing of Urban Liar to the hilt was been grotesque. But that loyalty was paid off Saturday as THE Buckeyes delivered a big-time tail-whipping over hated Michigan. Wow. Did anyone else look up and wonder if THE OSU players were wearing cleats and the Michigan players were wearing snowshoes? Because it sure felt like THE Buckeyes were five steps faster at every position.
Notre Dame. It was not pretty, but it did not have to be. It only had to be a 'W' and as all the conference championship games play out over the weekend, the Irish can sit back, crack open a cold Co-Cola and know that their spot in the college football playoff is secured.
Derek Mason. Yes, there was a time not that long ago that Mason was on a pretty warm chair. He filled the amazingly big - and dirty - shoes of James Franklin, who had returned 1930s-levels of success to Vandy. He was the guy who followed the guy, and that's a tough gig. Ask Bob Kesling. Anyhoo, Mason has rebounded and stabilized his job and his program. Now he has three straight wins over hated UT - something that has not happened for the Commodores since before the Great Depression. Kudos to a really good dude who is becoming a really good coach. How much has the UT-Vandy series turned? Well, Vandy has five wins over the Vols since 2012. Five. That's the same number of Vandy wins from 1955-2011.
Fab 4 picks. We hit five of eight, nailing Mississippi State, Cincinnati, against Louisville, over in Tennessee-Vandy and Georgia Southern smoking Georgia State. The misses were Michigan (by a million), NC State by half a point and SMU in a crazy game. The 5-3 mark (62.5 percent) against the spread takes us into the championship games at 50-34-2 (59.3 percent) against the spread. That's entertaining for sure, but man it feels like we left some winners - Washington, over in OU-WVU, Alabama and Missouri to name but four - on the table.
FILE - In this Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017, file photo, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh walks on the sideline in the second half of an NCAA college football game against Maryland in College Park, Md.Weekend losers (college football version)
College football fans. Yes, the weekend was crazy and awesome and, did we mention crazy already? But it also was the final full weekend of the season. Can someone please explain how May through mid-August drags by on the sports calendar and September-through-Thanksgiving is swirling blur?
Jim Harbaugh. Social media is a cruel, cold world when things turn, friends. And Coach Khaki was an easy target after the Wolverines threw up all over themselves Saturday at the Horseshoe. Seriously, even at 10-2, he has to be on the hot seat because simply put, if the Michigan coach can not beat THE Ohio State in THE Game, then he can't be THE Michigan coach.
UCF. On a weekend that almost everything opened up for the Knights to move up - Michigan got hammered, LSU became a three-loss team, West Virginia lost - the Knights lost star quarterback McKenzie Milton with a gruesome knee injury.
Gus Malzahn. No, I did not expect Auburn to beat Alabama. I was expecting something closer to the first half than the stampede that was the second half, and man, that offense is undeniably predictable for long, Long, LONG stretches. Yes, dropped balls and a seriously awful holding call that negated a 75-yard TD run - and got Malzahn a 15-yard personal foul call for saying "bull crap" to one of the officials - were not on him, per se. But the numbers are not pretty for Malzahn. He's 6-16 against Alabama, Georgia and LSU and that's with two miracle wins and two losses to LSU in which he blew double-digit leads. He will head to the postseason 1-4 in bowl games, and this is in a season in which Auburn lost to a Tennessee team that, other than Arkansas, is the worst in the SEC. So the question now becomes, can Auburn afford to fire Malzahn and his monster buyout that is currently $32 million or if they can afford to not fire him and allow this railroad of mediocrity to continue to roll through Jordan-Hare.
Pac-12. Washington beat Washington State, which means the Pac-12 title game will be a three-loss Washington team vs. a three-loss Utah team. So goof-bye playoffs. And, for all you playoff-expanders who think each Power Five conference deserves a spot, well, here's betting Washington wins the Pac-12 title game. Yes, the same Washington team that lost to a 7-5 Auburn bunch that does not crack the top-half of the SEC Power Poll. That's not equity or fairness. That's everyone demanding a hand-out. That's not sports, where we keep score and being the best matters. That's socialism.
Jeremy Pruitt. Yes, we try to stay away from having a winner and a loser from the same game, but this weekend in college football was tough to avoid the duality. There were winners and losers in THE OSU-Michigan game, the Iron Bowl, and a slew of others. There also was the clear distinction of wondering if Vandy could keep its coach - Vandy finished 6-6 with one-score losses to Kentucky, Missouri and Notre Dame - and if Tennessee should keep its coach. Rest easy, no one is calling for Pruitt to be canned. But that was a dreadful finish from a bunch that neededone win in its final two games to become a beloved part of the program's lore. Overstatement? Don't think so. After the worst season in UT history, finding two wins over ranked teams and getting back into the postseason - a bowl that would have loved to have an overflowing UT fan base descend on its city - would have been viewed as a very positive first step. A big move back to being Big Orange if you will. Now, it feels like, well Auburn was so overrated even Avatar looks over and thinks, "Man, who thought that bunch was going to be any good," and UK was as much about timing after the pummeling Georgia dealt the Cats than it was UT. A season that could have finished 7-6 - the bowl date would have been against an inferior foe - feels more like UT was fortunate to not match last year's historic failure. And the questions about Pruitt are genuine and fair. At times his team did not look prepared. Maybe that's getting his rookie legs under him. At times the play-calling was painstakingly bad. Only at Auburn did it feel like the offensive staff found something that was working and ran with it until the defense stopped it. (Yes, the game was one-sided so there was going to be a lot more UT passes than runs, but UT running backs Chandler and Jordan had 12 carries for 115 yards. Doesn't that earn a little more attention in the play-calling discussions?) And here's the big puzzler for me: How, with all that was at stake - for recruiting, for the fan base, for the confidence of the new direction, for the current players and coaches - coming out that flat, especially offensively, seems unforgivable, no? UT's first half possessions: Punt, Punt, Punt, Interception. That's 26 plays, 85 yards. Did we mention that Vandy's defense finished ranked 89th nationally in yards per game at a smidge more than 420 per?
Speaking of defense, Buckets of Overs and Overflowing Entertainment, the UConn defense finished a historically bad season friends, and the numbers are mind-blowing. UConn finished last in rush defense (335 per), total defense (617 per) and scoring defense (50.4 per).
The whole FSU situation. A 5-7 finish ends a 36-year bowl streak. (As long as FSU does not get a pity invite if there are not enough 6-6 teams, that is.) FSU committed 10 penalties and three turnovers in the loss to the Gators. It was a terrible first year for coach Willie Taggert, who was the subject of some knucklehead's racist social media post Sunday. The Seminoles' first losing season since 1976 seems to be getting worse, because in the recruiting game, the doctored images of Taggert - FSU's first black head fooftball coach being lynched on Facebook - are way more damaging that the mistakes on the field.
Lane Kiffin. Was it really just a year ago that ol' Laughin' Lane Kiffin and his Twitter account were the talk of college football and the hot name being whispered on the coaching carousel? Well, he'll have plenty of time to floar resumes after a 27-24 loss to Charlotte will leave Kiffin and the FAU Owls 5-7 and at home for the holidays.
Losing a game while being soaking wet from the Gatorade bath. Man, that LSU-Texas A&M, seven-overtime, 74-72 marathon was nuts. Nuts. And that Coach O got the Gatorade shower at the end of regulation before replay gave A&M one more chance, well, that is stinky. And sticky.
That we get no more chances to bet against Louisville this year. Man, that was some entertaining non-entertaining football. Can we get the Cards in a bowl game? Maybe the Vegas Bowl since they finished an amazingly predictable 1-11 against the spread this year. And as we like to remind you friends, picking losers is every bit as entertaining as picking winners.
Was it good for you?
Man there was a ton happening over the last few days, right?
Family. Food. Football. Food. Co-Colas. Drama. Shopping. Co-Colas.
Raise your hand if you've had at least three leftover turkey sammiches since last Thursday. Well, this guy has, for sure.
We will have an NFL-centric 'This and That' because there was a lot there, too.
But let's discuss the Tiger-Phil thing, because there are a couple of intriguing layers here.
First, with the obvious exception of combat sports, is Pay-Per-View dead? The Tiger-Phil match was a pay-per-view vehicle, and we are not sure how many people paid for it.
What we do know is that for the second-straight high-profile event, there were significant glitches. Glitches that forced providers to take down the paywall and open the feed up to everyone. Glitches that caused almost every major service to refund the $20 folks paid for the event.
So that's the technical point. Here's the figurative point about pay-per-view: Is there a sports event you would pay $20 to watch? Seriously. The Masters? The Super Bowl? (This one is a non-starter because the audience is already so massive that the commercial fees would take a monster that would cause the PPV price to be quite large.)
Any other? It's an important question, and one leagues and teams must ask themselves, especially in non-NFL sports. Did you see the gobs of empty seats Saturday at big rivalry match-ups because of struggling seasons? Yes, those tickets are already sold, but the lost revenue of parking, concessions, souvenirs, eating, etc., for the schools and these college towns that base a lot of their annual revenue on the seven or eight home Saturdays a year would shock you.
Would you pay ESPN - which Clay Travis reported lost 2 million more subscribers in 2018 - say $25 for access to every bowl game this bowl season?
So there's that.
And then there is the golf. Did this match do enough to make a rematch possible?
Maybe. And did this match do enough to have more golfers and caddies wired for say, the Honda Classic or the John Deere? It added a level of intrigue for sure that was noticeable and palatable.
And it's clear that golf needs that. The cookie-cutter mold of current young stars is simply not enough. Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas and even Rory, DJ and Koepka are great players who make great shots. They also, other than Rickie's wardrobe are boring interviews who reveal little about themselves other than all of them hate Patrick Reed.
So see behind the curtain was fun, even for two dudes that are infinitely more well-known than every other golfer on the planet not named Nicklaus.
So those of you who watched, what are your thoughts? Because while we're pretty sure the PPV numbers were low, but there are a whole lot of golf bigwigs specifically and TV sports big shots in general who are paying very close attention.
This and that
- That was a dreadful Falcons loss. It was a dreadful Packers loss too. Man, Green Bay is going to waste 30 consecutive years of having two of the top 10 quarterbacks of all-time and have exactly two Super Bowl titles to show for it. That seems unacceptable to me.
- Holy cow of completions, Philip Rivers, have yourself a day my man. His final stats after completing his first 25 passes - yes, 25 in a row - were 28-of-29 for 259 and three TDs as the Chargers crushed Arizona.
- Man, the Jacksonville Jags need to seriously clean house. That team is way to talented to be this and lose to Buffalo, in large part because Leonard Fournette got tossed.
- Man, the Seahawks grabbed a nice win and that was an especially painful loss for Carolina. Each team is 6-5.
- Buckets, reunited and it feels so good? According to multiple reports, Mack Brown could be returning to UNC and Mike Leach is interested in going back to Texas Tech. (UNC canned Fedora, TT fired Kliff Kingsbury over the weekend. So those gigs, as well as Colorado and Louisville are open in the Power Five leagues.)
- Man, I know they lost to Kansas in the Big Apple, but UT is the truth in hoops and Grant Williams is a dude. UT is a contender. Not just in the much-improved SEC, for the whole ball of wax.
- And then there is this dude, who bought a storage container at auction for $500. Found a safe inside that had $7.5 million in cash. The story got out and the family of the former owners tracked this dude down and paid him $1.2 million for the return of the safe. Would you take that - the buyer made right at $1.5 million net on the insides of the storage container - and give back any of the coin? Discuss.
Today's questions
Couple up there I am interested in:
Pay-per-view... is it dead or potentially the future, if done right?
Would you take $1.2 million and give back the other $6.3 million to the family that it originally belonged to?
Weekend winners and losers, as always, are welcomed.
As for today, Nov. 26, on this day in 1789, the first American Thanksgiving holiday was held. It was proclaimed an official holiday by Honest Abe on this day in 1863 and designated as the fourth Thursday in November.
The NHL was formed on this day in 1917 with five teams. Casablanca debuted on this day in 1942. Casablanca is aces friends and if you have not seen it, you need to.
Good times.
Tina Turner is 79 today. Charles Schultz would have been 96 today.
In honor of the Peanuts creator, what makes up the Rushmore of cartoon character's catch phrases, because "Good Grief!" feels like a no-brainer.