College Football at the Half, NFL on a Roll. At least for some teams in College it is the half way point already. The college football season always seems to go by so quickly. Baseball is into the playoffs. Now that seems to have taken for ever. The NFL and college football are interesting every week. Just due to the length of their seasons every game matters. NHL season has started. The start of the NHL season is always pretty interesting but it is difficult to tell how a team is going to turn out in the first few weeks. College Football power that be people seem to have finally grasped the concept that athletes are going to be allowed to make money from their likeness and are starting to come to grips with it. All this and more in the Week That Was.
College Football Tame week Still Change
Even though the college football landscape did not feature many big match ups this weekend and the top two teams were on a bye. Things were still interesting and a few things changed. With the College Football regular season only lasting 12 games it means that every game is going to count. Even with teams having to sprinkle in some easy games. The way they play in those games still makes a difference. This past weekend we started a new weekly college football feature that you can find here.
There were only a few match ups with ranked teams this past week. None of them were really great games. Ohio State destroyed Michigan State. Michigan State actually could have been in this game. A few things were clear. Ohio State was much more prepared for this game. They were better coaches and their talent level was better. Michigan State still had opportunities in this game. They took advantage of none of those. The scary thing here for the B1G is that it looks like Ryan Day can actually coach. It will be interesting to see if he can recruit as well as Urban did. If he can then Ohio State will be in the mix with Clemson and Alabama.
Florida took care of Auburn. I am not sure if this is because Florida is better than a lot of people were giving them credit for or because Auburn is not as good as people were giving them credit for. It is probably a mix of the two but leaning more toward Auburn is not as good as people were giving them credit for. I guess at least this keeps Florida in the mix for the SEC East. Of course the longest that hope will last is three weeks. when they play Georgia. More than likely it will end next week when they play LSU. What would be really funny is if they beat LSU and then lose to South Carolina.
The last match up of ranked teams was Iowa at Michigan. Michigan came out on top but what this really showed is that neither team is as good as anyone thought they were. It is amazing how Jim Harbaugh the quarterback whisperer cannot get a quarterback that can play at all. It is starting to look more and more like he just had some really great Luck at Stanford. Did you see what I did there? LOL I guess there is not another top rated quarterback just waiting to go to the same school that Jim Harbough happens to be coaching at. Could Michigan still keep this going. They could but it is more likely that someone other than Harbaugh will be coaching Michigan next season.
After the weekend was done the polls only had some minor changes from last week. Ohio State moved up one spot in each of the polls. It really did not matter much what happened in the polls this week. Next week there will be some interesting games that could lead to some major movement.
Other College Stuff
With the bill passed in California. We talked last week about what the college coaches and athletic directors were saying. The most vocal of these was Gene Smith from Ohio State. He was adamant about how much this was going to change and destroy college sports. I happened to be listening to the Ohio State game on the radio on Saturday and on the half time show they interviewed him. Rather than the gloom and doom he was talking about earlier in the week. He was talking about how important it will be to have a standard across the country and how they are all working together for that standard. He said they already have a framework in place that they will roll out in a few weeks. Interesting how his tune has changed. Maybe in the two days since his rant about the end of college athletics he came around. More likely the rant earlier was just a rant for the sake of a rant. He did also say that we need legislation out there on a national level. I think he is wrong with that. There is no reason this needs to be legislated. If the NCAA had not been biting their lip hoping this would not happen. They could have been out in front of it and already had the rules and framework in place. They did not so that is why California did what they did. The NCAA can still get out in front of this and get it done. They just need to get moving on it.
Love the NFL Madness
Like college football every game counts in the NFL. We also had our first firing of the season No one was surprised when the Redskins fired Jay Gruden. Most people got the feeling he really did not want to be there anymore. It really looked like he was coaching to get fired. Maybe he was maybe not. He could have been trying and it just looked like he was not since what ever he did really just made the team look worse. He did not like the way the ownership was going. The picks they were making in the draft he made clear that those were not players he wanted. That is fine. He was not the GM he was the coach. His job was to take what was given to him and coach them up. Granted he was not given a lot. He really did not try that hard.
With the current ownership and the GM Washington is really not going to go very far anyway. It pretty much does not matter who the coach is. If the owners could fire other owners I would say they should fire two owners. Dan Snyder owner of the Redskins and the Spanos family that owns the Chargers. We really currently do not know what city they should be affiliated with. Both of those owners really do not seem to have a clue how the run a team. The Chargers have managed to actually field a pretty good team and alienate all of their fans. The Redskins have rabid fans that will support the team through just about anything. Snyder is trying really hard to alienate all of them. He must be taking some lessons from the Spanos family.
There are only two teams left undefeated in the NFL. One in the AFC and one in the NFC. The Patriots are not a surprise to be undefeated. The 49ers are quite the surprise. There are still four teams that do not have their first win yet. The Dolphins, Jets, Bengals and Redskins. I am not surprised that any of these teams are still waiting for their first win. The Jets and the Dolphins don’t meet till week eight. It is possible that both these teams are still do not have a win by that point. If the Jets get Darnold back before then they might have one. Probably not.Even if he does make it back it is difficult to tell how effective he will be after his recovery from mono. The Bengals could also go till week eight with out a win. In week eight they play the Steelers who are not very good and with all they have lost is not a surprise. In week nine the Bengals get to play the Jets. It is possible we could have a match up of two 0 – 9 teams. How exciting.
Somehow in the NFC North every team has a wining record. Even with the Bears giving one away to the Raiders they are still 3 – 2. It probably helped that the Lions had a bye week this past weekend. The Lions are a surprisingly good team so far. It will be interesting to see if Homeless Matt Patricia can keep them on track. He may end up being a really good coach. We really just don’t know at this point. So far he just looks like a homeless dude that wandered on to the practice field and the Lions then asked him if he wanted to be their coach. Maybe it will work out. More than likely it will not. The rest of the North is probably taking notice now that the Packers have not played a complete game yet and they are 4 -1. Leading the division. Aaron Rodgers has not had any great games yet. He has had some pretty good ones and in Aaron Jones the Packers have found the running back they have been missing for the last few years. They could end up running away with the North.
The last two weeks the Chiefs have looked human. They almost lost to the Lions last week. This week they lost to the Colts. Patrick Mahomes threw for 321 yards but only one touchdown pass. Last week against the Lions he did not throw any touchdown passes. That gives him a .5 average of touchdown passes the last two games. He did not throw any interceptions so he did not hurt his touchdown to interception ratio. He still has 11 touchdowns in 5 games so he is still on pace to throw 35 touchdowns this year. Not like his crazy season last year but still a fantastic season. In their next three games they play the Texans, Broncos and Packers. Not sure about the Texans but the Broncos are playing better and the Packers could be hitting their stride. It will be interesting to see how the Chiefs handle that stretch.
MLB Playoffs
The Yankees took care of the Twins. Everyone knew that this was going to happen. It seems like the Twins have nothing against the Yankees. Surprisingly the Yankees were able to beat the Twins with pitching and defense. This is not something that anyone was expecting. Everyone was saying that this series was going to be a slug fest. The first one to 10 would win the game. That was true for game one. In game three the Yankees were able to play a different game. With the Astros having a little trouble with Tampa it could play into the ALCS. In the National League. Both series are tied 2 – 2. The only one I am surprise with there is that the Dodgers are having trouble with the Nationals. Even with how interesting and exciting the playoffs have been. I am not sure it is enough to bring in more viewers.
NHL Starts Long Haul
The first two weeks of the NHL season really do not mean a whole lot. We could probably extend that out to the first month of the season. A team that is not going to be very good can get off to a quick start. The opposite is also true. A team that is pretty good can get off to a slow start. Really if a team can stay close to .500 till January they will have a good shot at the playoffs. I guess we could even extend the season in the NHL does not mean a whole lot till after the first of the year. We are happy that the NHL is back but will do our season preview in December… 🙂
You can Find Last weeks post here
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