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"Sports Quote of the Day"
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” ~ Unknown
TRENDING: Week 6 Game Preview: Bears-Ravens. (See the football section for Bears news and NFL updates).
TRENDING: Failed offside challenge has Blackhawks seething: 'One play cost us the whole game'. (See the hockey section for Blackhawks updates and NHL news).
TRENDING: Observations from Bulls-Cavs: Lauri Markkanen shows he belongs. (See the basketball section for Bulls news and NBA updates).
TRENDING: Pitching, lefty power among White Sox needs. (See the baseball section for Cubs and White Sox updates).
TRENDING: Schauffele one back, Thomas six back at CIMB. (See the golf section for PGA news and tournament updates).
TRENDING: Weekend schedule at Talladega Superspeedway. (See the NASCAR section for NASCAR news and racing updates).
TRENDING: What’s in the future for the U.S. national team? Perhaps two Fire
TRENDING: Pitching, lefty power among White Sox needs. (See the baseball section for Cubs and White Sox updates).
TRENDING: Schauffele one back, Thomas six back at CIMB. (See the golf section for PGA news and tournament updates).
TRENDING: Weekend schedule at Talladega Superspeedway. (See the NASCAR section for NASCAR news and racing updates).
TRENDING: What’s in the future for the U.S. national team? Perhaps two Fire
players; Top Premier League storylines – Week 8. (See the soccer section for Fire news and worldwide soccer updates).
TRENDING: New NCAA committee to clean up college hoops is unfit to tackle that challenge. What's Your Take? (See the last two articles on this blog for our thoughts and please share your thoughts with us on this problem).
Bear Down Chicago Bears!!!!! Week 6 Game Preview: Bears-Ravens.
TRENDING: New NCAA committee to clean up college hoops is unfit to tackle that challenge. What's Your Take? (See the last two articles on this blog for our thoughts and please share your thoughts with us on this problem).
Bear Down Chicago Bears!!!!! Week 6 Game Preview: Bears-Ravens.
(Photo/bing.com)
The Bears hit the road this week to travel to Maryland and take on the Baltimore Ravens.
The Bears-Ravens recent history has been marred by bad weather with storms delaying their 2013 match up at Soldier Field and their 2009 game having the start time pushed back due to a snowstorm.
Weather doesn’t appear to be a factor for this weekend as mostly sunny skies and warm temperatures should make for a pleasant, if warm, day of football.
As far as the game, it’s tough to say which team has had a more disappointing run so far this season.
The Bears are 1-4 and have had a chance to win at least two of those losses and gotten stomped on in the others. The Ravens started to a quick 2-0 then fell back to earth with back-to-back blowout losses before bouncing back against Oakland last week against the Raiders’ back up QB.
Baltimore Ravens
SB Nation Site: Baltimore Beatdown
Record: 3-2 (1st AFC North)
Last Week: 30-17 win over the Raiders in Oakland
Bears All-Time Record Against: 3-2
Historical Match Ups: This series goes all the way back through five games to 1998, so not a ton of history.
In their first-ever meeting the Bears faced former QB Jim Harbaugh in Week 16. The Bears played tough defense and used that Steve Stenstrom to Curtis Conway connection to get a 24-3 win.
Of the previous five match ups, four were featured the losing team scoring less than 10 points and two were blowouts.
The most interesting game between the two teams was actually...
Last Meeting: A Bears 23-20 win in Week 11 of 2013. The game took a stunning 5 hours, 16 minutes to play due to a couple of weather delays.
Josh McCown led the Bears with an efficient, albeit underwhelming offense with 213 yards and a TD while Matt Forte added 125 yards of total yards to go with the TD he caught from McCown. David Bass returned a Joe Flacco interception for six while Robbie Gould kicked three field goals, including the game winner in OT.
Injury Report: The Ravens are dealing with a ton of injuries much like the Bears are. Baltimore has 14 players on injured reserve and list 11 on their Wednesday injury report:
- DT Carl Davis Did Not Participate due to a thigh injury
- DT Brandon Williams DNP due to a foot injury
- TE Maxx Williams fully participated as he returns from an ankle injury
- CB Jaylen Hill was limited with a thigh injury
- LB/CB Anthony Levine was limited by a thigh injury
- WR Jeremy Maclin was limited with a shoulder injury
- WR Breshad Perriman DNP due to a knee injury
- OL Matt Skura DNP due to a knee injury
- CB Jimmy Smith DNP due to a knee injury
- RB Terrance West DNP due to a calf injury
- OLB Tim Williams was limited by a thigh injury
Offense: The Ravens offense is struggling, coming into the game ranked 28th in yards with 288.8 yards per game 24th with 18 points per game.
The Ravens have the second-worst passing offense in the league, averaging a paltry 158.4 yards per game while their rushing offense ranks sixth in the league with 130.4 yards per game.
Joe Flacco has been struggling with a 71 QB rating, 823 yards, four touchdowns and six interceptions.
The team’s main passing weapons are receptions leader RB Javorius Allen (20 rec./97 yds./1 TD) and yardage leader WR Mike Wallace (12/209/1) and TD leader WR Jeremy Maclin (16/159/2). TE Ben Watson (18/148/1) is also in the mix.
The rushing attack is led by Allen, who is an all-purpose back, with 66 carries, 232 yards and one touchdown on the ground to go with his receiving stats. While he’s averaging just 3.5 yards per carry, he leads the team in carries by 27. Behind Allen West (39/138/2) and Alex Collins (37/261/0) split the duties behind him. Collins appears to be the big play threat, with a long run of 50 yards and a healthy 7.1 YPC average.
Defense: The fearsome Baltimore Ravens defense that they are known for appears to be in tact as they enter the game ranked 16th in yards allowed (328.6) and 10th in points allowed on a per-game basis.
The passing defense ranks ninth allowing 205.2 yards per game through the air while the rushing defense comes in 23rd allowing 123.4 yards per game.
The secondary of the Ravens is scary good, especially with a rookie QB leading the offense. Baltimore has nine interceptions on the season, the second most in the league. They are led by Eric Weddle, Lardarius Webb and Brandon Carr with two interceptions apiece and Jimmy Smith who has one.
Linebackers C.J. Mosley and Tyus Bowser each have a pick as well.
Mosley is becoming a great all-around LB, to go with his pick he leads the Ravens in tackles with 34 and has a forced fumble and two pass deflections as well.
As far as pass rush, the Ravens have 12 sacks, led by Terrell Suggs with four, followed by safety Tony Jefferson with two. Webb, Patrick Onwuasor, Michael Pierce, Za’Darius Smith, Bowser and Anthony Levine each have one sack.
Seeing as safeties and CBs have sacks, it shows just how many looks and blitzes the Ravens will likely throw at Mitch Trubisky on Sunday from defensive coordinator Dean Pees.
Trubisky will have his work cut out for him.
Key Match Ups: Seeing as how the Ravens defense is playing and seeing what their strengths are, it’s going to be Trubisky vs. the secondary. The young QB has to be careful with the football, even more so than last week when he was facing Pro-Bowlers safety Harrison Smith and CB Xavier Rhodes.
It’s also going to be up to the offensive line to play a clean game and protect Trubisky. The QB will need to call out the blocks and try and key in on who is the mike, who is blitzing and all those things.
This defense is really going to test Trubisky.
On defense, Danny Trevathan will be back and with that hopefully there will be less scrambling to line everybody up and ideally the run defense will be better than having third and fourth LBs back there.
Akiem Hicks and Leonard Floyd should take advantage of a beat up Ravens line missing Marshal Yanda.
In the secondary the safeties and corners will try to slow down Mike Wallace, the deepest threat that the Ravens have.
What to Watch For: Let’s see what The Kid can do against another stout defense.
That said, I think that the running game is going to be really key this week, the secondary is playing some of the best ball in the league and the Ravens’ numbers against the run aren’t as good. So expect a more conservative game plan and a healthy dose of Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen.
The defense will need to slow down the Ravens’ rushing attack and get after Joe Flacco. He has been struggling and there will be chances to rattle him and maybe (longshot) force some turnovers.
Key Stats: The teams have won every-other-game in this series, which is just a weird pattern.
Joe Flacco is off to one of the worst starts in his career. Through five games he’s had the fewest TD passes since his rookie year and the third-most interceptions. His 71.0 QB rating is the third-lowest of his career through five games as well.
The Ravens are +3 in the turnover margin but had 10 turnovers in their first two games (against the Bengals and Browns) and have just two since, while the offense had three turnovers over the first two games but have six since.
Without much room for error, the Bears need to stop being penalized so frequently.
By JJ Stankevitz
(Photo/USA TODAY)
The Bears committed nine penalties (eight of which were officially assessed, since one was offsetting) against the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night. This isn’t a new trend: The Bears were flagged eight times against the Green Bay Packers, 10 times against the Pittsburgh Steelers, eight times against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and four times against the Atlanta Falcons.
So since Week 1, this has been a problem. Given the Bears’ offense gets easily bogged down when it’s behind the chains and the defense doesn’t have a penchant for takeaways, almost every one of these penalties has hurt.
Against Minnesota, here’s the breakdown:
No. 1: Holding on center Cody Whitehair. The penalty wiped out Tre McBride’s 26-yard reception, which would’ve moved the Bears inside the 10-yard line. Instead, the Bears were moved from the Vikings’ 35 to 45-yard line and ran a screen to Benny Cunningham on third and 20. Pat O’Donnell then punted.
No. 2: Delay of game on Mitchell Trubisky. This was less on the quarterback and more on the coaching staff — John Fox tried to confuse the Vikings by faking sending his punt unit out, then the offense on fourth and 2. But Trubisky got to the huddle with about 12 seconds on the play clock and couldn’t get a snap off on time. While the play may have worked — Josh Bellamy was uncovered — Trubisky didn’t have enough time to get the snap off.
No. 3: Holding on Markus Wheaton. The call may have been questionable, but it wiped out what would’ve been a Jordan Howard 42-yard touchdown run. The Bears instead were faced with a first-and-17.
No. 4: Offensive pass interference on McBride. This was on the very next play and was by far the most questionable penalty assessed on the Bears, with McBride ostensibly being flagged for making contact with cornerback Terence Newman’s face mask. “I went and looked at the film and I couldn’t really see what triggered the call but that’s above my pay grade,” McBride said. “I just gotta roll with the punches on that.” Worth noting: Vikings wide receiver Michael Floyd did something similar to cornerback Kyle Fuller later in the game and wasn’t penalized. Either way, it put Trubisky in a first and 27 spot at his own 41-yard line.
No. 5: False start on Charles Leno Jr. This came after Trubisky found Dion Sims for a 17-yard gain following the McBride penalty and backed the Bears up from the Vikings’ 42 to 47-yard line.
No. 6: False start on Bobby Massie. The Bears went from second and 8 to second and 13 deep in their own territory, and while they picked up a first down thanks to a Minnesota penalty, they still had to punt.
No. 7: Holding on Josh Sitton. This offset a Jaleel Johnson facemask and re-played a second and 7 down. The Bears went three-and-out.
No. 8: 12 men on the field on Eddie Goldman. Vikings quarterback Case Keenum astutely snapped the ball as Goldman was chugging off the field.
No. 9: Holding on Leonard Floyd. This allowed Minnesota to extend the drive that led to their game-winning field goal, but it was questionable at best. When asked what got in the way of Floyd on the flag, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said: “The officiating.”
The first six of these penalties — all on the offense — came in the first half. The holding flags on Whitehair and Wheaton kept the Bears out of the red zone and end zone, and every one of the first-half flags put the Bears’ offense in a difficult situation.
“That puts us in passing situations and makes it a bit more complicated for Mitch,” Massie said. “But just don’t do it and we won’t have the problem.”
The Bears held a meeting on Wednesday addressing this concerning penchant for penalties, but there isn’t necessarily a way for the players to fix those problems outside of maintaining better focus in practice and games.
“You can’t do anything different aside from dial into what you’re doing better individually,” tight end Zach Miller said. “There’s no way to drill that aside from do it right.”
Teams penalized as much as the Bears routinely are slapped with an “undisciplined” label, which doesn’t reflect well on the coaching staff. The players can talk about renewing their focus during practice, but it’s also on the coaching staff to figure out a solution.
“I think a lot of it is in preparation,” Fox said. “It’s making sure we don’t have that occur in practice. It’s not like we haven’t emphasized it. Some of the same things I talked about last week popped up again, so we just continue to work at it.
"In some cases we change people. In some cases we change how we practice. So you’re always looking to try to get that."
It’s an issue that has to be fixed, though, as long as this team struggles to overcome penalties. Fox pointed out the Vikings were penalized more than the Bears on Monday night, but “they overcame it a little bit better than we did.” That trend is likely to continue so long as the Bears continue to commit penalties.
“No game will ever be completely perfect,” Massie said. “There’ll always be something. That’s just something that’s stood out multiple times in multiple games. It’s just something we gotta clean up.”
How Tarik Cohen is learning to combat being a focus of opposing defensive coordinators.
By JJ Stankevitz
(Photo/USA TODAY)
It was inevitable that opposing defensive coordinators were going to scheme a way to smother Tarik Cohen after his explosive NFL debut against the Atlanta Falcons in September. And it’s been a challenge for the rookie to adapt to having a target on his back over the last few weeks.
Cohen’s production has steadily declined since Week 2, with his snap counts dropping from 28 against the Pittsburgh Steelers to 18 against the Green Bay Packers to 17 against the Minnesota Vikings. He caught four passes for 24 yards against both Pittsburgh and Green Bay, but only had one catch for minus-one yard against Minnesota. He carried 12 times against Pittsburgh for 78 yards, but was held to 24 yards on six carries in Green Bay and 13 yards on six carries on Monday night.
Against Minnesota, Cohen felt he was dancing and trying to make a move too frequently, which led to his muted production.
“I feel like I was trying too hard to make a play,” Cohen said. “And that’s what I really gotta look at, just playing to the offense and taking what’s there.”
The Vikings put two defenders on Cohen quite a bit on Monday, which isn’t surprising given Cohen has shown he can be the Bears’ best offensive weapon this year. That double-team challenge isn’t one Cohen is shying away from — “if I take an extra defender with me, then somebody else should be freed up,” he said — but it does make it incumbent on the 5-foot-6 running back to not necessarily try to make a huge play every time he touches the ball.
“He does have that innate ability,” coach John Fox said. “Now if people are starting to play for that, even as a receiver, you start to draw more attention, which happens in this league. These guys are all pretty good coaches and understand. People are doing things to not let him be as big a factor, whether it’s the style of run or even the matchups. People are playing nickel defenses against him.
“Now it’s a matter of adjusting. He’ll do that, we’ll do that and keep trying to get him his touches.”
The Bears don’t want to coach Cohen’s aggressiveness and instincts out of him, but much like with Mitchell Trubisky, he’s figuring out when and when not to try to make a play.
“You really have to take what they give you, because if they’re doubling you it’s two NFL guys so there’s not going to be a lot there,” Cohen said. “So when you do get the opportunity to get the ball in double coverage, just take what the defense gives you.”
Get your popcorn ready: The Mitch Trubisky-Tanner Gentry connection is back.
By Scott Krinch
(Photo/USA TODAY)
It doesn't take a football expert to see that Bears rookie quarterback Mitch Trubisky is limited when it comes to weapons in the passing game.
The Bears did something to patch up part of that problem on Wednesday.
In a move that likely should have been made before Trubisky's first career NFL start, the Bears promoted wide receiver Tanner Gentry to the 53-man roster.
Gentry, an undrafted free agent out of Wyoming, had a strong preseason and developed some chemistry with the Bears rookie quarterback. In four preseason contests, Gentry caught four receptions for 77 yards which included a 45-yard touchdown pass from Trubisky in a victory over the Titans.
Gentry, who was signed to the practice squad following the preseason, was on the Bears active roster in a Week 2 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Gentry hauled in two passes for 27 yards and was placed on waivers and signed back to the practice squad shortly after.
To make rook for Gentry on the active roster, the Bears released wide receiver Deonte Thompson.
Thompson, who played the most snaps out of any wide receiver on the Bears through the first four games of the season, had 11 receptions for 125 yards and a touchdown in 2017.
Thompson played in 28 games across three seasons with the Bears and registered 35 receptions for 455 yards and three scores. Thompson also served as the Bears primary kickoff returner during that span.
The Bears also added linebacker Carl Bradford and wide receiver Darreus Rogers to their practice squad.
How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Failed offside challenge has Blackhawks seething: 'One play cost us the whole game'.
By Tracey Myers
(Photo/USA TODAY)
Taking another look, asking for the review. The coaches challenge comes with a different twist this season, one that ups the risk if you choose to implement it. Lose it, and you head to the penalty kill.
“You can see how it turns the game around a little bit,” Ryan Hartman said Thursday night. “They install that to make sure you know for sure.”
The Blackhawks were sure this challenge would turn out in their favor. They were sure that Jason Zucker was offside when the puck banked off Brent Seabrook’s skate and into the Blackhawks’ zone and the Minnesota Wild’s second goal, off a 2-on-1 by Chris Stewart, would be wiped out. But the call stood, the goal counted, the penalty was assessed, the Wild added a power-play goal and the game was ultimately lost.
“One play cost us the whole game,” coach Joel Quenneville said following the Blackhawks' 5-2 loss to the Wild.
The NHL situation room released its explanation on the failed challenge, stating:
After reviewing all available replays and consulting with the Linesman, NHL Hockey Operations staff determined that the actions of Chicago's Brent Seabrook caused the puck to enter the attacking zone and the call on the ice was upheld - good goal Minnesota Wild. The decision was made in accordance with Rule 83.1 which states, in part, that "If a player legally carries or passes the puck back into his own defending zone while a player of the opposing team is in such defending zone, the off-side shall be ignored and play permitted to continue."
“He didn’t carry it and didn’t have possession, so I disagree with that rule,” Quenneville said. “We brought [the puck] in, but you have to have control, possession of it.”
It seems that Rule 83.2 would apply more to Thursday’s situation:
Deflections / Rebounds – When a defending player propels the puck out of his defending zone and the puck clearly rebounds off a defending player in the neutral zone back into the defending zone, all attacking players are eligible to play the puck. However, any action by an attacking player that causes a deflection/rebound off a defending player in the neutral zone back into the defending zone (i.e. stick check, body check, physical contact), a delayed off-side shall be signaled by the Linesman. A puck that deflects back into the defending zone off an official who is in the neutral zone will be off-side (or delayed off-side, as appropriate).
Seabrook was just frustrated at himself.
“That was tough. A bouncing puck but it’s on me. I have to do a better job of keeping it at the blue line, or at least making a play and not giving up a 2-on-1 at that point,” Seabrook said. “We just got back with a tie game and just a tough one.”
The Blackhawks were sure they got this one right but it was ruled otherwise. It was one call, but it was one costly call.
Five takeaways from Blackhawks' 5-2 loss to Wild: Counting on goaltending too much?
By Tracey Myers
(Photo/USA TODAY)
Here are five takeaways from the Blackhawks' 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night:
1. The power play is still quiet.
The Blackhawks had two opportunities on Thursday; the first was forgettable while the second generated more chances but still ended with no production. And with that, the Blackhawks’ power play is now 3-for-18 on the season. Hey, a struggling power play is a running theme with this team so this shouldn’t be a total surprise.
2. Counting on goaltending too much again?
It seemed that way for the first half of this one, anyway. The Wild didn’t have many more shots than the Blackhawks but they had better scoring opportunities. Crawford was up to it for most of this one until things got interesting in the third period.
3. John Hayden’s shot.
The Blackhawks fourth liner has been a physical presence since the start of training camp and he’s had a few fights. He had another melee on Thursday night, sparring with Marcus Foligno and landing a huge right to Foligno’s jaw at the end of it.
4. Getting a little weary?
The Wild were playing in just their third game of the season on Thursday. The Blackhawks, meanwhile, played their fifth in the last seven days. It’s still early but that’s a lot of hockey in a week.
The Blackhawks did a lot of good things over the past week but after a busy stretch, Friday’s rest day is necessary.
5. The Blackhawks miss Nick Schmaltz (a lot).
This one is becoming more evident with each passing game. The second line certainly could use him; Patrick Kane hasn’t had a point, nor has he had as many opportunities, since Schmaltz suffered his upper-body injury against Columbus.
Quenneville has switched up the bottom three lines looking to spark the offense. But there’s good news on Schmaltz: skated on Thursday morning and the Blackhawks are hoping the center will return on Saturday.
Just Another Chicago Bulls Session..... Observations from Bulls-Cavs: Lauri Markkanen shows he belongs.
By Vincent Goodwill
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The game was pretty simple for Bulls rookie Lauri Markkanen.
Catch.
Shoot.
Rinse, repeat.
After struggling a bit in his preseason opener Sunday night, Markkanen showed he belonged, at least to this point, in a smooth performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Guarding LeBron James is a herculean task for just about anybody, so being overwhelmed wasn’t news. But his well-talked about ability to shoot was finally on display and not just urban legend from Fred Hoiberg.
He got to the open spots in the offense and unleashed four triples on his way to 18 points, and even ran the floor to finish a fast break with a one-handed dunk in the second half as the Bulls pulled away.
Markkanen’s shooting is why the Bulls drafted him seventh, as they believe he’ll be a matchup problem for years to come in Hoiberg’s movement-based system. His jumper was fluid, confident, smooth and most importantly, high—as in his release point.
There were times he had a matchup advantage against a smaller guard and the Bulls didn’t track him to take advantage, which can be as much of a function of what he can’t yet do as much as his teammates not giving him the ball.
But as his game evolves and the Bulls will wait on him through the years, being a deadeye shooter will keep him on the floor in the meantime.
Justin Holiday: Holiday continues to impress, solidifying a place in the rotation even when Zach LaVine returns and nailing down the shooting guard spot in the meantime.
With a nose for the ball on both ends, Holiday brings an element of movement that is necessary for this offense to work. On defense, he’s aggressive and handsy without getting himself into too much trouble with fouls or being out of position.
You’ll take the six turnovers as long as he can have nights where he’ll score 28, matching Markkanen’s four-for-seven mark from 3-point range. He added 11 rebounds and played with a gear of speed consistently through the night.
Taking nearly half of the Bulls’ 17 free-throws, Holiday had one against the Eastern Conference champs, looking far more confident than the player the Bulls acquired at the trade deadline in 2016.
He can thank a more consistent jumper for that.
Derrick Rose: Who knows where things stood with the Bulls and Derrick Rose concerning his so-called reluctance to recruit free agents LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in the summer of 2010.
But he cleared the air with reporters in the morning shootaround, claiming he did make a video to the top free agents at the time and that the Bulls made sure it got to James, Wade and Bosh.
“Like people always said I didn’t recruit. I tried to recruit. I put out a video but it wasn’t for me to say that,” Rose said. “I felt like the organization was supposed to say that and they didn’t. I put out a video for him [Wade], Chris Bosh and LeBron.”
“(The Bulls organization) they didn’t say anything about it. They sent it. I don’t know if they really actually looked at it or played the video, but I made a video. At the time it wasn’t for me to say that.”
One could say the belief Rose wouldn’t welcome James, Wade or Bosh, or some combination of the trio was a factor in some of the negative perceptions about Rose, even though he won MVP in 2011.
But the fact it took this long should give folks pause about how easy it is to take a negative viewpoint of Rose, who said he never spoke up for himself in the talk about him recruiting or not recruiting, “to see who had my back”.
Pause, indeed.
Wash this one away: Although the Cavaliers were as close to full strength as they’ll be until Isaiah Thomas gets back from his hip injury, take nothing from the 14-point spread as far as the Bulls being better than you think, or that they’ll be better than a bottom-feeder in the Eastern Conference.
Why?
Because they don’t wanna be. We’re one preseason game away from an 82-game march to the Porter-Bagler-Doncic sweepstakes.
Bulls Talk Podcast: Early positive returns on Lauri Markkanen.
By CSN Staff
(Photo/AP)
On this edition of the Bulls Talk Podcast, Mark Schanowski, Vincent Goodwill, and Kevin Anderson try and make sense of Derrick Rose’s "recruiting" video from 2010.
Plus, early positive returns on rookie Lauri Markkanen, a reality check for Justin Holiday fans, and why there is next-to-zero chance the Bulls extend Zach LaVine before the season starts.
Finally, the latest example of why the NBA has come to "embrace the petty".
Listen to the full Bulls Talk Podcast right here.
CUBS: BREATHE and the 7 biggest things as the Cubs advance to a third straight NLCS.
By Tony Andracki
(Photo/AP)
Holy. Cow.
Have you digested all that?
Game 5 of the NLDS turned into an absolute classic, taking 4 hours and 37 minutes to play with 14 different pitchers combining to throw 377 pitches in Washington D.C.
The end result is this:
The Cubs are headed to their third straight National League Championship Series after outlasting the Washington Nationals 9-8.
The Cubs are now 5-1 under Joe Maddon when facing elimination in October.
First, take a deep breath, get out of your glass case of emotion, and then try to wrap your head around the 5 biggest things from an epic night of baseball:
Big game experience
It's an overblown storyline, but it's a fact. The Cubs have experience in wacky, edge-of-your-seat, bite-all-your-nails-off-until-your-fingers-bleed October baseball games. And they somehow keep finding ways to come out on top of them.
I don't know how, in reality. Some of it is definitely luck and the breaks going your way. But the players deserve credit, too, for somehow keeping their wits about them and getting the job done juuuuust enough to win.
Max truly is mad
Cubs fans were absolutely not feeling good about things when Max Scherzer was announced as the new pitcher for the fifth inning. Ditto when he retired Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo as the first two hitters.
But then baseball happened. The weird, quirky, nonsensical sport that has imbedded itself into American culture happened.
Here's a summary of the inning that changed the fortunes of the Cubs' season:
— With two strikes on him, Willson Contreras fought to put the ball in play and reached on an infield single.
— Ben Zobrist pinch-hit, fought off some tough two-strike pitches, then blooped one into shallow left for a single.
— Addison Russell jumped on Scherzer's first offering and grounded a ball just inside the third base line for a two-out, two-run double.
— Jason Heyward was intentionally walked.
— Javy Baez reached on a dropped third strike, Russell scored on Matt Wieters' errant throw to first base.
— Pinch hitter Tommy La Stella reached on catcher's interference.
— Jon Jay was hit with a pitch, plating another run.
— Bryant finally ended the inning with a pop out to shortstop.
The inning had everything, and it had everybody triggered:
Scherzer's final line: one inning pitched, three hits, four runs (two earned), one walk, one strikeout.
And one L.
Time for fall break
The Professor is about take his fall break. But he'll be back next week.
Kyle Hendricks didn't have his A stuff Thursday night, giving up four earned runs on nine hits, a walk and two homers across four innings. He did strike out seven Nationals and only allowed Washington to score in one inning, but it was a grind to even get through four innings.
This wasn't the same Professor we saw in Game 1, when he patiently lulled the Washington hitters to sleep.
But it was enough to get by and eat up some outs and that's what the Cubs truly needed. Hendricks found ways to shut the door on Nationals rallies at just the right time, allowing his team back into the game.
Wade. Davis.
I don't have any cute, catchy sub-head for the Wade Davis category, because he wouldn't want it any other way.
Maddon called on his guy to close out the game, bringing the closer in in the seventh inning with two on and two out.
Davis responded by striking out Ryan Zimmerman to escape the seventh-inning jam. He walked the first two hitters of the eighth inning before getting pinch-hitter Adam Lind to ground the first pitch of the at-bat into a double play.
But then, naturally, the guy in the next bullet came to the plate.
Still, Davis got the job done by the skin of his teeth and pitched the Cubs to the NLCS.
It was his longest outing (both in terms of pitches thrown and outs recorded) since August 2013, when he was still working as a starting pitcher.
Michael F. Taylor
(The F is for "freakin.")
The young Washington outfielder did his best to carry his team the last two nights, following his backbreaking grand slam in Game 4 with a three-run shot in the second inning of Game 5. That second blast seemed to be a dagger for the Cubs early on, but that was long before things got weird. Like really, really weird.
Taylor became the first player ever to drive in a combined seven runs on back-to-back plate appearances in the postseason and became a hero in our nation's capital for it.
But Taylor wasn't done in the second inning. He started the seventh-inning rally with a leadoff walk and scored a run. Then he drove in another run in the eighth off Davis, trying to singlehandedly will his team back into the game.
All hands on deck
Maddon has used four starting pitchers the last two games and yet still John Lackey couldn't get in either game.
Here is a list of the pitchers used by Maddon and how many outs they accounted for:
Hendricks: 12
Brian Duensing: 2
Pedro Strop: 3
Mike Montgomery: 1
Carl Edwards Jr.: 0
Jose Quintana: 2
Davis: 7
Maddon also used Zobrist, Tommy La Stella and Kyle Schwarber as pinch-hitters and Leonys Martin as part of a double switch.
In the last two nights, the only guys who didn't enter either game were backup catcher Alex Avila and Lackey.
Like Maddon said, there is no Game 6, and he managed like it.
Cubbie occurrences? Nahh
But Nattie occurrences? Maybe...
The Nationals will head into 2018 — the final year of Bryce Harper's contract — still having not won a postseason series.
That makes four failures in four tries for the Nats since 2012, the year they shut Stephen Strasburg down because they wanted to prioritize his arm health and figured they'd have plenty of postseason runs in years to come.
Thursday's game was absolutely crazy and sloppy. Cubs fans are used to seeing some of those wacky occurrences happen against them, but that's all changed now with a 108-year championship drought ended.
Instead, it was the Nationals who looked star-crossed, making mistakes all over the field and essentially handing the Cubs the game on a silver platter.
The end result is what figures to be another loooong winter in D.C. breaking down this specific missed opportunity.
But we live in Chicago, and Cubdom only need worry about one thing:
Onto L.A.
Jon Lester 'blacked out' during Wade Davis' seven-out save in Cubs' bonkers Game 5 win.
By Vinnie Dubin
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
If you had trouble keeping your eyes on that insane Game 5, you weren't the only one.
Among the legions of nerve-wracked viewers: Jon Lester.
The Cubs' starting pitcher had trouble watching as the drama unfolded and got cranked up to 11 as Thursday night turned into Friday morning in Washington, as he explained with a big bottle of champagne in his hand following the Cubs' incredible 9-8 win.
Asked to break down Wade Davis' seven-out save, Lester replied: "I have no idea, I blacked out."
So while you were tweeting nervous GIFs, Lester was ... he was nervous, too.
"I watched, literally, probably three outs of it. I have a problem in postseason games actually watching the game in the dugout. I watched the last three outs in the dugout, and it was awesome. He did a great job the last three outs.
"The other four? I have no idea what happened."
Lester was one of the few Cubs that didn't play in Thursday's instant classic. He threw 55 pitches in relief in the team's Game 4 loss a day earlier. But he was in party mode after the Cubs advanced to their third straight NLCS.
Hopefully he's recovered enough to face down the Los Angeles Dodgers. Until then, keep partying, Jon.
WHITE SOX: Pitching, lefty power among White Sox needs.
GM Hahn will not deviate from rebuilding plan to fill holes, however.
The White Sox enter the 2017 offseason in an interesting stage of their rebuild.
The White Sox enter the 2017 offseason in an interesting stage of their rebuild.
While they will continue to procure talent, they also have young standouts such as second baseman Yoan Moncada and right-handed hurlers Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez already enjoying daily Major League life in the midst of their development phase.
Could this team actually contend next season? It's a possibility, albeit a bit remote. But that outside chance won't influence general manager Rick Hahn's decisions in an area such as free agency to deviate even slightly from the rebuilding plan.
"We're not looking to build a club that's gonna jump up in one year and contend for a Wild Card [berth] and then regress back," Hahn said. "We're looking [at things from] a long-term point of view. The Twins have a very bright future ahead of them -- and their future probably got here earlier than they anticipated, by getting into the postseason as they did.
"But they're also shooting for that next higher level, which is part of the reason you didn't see them sell off their system in order to lock down what they were able to do this year. Our situation, again, [we're] pleased that that's even on people's minds. But what we're shooting for is not a one-year fix. We're shooting for something that's going to be sustainable."
Biggest Needs
Starting pitching: The White Sox appear set with Giolito, Lopez, veteran James Shields and possibly Carson Fulmer. Carlos Rodon remains a bit of an uncertainty, after starting and finishing the 2017 campaign on the disabled list with shoulder-area discomfort. He underwent arthroscopic surgery on Wednesday, which will leave him sidelined for 6-8 months. Even with a fully healthy Rodon at the top of the rotation, the White Sox need veteran additions to fill out the group and guard against overworking the younger hurlers as their innings gradually increase.
Possible fits: Miguel Gonzalez, Tyler Chatwood, Chris Tillman
Bullpen assistance: Hahn admitted the bullpen has been gutted during the rebuilding process, so look for this to be one of the areas of focus and one on which the White Sox might spend, if the price and fit are right. A number of relief options emerged internally -- ranging from Juan Minaya, who closed at the end of '17, to Danny Farquhar, Aaron Bummer, Jace Fry and Gregory Infante.
Nate Jones is expected to be ready by the start of Spring Training after season-ending right elbow surgery. Righty Zach Putnam is more likely to make an in-season comeback after Tommy John surgery.
Possible fits: Luke Gregerson, Bryan Shaw, Anthony Swarzak
Left-handed power: Moncada's arrival to the big leagues, as well as the impressive first showing by Nicky Delmonico, gave the White Sox a little more balance from the left side (with Moncada being a switch-hitter). But the White Sox are short on left-handed hitting -- both in the starting lineup and off the bench.
Possible fits: Lucas Duda, John Jaso, Mitch Moreland, Jarrod Dyson, Curtis Granderson, Jon Jay
Gray Areas
Catcher: MLBPipeline.com's No. 7 White Sox prospect Zack Collins is moving toward the Majors. Kevan Smith and Omar Narvaez capably handled the position in 2017, with both developing their game-calling abilities and building a bond with the young hurlers. But the White Sox might want a veteran in the mix, as they had with Geovany Soto at the outset of '17.
Center Field: Adam Engel certainly possesses Major League capabilities defensively and showed extra-base potential in spurts offensively. But he didn't make contact consistently enough. With the team's No. 3 prospect Luis Robert still a few years away, a veteran could be a consideration.
Rodon's health: General parameters were presented for Rodon's recovery, but that comeback will be dependent on Rodon's rehab and won't be fully assessed until Spring Training. The left-hander's health clearly stands as a big component in the rebuilding process as a rotation staple.
X-factors
Abreu, Garcia long term? Jose Abreu stands out as one of the game's top middle-of-the-order bats and has become a consummate clubhouse leader. Avisail Garcia rewarded the organization's patience and played like the five-tool talent he was envisioned as. The White Sox have two years of control over both players, so their decision is whether to extend them into the contending part of the rebuild or trade them to deepen their talent pool.
Player Development: Hahn and executive vice president Ken Williams have talked many times about good young players showing them when they are ready for the next challenge. The team is not considered to be in the prime contending phase for 2018. But the rise of talent -- such as outfielder Eloy Jimenez and right-handed pitcher Michael Kopech, the team's No. 1 and 2 prospects, or even right-handed starter Alec Hansen, the team's sixth-ranked prospect -- might force the issue at some point in '18.
Sox top prospect Robert 'a special kid'.
By Scott Merkin
(Photo/www.whitesox.com)
Let's dub Luis Robert's 2017 White Sox debut with the Dominican Summer League White Sox as a glimpse of potentially significant things to come.
And let's allow Ever Magallanes, the White Sox Dominican Academy supervisor, to put forth some of those impressive traits he witnessed from the No. 22 prospect in the Majors per MLBPipeline.com.
"He's a special kid. Power, speed," Magallanes said. "He's learning the game, playing hard. I just can't say enough good things about him."
Robert, 20, joined the White Sox via a $26 million signing bonus made official on May 27. The free-agent Cuban outfielder took part in mostly showcases for the months leading up to his signing, but adjusted quickly to game competition, posting a .310 average, .491 on-base percentage and 1.027 OPS over 84 at-bats in 24 games.
White Sox general manager Rick Hahn expects Robert to be in big league camp for Spring Training in 2018. He will then be assigned to one of their Class A ball affiliates at Kannapolis or Winston-Salem to start the season, based on what they see during those six weeks in Arizona.
"From there, it wouldn't shock me if he pushed up a level or two depending on where he started in the 2018 season," Hahn said. "He has a very advanced approach at the plate, he's very physically gifted and it would not surprise me if he wound up moving on the quicker side.
"This will be the first time he's in the States full time, the first time he's playing baseball that regularly, the first time he has to adapt to the new culture, food and language. So we're going to give him the space he needs regardless of what level he's at to have his growing pains if that's what happens."
First up for Robert will be White Sox Instructional League action at their Dominican Academy, which runs throughout November. There's also a chance Robert takes part in the White Sox hitters minicamp in January at Camelback Ranch.
Micker Adolfo will move from Arizona to the Dominican Academy for the Instructional League, with his veteran presence along with Robert helping the younger players adjust.
"Luis has already had a little bit of experience playing professionally and in Cuba," Magallanes said. "He's learning the White Sox way and the way we play baseball down here. He's been awesome and gets along with everybody.
"They love him. All the kids, from the get-go, everybody got along with him. Great kids. Both those guys are huge for our younger kids, the Dominicans and the Venezuelan kids we have down there."
Magallanes believes the Instructional League will be great for Robert, who was limited by right ankle and left meniscus injuries in his first White Sox season.
"He's so athletic and he has really good aptitude. So he picks things up really quick," Magallanes said. "It's going to be a pleasure to see when it all comes together. It could be pretty special."
Golf: I got a club for that..... Schauffele one back, Thomas six back at CIMB.
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
Leaderboard: Smith (-8), Schauffele (-7), Poom Saksansin (-7), Keegan Bradley (-7), Kevin Na (-6), Gary Woodland (-6), Pat Perez (-6)
What it means: The PGA Tour’s reigning Rookie of the Year outplayed the reigning Player of the Year – at least for one round. Schauffele was grouped with Justin Thomas and was five shots better than the two-time defending CIMB champion. Schauffele ended last season (just a few weeks ago) with a win at the Tour Championship, where Thomas was crowned the FedExCup winner. Thomas, in his first start of the new season, had five birdies and three bogeys. He also used his manager, Lance Young, on his bag as regular caddie Jimmy Johnson fell ill during the round in the oppressive heat.
Round of the day: Schauffele’s bogey-free 65 earned style points, coming alongside the Tour’s POY, but Smith’s 64 earned the first-round lead. Smith, who teamed with Jonas Blixt to win the Zurich Classic in April, had eight birdies and no bogeys. Smith has seven missed cuts in 10 Tour starts since earning his maiden victory.
Best of the rest: After starting on the back nine and turning in 1 under, Saksansin shot 6-under 30 on the front. The 24-year-old Thai earned a spot in the 78-man field – his first PGA Tour start – via his seventh-place standing on the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit. Bradley, who also shot 65, had six birdies, one eagle and one bogey. Meanwhile, recent Hall of Fame inductee Davis Love III shot 5-under 67, despite a bogey and a double. Love had five consecutive birdies on Nos. 2-6 and tallied eight for the round.
Biggest disappointment: Graham DeLaet (T-5), Bud Cauley (T-7) and Grayson Murray (T-9) fared well last week at the Safeway Classic. But their games didn’t travel. DeLaet and Cauley both shot 5-over 77 on opening day in Malaysia. Murray had the worst first-round score, shooting 10-over 82. There is no cut this week.
Shot of the day: After going birdie-birdie on Nos. 14 and 15 to tie for the lead, Na took a two-shot advantage with a hole-out eagle on the par-4 16th. He would bogey 18 to finish one back.
Quote of the day: “I haven’t really reset any goals yet. I was supposed to make a list of goals before I came out here and I failed to do so, which might be a good thing – my head is still in the clouds,” - Schauffele
Park co-leads Hana Bank, closing in on history.
By Randall Mell
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
Sung Hyun Park took a strong first step toward claiming what Koreans embrace as the LPGA’s unofficial sixth major and toward making tour history.
Park opened with a 6-under-par 66 to take a share of the in the first round of the KEB Hana Bank Championship in Incheon, the lone LPGA event played in the South Korean’s homeland.
Park, the Rolex world No. 2, is running away in the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year race and also stands just 20 points behind world No. 1 So Yeon Ryu in the Rolex Player of the Year race. Park is looking to join Nancy Lopez as the only players to win both Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year honors in the same season. Lopez did it in 1978. A victory this week is worth 30 points.
“It’s like a major tour event,” Park said through a translator.
Park is tied for first with Australia’s Minjee Lee and fellow South Korean Min-Sun Kim, one of 12 Korean LPGA Tour members exempt into the field.
The trio is one shot ahead of a pack of five players that includes American Cristie Kerr, who won the Ladies European Tour’s LaCoste Ladies Open in France last week. Kerr turned 40 on Thursday.
Park played in a marquee grouping that featured the top three players in the world rankings, with No. 1 So Yeon Ryu and No. 3 Lexi Thompson alongside her. Ryu opened with a 72, Thompson a 69.
Lydia Ko, who was born in South Korea before moving to New Zealand when she was 6, is just two shots off the lead.
Park, who won the U.S. Women’s Open in July, said she was inspired by the massive galleries that turned out to watch.
“This morning was really cold,” Park said. “At one point, it did cross my mind that there may not be many spectators today. I was quite surprised when I reached the first hole and saw the size of the crowd.”
What would winning an LPGA event in South Korea mean to Park?
“I'm a little bit cautious to talk about winning after the first round,” Park said. “Of course, it would mean a lot to me, and I would be very happy, especially because it is an event of my main sponsor.”
Masters champ Garcia splits with TaylorMade.
By Will Gray
Masters champ Sergio Garcia and TaylorMade have "mutually agreed" on a contract release that ends a 15-year relationship and makes the Spaniard a hot commodity on the equipment free agent market.
Garcia signed with TaylorMade as a 22-year-old back in 2002, and he had their clubs in the bag this spring when he beat Justin Rose in a playoff at the Masters for his first major title. But the relationship will not extend any further according to a release from TaylorMade on Monday.
"Today, after a memorable 15-year partnership with Sergio Garcia, we have mutually agreed on a release from the remaining years of his TaylorMade contract," the statement read. "It has been an honor to play a role in his performance throughout his career, including The Players Championship, 19 worldwide wins, Ryder Cup heroics and his 2017 Masters win. We congratulate Sergio on a career year and wish him all the best in the future."
The announcement comes five days after parent company Adidas announced that it had completed its divestiture of TaylorMade, Adams Golf and Ashworth brands to KPS Capital Partners.
Where Garcia goes from here remains to be seen, but Callaway may be the front-runner to land his services. Garcia was photographed experimenting with Callaway wedges at the British Masters in his most recent start, and he used a Callaway-owned Toulon putter during the Dell Technologies Championship last month.
TaylorMade's remaining player stable includes world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, world No. 5 Jon Rahm as well as former world No. 1s Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Tiger Woods.
NASCAR: Weekend schedule at Talladega Superspeedway.
By Dustin Long
(Photo/Getty Images)
The NASCAR Monster Energy Cup and the Camping World Truck Series head to Talladega Superspeedway for playoff races this weekend.
Saturday’s Truck race is an elimination race. The playoff field will be cut by two. Austin Cindric holds the final transfer spot. Kaz Grala is eight points behind Cindric, and John Hunter Nemechek is 14 points behind Cindric.
Sunday’s Cup race marks the middle event in the Round of 12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has won the past two restrictor-plate races, including at Talladega in May.
The Xfinity Series is off this weekend.
Here is this weekend’s schedule:
(All times are Eastern)
Friday, Oct. 13
Veteran race car driver Mark Thompson will make his first start in a NASCAR Cup race in more than a quarter-century in Sunday’s Alabama 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
The 66-year-old Thompson, of Cartersville, Georgia, will drive the No. 15 Premium Motorsports Chevrolet. Veteran crew chief Tommy Baldwin will be atop the pit box.
It will be Thompson’s second career Cup start. In his Cup debut, he finished 39th at Pocono in 1992
“Talladega is my most favorite track in all of NASCAR,” Thompson said. “It’s convenient to my home which is in Cartersville, Ga., and it’s only about 75 miles from my home.
“As a pilot, I can fly over there quite quickly and easily. I like the track, it’s just an enjoyable place to drive. I’ve driven about 20 to 30 races at Talladega over my career in the ARCA and Xfinity Series and I’m looking forward to getting in the 15 Cup car this weekend”.
The U.S. Army veteran and pilot will be sponsored by Phoenix Air, an international charter flight service, which is based in Cartersville.
Thompson, a veteran of the ARCA Series, became the oldest pole winner (63 years old) at Daytona International Speedway for the season-opening ARCA race there in 2015.
The Alabama 500 takes the green flag Sunday at 2 pm ET and will be televised on NBC.
NASCAR America: Danica Patrick on what’s next after the 2017 season.
(Photo/www.nascar.com)
“It’s obviously figuring out what to do next and how it looks,” Patrick said during Wednesday’s NASCAR America at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “If I’m going to race for another team. If I’m going to going to keep going. If I’m not going to keep going. All that stuff is getting figured out right now.”
Patrick is completing her fifth full season in NASCAR’s premier series, driving the No. 10 Ford. She confirmed she would continue racing in Cup only if she can remain in a competitive ride.
“All I can say is I’m very open-minded,” she said. “With anything in life, you can’t force things to happen. I mean you can force, but I feel like you pay the price at some point in time. You prolong the pain or have to clean up a mess later.
“So I’m just in a ‘go with the flow’ mode. What comes will come. And it’s going to be great. It’s going to all be wonderful. All I know is I keep in mind all the things I want for my life, and everything will fit in according to that.”
See what else Patrick had to tell Krista Voda, Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte about her future in the video above.
Talladega as the regular-season finale? It’s been suggested by drivers.
By Nate Ryan
Talladega Superspeedway’s move from cutoff to middle race of the Round of 12 has been well-received, but Cup drivers have been lobbying for another move with the race.
Denny Hamlin, who founded the Drivers Council that regularly meets with NASCAR, said “it’s been floated” to move the 2.66-mile oval to the regular-season finale.
“I think it should be the last race before the playoffs,” Hamlin told NBC Sports and NASCAR.com Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, where he unveiled a Martinsville Speedway paint scheme on his No. 11 Toyota that highlights a new partnership between FedEx and Walgreens. “That is the ultimate wild-card spot. If you want to see the craziest Talladega race ever, it would be right before the playoffs started. Probably 28 cars or so with their last opportunity to make it in the playoffs. To me, it’s a no-brainer where it should be in the schedule, but getting the tracks to agree is going to be very hard.
“It would be the ultimate cutoff race. Not knowing whether you’re in or not until the last lap, that would be the ultimate race. (Talladega) should want it. Even over being in the playoffs itself, (the regular-season finale) is a bigger event. I’m all for changing schedules around, but you really should put the racetracks where I think they’d thrive, and I think a cutoff Talladega race would be amazing.”
Any move wouldn’t happen until at least 2019. NASCAR already has announced the 2018 schedule with Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the regular-season finale (replacing Richmond International Raceway, which played host to the race from 2004-2017).
With another added layer of playoff points, Sunday’s race already is shaping up differently than 2016 when the Joe Gibbs Racing cars of Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards protected their points leads by intentionally running at the rear.
That left Hamlin, who needed a win to advance, trying to run for the lead with no help from his teammates.
“It really hurt me because I was on an island trying to race up front with no teammates where all the other teammates were working together and all mine were in the back,” said Hamlin, who finished third and was eliminated in the Round of 12 for the second consecutive season. “I understood where they were and said I’d be doing the same thing (in their position), but it certainly hurt our efforts to get a good finish.”
Hamlin said having Talladega as the second race in the Round of 12 is “better. No doubt about it. Talladega in the playoffs is sketchy anyway, but to have it as a cutoff race like it was last year is a little over the top.”
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who is ranked fifth in the points and 13 points above the cutoff, is expecting Sunday to resemble most Talladega races of recent memory, though stage points will discourage laying back.
“I don’t think it’ll get crazy until the last half of the race,” he said. “I think everyone is going to race up front. It’s going to do all the things they wanted it to do, competition-wise. There’s no laying back, there’s no, ‘Let’s ride this day out.’ Obviously it’s going to make for exciting ends of stages in my opinion. That’s where you have to be aware of the wrecks that can happen.
“I don’t think it’ll be as aggressive because people still want to stick around and need to be around at the end.”
SOCCER: What’s in the future for the U.S. national team? Perhaps two Fire players.
By Dan Santaromita
Bastian Schweinsteiger could miss rest of regular season and that might not be such a bad thing.
Sunday’s Cup race marks the middle event in the Round of 12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has won the past two restrictor-plate races, including at Talladega in May.
The Xfinity Series is off this weekend.
Here is this weekend’s schedule:
(All times are Eastern)
Friday, Oct. 13
8 a.m. – 8 p.m. — Cup garage open
10 a.m. – 10 p.m. — Truck garage open
Noon – 12:55 p.m. — Truck practice (FS1)
1 – 1:55 p.m. — Cup practice (NBCSN, MRN)
2 – 2:55 p.m. — Final Truck practice (FS1)
3 – 3:55 p.m. — Final Cup practice (NBCSN, MRN)
Saturday, Oct. 14
9 a.m. — Truck garage opens
9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. — Cup garage open
10 a.m. — Truck driver/crew chief meeting
10:30 a.m. — Truck qualifying: Single vehicle/two rounds (FS1)
12:30 p.m. — Truck driver introductions
1 p.m. — fred’s 250 Powered by Coca-Cola Truck race (94 laps/250 miles) (Fox, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
4:15 p.m. — Cup qualifying: Single vehicle/two rounds (NBCSN, MRN)
Sunday, Oct. 15
9:30 a.m. — Cup garage opens
Noon — Cup driver/crew chief meeting
1:20 p.m. — Cup driver introductions
2 p.m. — Alabama 500 Cup race (188 laps/500 miles) (NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
66-year-old Mark Thompson to make first Cup start in 25 years Sunday at Talladega.
By Jerry Bonkowski
(Photo/Getty Images)
The 66-year-old Thompson, of Cartersville, Georgia, will drive the No. 15 Premium Motorsports Chevrolet. Veteran crew chief Tommy Baldwin will be atop the pit box.
It will be Thompson’s second career Cup start. In his Cup debut, he finished 39th at Pocono in 1992
“Talladega is my most favorite track in all of NASCAR,” Thompson said. “It’s convenient to my home which is in Cartersville, Ga., and it’s only about 75 miles from my home.
“As a pilot, I can fly over there quite quickly and easily. I like the track, it’s just an enjoyable place to drive. I’ve driven about 20 to 30 races at Talladega over my career in the ARCA and Xfinity Series and I’m looking forward to getting in the 15 Cup car this weekend”.
The U.S. Army veteran and pilot will be sponsored by Phoenix Air, an international charter flight service, which is based in Cartersville.
Thompson, a veteran of the ARCA Series, became the oldest pole winner (63 years old) at Daytona International Speedway for the season-opening ARCA race there in 2015.
The Alabama 500 takes the green flag Sunday at 2 pm ET and will be televised on NBC.
NASCAR America: Danica Patrick on what’s next after the 2017 season.
By Nate Ryan
(Photo/www.nascar.com)
With six races remaining in her tenure at Stewart-Haas Racing, Danica Patrick doesn’t know yet what is ahead, but she is discussing it.
“It’s obviously figuring out what to do next and how it looks,” Patrick said during Wednesday’s NASCAR America at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “If I’m going to race for another team. If I’m going to going to keep going. If I’m not going to keep going. All that stuff is getting figured out right now.”
Patrick is completing her fifth full season in NASCAR’s premier series, driving the No. 10 Ford. She confirmed she would continue racing in Cup only if she can remain in a competitive ride.
“All I can say is I’m very open-minded,” she said. “With anything in life, you can’t force things to happen. I mean you can force, but I feel like you pay the price at some point in time. You prolong the pain or have to clean up a mess later.
“So I’m just in a ‘go with the flow’ mode. What comes will come. And it’s going to be great. It’s going to all be wonderful. All I know is I keep in mind all the things I want for my life, and everything will fit in according to that.”
See what else Patrick had to tell Krista Voda, Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte about her future in the video above.
Talladega as the regular-season finale? It’s been suggested by drivers.
By Nate Ryan
(Photo/Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
Talladega Superspeedway’s move from cutoff to middle race of the Round of 12 has been well-received, but Cup drivers have been lobbying for another move with the race.
Denny Hamlin, who founded the Drivers Council that regularly meets with NASCAR, said “it’s been floated” to move the 2.66-mile oval to the regular-season finale.
“I think it should be the last race before the playoffs,” Hamlin told NBC Sports and NASCAR.com Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, where he unveiled a Martinsville Speedway paint scheme on his No. 11 Toyota that highlights a new partnership between FedEx and Walgreens. “That is the ultimate wild-card spot. If you want to see the craziest Talladega race ever, it would be right before the playoffs started. Probably 28 cars or so with their last opportunity to make it in the playoffs. To me, it’s a no-brainer where it should be in the schedule, but getting the tracks to agree is going to be very hard.
“It would be the ultimate cutoff race. Not knowing whether you’re in or not until the last lap, that would be the ultimate race. (Talladega) should want it. Even over being in the playoffs itself, (the regular-season finale) is a bigger event. I’m all for changing schedules around, but you really should put the racetracks where I think they’d thrive, and I think a cutoff Talladega race would be amazing.”
Any move wouldn’t happen until at least 2019. NASCAR already has announced the 2018 schedule with Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the regular-season finale (replacing Richmond International Raceway, which played host to the race from 2004-2017).
With another added layer of playoff points, Sunday’s race already is shaping up differently than 2016 when the Joe Gibbs Racing cars of Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards protected their points leads by intentionally running at the rear.
That left Hamlin, who needed a win to advance, trying to run for the lead with no help from his teammates.
“It really hurt me because I was on an island trying to race up front with no teammates where all the other teammates were working together and all mine were in the back,” said Hamlin, who finished third and was eliminated in the Round of 12 for the second consecutive season. “I understood where they were and said I’d be doing the same thing (in their position), but it certainly hurt our efforts to get a good finish.”
Hamlin said having Talladega as the second race in the Round of 12 is “better. No doubt about it. Talladega in the playoffs is sketchy anyway, but to have it as a cutoff race like it was last year is a little over the top.”
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who is ranked fifth in the points and 13 points above the cutoff, is expecting Sunday to resemble most Talladega races of recent memory, though stage points will discourage laying back.
“I don’t think it’ll get crazy until the last half of the race,” he said. “I think everyone is going to race up front. It’s going to do all the things they wanted it to do, competition-wise. There’s no laying back, there’s no, ‘Let’s ride this day out.’ Obviously it’s going to make for exciting ends of stages in my opinion. That’s where you have to be aware of the wrecks that can happen.
“I don’t think it’ll be as aggressive because people still want to stick around and need to be around at the end.”
SOCCER: What’s in the future for the U.S. national team? Perhaps two Fire players.
By Dan Santaromita
(Photo/USA TODAY)
In the aftermath of the U.S. national team failing to qualify for the World Cup, fans are somewhere in the stages of grief.
Past that is a chance to look ahead to the future. The U.S. men don’t play a competitive game at the senior level until the 2019 Gold Cup. There’s always a long gap after a World Cup, but add another eight months to that by missing out on the World Cup and that becomes a very long time between truly meaningful matches.
What that gap should provide is an opportunity for younger players newer to the national team setup to get more chances in the coming months. Two players that may be given those chances are Fire fullbacks Brandon Vincent, 23, and Matt Polster, 24.
Vincent, the Fire’s second-year left back who has shown notable improvement from his rookie season, has already been capped with the senior national team. He appeared as a substitute against Canada in a friendly in February 2016. He was a part of the annual January camps where a group of mostly MLS players in their offseasons join the national team while the European-based players remain with their clubs while those seasons hit the midway point.
Polster has moved between a central defensive midfield role and right back in his three seasons with the Fire. He was a part of the failed Olympic qualifying team in 2016 and also took part in that same January camp as Vincent, but did not play. Polster was included in the preliminary roster for this summer’s Gold Cup, but was not selected to the final group.
Both have been key to the Fire’s success this year with the Fire’s streak of six losses in seven matches happening when both were out injured.
Vincent’s reaction to the American failure was more from the fan’s perspective than a player's.
“I don’t know if I’m even close to being in the conversation so it’s more of a fan type view for me,” Vincent said. “It’s gonna be weird not watching them.”
Polster related to some of the younger players on the team he has played with.
“I think the biggest thing is it’s just disappointing for all the guys,” Polster said. “They put a lot of effort in and obviously it didn’t go in their favor. To go through the entire hex and not qualify is disappointing, especially for the young guys like (Christian) Pulisic, (Kellyn) Acosta, (Paul) Arriola…. To not get that experience at a young age is disappointing.”
Polster played right back in Olympic qualifying, but was still playing midfield with the Fire at the time. This season, he has moved to right back and looked better at that spot than he did when he played there as a rookie. Fullbacks have always been hard to come by for the U.S. so Polster could at least be in the conversation going forward. He even had his own ambitions for trying to squeeze into this World Cup roster.
“The ultimate goal was that they’d qualify and hopefully I could make January camp and then I could turn some heads,” Polster said. “That was my thought process and I really wanted to give it a go. Hopefully I can do what I can to maybe help and be a part of it one day.”
If Polster has extra value for playing right back, Vincent may get double points for being a left-footed left back. His national team prospects may be greater than Polster’s for that reason.
“I’ll do everything I can to play as well as I can and improve as much as I can, but getting in that group is out of my hands,” Vincent said. “It’s not really my thing to worry about as long as I produce on the field here in Chicago, that’s all I can focus on.”
Bastian Schweinsteiger could miss rest of regular season and that might not be such a bad thing.
(Photo/USA TODAY)
The last time there was a break in Major League Soccer, the Fire did not return from the break well.
The Fire had 17 days between matches while MLS took a break for the Gold Cup and lost six of the first seven matches after entering the break with a 12-match unbeaten run in MLS play. With an off week from matches last weekend due to World Cup qualifiers, coach Veljko Paunovic is hoping his group won’t fall into a similar problem this time around.
“I think this is a very challenging moment for us because what we know from the past, when we had that break after Portland’s game, we didn’t come back well,” Paunovic said. “I’m not saying I would do something different at that point, but we learned from that and now we have a different approach.”
“I think this is a very challenging moment for us because what we know from the past, when we had that break after Portland’s game, we didn’t come back well,” Paunovic said. “I’m not saying I would do something different at that point, but we learned from that and now we have a different approach.”
Paunovic also mentioned striker Nemanja Nikolic, who has regained the league lead in goals with 21 on the season, as someone who slumped after the break. Nikolic failed to score in the first eight games after the Gold Cup break, but has now scored five goals in the past five matches.
While Paunovic is trying to get his team to improve on how it comes out of a break, the time off could be beneficial given the injuries to some key players, namely Bastian Schweinsteiger. The German returned from a calf injury in the Fire’s last game on Sept. 30, playing 19 minutes off the bench. However, Schweinsteiger left practice on Oct. 4 with what appeared to be a reaggravation of the injury and wasn’t at training this Wednesday.
That’s not a good sign for him playing Sunday against Philadelphia. As for the season finale a week later in Houston, what's the point? There's a decent chance the Fire won't be playing for much in the final regular season game. A win against Philadelphia would likely be enough to lock up a home game and a first-round bye could be out of the team's reach as well. The difference between the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds is negligible. Even if a home game in the first round could be at stake, would it be wise to send Schweinsteiger back on the field into a late afternoon game in Houston with the club's first playoff game in five years likely just three days away?
In addition, another midfielder, Juninho, is still battling his way back from a knee injury that has kept him off the field since Sept. 9. Juninho was running at training this week. As usual, Paunovic didn't tip his hand, but said both players are in the “final phase” of recovery.
“We’ll see how the issues and the small tightness that they have in case of Basti and the knee in case of Juni if they can recover for this game.” he said. “Obviously we want them to be ready for that game, but also we have to be smart and see if they really can make it and impact the game.”
On top of waiting for two key midfielders to return, Paunovic has to figure out a way to replace the injured Michael de Leeuw in the lineup. The Dutch forward who leads the team in assists suffered a ruptured ACL in the last match and will miss the rest of the season.
“I think there are some specifics that cannot be replaced,” Paunovic said of de Leeuw. “We believe that we have replacements… We are confident.”
In the absence of Schweinsteiger and possibly Juninho on Sunday, 18-year-old Djordje Mihailovic could get another start next to Dax McCarty, returning from national team duty, in central midfield and an attacking trio of Luis Solignac, Arturo Alvarez and David Accam could support Nikolic in the attack.
The downside to Schweinsteiger sitting is that Paunovic won't have as much time to see how the lineup best works without de Leeuw, but the risk of not having one of the team's most influential players as fresh as possible for the playoffs may not be worth it.
Top Premier League storylines – Week 8.
By Kyle Bonn
(Photo/Getty Images)
The international break is over, and while some hearts are broken and others are lifted with euphoria, all players must get back to work regardless of if they will be headed to Russia next summer.
From a club perspective, international breaks bring a chance for players to improve their form with a slight change of scenery, or the possible occurrence of a slight drop in momentum. But most of all, they just want their players to stay healthy.
With the players back to their training grounds, here are the four biggest storylines for the return of Premier League action…
Liverpool tests itself against the Premier League’s best
Last season, Liverpool was terrible against the lesser teams and up for it in games against the best. This time around, Jurgen Klopp will hope for more of the same – at least, the positive part – as he hosts heated rival Manchester United at 7:30 a.m. ET on Saturday (Watch live, on NBCSN and NBCSports.com). The Red Devils may not be atop the Premier League table, but that’s only because Manchester City has matched them the entire way, only slightly ahead by just a single goal on differential.
Unfortunately the Reds could not complete their international break objective – Sadio Mane returns injured and will miss six weeks, a massive blow to Liverpool’s top four hopes. Nevertheless, they still have Klopp, who has matched up extremely well against Jose Mourinho, with just one loss in seven matches against this weekend’s opposing boss. Can Liverpool manage to stave off the high-flying Red Devils?
Can West Ham break down Burnley?
The Hammers have put their poor start behind them and are beginning a climb up the table. A win this weekend against Burnley at Turf Moor at 10:00 a.m. ET (Watch live on NBCSports.com) would be a signature moment in their recovery, three points against a team that has been a pleasant surprise this season. The Clarets have been ridiculously hard to break down ever since their return to the top flight, but this season they’ve also discovered a newfound cutting edge up front.
Slaven Bilic has deployed Javier Hernandez out wide in an attempt to fit both he and Andy Carroll into the lineup, and with the Hammers healthy after the break, they should have a full disposal of players to look to break down the hosts. However, with Burnley now able to possess the ball in greater spells, the weak West Ham defense could be at risk.
Can Alexis Sanchez put World Cup heartbreak behind him?
Like the United States, Chile missed out on the World Cup in heartbreaking fashion. The two-time defending Copa America champions were poor throughout qualification, and ultimately ended up just short of the finish line. Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez must put this disappointment behind him, lest it bleed into his club career.
Arsenal travels to Watford at 12:30 p.m. ET on Saturday (Watch live, on NBCSN and NBCSports.com), and like Burnley, the Hornets have improved mightily from last season to this. Most importantly, they’ve capitalized on playing teams down on their luck such as Bournemouth, Southampton, and Swansea, and could do the same if Sanchez and Arsenal do not bring their best mentality to Vicarage Road.
Will Ronald Koeman stave off the sharks?
Everton is 16th in the table, and if this season is truly setting up to be a relegation battle, their match this weekend could be a vital one. The Toffees travel to Falmer Stadium to take on Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. ET (Watch live, on NBCSN and NBCSports.com) with the Seagulls sitting just two spots above them in the table, with both sides sitting on seven points.
If Ronald Koeman is to keep Everton floating above the relegation sharks, he must win this match. Any dropped points on the road at a newly promoted team would only serve to leak even more water into an already listing ship.
2018 World Cup Power Rankings – 9 months B.W.C.
By Kyle Bonn
(Photo/Getty Images)
After the opening release of our 2018 World Cup power rankings, much has changed. Countries have been eliminated in heartbreaking fashion, while other teams assert their dominance over their federations.
All the spots have been decided except for the UEFA playoffs and the inter-continential playoffs, which leave just a few spots to be determined.
According to our esteemed panelists — Joe Prince-Wright, Nicholas Mendola, Kyle Bonn, Matt Reed, Dan Karell and Andy Edwards — there is a clear talent gap between the top 10 teams and the rest of the nations. Meanwhile, there is a disagreement over what country is the most powerful in the world.
Germany has garnered the top spot, but it wasn’t by a lot. Brazil is right on their heels for the favorite heading into next year’s tournament, even dethroning the reigning World Champions on some lists. Overall, Europe claims four of the top five spots, South American teams find four countries in the top 10. Italy is the most iconic team to have fallen, now uncertain to make the tournament after finding itself in the UEFA playoffs thanks to its tough group.
Three teams who did not appear in last month’s edition find themselves with places at the table in Serbia, Iceland, and Croatia, while seven teams on the list were left off at least one panelist’s list, leaving uncertainty in the lower half of the table. Where do you think these countries fall, who was slighted, who is overrated, and who should have made the list?
Team Points Best Worst
1 (1)
|
Germany
|
118
|
1
|
2
|
2 (2)
|
Brazil
|
115
|
1
|
3
|
3 (3)
|
France
|
107
|
2
|
4
|
4 (4)
|
Spain
|
98
|
3
|
6
|
5 (5)
|
Belgium
|
95
|
3
|
7
|
6 (9)
|
Uruguay
|
84
|
5
|
9
|
7 (8)
|
Portugal
|
83
|
4
|
10
|
8 (5)
|
Argentina
|
81
|
5
|
11
|
9 (6)
|
Colombia
|
70
|
7
|
16
|
10 (12)
|
Mexico
|
59
|
10
|
12
|
11 (13)
|
England
|
53
|
7
|
15
|
12 (20)
|
Poland
|
47
|
11
|
17
|
13 (7)
|
Italy
|
43
|
9
|
18
|
14 (NR)
|
Serbia
|
37
|
9
|
NR
|
15 (NR)
|
Iceland
|
33
|
9
|
NR
|
16 (17)
|
Japan
|
28
|
13
|
NR
|
17 (10)
|
Switzerland
|
24
|
12
|
NR
|
18 (14)
|
Nigeria
|
21
|
16
|
NR
|
19 (16)
|
Costa Rica
|
19
|
14
|
NR
|
20 (NR)
|
Croatia
|
14
|
14
|
NR
|
Which countries can still qualify for the World Cup? | ||||
By Matt Reed
With all the drama that occurred on Tuesday night, it’s a bit hard to believe that World Cup qualifying isn’t over yet.
As things stand, 23 nations, including hosts Russia have booked their place into next summer’s tournament, but nine spots remain left open.
Traditional powers like Italy and the Ivory Coast have yet to qualify, while countries like Morocco look to reach their first World Cup in two decades.
Africa’s CAF is the only federation remaining that still has regular qualifying going on, which will be decided in November.
Meanwhile, Peru will take on New Zealand in an inter-continental playoff, while Honduras will meet Australia in a similar fixture.
Here are all of the nations that have already qualified for next summer’s tournament, along with those that remain in contention.
UEFA (10)
Qualified: Russia (Hosts), Iceland, Serbia, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, England, Spain, Poland, France
Can Still Qualify: Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Greece, Republic of Ireland
CONMEBOL (4)
Qualified: Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia
Can Still Qualify: Peru
CONCACAF (3)
Qualified: Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama
Can Still Qualify: Honduras
CAF (2)
Qualified: Nigeria, Egypt
Can Still Qualify: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, South Africa, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Congo
AFC (4)
Qualified: Iran, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia
Can Still Qualify: Australia
NCAAFB: What to Watch: The 5 games you should tune in to in Week 7.
By Sam Cooper
(Photo/Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
With all the drama that occurred on Tuesday night, it’s a bit hard to believe that World Cup qualifying isn’t over yet.
As things stand, 23 nations, including hosts Russia have booked their place into next summer’s tournament, but nine spots remain left open.
Traditional powers like Italy and the Ivory Coast have yet to qualify, while countries like Morocco look to reach their first World Cup in two decades.
Africa’s CAF is the only federation remaining that still has regular qualifying going on, which will be decided in November.
Meanwhile, Peru will take on New Zealand in an inter-continental playoff, while Honduras will meet Australia in a similar fixture.
Here are all of the nations that have already qualified for next summer’s tournament, along with those that remain in contention.
UEFA (10)
Qualified: Russia (Hosts), Iceland, Serbia, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, England, Spain, Poland, France
Can Still Qualify: Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Greece, Republic of Ireland
CONMEBOL (4)
Qualified: Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia
Can Still Qualify: Peru
CONCACAF (3)
Qualified: Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama
Can Still Qualify: Honduras
CAF (2)
Qualified: Nigeria, Egypt
Can Still Qualify: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, South Africa, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Congo
AFC (4)
Qualified: Iran, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia
Can Still Qualify: Australia
NCAAFB: What to Watch: The 5 games you should tune in to in Week 7.
By Sam Cooper
(Photo/Yahoo Sports)
Like we’ve done in years past, every week throughout the season we’ll be highlighting the best games of the coming weekend. We’ll be doing it a little differently this year, however. We’ll rank the top five games we’re most intrigued by while also providing some insight on other games that will be worth your time.
We complained about there only being two ranked matchups last weekend. Well this week there isn’t a single one. Yep, zero. But just because the schedule is ugly on paper doesn’t automatically mean we’re in for a boring weekend. I mean, No. 3 Oklahoma lost to Iowa State as a 31-point favorite while the Cyclones started a backup quarterback.
It’s college football. We’ve all learned to expect the unexpected.
Starting with the five best games, we broke down this week’s slate for you:
5. Utah (4-1, 1-1) at No. 13 USC (5-1, 3-1) — 8 p.m., ABC: Utah’s offense has been up-and-down, but the Utes have an opportunistic defense (14 forced turnovers) that could capitalize on Sam Darnold’s propensity to throw the ball to the other team. Utah is especially strong on the defensive line, boasting the 20th-best rush defense. But so is USC. The Trojans D has 15 turnovers and will make life tough for whoever plays QB for Utah: Tyler Huntley or Troy Williams. Williams was last year’s starter and has played the last two weeks after an injury to Huntley.
This game has early implications in the Pac-12 South, too. These teams have been in the hunt for the division crown the past three seasons and would like to pick up a key win over a South foe early in the conference slate.
4. No. 6 TCU (5-0, 2-0) at Kansas State (3-2, 1-1) — Noon, FS1: Kansas State can’t throw the ball and TCU has a really good run defense, but the injury to Jesse Ertz and insertion of Alex Delton at QB for the Wildcats is a bit of a wild card for this game. Delton played in the second half and OT of Kansas State’s loss to Texas and threw just five passes, completing two for 30 yards. But Delton, who brings more speed to the table than Ertz, rushed for 79 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries. He could present a few new looks for the offense.
TCU is the surprise frontrunner in the Big 12 coming off wins over Oklahoma State and West Virginia, but going into Manhattan for an early kick is never easy. TCU QB Kenny Hill was plagued by turnovers early in his career, but only three interceptions thus far in 2017. If TCU relies on its ground attack and keeps the ball off the turf, it should be able to stay undefeated.
3. No. 24 Texas Tech (4-1, 1-1) at West Virginia (3-2, 1-1) — Noon, ESPNU: Based on entertainment value alone, this could be the most fun game of the weekend. Texas Tech being ranked at the midpoint mark of the season is pretty shocking, but the Red Raiders have been able to string together a competent defense while continuing to score a whole lot of points. The TTU defense is going to be challenged big time heading to Morgantown to go against Will Grier and David Sills, one of the better QB-WR duos in the Big 12. It’s an early kick, too.
WVU, coming off a close loss to TCU, has been one of the worst teams in the country defending the run so far this year (No. 109). TTU is more known as a throwing team, but it has put together a solid rushing attack with a three-man rotation led by Justin Stockton. The run game could open things up down field for QB Nic Shimonek.
2. No. 10 Auburn (5-1, 3-0) at LSU (4-2, 1-1) — 3:30 p.m., CBS: Auburn’s offense has come alive the past three weeks, especially on the ground. With Kerryon Johnson leading the way, Auburn has averaged 277.6 rushing yards in SEC play. With the ground attack flourishing, QB Jarrett Stidham has looked more and more comfortable, but he’s never walked into an atmosphere quite like Tiger Stadium.
LSU bounced back from a disastrous loss to Troy with a road win over a then-ranked Florida team. LSU played with the physicality coach Ed Orgeron is looking for, but is going to need better play out of QB Danny Etling to upset Auburn. Matt Canada should have some unseen wrinkles, but he’ll need to throw the ball downfield at some point.
1. No. 12 Oklahoma (4-1, 1-1) vs. Texas (3-2, 2-0) — 3:30 p.m., ESPN: Tom Herman-coached teams have typically been really dangerous as underdogs. That’s not what Oklahoma fans want to hear coming off a brutal home loss to Iowa State. Baker Mayfield and the offense have been able to put up points, but the defense has been really disappointing. Mike Stoops’ unit will need to play much better in order to keep OU’s Big 12 and College Football Playoff hopes alive. There’s no margin for error.
Texas has shown improved defensive play. The offense, though, has been up and down. Herman won’t reveal the starting QB despite freshman Sam Ehlinger’s strong play with Shane Buechele banged up. Still, it’d be a surprise if it wasn’t Ehlinger after he threw for 380 yards and two TDs while adding 107 yards on the ground in last week’s win over Kansas State. OU has struggled in the secondary, so whoever plays QB for UT will have chances down the field.
With very different degrees of success in recent years, you’d expect Oklahoma to have dominated recent games in this rivalry. Not so fast. The teams have split the last four contests.
Keep an eye on…
Georgia Tech (3-1, 2-0) at No. 11 Miami (4-0, 2-0) — 3:30 p.m., ABC: Miami finally snapped its losing streak to rival Florida State to stay undefeated and now has to deal with Georgia Tech’s option offense. That’s never easy and the Canes will be without two starters on defense. This could go down to the wire.
Texas A&M (4-2, 2-1) at Florida (3-2, 3-1) — 7 p.m., ESPN2: This will be a battle of two of the fun, young quarterbacks in the SEC: A&M’s Kellen Mond and UF’s Feleipe Franks. Mond has much more help around him than Franks, but this is A&M’s first true road game since the debacle at UCLA. Oh, and Florida is wearing these horrifying uniforms:
No. 21 Michigan State (4-1, 2-0) at Minnesota (3-2, 0-2) — 8 p.m., BTN: Coming off an emotional win over rival Michigan, will Michigan State bring the same level of intensity to Minneapolis? Minnesota has lost two straight after a 3-0 start. Expect a better effort from P.J. Fleck’s bunch in the biggest game of his tenure thus far.
Boise State (3-2, 1-0) at No. 19 San Diego State (6-0, 2-0) — 10:30 p.m., CBSSN: A blowout home loss to Virginia showed this isn’t your usual Boise State team. Still, the Broncos are contenders in the Mountain West’s Mountain division. SDSU, with star RB Rashaad Penny, is the conference’s best team. Boise is No. 19 nationally in rush defense, so the Aztecs may need to throw a little more than they usually do.
Upset watch:
No. 17 Michigan at Indiana (+7) — Noon, ABC: Overmatched Indiana (3-2, 0-2) teams have given Michigan (4-1, 1-1) trouble the last two seasons, losing by a combined 17 points. With Michigan’s offense taking a step back this season, the Hoosiers could keep this one even closer — or win outright – in Bloomington.
Northwestern at Maryland (+3) — 12:30 p.m., ESPN2: Northwestern (2-3, 0-2) has been really, really disappointing so far this season while Maryland (3-2, 1-1) was demolished at Ohio State last week. Expect the Terps to use their speed to bounce back at home in a low-scoring game.
No. 25 Navy (+3) at Memphis — 3:45 p.m., ESPNU: Navy is a road underdog despite being ranked and starting the year 5-0 for the first time since 2004. Zach Abey is running the option masterfully but will have to keep up with Memphis’ (4-1, 1-1) high-powered unit. This should be a shootout.
No. 5 Washington at Arizona State (+17.5): Arizona State (2-3, 1-1) whose three losses are all to ranked teams by 10 points or less, has covered the spread (including a win over Oregon) the last two weeks. Washington’s (6-0, 3-0) schedule has been a cakewalk so far. The Huskies will win this game, but ASU can keep things close at home.
Channel surf through…
No. 8 Washington State (6-0, 3-0) at Cal (3-3, 0-3) — Friday 10:30 p.m., ESPN: Wazzu has always been able to score, but now it has the defense to accompany the explosive offense. This game looked like it would be tough after Cal started 3-0, but the Golden Bears have since dropped three straight.
South Carolina (4-2, 2-2) at Tennessee (3-2, 0-2) — Noon, ESPN: Butch Jones is looking for anything to go positively, so he made a QB switch from Quinten Dormady to Jarrett Guarantano coming off a bye. Will it make a difference for the lackluster Vols offense against the Gamecocks?
Arkansas (2-3, 0-2) at No. 1 Alabama (6-0, 3-0) — 7:15 p.m., ESPN: Alabama has won 71 straight over unranked opponents and there’s no reason to believe this one will be close. However, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, a former Tide WR, will appear at a halftime ceremony celebrating UA’s 1992 national title. Will he wear Clemson gear?
Oregon (4-2, 1-2) at No. 23 Stanford (4-2, 3-1) — 11 p.m., FS1: This would have been one of this weekend’s marquee games if Oregon QB Justin Herbert didn’t break his collarbone. Now the Ducks are starting a true freshman QB while attempting to deal with Stanford’s Bryce Love, the nation’s leading rusher, defensively on the road. Good luck.
Oregon (4-2, 1-2) at No. 23 Stanford (4-2, 3-1) — 11 p.m., FS1: This would have been one of this weekend’s marquee games if Oregon QB Justin Herbert didn’t break his collarbone. Now the Ducks are starting a true freshman QB while attempting to deal with Stanford’s Bryce Love, the nation’s leading rusher, defensively on the road. Good luck.
Georgia, Alabama, Auburn reminding SEC that defense matters.
(Photo/The Associated Press)
Georgia coach Kirby Smart isn't happy that his Bulldogs finally allowed not one, but two touchdowns against a Southeastern Conference opponent.
In their third league game.
Smart calls that a wake-up call for his fourth-ranked Bulldogs.
"Our defense needed that," Smart said. "They have been told by the media and everyone else that they're the greatest thing ever. ... We didn't play to the standard that we're supposed to. We can get better defensively and coach off of this performance to get their attention."
The Bulldogs still are the nation's second-stingiest defense in Smart's second season , giving up an average of just 10 points a game this season. They haven't allowed more than 19 in a win at Notre Dame that looks much more impressive as the Fighting Irish's only loss.
Georgia, top-ranked Alabama and No. 10 Auburn are separating themselves in the SEC, even though the Crimson Tide's offense looks methodical at times, the Bulldogs are playing a freshman quarterback and Tigers can have trouble moving the ball.
The one thing the trio does well week in and week out, is play defense. Their defensive squads are among the top six scoring units in the country, and that has them all poised to make a run at the College Football Playoffs.
"Defense wins championships and offense puts people in the seats," said Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason, who runs his own defense.
That's nothing new, in fact, it's been repeated many times.
But these three teams have taken it to heart.
Alabama has allowed just 22 points in three SEC games. Georgia had a streak of six scoreless quarters before giving up its first touchdowns in league play to Vanderbilt , second set up by a turnover returned to the Georgia 1.
Georgia ranks third nationally allowing 242.7 yards per game followed by Alabama (258.8) in fifth with Auburn (287.5) 13th. Mississippi State and LSU are the only other SEC teams giving up less than 350 yards per game.
Auburn used Gus Malzahn's up-tempo offenses as first coordinator and then head coach to overcome the Tigers' defensive shortcomings in winning the 2010 national championship with Cam Newton and to reach the 2013 title game. Auburn's best scoring defense was ranked 48th in 2013 in those two seasons.
Now Auburn is holding opponents to 13 points per game — sixth-best in the nation.
"Over the history of our league, if you really look, the teams that have a chance to either win championships or have a chance to win championships, they're all playing really good defense," Malzahn said. "That's really, I think, what separates our league from a lot of leagues is the elite defenses. When you play those elite defenses, it's a challenge."
Arkansas is an example of how costly a shoddy unit can be.
A defense ranked 123rd out of 128 FBS teams giving up an average of 6.75 yards per play led to ugly losses to Missouri and Virginia Tech last season. Switching from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 has resulted in only marginal improvement. Arkansas (2-3, 0-2 SEC) is giving up 31.4 points per game, better than only Mississippi (37.4) and Missouri (40).
Nick Saban coached Alabama to the SEC championship each of the last three years and four of five leaning on defense with Smart as defensive coordinator until leaving last year to coach his alma mater. This season, the Tide has remained one of the nation's top defenses despite an array of injuries.
Alabama lost linebackers Christian Miller and Terrell Lewis for the season in the opener against Florida State with linebackers Rashaan Evans, Anfernee Jennings and Dylan Moses missing games with injuries. So have starting defensive end Da'Shawn Hand and backup cornerback Trevon Diggs.
Five-star defensive end recruit LaBryan Ray appeared headed for a redshirt season but had a sack against Texas A&M with Hand out with a sprained MCL.
Still, Saban wasn't happy giving up 23 points to Colorado State or 19 to Texas A&M , and the standard is such that even Saban's defenders agree they didn't do enough.
"As far as execution, we could've done a lot better," Alabama linebacker Rashaan Evans said.
That might be a nitpicking, at least to LSU tight end Foster Moreau. Alabama has scored 59 and 66 points in separate games, while Georgia put up 41 in a shutout at Tennessee and 45 in the Bulldogs' win at Vanderbilt. Auburn routed Mississippi State 49-10.
"When you're scoring that much, it's actually harder to hold teams like that," Moreau said. "You just kind of drop back and don't want to give up big plays. ... When you see teams scoring that much and holding teams to that little, that's impressive."
And in an addendum to that old saying, these defenses are also putting people in the seats.
Report: Penn State 'preparing' for Texas A&M to pursue James Franklin.
By Sam Cooper
James Franklin has a 31-15 record at Penn State. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
If Texas A&M moves on from Kevin Sumlin as many expect, could the school go after James Franklin?
A vague report from CBS was published Thursday saying Penn State officials are “preparing for A&M to make a run at hiring Franklin should Sumlin and the Aggies part ways.” Franklin, in his fourth season at PSU, is coming off a Big Ten championship in 2016 and has the Nittany Lions ranked No. 3 this year, so it makes sense that A&M would be interested in his services.
But would Franklin be interested in A&M? It’d be surprising.
A&M has devoted huge resources to football since it moved to the SEC, but Franklin, a Pennsylvania native, has Penn State rolling at a high level on the field and in recruiting. Franklin inherited a program saddled by NCAA sanctions and got PSU to seven wins in his first two seasons. The 2016 season started a bit shaky with losses to Pitt and Michigan before the Nittany Lions rattled off nine straight wins, including a dramatic decision over Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game.
Franklin, who agreed to a lucrative contract extension in August, has already coached in the SEC at Vanderbilt. Sumlin hasn’t exactly been treated with much dignity on what many think is his way out of College Station, despite a 48-23 overall record (23-20 in SEC play). On the surface, it’s hard to make a convincing argument for Franklin to take the A&M job.
Schools go after sitting head coaches all the time, so it’s not surprising that A&M would aim high if it decides to cut ties with Sumlin. Perhaps that’s the main thing we can glean from this report, which, to be clear, does not even say Texas A&M *will* go after Franklin. The report, written by Dennis Dodd (who visited State College this week) can basically be translated to this: Penn State believes Texas A&M may go after Franklin and is doing what it can to prepare for that possible pursuit.
We’re still several weeks away from that potentially coming to fruition.
We’re still several weeks away from that potentially coming to fruition.
NCAABKB: Condoleezza Rice to chair Commission on College Basketball.
By Jeff Goodman
(Photo/commons.wikimedia.org)
In the wake of the recent FBI investigation that resulted in four assistant coaches and six others associated with college basketball being arrested, NCAA president Mark Emmert has formed a Commission on College Basketball, which will be chaired by Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
"The recent news of a federal investigation into fraud in college basketball made it very clear the NCAA needs to make substantive changes to the way we operate, and do so quickly," Emmert said in a statement. "Individuals who break the trust on which college sports is based have no place here. While I believe the vast majority of coaches follow the rules, the culture of silence in college basketball enables bad actors, and we need them out of the game. We must take decisive action. This is not a time for half-measures or incremental change."
Rice served as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, and was also a professor at Stanford and served on the college football selection committee. The commission, according to Emmert, will focus on three areas: 1) The relationship of the NCAA national office, member institutions, student-athletes and coaches with outside entities -- which includes apparel companies, agents and advisors, and also non-scholastic basketball. 2) The NCAA's relationship with the NBA and 3) Creating the right relationship between the universities and its national office to promote transparency and accountability.
The committee also includes Emmert, USA Basketball chairman General Martin E. Dempsey, former Duke star and Atlanta Hawks owner Grant Hill, ex-Navy and Spurs standout David Robinson, ex-Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley, longtime college coach Mike Montgomery, ex-Georgetown head coach John Thompson III, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, Hofstra athletic director Jeff Hathaway, president of Notre Dame Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of Georgia Tech G.P. "Bud" Peterson, former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, and president of the Association of American Universities Mary Sue Coleman.
The commission will start in November and present its recommendations on legislative, policy and structural changes to the boards for action in April.
"We need to do right by student-athletes," Emmert added. "I believe we can -- and we must -- find a way to protect the integrity of college sports by addressing both sides of the coin: fairness and opportunity for college athletes, coupled with the enforcement capability to hold accountable those who undermine the standards of our community."
Follow-up: New NCAA committee to clean up college hoops is unfit to tackle that challenge. What's Your Take?
Follow-up: New NCAA committee to clean up college hoops is unfit to tackle that challenge. What's Your Take?
By Jeff Eisenberg
NCAA President Mark Emmert (Photo/AP)
There are hundreds of people in college basketball with firsthand knowledge of how cheating occurs in the sport today.
Somehow, NCAA president Mark Emmert managed to assemble a committee with hardly any of them on it.
Fifteen days after the announcement that federal authorities are investigating bribery and corruption in college basketball, Emmert formed a 14-member committee chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Emmert described the committee’s purpose as “examining critical aspects of a system that clearly is not working.”
Among the committee’s primary objectives will be assessing how AAU basketball is run and the influence of agents and shoe companies on the sport. The committee will also explore ways of promoting transparency and accountability in college athletics and examine how to better adapt to the challenges created by the NBA’s one-and-done rule.
“The recent news of a federal investigation into fraud in college basketball made it very clear the NCAA needs to make substantive changes to the way we operate, and do so quickly,” Emmert said in a statement. “Individuals who break the trust on which college sports is based have no place here. While I believe the vast majority of coaches follow the rules, the culture of silence in college basketball enables bad actors, and we need them out of the game. We must take decisive action. This is not a time for half-measures or incremental change.”
Emmert’s public desire to clean up college basketball sounds admirable, but the committee he has put together is unfit for the job he has asked them to do. There are plenty of accomplished, intelligent people on the committee, but there are no current college coaches, agents or shoe-apparel executives, nor is there a single player under age 45.
It’s probably a safe bet Rice hasn’t attended many grassroots basketball games in recent years or quizzed any agents about how they establish relationships with prospects. Same with former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler or any of the six current or former university presidents or athletic directors on the committee.
Ex-NBA stars Grant Hill and David Robinson have at least been through the recruiting process before, but that was more than a quarter century ago. That might as well have been the stone age considering how quickly methods of cheating evolve as college basketball’s rules breakers seek to stay one step ahead of NCAA investigators.
The only two committee members who undoubtedly understand how the sausage is made are former Georgetown coach John Thompson III and former Cal and Stanford coach Mike Montgomery. Both are familiar with the challenges of recruiting five-star talent and neither has been removed from the game for very long.
Thompson should be able to educate the committee by sharing stories of how his longstanding ties to agent David Falk undercut his ability to recruit at Georgetown. So many Hoyas players signed with Falk when they turned pro that many believe it became a turnoff to Washington D.C.-area AAU coaches with ties to other agents.
Why wouldn’t Emmert recruit more people for his committee who are actively involved for the sport? Wouldn’t current players or coaches have added a lot to the discussion? Or someone like outspoken former Nike and Adidas executive Sonny Vaccarro, who is as well-versed as anyone in the influence shoe-apparel companies exert?
One reason could be that Emmert doesn’t want to risk the embarrassment of a committee member becoming ensnared in the FBI’s ever-growing investigation. A more cynical explanation might be that the committee’s existence is just grandstanding since the NCAA and its member schools are raking in money via the current system and lack motivation to implement meaningful reform.
“Total political BS move,” one Division I coach said about the formation of the committee. “From the start, the whole thing screams that they have no idea what to do or how to fix it or they do not want to have an idea of what to do or how to fix it because the presidents are afraid they’ll lose all that money. Otherwise they would have done something real and serious.”
It’s disappointing but not surprising that Emmert’s objectives for the committee do not include an examination of the NCAA’s outdated system of amateurism. College basketball’s thriving black market exists largely because of NCAA rules prohibiting top players from earning what their worth aboveboard on the open market.
College coaches and shoe-apparel companies often work together to funnel tens of thousands of dollars to the families or handlers of top prospects in exchange for their influence on what school the player chooses. One strong recruiting class can be the difference between a coach losing his job or signing a multimillion-dollar extension. Or between a shoe company’s flagship program playing deep into March or failing to make the NCAA tournament.
Agents and financial planners also have plenty of incentive in the current system to make under-the-table payments to top players in hopes of securing their business when they’re ready to turn pro. A five-figure investment in a 17-year-old McDonald’s All-American has the potential to lead to a far bigger payday when that prospect signs his first NBA contract.
It would have bolstered Emmert’s committee considerably to have some members with intimate knowledge of how these sorts of transactions go down.
There’s a reason why the FBI hired Leonardo DiCaprio’s character at the end of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster, “Catch me if you Can.” Sometimes you need a conman to catch a conman.
Without that firsthand knowledge of how cheating occurs in college basketball, Emmert’s committee is unlikely to amount to much.
Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica Take: We disagree with Mr. Eisenberg's statement and position. The corruption in college sports has been going on for a long time and now everyone is aware and knows about it. What will be interesting is to find out the real facts and how deep this goes and whom and whom not is or was involved. This will not be swept under the carpet and responsible people will follow through with this investigation. I know that a thorough diagnosis will be dedicated to the cause, recommendations to make changes to reduce and eliminate the problem and methods for enforcing a recommended solution will be noted. There will be resistance, however, with all of the attention this matter has, something must be done.
We'll follow the progress of the committee and see if something is done or if this is just an opportunity to look good, in other words a sham. We think something really will done but only time will tell. Too much is at stake and the integrity of college sports is on the line. As corny as it sounds, there's still a lot of people that believe in truth, justice and the American way.
Well, there you have another one of our rants. We'd love to hear your thoughts and what's your take? Please go to the comment section at the bottom of this blog and share your view with us. We love hearing from you and truly value your opinion. Thanks in advance for your valuable time and consideration and we'll all be following this committee's findings and recommendations.
The Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica Editorial Staff.
On This Date in Sports History: Today is Friday, October 13, 2017.
On This Date in Sports History: Today is Friday, October 13, 2017.
Memoriesofhistory.com
1903 - The Boston Red Sox defeated the Pittsburgh Pirate 3-0 in the first modern World Series. They won the series five games to three.
1947 - The Toronto Maple Leafs lost to a group of NHL All-Stars in the first official All-Star Game.
1951 - In Atlanta, GA, a football with a rubber covering was used for the first time. Georgia Tech beat Louisiana State 25-7.
1960 - The World Series ended on a home run for the first time. Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-the-ninth home run allowed the Pirates to beat the Yankees.
1961 - Jacky Lee (Houston Oilers) threw for 457 yards and two touchdowns against the Boston Patriots. The game ended 31-31.
1967 - The first game of the new American Basketball Association was played. Pat Boone, the owner of the Oakland Oaks, sang the national anthem.
1970 - Dave McNally (Baltimore Orioles) became the only pitcher to date to hit a grand slam in the World Series.
1971 - The first World Series night game was telecast on NBC. Baltimore defeated Pittsburgh 4-3 in Game 4 at Three Rivers Stadium.
1971 - Bing Crosby, part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, threw out the first ball in Game 4 of the World Series between the Pirates and the Orioles.
1985 - Phil Simms (New York Giants) passed for 513 yards against the Cincinnati Bengals. He set NFL records with 62 pass attempts and 29 first downs.
1998 - The Pittsburgh Penguins filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in their history.
1998 - The NBA canceled regular season games, due to work stoppage, for first time in its 51-year history.
2002 - The Anaheim Angels defeated the Minnesota Twins to advance to their first World Series.
1947 - The Toronto Maple Leafs lost to a group of NHL All-Stars in the first official All-Star Game.
1951 - In Atlanta, GA, a football with a rubber covering was used for the first time. Georgia Tech beat Louisiana State 25-7.
1960 - The World Series ended on a home run for the first time. Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-the-ninth home run allowed the Pirates to beat the Yankees.
1961 - Jacky Lee (Houston Oilers) threw for 457 yards and two touchdowns against the Boston Patriots. The game ended 31-31.
1967 - The first game of the new American Basketball Association was played. Pat Boone, the owner of the Oakland Oaks, sang the national anthem.
1970 - Dave McNally (Baltimore Orioles) became the only pitcher to date to hit a grand slam in the World Series.
1971 - The first World Series night game was telecast on NBC. Baltimore defeated Pittsburgh 4-3 in Game 4 at Three Rivers Stadium.
1971 - Bing Crosby, part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, threw out the first ball in Game 4 of the World Series between the Pirates and the Orioles.
1985 - Phil Simms (New York Giants) passed for 513 yards against the Cincinnati Bengals. He set NFL records with 62 pass attempts and 29 first downs.
1998 - The Pittsburgh Penguins filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in their history.
1998 - The NBA canceled regular season games, due to work stoppage, for first time in its 51-year history.
2002 - The Anaheim Angels defeated the Minnesota Twins to advance to their first World Series.
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