Congratulations to the Toronto Argonauts. Yesterday, they won the 2024 Grey Cup and are the champions of the Canadian Football League. The Argos beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 41-24, but it took a fourth quarter tsunami of points (24 of them to be exact) by the Argos to put the game away. These two teams are the two most frequent participants in Grey Cup games:
- Winnipeg has played for the Grey Cup 29 times and has won the Cup 12 times.
- Toronto has played for the Grey Cup 25 times and has won the Cup 19 times.
The Blue Bombers have played for the Cup the last five times there has been a Grey Cup game going back to 2019. [There was no CFL season in 2020 thanks to COVID.) The Bombers have lost the last three consecutive Grey Cup games but next year the game would be a home game for the Bombers if they make it that far in the playoffs. The 2025 Grey Cup game will happen in Winnipeg on November 16th.
Moving on … Down in Gainesville, FL, Gators’ fans are probably wondering if there is some sort of hex on head coaches there. Billy Napier has been the head football coach at Florida since 2022; the Gators combined record under Napier is 16-19 which cannot sit well with the fanbase that remembers the glory days under Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer. Consider that Napier replaced Dan Mullen whose record at Florida was 35-16 which was deemed to be intolerable. And so, the stomach acid level regarding Napier and his functionality has been high enough to cause sales of Rolaids to spike in Alachua County.
But wait; there’s more. Florida’s head basketball coach, Todd Golden, stands accused of sexual harassment and stalking. He continues to coach the basketball team as the authorities investigate the charges. The school’s student newspaper, The Alligator, reported that “multiple women” have accused Golden of inappropriate behavior and that a female student has alleged that Golden sent her “lewd photographs of himself”. Golden denies the allegations and has said that he is cooperating with the investigation and that he is working with an attorney to consider a defamation lawsuit.
And those two coaching conundrums at Florida come on the heels of the school firing the women’s basketball coach two years ago for verbally abusing his players and “creating a toxic environment”. So, Gator fans might have a reason to wonder what the school has done to deserve all this “outside interference”. Well, perhaps there is a common thread there:
- Unless my construction of a time line is incorrect, the same Athletic Director at Florida hired all three of these coaches.
- Might it be that this individual needs help in selecting coaches for the teams down there?
Switching gears … I suggested last Friday that Aaron Rodgers was a player who had failed to live up to expectations this year. I stand by that suggestion and offer up as evidence the following data I ran across:
- Zach Wilson win percentage as starter for the Jets = .364
- Sam Darnold win percentage as starter for the Jets = .342
- Aaron Rodgers win percentage as starter for the Jets = .273.
The prosecution rests, Your Honor …
Next up … I have often noted here that it is particularly difficult to be the successor to a great coach at the collegiate or the professional level. Nothing short of multiple world championships seems to be sufficient for a fanbase that is used to winning and winning constantly. Such is the case right now at Villanova with head basketball coach Kyle Neptune. He ascended to that job in 2022 when Jay Wright decided that he had done his time in the barrel and resigned from a job that he could have had for the rest of his life. Wright had won two national championships at Villanova and his teams were perennial participants in March Madness.
Over the last two seasons with Neptune in charge, the Wildcats have a combined record of 35-33 with no March Madness participation. Compared to Jay Wright’s record over 21 seasons (520-197), that is enough to make people wonder if Villanova has the “Right Guy” to replace Jay Wright. Moreover, the start of the current men’s basketball season does not auger well for the Wildcats; their current record is 2-3 with the two wins coming at the expense of Lafayette and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (unimpressive) and the three losses were against St. Joseph’s, Columbia and Virginia (also unimpressive).
Let me say this clearly. If the expectation at Villanova is for the team to make it to the Sweet 16 this year, an early season loss to Columbia by double digits is a bad omen.
Finally, an interesting outlook from Whitey Herzog:
“The only way to make money as a manager is to win in one place, get fired and hired somewhere else.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………