Month: August 2025

Notwithstanding the fact that no one on the planet awaited this moment with bated breath, the calendar now says it is time for Football Friday to return to this lonely Internet outpost.  Folks who have been on this journey for a while can put their minds in neutral for a moment while I explain to more recent followers here what is going to happen on most Friday’s from now until Super Bowl Weekend.  Friday’s rants will focus on college and professional football in a relatively structured way.

Each week, I will present a “Betting Bundle” – – usually between 3 and 6 games – – where I think the oddsmakers have the lines wrong.  In addition, I will usually include a Money Line Parlay or two just for fun,  The next week’s version of Football Friday will begin with a review of the outcomes of those imaginary wagers and parlays.

I will track the progress of my previously identified “Sleeper Team” in college football for 2025 – – Georgia Tech – – just because it does not take a huge effort to do so.  Next, I will track the progress of the Linfield University Wildcats football team.  The reason is that Linfield has had a winning record in Division III football every year since 1956.  Interestingly, in that lengthy span of winning seasons, the Wildcats only “squeaked by” with 5-4 records 4 times.  That is mirrored by the fact that Linfield has had 5 undefeated seasons in football during that streak.

With preliminaries out of the way, there will be college football commentary reviewing some games from the previous week and the games on tap for the week at hand.  As the season progresses, there are some imaginary events I like to pretend are real:

• I track the teams in contention for what I call the Brothel Defense Award.  It goes to the team that gives up the most points per game for the season.  It gets its name from the fact that it is easy to score in a brothel.
• At the end of the year, I imagine a tournament to determine on the field of play the worst team in college football; I call it the SHOE Tournament where “SHOE” is an acronym for “Steaming Heap Of Excrement”.  It is a simple 8-team field selected by a Committee of One – – me – – and the rules are straightforward.  As games are played, the loser must play on until there is only one ultimate loser left to make fun of.

After that tomfoolery, there will be NFL commentary, a review of previous games and a look at the games on tap for that weekend.

That summarizes the content.  There will be weeks when there is no Football Friday because some other life event or family involvement will make such an offering impossible.  But I will try to keep those interruptions to a minimum.

•            OK, long-term readers; it’s time to pay attention again …

Obviously, there is no “Betting Bundle” to review from last week since this is the start of a new season nor has Georgia Tech played a game that counts.  As a Division III school, Linfield has a 9-game regular season that will not begin until September 6^th so there is no tracking of progress toward another winning season there for a couple of weeks.  So that brings me to…

 

College Football Commentary:

 

            Two years ago, Northwestern fired head coach, Pat Fitzgerald, when hazing incidents surfaced at the school.  Fitzgerald denied any knowledge of whatever happened and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the school seeking $130M in recompense.  That lawsuit was settled earlier this week; I have not seen a report as to the details of the settlement but there is one report of a statement by Fitzgerald after the fact:

“For the past two years, I have engaged in a process of extensive fact and expert discovery, which showed what I have known and said all along — that I had no knowledge of hazing ever occurring in the Northwestern football program, and that I never directed or encouraged hazing in any way.”

And …

“Through discovery, I learned that some hazing did occur in the football program at Northwestern. I am extremely disappointed that members of the team engaged in this behavior and that no one reported it to me, so that I could have alerted Northwestern’s athletic department and administrators, stopped the inappropriate behavior, and taken every necessary step to protect Northwestern’s student athletes.”

Pat Fitzgerald was a successful coach at Northwestern given that the school played in the Big-10 and is a “disadvantaged conference member”.  In his 17 years at the school, his teams won 10 or more games 3 times, which is spectacular, given the football environment in which that happened.

The NCAA put another coaching behavior matter to rest last week.  The “Michigan sign-stealing scandal” is no more and the NCAA made it clear that they believe that former Michigan coach, Jim Harbaugh, was not an innocent bystander in the matter.  Without going into details, Harbaugh cannot be hired to coach at the Division 1-A level of college football without the school producing a “show cause order” to the NCAA stating how and why such a hiring is necessary.  That “banishment” will be in force until 2039 when Jim Harbaugh will be 76 years old and unlikely to be seeking college football employment.

That punishment is mostly symbolic; what is not symbolic is that Michigan will be fined $20M as part of the punishment.  That will not bankrupt the Athletic Department, but $20M is indeed a lot of cheese.

Last year, the Big-12 had 5 teams that finished with conference records of 7-2.  If you believe the oddsmakers, the Big-12 will be wide open again this year.  In the futures wagering structure for this year, there are six teams with odds between +550 and +800 to win the conference championship – – and get an invite to the CFP.  Those six teams are:

1. Texas Tech (+550)
2. Utah (+550)
3. Arizona State (+600)
4. Kansas State (+600)
5. Baylor (+650)
6. TCU (+800)

The Big-12 may not have the best teams in the country, but the conference is one that needs to be followed just for the potential drama from week to week.

And speaking of the oddsmakers, there is one aspect of college football that I wish would be eliminated.  I refer here to the intentional scheduling of gross mismatches by almost all of the best teams in the country.  I know; there has been progress in recent years; some of the best teams do schedule out-of-conference opponents who are of a similar caliber.  Nevertheless, there are still too many games where the oddsmakers see the outcome as a 5 or even a 7 TD spread.  Those games are not interesting or entertaining.  When a mismatch occurs between two conference members, such a situation cannot be avoided; but the cupcake scheduling out of conference should be an embarrassment to the schools and to the folks who run college football.

Now before anyone starts to think that I am dissing college football as an entertainment vehicle, that is not the case.  However, a game where the halftime score is 45-3 is not entertaining and college football has produced lots of real entertainment so that blowout waste of time stands out like a sore thumb.  You want an example of an entertaining game from the past?

• October 2016 – – Texas Tech versus Oklahoma
• QBs were Patrick Mahomes versus Baker Mayfield
• Sooners won 66-59 with no overtimes
• Mayfield was 27 of 36 for 545 yards and 7 TDs with 0 INTs
• Mahomes was 52 of 88 for 734 yards and 5 TDs with 1 INT
• Total Offense in the game was 1708 yards – tackling was optional that day.

In the past, Penn State was called “Linebacker U” with justification.  It turned out some outstanding linebackers for the NFL.  Under the radar however is the fact that Penn State could also be labeled “Running Back U” – – and I don’t just mean Saquon Barkley.  Consider:

• KiJana Carter – – Overall #1 pick in the Draft but blew out a knee
• Franco Harris – – Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Larry Johnson – – Gained more than 1700 yards in one season
• Lenny Moore – – Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Miles Sanders – – Lead RB on a Super Bowl team

I seriously think that the current lead back at Penn State – – Nick Singleton – – could join that list; he is that good.

 

NCAA Games This Week:  Since there are only 5 games this week involving Division 1-AA teams, I will treat all of them as “Games of Interest”:

 

Iowa St. vs Kansas St. – 3 (50.5): Game is played in Dublin, Ireland.  That’s right; the first game out of the gate is a matchup in the highly unpredictable Big-12.The rivalry between these two rural schools is known as “Farmageddon” and the line opened at 3.5 points.  It then jumped briefly to 4 points and then scooted down to the current 3-point level.  I cannot pretend to know enough about these two teams to make a “Betting Bundle” selection, but I do notice that K-State is returning more starters on offense than I-State – – if that means anything to anybody.

Sam Houston St. at W. Kentucky – 10.5 (61):  This is a conference game between two teams that had winning records overall in 2024.  Sam Houston St was 10-3 overall and 4-1 in conference while W. Kentucky was 8-6 overall and 5-1 in conference.  Could be a good game to watch …

Fresno St. at Kansas – 12.5 (51):  This line has jumped all over the place.  It opened at 14.5 points; it went up to 15.5 points for a while and then started dropping like a rock.  It is at this level this morning, but momentum seems to be clearly with Fresno St. for the moment.

Stanford at Hawaii – 2.5 (50):  Stanford started out as a 2.5-point favorite and now Hawaii is the 2.5-point favorite.  I think Stanford is going to have a “difficult season” in 2025; Andrew Luck is their football GM and not their QB; were he their QB, they might be CFP contenders.  It is not easy for teams from the Lower-48 to schlep to Hawaii for a game; last year Hawaii was 4-3 at home and no one thought of Hawaii as a powerhouse.

Idaho St. at UNLV – 24.5 (64.5):  With Boise St. defecting from the Mountain West Conference, it looks as if UNLV could step in as the conference bully.  Idaho St. is a Division 1-AA team from the Big Sky Conference who finished 5-7 in 2024.

It is far too early in the season to make “Betting Bundle” picks but just to get things started here is a Money Line Parlay for this week:

• K-State @ minus-155
• Hawaii @ minus-130   $100 wager wins $191.07

 

NFL Commentary:

 

I am still working on NFL things like season predictions and coaches on hot seats and things of that ilk which will appear throughout next week – – and will be subject to post-mortem reviews next January/February.  However, there were a couple of news items from this week that deserve attention.

The Colts announced that Daniel Jones would be their starting QB – – not just for Week 1 but for the 2025 regular season.  The immediate reaction to that news from Colts’ head coach, Shane Steichen, was that Jones had won the QB competition in Training Camp with Anthony Richardson.  And indeed, that may be the case.  But I think it is interesting to take stock of those two QBs:

• Neither player has been anything more than “barely adequate” for all their time in the NFL.
• I think Anthony Richardson has the higher ceiling because he is an athletic freak.
• I think Daniel Jones has the higher floor because Richardson has a propensity to go into brain-lock and make disastrously bad plays
• If my analysis above is even close to correct, the real interpretation is that Shane Steichen did not have much of a choice to begin with.

The Colts enjoyed a long period of QB stability.  Peyton Manning played there for a long time, and he was succeeded by Andrew Luck.  However, Luck retired after 2018 and here are the Colts’ starting QBs since then:

• 2019 – – Jacoby Brisset (15 games)  Bryan Hoyer (1)
• 2020 – – Philip Rivers
• 2021 – – Carson Wentz
• 2022 – – Matt Ryan (12 games) Sam Ehlinger (3) Nick Foles (2)
• 2023 – – Gardner Minshew (13 games) Anthony Richardson (4)
• 2024 – – Anthony Richardson (11 games) Joe Flacco (6)
• 2025 – – The eighth straight year with a different starting QB in Week 1.

One good thing going for Daniel Jones as the Colts’ starter is that rookie tight end, Tyler Warren, should provide him with a security blanket as an outlet receiver and as a pass blocker.

There is a completely different vibe surrounding the Giants’ QB situation.  Russell Wilson has been named as the Game 1 starter but the fanbase there has put itself into a state of orgasmic delight with rookie Jaxson Dart.  His play in the preseason games has given Giant’s fans hope they have not had for a while now; the last time the Giants won the NFC East Division was in 2011.

• [Aside:  Let me pat myself on the back here for a moment.  Back in April as we approached the NFL Draft, I said this about Jaxson Dart, “Frankly, he might be the best pro QB from this year’s crop.”  Giants’ fans hope I am correct.]

Frankly, the entirety of the Giants’ QB situation in 2025 looks significantly better than it did last year.  Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston and Jaxson Dart are a more positive troika than last year’s ensemble of Daniel Jones, Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito.

Browns’ head coach, Kevin Stefanski, announced the resolution of part of the Browns’ QB “situation” this week.  Joe Flacco – – at age 40 – – will start the season under center.  In this week’s Exhibition Game against the Rams, Flacco will start and then be followed by Dillon Gabriel who will then give way to Shedeur Sanders.  That could mean that Kenny Pickett is the odd-man-out in Cleveland – – or it might mean that Pickett is going to be retained, and this game is to determine if Gabriel or Sanders is the rookie to hang onto a roster slot.  This one seems to remain up in the air.

I find it stunning that two of the best pass rushers in the NFL remain unsigned at this date AND that one of them – Trey Hendrickson – is being mentioned as a trade candidate by the Bengals.  The other player in a similar situation is Micah Parsons but there are extenuating circumstances in Dallas that tend to explain his situation.  Jerry Jones notoriously stretches out signing his star players and that has been the case ever since Emmitt Smith and through the years with the likes of Dez Bryant and Dak Prescott.  But Hendrickson has no such atmosphere about him; he is simply dealing with an organization that tosses nickels around like manhole covers.  The Bengals have a top shelf offense and a next-to-dysfunctional defense.  Hendrickson is the best player on that defense, which can hardly stand to get any worse if the Bengals hope to reap benefits from the offense they have assembled.  Yes, it takes the ability to score points to win football games.  It also helps a lot if you can stop the other guys from scoring once in a while.

The coaching roster in the AFC West is a formidable lineup; I cannot recall anything as imposing.  Consider:

• Broncos – – Sean Payton – – He has been to the Super Bowl as a coordinator and he has won a Super Bowl as a head coach.
• Chargers – – Jim Harbaugh – – He has been to the Super Bowl as a head coach and has won a collegiate National Championship via the CFP.
• Chiefs – – Andy Reid – – He has been to the Super Bowl 5 times and has won the Super Bowl 3 times.
• Raiders – – Pete Carroll – – He won a Super Bowl as a head coach and he won 2 Associated Press collegiate national championships.

The closest I can come to such a lineup would be the NFC East back in the 1980s when the coaches were Tom Landry (Cowboys), Bill Parcells (Giants) and Joe Gibbs (Skins), all of whom are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Just to review, there is a Money Line Parlay inserted above:

• K-State @ minus-155
• Hawaii @ minus-130   $100 wager wins $191.07

Finally, these words from Tom Landry:

“Confidence comes from knowing what you’re doing. If you are prepared for something, you usually do it. If not, you usually fall flat on your face.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Late last evening, I was gathering information about college football to use tomorrow for the inaugural Football Friday for the season.  And then, I went down a rabbit hole for about two hours chasing stuff that is not sufficiently material to be called “ghosts”.  Let me use this morning to take you on this journey into phantasmagoria…

It all began when I ran across the fact that UMass will be part of the MAC this year.  I guess I should have known that – – but I did not – – and the news struck me in a curmudgeonly way.  I often make fun of MAC football, particularly those televised games in late October/early November on Tuesday nights when one can count the house on TV because no one is there.  Added to that sort of scorn is the fact that some teams in the MAC recently have been “less than fully competent” on the field.  Kent State last year was the only winless team in Division 1-AA and they won the Brothel Defense Award for 2024.

I figured that UMass would fit right into the MAC.  In fact, UMass is a two-time winner of the Brothel Defense Award back in 2021 and then again in 2023.  I was contemplating a competition between UMass and Kent State in a “race to the bottom” and immediately found that UMass will visit Kent State on October 11^th.  It was at this point that a thought entered my mind:

• The MAC is where high school football aspirations go to die.

I quickly realized that it was way too harsh.  I know that Ben Roethlisberger played for Miami (Ohio) and went on to recognize his football aspirations.  I also know that Jason Whitlock played for Ball State and even though Whitlock never made it to the NFL, he has been hugely successful as a sportswriter and TV commentator.  That is when the rabbit hole appeared, and I saw a white rabbit scurry into the hole with me in hot pursuit:

• Has the MAC produced solid NFL players?

The short answer is, “Yes”.  However, the way I got to the point where I could say something so terse took about two hours of Googling.  From that search, I am confident that Ben Roethlisberger is the best QB to have emerged from the MAC, but I was surprised to find as many pass catchers of note who were MAC alums:

• Antonio Brown (Central Michigan)
• Julian Edelman (Kent State)
• Antonio Gates (Kent State)  HoF
• Randy Moss (Marshall)  HoF

I only found one running back who ”made it” in the NFL out of the MAC.  Michael Turner (Northern Illinois) played nine years in the NFL and was invited to the Pro Bowl twice and made the All-Pro team once.

That is not a long list of offensive “producers” coming out of the MAC and the reason for that seems to me to be that there have been some outstanding defensive players from those schools.  Just consider these four linebackers who are MAC products:

• James Harrison (Kent State)
• Jack Lambert (Kent State)  HoF
• Khalil Mack (Buffalo)
• Jason Taylor (Akron)

Two defensive linemen you have heard from and about who played in the MAC were:

• Maxx Crosby (Eastern Michigan)
• Bob Rowe (Western Michigan)

It is too early to know if Quinyon Mitchell (Toledo) belongs to a compendium such as this, but he certainly had a highly competent rookie season for the Eagles in 2024.  Clearly my idea that the MAC is a graveyard for high school football aspirations was overblown – -but I could not stop there and get on with what I started out to do.  No, I then wondered:

• Has UMass sent any talent ahead to the NFL that is comparable to other MAC schools?

From my set of Google inquiries, the short answer to that is, “No”.  Here is what I found to be the notable UMass contributions to professional football:

• Victor Cruz – – WR
• Vlad Ducasse – – OL
• Greg Landry – – QB

Looks to me as if UMass will need to step up its game to keep pace with its new conference compatriots …

I hope this journey into chasing ghosts has been entertaining – and sufficiently scary – such that you do not allow yourselves to get sucked into similar vortices in the future.

Finally, the only way to close out today’s rant is to hear from Lewis Carroll:

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

And …

“That’s the reason they’re called lessons, because they lesson from day to day.”

And …

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

On Opening Day for the MLB 2025 regular season, the Milwaukee Brewers had the eighth lowest expenditure on player salaries in the game.  According to USA Today back in April 2025, the Brewers payroll was $115,136,277.  Let me ignore that level of specificity and say the payroll was $115M.  Here is perspective on that figure:

• Five MLB teams – – Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Blue Jays – – had Opening Day payrolls MORE THAN TWICE AS MUCH as the Brewers did.
• The Brewers’ payroll was $5.5M LESS THAN the Colorado Rockies’ payroll.
• Five of the seven teams with payrolls less than the Brewers’ payroll – – Marlins, A’s, Rays, White Sox, Pirates – – are notorious for keeping player costs well below league average.

And yet, as of this morning, the Milwaukee Brewers sport the best record in MLB by a comfortable margin.  The Brewers are 79-45; that is 7 games better than the Blue Jays who hold the second best record as of this morning.  On Sunday night, the Brewers had a 14-game winning streak broken by the Reds; that was the second double-digit winning streak by the Brewers for this season.

Can the Brewers keep this up – – or have they “peaked too soon”?  As of today, the Brewers project to win 101 games in 2025; no other National League team projects to win as many as 95 games which means the Brewers may be able to coast into the playoffs rested and refreshed.  That may or not turn out to be a benefit, but I think this year’s “plucky underdog” has been identified.

Moving on …  The Washington Nationals are not presently considered one of MLB/s chronic “low-payroll teams”, but they should get more scrutiny in that department.  The Nats have had some great young talent that they either lost to free agency, or they traded away to avoid having to compete for their services in free agency.  Here is an alphabetical list:

• Bryce Harper
• Anthony Rendon
• Juan Soto
• Trea Turner

When the Nats traded Soto to the Padres, the Nats received an excellent haul of young players who are respectable MLB participants in their early 20s.  CJ Abrams and James Wood will be in MLB for the next decade at least and MacKenzie Gore is reportedly considered a “top-of-the-rotation starter” at the age of 26.  Gore’s contract situation is an interesting one given the Nats’ history of keeping salaries in check.

For 2025, Gore is being paid $2.89M on a one-year deal; that contract was reached as a way to avoid salary arbitration in the last offseason.  Gore faces two more years of potential salary arbitration with the Nats in control, but a pitcher identified as a “top-of-the-rotation starter” is going to be able to point to comparables elsewhere in MLB well in excess of $2.89M.  Just so you know, Gore’s agent is Scott Boras just in case you thought the agent here might be a rookie who could miss such comparisons(s).

There was some rumbling around the trade deadline that the Nats might listen to offers for MacKenzie Gore rather than face off with Boras twice in arbitration and then ultimately in free agency discussions.  Nats’ owners chose to fire their manager and GM in that timeframe and the interim GM held onto Gore as an important asset for the team.  I probably would have done the same were I in that situation; MacKenzie Gore was too young to give up on a month ago; remember, he pitched in the All-Star Game in mid-July of this year.

However, since that All-Star Game appearance, things have not gone well for either the Nats or MacKenzie Gore.  Since the all-Star Game:

• Gore has started 6 times.  His record is 1-4 in those games
• His ERA in those 6 games is north of 8.00.
• In 27.2 innings, he has walked 15 batters and given up 36 hits – – WHIP = 1.85

I will be surprised if the negotiations leading up to and potentially through arbitration in this offseason for MacKenzie Gore do not generate a tad of animosity and I will be very interested to see what sort of contract Gore plays under in 2026 – – because to a large extent, that contract will impact the 2027 contract which is the final year of salary arbitration with the Nats.

Finally, this from P. J. O’Rourke:

“I live in New Hampshire. We’re in favor of global warming. Eleven hundred more feet of sea-level rises? I’ve got beachfront property. You tell us up there, ‘By the end of the century, New York City could be underwater,’ and we say, ‘Your point is?’”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Over the weekend, the English Premier League began its 2025/26 season with ten matches.  At least one of the sides promoted from the Championship won its first game of this season; Sunderland beat West Ham by a score of 3-0.  Sunderland may not remain in this company, but for the moment they are lumped in with Manchester City, Tottenham, Liverpool and Arsenal; that is heady space for the Sunderland Black Cats.

The folks in the UK take their futbol more seriously than Americans take NFL football or college football.  A former manager of the Manchester United squad – – Alex Ferguson – – became Sir Alex Ferguson when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in1999.  I wondered if that ceremony was solely for his futbol achievements or perhaps if there was some other societal contribution that he had made to his country.  Please do not consider my “research” into that question as extensive or authoritative, but the best I can come up with is that he was knighted for a “treble-winning season” in futbol.  His Manchester United team:

• Won the EPL title – – and – –
• Won the FA Cup – – and – –
• Won the UEFA Champions League – – all in one season.

Ferguson’s time at Manchester United started in 1986 and lasted until 2013.  In that time his teams won the EPL 13 times, and they won the UEFA crown twice.  People said he was a “visionary” in the world of futbol and that he would be a hard act to follow.  I have no idea about his credentials as a “visionary” but since Sir Alex retired in 2013, Manchester United has had 10 managers – – counting those identified as “interims” or “caretakers”.  The longest tenured manager since Ferguson lasted 35 months in the job.  Maybe knighthood was more than well deserved …

Moving on …  The NCAA concluded its investigation into the “Michigan sign-stealing matter” and chose to penalize the school and some coaches for  the infractions.  The NCAA rolled in some recruiting violations as well and handed down a series of penalties for the school and individuals:

• Michigan football will be on probation for four years
• Michigan athletics pay a series of fines and cannot earn post-season revenue for two years.  This agglomeration of financial penalties is estimated to come to $20M.
• There will be some limitations on football recruitment for the next year.
• Jim Harbaugh has an ongoing 4-year “show cause order” which means it would be very difficult for him to get a major college coaching job in that time.  For his lack of cooperation in this investigation, he got another 10 years tacked onto that existing ban meaning he would not be easily hired in college football until 2039.
• Sherone Moore (current Michigan coach) will be suspended for 3 games in this upcoming season.
• Connor Stalions – – the architect of the sign-stealing enterprise – – has an “8-year show cause order” attached to him.

I think the NCAA got this one “more right than wrong” – – and that is not usually what I think about NCAA penalties for rule-breakers.  Please note, there are no “vacated wins” or “any pretense that specific games never happened”.  There is plenty of evidence as to what happened when Michigan took the field and won the CFP under Jim Harbaugh.  Pretending that some other team actually won those games would have been an explicit admission by the NCAA that it was not in a position to hand out any punishment(s).

The NCAA may now realize – – even if they would choose not to admit it publicly – – that college football is simply professional football played by teams that represent colleges or universities instead of cities.  The NCAA hit Michigan where it will hurt for a while –  – in the pocketbook.  Forfeiting $20M in revenue over a couple of years is not nearly a “death penalty”, but it will not be something the Michigan Athletic Department can just laugh at behind closed doors.  These penalties are not symbolic; these penalties are real.

Switching gears …  The flurry of lime-green dildos arriving on the courts during WNBA games seems to have petered out – – sorry, could not resist.  However, I think that if another one should make an appearance in a WNBA venue, we should give the offending member a taxonomic name.  Let me suggest:

• Phallus Felonious.

Finally, it seems proper to close today with this from Sir Alex Ferguson:

“Sometimes you’re not sure about a player. Sometimes you doubt. Sometimes you have to guess. Sometimes… you just know.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

The NFL is clearly the top dog when it comes to pro sports enterprises in the US, but the NFL has suffered a pair of losses in courtrooms this week demonstrating that it is not nearly invincible.  Since the following will deal with legal matters, I need to offer the standard disclaimer; I am not an attorney and my comments here are not to be taken as authoritative in any sense of the word.

Jon Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL several years ago claiming that the leaking of some of his emails with an NFL employee led to his being fired by the Las Vegas Raiders as their head coach.  The NFL contends that such a dispute would be handled by the NFL’s closed arbitration process; Gruden wants it out in open court.  The league had a ruling in its favor until this week when the Nevada Supreme Court heard the case en banc and ruled 5-2 that the case would not be heard in the NFL’s arbitration process but that it could proceed in open court.  Even more interesting to me is the statement by the Court in its ruling that the NFL’s arbitration process is “unconscionable”; that statement cannot be welcome along Mahogany Row at NFL HQs.

I have been in favor of hearing this case in court since the filing because there are potentially some salacious details that could be exposed in such a proceeding.  The NFL said it would appeal this ruling to the US Supreme Court and that leads to my uninformed misunderstandings on the matter:

• Many cases that are heard by the US Supreme Court deal with issues of constitutionality.  I cannot point to a part of the US Constitution that favors arbitration over a trial in disputes involving a pro football league.
• Many  cases that are heard by the US Supreme Court deal with issues of Federal Law and adherence with Federal Law.  Once again, I cannot think of a Federal Law that may have been violated by the ruling in Nevada that will be appealed.

If the US Supreme Court refuses to take the Gruden case or if the ruling there goes against the NFL, the league would face a choice.  It could reach a settlement with Jon Gruden, or it can go through a public trial – – with disclosure circumstances.  At least for now, Gruden seems not to be particularly interested in a settlement.  Earlier this week after winning in the Nevada court, he said:

“I’m looking forward to having the truth come out, and I want to make sure what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

That does not sound like someone looking for a payday settlement.  In fact, Gruden also said this week that he would really like to get back into coaching at the collegiate level.  Speaking to the Georgia team – presumably at the invitation of Georgia coach, Kirby Smart – Gruden said he very much wanted to get back to coaching and would love to do so in the SEC.  There are chapters yet unwritten in this matter …

The other setback for the NFL is in a similar vein.  Brian Flores and co-plaintiffs have sued the NFL and three individual teams claiming racial discrimination in hiring.  Again, the NFL claimed that this had to be adjudicated in its arbitration format; this week, a US Court of Appeals ruled that at least some of the claims made by the plaintiffs should move forward in the court system.  That ruling by the Court of Appeals confirmed a ruling by a US District Judge about 2 years ago regarding the venue for settling this dispute.

Once again, the league must not be happy with commentary contained in the ruling of the court:

• The Court said that the NFL’s constitution which sets up the arbitration process “contractually provides for no independent arbitral forum, no bilateral dispute resolution, and no procedure.”

And …

• “ … it [the NFL’s arbitration process] offends basic presumptions of our arbitration jurisprudence” because the final decision is to be made by the NFL’s “principal executive officer.”

Here is my takeaway from the above.  If this ruling is affirmed – or allowed to stand – by whatever appeal the NFL makes wherever it makes it, the entire legal foundation for the NFL’s arbitration process is called into question for just about any future confrontation.  Once again, I doubt that anyone was popping champagne corks along Mahogany Row at NFL HQs when this news arrived.

Moving on …  About a month ago, MLB Commish, Rob Manfred, said that he thought the Minnesota Twins would be sold and that the deal would close sometime later this season.  I and some other commentators thought that the Twins’ housecleaning at the trade deadline – – trading away 10 players from their 26-man roster – – was a way to clear the books for the new owner(s).  Not so …

Yesterday, the current owners of the Twins – – the Pohlad family – – announced that they would take on two limited partners but that the Pohlad family would retain control of the Twins’ franchise.  As of yesterday, the two new limited partners were not identified and as of yesterday there is a segment of the Twins’ fanbase that is not happy.  Some have suggested boycotting the team and that would not be good news for the Pohlad family or the new limited partners.

• Twins rank 23^rd in home attendance in 2025 – – 22,721 fans per game
• MLB average attendance in 2025 is 29,301 fans per game

Finally, here is some food for thought from Mark Twain:

“God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports ………

 

 

Last week I wrote that the Colorado Rockies – – despite their horrific record in 2025 – – were drawing above the league average in attendance.  What I said there was:

“I don’t know what sort of marketing magic the Rockies have conjured up, but despite the despicable record by the Rockies, they draw more than the average attendance for all of MLB which is 29,200 fans per game. “

Well, I received a missive from “the reader in Houston” with more than a dozen “bullet points” that contribute to those attendance figures including:

“They are the only MLB team around for almost 1,000 miles with maybe one or two exceptions like KC or Phoenix, so people come from all over the area, including states like Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming; western Kansas, New Mexico.”

“The ballpark is in a very good location with pretty good weather once May comes around.”

“The ballpark has the best background sky in baseball.”

“It’s a hitter’s ballpark often with homers galore and chicks dig the long ball.”

“Denver is a great sports town period (try getting hockey or basketball tickets).”

“You might come up with more reasons, but the bottom line is no matter how lousy a team is, if it’s easy to get to a stadium in a great location and the price is right, why not?”

In addition, he passed along some historical data that I was unaware of:

“The Rox still have the MLB regular season attendance record of 4,483,350 (Bears Stadium sat over 70,000), which was established during their initial season in 1993, which will probably stand for a long time because most stadiums today, even if full every game with the exception of Dodger Stadium (56,000) could not hit the Rox record attendance.”  [Aside:  Did not recall the 1993 stats.]

“The franchise has broken almost every attendance record except for consecutive sellouts. Even when they stink, they were still in the Top 10 most years in attendance average, though in recent years their attendance due to losing records and no big-name stars has trended down into the middle of the pack.”

“The Rox do have relatively poor TV ratings because of their recent losing ways, and though Coors is a great ballpark, there is nothing really magical about it.”

And now you know … thanks to “the reader in Houston”.

So let me stay with the Rockies for one more item today.  Last weekend the Rockies and D-Backs had a game that ended with the Rockies on the short end of a 13-6 score.  The game was in Arizona, so those loyal Colorado fans were not able to see this one in person.  As the D-Backs came to bat in the bottom of the fifth inning, the score was tied at 3-3.  The first two Arizona batters produced routine outs.  Paraphrasing King Louis XV of France:

“Après cela, le deluge …”

The next nine batters for the D-Backs hit safely.  There were no errors or walks or catcher’s interference instances tossed into that stretch; nine straight batters hit safely.  Those nine hits produced eight runs leading to the D-Backs comfortable margin of victory.  Another stat from that game also explains that margin of victory; the D-Backs were far more efficient with their hitting on that day:

• D-Backs scored 13 runs on 17 hits.
• Rockies scored 6 runs on 16 hits.

Quick update here.  The Rockies’ record this morning is 32-88 which projects to a final record of 43-119 giving them a “2-game lead” in the projection over last year’s woeful White Sox.  The Rockies’ run differential is a staggering minus-326 and they could surpass the MLB record from 1932 of minus-349 for a season.

Moving on …  I was sports grazing recently and ran across a Cards/Cubs game in St. Louis; that alone was enough to get me to put down the remote and hang around for a while.  In addition to things happening on the field, what I noticed was the large number of empty seats in the stands in St. Louis AND the significant fraction of the people in attendance wearing “Cubs’ Blue” and not “Cardinals’ Red”.   I made a note to try to explain this “aberration” as I labeled it.

Well, maybe it isn’t that much of an aberration after all.  I have in my mind that Busch Stadium is filled to overflowing with people wearing red-and-white whenever the Cardinals take the field.  The Cardinals were always at or near the top in home attendance and usually had the stadium at capacity whenever a big game or the rival Cubbies were on display.  Not so in 2025 …

• The Cards average BELOW the MLB average home attendance in 2025
• The Cards average about 2500 fans BELOW the Rockies in 2025.
• In the NL, only the Reds, Nats, Pirates and Marlins draw fewer home fans in 2025.

The Cards have been in the playoffs in six of the last eleven seasons but have tended to make early exits once there.  They won 100 games in 2015 but have only gone north of 90 wins twice since then.  Back in “the teens”, the Cards home attendance was always more than 40,000 fans per game peaking at 43,712 per game in 2014.  In 2025, home attendance is averaging only 28,767 which is a drop of 34.2% from that peak.  Even more telling than those raw comparisons, is a peek at the secondary market for tickets to Cards’ upcoming games.  What used to be a hot ticket – – something scalpers sold around the parking lots for three figures – – can now be had for as little as $25 on StubHub.

The 2025 Cards are 61-61 this morning, which is hardly an electrifying record, but the Cards are only 4 games behind in the race for the final Wild Card slot in the NL playoffs; these are not the woebegone Rockies even if this is a “disappointing season” for Cards’ fans.  I have not been to the Cards’ park in person in decades, so I have no way to assess the “fan experience” at Busch Stadium, but I have difficulty accepting that it was a positive experience as recently as 2023 when the Cards averaged 40,013 fans per game and now in 2025 it is as pleasant as a root canal.

Finally, since today has been about baseball – – at least tangentially – – I’ll finish with this from Jim Bouton:

“Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

A week or so ago, there was an article in the NY Times that made this argument:

• MLB should never have a salary cap, and the union should never allow it because it would denigrate the legacy of Curt Flood.

Nevertheless, I plan to suggest here that the upcoming CBA negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA should consider a new structure that includes a salary cap.  I do not think that denigrates the legacy of Curt Flood; the fact that his refusal to be traded away as a piece of chattel property led directly and exclusively to the free agency that exists in all major US sports cannot be changed.  No one else can ever claim that central position on the current status quo.  And just as baseball specifically – – and pro sports in the US more broadly – – needed to evolve from the model that existed in the 1960s and 1970s, so too can there be room for evolution from the current MLB model.

In terms of a financially successful sporting entity in the US, one needs to look no further than the NFL.  It has a salary cap; owners make a ton of money and players earn a ton of money.  The reason those statements are both true is that the NFL earns 2 tons of money and it is shared.  One could also use the NBA as an example of a sports entity where a salary cap exists and both owners and players reap benefits.  So, what sort of model might make sense for MLB and why?

Every NFL fan knows about “the cap” and “cap room” and the ceiling on player salaries that exists for every team.  What many do not know is that the NFL’s CBA also includes a “salary floor”.  It is an amount of money that every team MUST spend on player salaries, and it is there to prevent a team owner from taking the shared revenue money and pocketing most of it.  The salary floor is also a way to add to the competitive balance of the league and competitive balance is usually a positive contributor to total revenue.

The NFL’s salary floor is not a fixed number as is “the cap”.  For reasons that I cannot explain, the negotiators arrived at a formula for figuring out the teams’ salary floors:

• Every team must spend at least 89% of the seasonal salary caps on player salaries over a four-year rolling period.
• For the NFL’s fiscal  years 2020 – 2024, the total salary cap was $870.9M so the salary floor for those four years had to be in excess of $775.1M for each team.
• The NFLPA gets to audit the books regarding salaries and if a team were to fall short of spending for the floor, it must make up the difference in cash to the union who then distributes the money to players who were on the team roster during the years of the “under-spending”.

It may not be exactly accurate for every team; but for the most part, NFL teams have to pay the players on their rosters in 2025 less than a total of $279.2M and more than $$248.5M.  That is a very narrow window as compared to the disparity of player salary expenditures by MLB teams according to these figures for salaries committed to players on the 26-man rosters at Spotrac.com:

• Mets – – $298.0M
• Phillies – – $248.7M
• Dodgers – – $245.5M
• versus
• Nats – – $37.9M
• Marlins – – $36.7M
• A’s – – $31.4M

A salary cap and a salary floor would probably benefit MLB as an enterprise – – providing that the owners do as NFL owners do and share a significant chunk of total league revenue – – and a greater number of players will benefit as well because lots of “low-spending” teams will need to open up their wallets significantly.

The MLB average salary expenditure for the 26-man rosters at the moment is $115.0M  thirteen of the thirty MLB teams are above that average and seventeen teams are below it.  If as a starting point, one says that the average salary cost per team should not go up or down, and that there would need to be a 10-15% gap between the cap number and the floor number, that would mean the putative 2025 figure would be:

• Cap is approximately $121.9M
• Floor is approximately $108.1M

With the floor as stated above, fifteen teams – – half of MLB – – would need to increase their expenditure on player salaries.  Obviously, that sort of team disruption cannot be condoned meaning that there would have to be a ramping up period to achieve better salary equity across the league.  [Aside:  By the way, some of the more penurious owners may not want to spend in such a narrow window and might choose to sell their franchise to the delight of their fans.  Just saying …]

I do not think this sort of contemplation tarnishes Curt Flood’s legacy, nor does it do anything to negate his confrontation of baseball and its “reserve clause”.  To the contrary, what he did was to set in motion the change that happened to MLB in the 1970s which generated the economic conditions that exist today which can be optimized once again.  Thomas Edison invented the light bulb; the fact that we use LED bulbs today does not change that fact nor does it demean Edison and his work.

Finally, these words from Curt Flood succinctly summarize the basis of his fight with MLB:

“I’m a human being I’m not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

With the College Football Preview for 2025 in the rear-view mirror, I spent some time yesterday thinking synoptically about things I will want to write about regarding the upcoming NFL season.  There is a rather consistent correlation in pro football:

• The “better teams” tend to have “better than average QBs”.

It can be very challenging to figure out if an “average QB” is going to have a career year upcoming which might translate into a surprisingly good year for the team.  Recall that Jeff Hostetler, Mark Rypien, Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson have all been the starting QB on a Super Bowl Champion squad.  All the above is intended to explain how my mind was processing info yesterday afternoon.

• Barring injury, I need not worry about teams like the Bills, Chargers, Chiefs, Commanders, Eagles, Ravens etc. getting positive play from their QBs.
• Barring a miracle, which teams are going to do poorly in 2025 simply because their QBs will be outplayed by most of their opponents?  That is an important question and one that is not easily answered.

As I thought about those teams with problematic QB situations, I came to separate them into two categories – – Potential Trouble and Almost Assuredly Trouble.  I’ll start with Potential Trouble:

• Colts:  Both Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson have shown flashes of ability to date; both have also shown that those flashes are separated by periods of malaise such that neither has been able to establish himself as a solid #1 QB in the league.  Can one of them emerge this year as “the man”?  If neither shows up in that mode, there is no reason to expect help further down on the depth chart from Riley Leonard and/or Jason Bean.
• Jets:  Justin Fields is in the spotlight here.  The Jets will rise and fall with his production.  Behind him are Tyrod Taylor, Adrian Martinez and Brady Cook.
• Seahawks:  Sam Darnold had a wonderful year in 2024; that was the first and only year he was anything better than “merely satisfactory” at QB.  Was that an indication that he has “figured it out” or was that a “one-off aberration”?  Behind Darnold on the depth chart are Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe.
• Titans:  They were a question mark even before Will Levis needed season-ending shoulder surgery.  They have the overall #1 pick from last year’s Draft which will create a tsunami of hope for Titans’ fans.  Sometimes that first pick turns out to be a Joe Burrow or an Andrew Luck or an Eli Manning and all is well in the neighborhood.  And sometimes, that first pick turns out to be a JaMarcus Russell, a Sam Bradford or a Jameis Winston.  The jury is out …
• Vikings:  JJ McCarthy has never taken a snap in a real NFL game.  Behind him are Brett Rypien and Max Brosmer.  The Vikes think McCarthy is the real deal; but if he is not …

            The five teams with Potential Trouble at QB for 2025 are also teams that can be surprisingly positive in the upcoming year.  The next category – – the Almost Assuredly Trouble teams – – ought to be in the mode of battening down the hatches and hunkering down for the next 20 weeks or so.

• Browns:  There is a saying in the NFL: if you have two QBs,  you don’t have a QB.  Well, the Browns currently have SIX QBs on their roster, and they may be hard pressed to find a bona fide starter in that mix.  Forget about Deshaun Watson, he is on IR and is rehabbing an Achillies tendon injury.  Maybe he can be physically available late in the season and maybe not.  The other five QBs on the roster – – in alphabetical order because no other ordering makes sense to me – – are:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Joe Flacco:  He was a Super Bowl MVP – – in 2012.  He is 40 years old.  Flacco will not be an embarrassment on the field; he is too savvy for that.  At the same time, his best years are in the past.
            2. Dillon Gabriel:  A rookie from Oregon.  I did not see him as a top-notch QB in last year’s draft – – but what do I know?
            3. Tyler Huntley:  He has been a competent backup QB in the league but has never made me think he was a “starter in waiting”.
            4. Kenny Pickett:  The Browns will be his third team in three seasons.
            5. Shedeur Sanders:  I did not think he was the top QB in last year’s Draft, but I would start him if I were the Browns simply because he seems to me to have the potential to be better than any of the other QBs on this list for 2025 and beyond.  Put him out there and see if he can produce …

• Saints:  This situation looks to me to be a certified hot mess.  When Derek Carr retired due to a shoulder injury sustained last season, the Saints had no real answer as to who was the “next man up”.  Jake Haener and Spencer Rattler took turns under center, and neither was impressive to be as polite as possible.  The Saints took Tyler Shough in the second round of the Draft; Shough may emerge as the starter there but there are warning signs galore around his candidacy for the job:
  • • He is a rookie AND he is 25 years old.
    • He played at 3 different schools over a 7-year period from 2018-2024.
    • He has an “injury history” in his college career – – collarbone, shoulder and ankle.
• The fourth QB on the depth chart for the Saints is Hunter Dekkers – – an undrafted free agent out of Iowa State and Iowa Western.  The Bible says that the Lord will separate the wheat from the chaff in the final days.  In the NFL, Training Camp is supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.  I fear that the Saints’ QB situation is all chaff…

Finally, hear this from legendary NFL coach, Don Shula:

“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

College football opens its season in less than two weeks.  On Saturday, August 23^rd at Noon Eastern Time, Iowa State and Kansas State will play in Dublin, Ireland; that will be the first of approximately 700 Division 1-AA football games for the 2025 season.  This game is a particularly attractive one for a season-opener.

• It is a conference game.
• Both teams appear to be contenders in the Big-12 this season.
• Both teams are ranked in the Pre-season Top 25 coaches’ poll.
• There is a “rivalry element” at work here; the match-up is known as “Farmageddon”.

The proximity of that kickoff suggests that it is time for my annual College Football Pre-Season Analysis.  Unlike the NFL Pre-Season offering here, this will be a one-off rant with far less specificity than for the pros.  Before getting into the substance here, let me make a few things clear:

• There are more than 130 Division 1-AA schools that play football.
• I cannot pretend to have anything specific to say about most of them; so, I won’t even try.
• In fact, I cannot confidently name all the teams in some of the minor conferences like C-USA.
• Ergo, much of what is here will be like an overview.

I’ll begin with an alphabetical list of some coaches who could find themselves on a hot seat this year:

1. Luke Fickell – Wisconsin:  The Badgers had been to a bowl game every year from 2002 until 2023.  Last year Wisconsin was 4-7.  They have a tough schedule this year – – see below, it may be the toughest in the conference – – but fans are not going to be happy with another 4-win season…
2. Hugh Freeze – Auburn:  He has been at Auburn for two years with a record of 11-14.  His predecessor there – Bryan Harsin – was there for two years and posted a record of 11-14.  Both coaches had conference records of 5-11 and both coaches took one team to a minor bowl game – – and then lost that minor bowl game.  ‘Nuff said…
3. Mike Gundy – Oklahoma State:  He has been the head coach in Stillwater, OK since 2005.  His teams have won or tied for the conference championships twice; he has taken the Cowboys to a bowl game in 18 of the 20 seasons he has been there.  However, in 2024 Oklahoma State posted an overall record of 3-9 and a conference record of 0-9.
4. Brian Kelly – LSU:  The Tigers will probably win at least 9 games this year, but Brian Kelly said he went there to win national championships and that sets the performance bar a lot higher than 9 or 10 wins.
5. Mike Norvell – Florida State:  This will be his 6^th season at the helm for the Seminoles.  His overall record there is 33-27; in 2023 the Seminoles were 13-1; in 2024, the Seminoles were 2-10.
6. Brent Venables –  Oklahoma:  His teams have been to bowl games in all three seasons he has been at Oklahoma, but in his first year in the SEC his conference record was 2-6 and the team overall record was 6-7. His overall record at OU is a piddling 22-17 – – not in line with the “glory days” of Sooner football.

            Last year, I identified Nebraska as my “sleeper team”; the Huskers made it to a bowl game.  This year, I will give you another “sleeper team” to look out for:

• Georgia Tech – ACC: After 3.5 sub-par seasons under Geoff Collins, the Yellow Jackets turned things over to Brent Key.  In Key’s first two full seasons there, the team has gone 7-6 and has gone to a bowl game both years.  Last year, it took 9 overtimes for Georgia to prevail over Georgia Tech and Tech has its starting QB back for another season.  I think Tech will be a tough out in 2025.

            I want to say something about schedules – and no, it is not about how SEC schools schedule too many cupcake games out of conference.  The expansion of the college conferences way beyond what they used to be makes for unbalanced scheduling.  For example:

• The ACC has 17 teams – – and Notre Dame as a part-time participant.
• The Big-12 has 16 teams
• The Big-10 has 18 teams
• The SEC has 16 teams

There is no way for conferences to produce a balanced schedule when they are that big.  And the unbalanced nature of the scheduling can put a sheen on a team with a gaudy record that may not be completely deserved.  Let me pick on Indiana from last season:

• The Hoosiers finished the regular season at 11-1 – – second in the Big 10 to Oregon – – and got an invitation to the CFP.
• Three of the eleven wins were out of conference against “less than fearsome opponents” – – Florida International, Western Illinois and UNC-Charlotte.
• In conference, Indiana did NOT face Oregon or Penn State or Illinois or Iowa.  Other than Ohio State, their conference foes all lost at least 5 games last year.
• In their CFP game against Notre Dame, they were outclassed.  Do not be fooled by the score of that game – – 27-17 – – the Hoosiers scored two late TDs that were meaningless.

There is no one to blame here; Indiana only played the teams that the schedule makers and the computers operated by the schedule makers put on the opposing sidelines.  But the fact that by chance Indiana got to play mediocre teams week by week produced an “11-1 team” that was not nearly as good as an 11-1 record might have suggested.  What is important is to realize that this thing that is called “Strength of Schedule” is important even if it cannot be measured/quantified nearly as accurately as one might want.

By the way, we saw that same thing happen several years ago when Liberty University finished its undefeated season and met Oregon in the CFP.  That game was painful to watch; it was almost as lopsided as would have been a game between Liberty and a high-school squad.

Having tried to make a case for using “Strength of Schedule” to diminish expectations for some teams with records that look enticing, let me switch to the opposite and say that there are a couple of teams this year that have what look to be very difficult schedules.  In this case, I think there are several teams whose records might make the teams look weaker than they really are.  Consider:

1. Arkansas:  The Razorbacks went 7-6 last season but their schedule for 2025 looks more difficult.  This year they will face Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas A&M, LSU and Texas.
2. Florida:  The Gators surprised some folks finishing 8-5 in 2024.  The 2025 schedule is no walk in the park, however with LSU, Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee on tap.
3. Purdue:  Yes, I know; Purdue was awful in 2024 finishing the season at 1-11.  And this year, the schedule includes USC, Notre Dame, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State, Washington and Indiana.  The Boilermakers might finish 1-11 again even if they are a better team than last year’s team.
4. Wisconsin:  This schedule is part of the reason I put Luke Fickell on the hot seat list above.  The Badgers get to face Miami, Alabama, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State, Oregon, Washington and Indiana.  Ouch … !

            I used Indiana above as an example of why Strength of Schedule matters.  So, the obvious question is:

• What is the outlook for Indiana in 2025?

Well, the schedule is a bit more difficult this year as compared to last year.  After three opening out-of-conference games against Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State, the Hoosiers draw Illinois, Iowa and Oregon back to back to back.  Early November has Indiana facing Penn State and Wisconsin on successive weekends.

Indiana coach, Curt Cignetti, has a gaudy record that could serve Indiana well during those difficult scheduling stretches.  He has been a head coach since 2011 and has worked his way up the coaching ladder quickly and successfully.  Consider:

• 2011-2016  Indiana University of Pennsylvania  53-17
• 2017-2018  Elon  14-9
• 2019-2023  James Madison  52-9
• 2024 – present  Indiana  11-2
• Combined coaching record is 130-37  win percentage = .778

I think Indiana will be an interesting case study for a program turnaround over the next few seasons.

The CFP will remain as a 12-team tournament field for 2025.  I believe that is already too many teams and that there will be too many uninteresting games in the early rounds of the tournament and I also believe that makes no difference when it comes to the decision to expand the field ultimately to 16 teams.  Money is the driver not quality of the product on the TV screen.  With the existence of only 4 major football conferences and the need for 12 teams in the CFP field, there will necessarily be non-conference champions receiving invitations.  That is a mathematical certainty.

Due to the importance that has come to attach itself to the CFP games and the CFP champion of course, the fact of “winning the conference” has been diminished.  Concurrently, the conference championship games are only there as a way for conferences to determine their champions for a season.  So as “winning the conference” has become less prestigious, one has to wonder why – – other than revenue – – schools schedule those conference championship games in early December.

Back when the CFP was only 4 teams, a game between Alabama and Georgia for the  SEC Championship had a double meaning – – the SEC Championship AND a slot in the CFP.  Now with 12 teams in the CFP it is possible for both teams to get an invitation meaning the “prize” for winning that game is the diminished conference championship.

• [Aside:  In 2024, the CFP Final game did not involve a conference champion.  In fact, the conference champions were eliminated quickly in the tournament; the ACC champion (Clemson) was eliminated by Texas in the first round of play.]

Pre-season polls are interesting even though they rarely “get it right”.  This year the focus is on Texas – – ranked #1 in the pre-season – – and their new QB, Arch Manning.  If  you have read this far into this screed on college football, you already know the Arch Manning story all too well.  If he gets a hangnail at any time during this upcoming season, you will hear about it from a minimum of a dozen outlets.

I will be interested to see what UNC does under the tutelage of Bill Belichick.  I will not be interested in any more stories about Belichick and his arm candy girlfriend.  The Tar Heels were 6-7 last  year …

I will be interested to see how Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes respond to the loss of Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter.  Colorado was 9-4 last year and 7-2 in the Big-12 Conference …

I will be interested in following the Big-12 race this year.  Last year, four teams finished with a record of 7-2 in the conference; they were Arizona St., BYU, Colorado, and Iowa St.  Three other teams finished at 6-3 in conference; they were Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech.

I will be interested in two other coaching stories this year – – beyond the Bill Belichick/UNC situation:

1. Rich Rodriguez is returning to West Virginia where he enjoyed a lot of success before flaming out elsewhere.  Can he “go home again”?
2. Sherone Moore (Michigan) will serve a two-game suspension in the middle of the season stemming from the sign-stealing incidents from several years ago.  Is that the end of the story or are there more shoes to drop?

Naturally, I would lose a significant portion of my credibility as a curmudgeon if I did not look for a disaster team for 2025.  I mentioned Purdue finishing last year at 1-11 with a tough schedule on tap for 2025 but let me not ignore another team going into this season off a terrible year in 2024.  That team would be the Kent State Golden Flashes.  Last year, Kent State pulled off this trifecta of recognition:

1. Winner of the Brothel Defense Award giving up 44.1 points per game
2. #1 Seed in the SHOE Tournament imagined here every season
3. The only Division 1-AA team to go winless for the season

The head coach there was Kenni Burns – – no relationship to the filmmaker, Ken Burns or Major Frank Burns from M*A*S*H – – until he was fired in April of this year after spring practice.  His record in two years at Kent State was 1-23 and that single victory came at the expense of Central Connecticut State in 2023.  As I understand it, a school investigation showed that he obtained loans from a school vendor that paid off a judgement against Burns obtained by a bank thereby creating somehow a conflict of interest situation.  [Aside:  Sorry; that’s the best I can do with a situation that is not clear to me at all.  What is clear to me is that when faced with a “conflict of interest situation”, the 1-23 on-field record did not provide a whole lot of cover for Coach Burns.]  Kent State will play this year with an interim head coach as it carries out a “national search” for a permanent head coach.

Before I go, let me take a stab at eight Futures – – win total wagers – – for this season:

1. BC UNDER 6 wins
2. Ga Tech OVER 7 wins
3. Purdue UNDER 3.5 wins
4. Stanford UNDER 4 wins
5. Texas OVER 9.5 wins
6. Texas Tech OVER 8.5 wins
7. UMass UNDER 3.5 wins
8. UNLV OVER 8.5 wins

Finally, these from legendary college football coach, Bear Bryant:

“Winning isn’t everything, but it sure beats anything that comes in second.”

And …

“No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts.”

And …

“In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

Bert Bell used to own the Philadelphia Eagles back in the franchise’s infancy and he is credited with “inventing” the annual Draft as a way to increase competitive balance – and thereby entertainment value – in the new pro football league.  That concept has been adopted by most US professional leagues, and I have argued here before that the idea is theoretically good but practically of marginal value.

One glaring problem is the propensity of teams that are bad enough to “earn” a top draft pick finding a way to draft a guy who simply cannot play at the pro level.  Let me refresh your memory about some humongous NFL Draft busts from the recent past:

• Ryan Leaf – – Chargers – – 1998
• Matt Leinart – – Cards – – 2006
• Trent Richardson – – Browns – – 2012
• JaMarcus Russell – – Raiders – – 2007
• Akili Smith – – Bengals – – 1999

By the way, I have no interest here in picking on the folks who draw up draft boards for NFL teams; this happens elsewhere too:

• Anthony Bennett – – Cavaliers – – 2013
• Markelle Fultz – – Sixers – – 2017
• Kwame Brown – – Wizards – – 2001
• Darko Milicic – – Pistons – – 2003
• Adam Morrison – – Bobcats – – 2006
• Michael Olowakandi – – Clippers – – 1998

The explanation usually given for such a sour turn of events is that scouting and projecting player performance is not a science; it is more akin to an artform.  And maybe that is the case and maybe that will be the case forever.  Except …

• Maybe avoiding huge “Draft Busts” is beyond the normal skill set of the people who wind up making Draft decisions – – but what about Artificial Intelligence?

Current AI models learn by reading and agglomerating “knowledge” from a broad set of sources.  In doing that AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini or CoPilot can easily compete and defeat humans in trivia contests.  But suppose a team hired a cadre of elite AI coders – – a Coding Cadré of “CC” – – that developed a player model based not on comments by observers but on measurables demonstrated by actual successful pro athletes.  Granted, I have no idea how the members of “The CC” would measure competitiveness levels or emotional stability for potential draftees, but they might be able to use micro-measurements of successful players’ on-field action(s) to build models that may compare apples to apples.

NFL Players go through a standard set of drills at the NFL Combine.  Someone somewhere decided that those drills were the “correct” means to measure the basic skills needed to play effectively in the NFL.  I submit, respectfully, that the truncated list above demonstrates that not to be the case.  Remember, all those players running a 40-yard dash and doing a standing broad jump are performing without any opposition.  Such is never going to be the case on the field in an NFL contest.  Perhaps what is needed is far more precise measurement and correlation analysis of data that never shows up in the game box scores.  For example, in MLB, people now measure the spin rate of each pitch; no one did that in 1980; are there analogs for football and basketball that remain untapped in 2025?

For example, look at highly successful NFL QBs and ask how close do defenders have to get to those QBs before they begin to abandon the pocket and “scramble”.  Does that measurement correlate with anything else that might be measured such as the time each QB needs to move his arm through a throwing motion?  And are either of those measurements or a combination of those measurements indicative of completed passes?  To be clear, I am NOT suggesting those measurements are of any value in building an AI Draft Model, but I do wonder if there are a series of measurements that might make the “Draft Process” a lot more “science-like” and less of a “crapshoot”.

Here is a measurement I would use as a starting point for offensive linemen, defensive linemen and edge rushers:

• How fast do those players react to the movement of the ball by the center to initiate a play?

I am talking about measurements in the hundredths of a second here.  Who gets “off the ball” most quickly because in the extreme, that is a success strategy for those position players.  So, I might begin by asking “The CC” to find correlation among that measurement and other measurements in highly successful linemen that could then be applied to potential draftees using game films where there are opponents out there trying to thwart the potential draftees’ intentions.

Maybe all this is fanciful; maybe this is beyond AI capability.  Nevertheless, it might be a more interesting use of AI as compared to creating fake videos of a political candidate having carnal relations with a goat.

Finally, lest one gets carried away with my rosy projection here for AI involvement, take into account this from neuroscientist, Vivienne Ming:

“AI might be a powerful technology, but things won’t get better simply by adding AI.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………