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[Posted Wednesday a.m.]
NFL Quiz: Oakland Raiders: 1) Name the three to rush for 5,000 yards as a Raider. 2) Name the three to pass for 15,000 yards in an Oakland uniform (err, maybe L.A., too). Answers below.
College Football…the new CFP rankings
1. Clemson 10-0
2. Alabama 9-1
3. Ohio State 10-0
4. Notre Dame 9-1
5. Iowa 10-0
6. Oklahoma State 10-0
7. Oklahoma 9-1
8. Florida 9-1
9. Michigan State 9-1
10. Baylor 8-1
11. Stanford 8-2
12. Michigan 8-2
13. Utah 8-2
14. Florida State 8-2
15. LSU 7-2
16. Navy 8-1!…New Year’s Day Six?!
17. North Carolina 9-1…absurd, but being killed for non-conference schedule (Delaware and North Carolina A&T)
18. TCU 9-1
19. Houston 10-0
20. Northwestern 8-2
25. Wisconsin 8-2
I showed Northwestern and Wisconsin because they are crucial to Iowa’s chances, the Hawkeyes having beaten both, but they play each other this weekend. That said, the Iowa-Ohio State Big Ten title game winner will be in the Final Four (assuming Iowa doesn’t stumble and OSU beats both Michigan and Michigan State).
Speaking of which, Michigan State is at Ohio State, Saturday, and Spartans quarterback Connor Cook said he’s available.
There are two major Big 12 games…Baylor at Oklahoma State and TCU at Oklahoma. For the Horned Frogs, QB Trevone Boykin said he’ll play last I saw.
Michigan has a huge game at Penn State (huge for Ohio State, too), while North Carolina is at Virginia Tech and needs to win impressively to keep moving up.
Marc Tracy / New York Times…on Oklahoma State:
“(If) the Cowboys go 12-0, the committee could be forgiven for replying, So? That record would involve home wins over T.C.U., which beat miserable Kansas by just 6 points on Saturday; Baylor, which is playing with a backup quarterback; and Oklahoma, which last month lost to Texas (4-6, 3-4).”
–One of my favorite college football writers, Chuck Culpepper of the Washington Post, reminds me that I have been giving Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott short shrift in terms of the Heisman. With Leonard Fournette flaming out, I believe it’s between Clemson’s Deshaun Watson (late-closer in the voting, my guess) and Alabama’s Derrick Henry.
But Elliott is 10-for-10 in 100 yard games, and his spectacular 274 bailed out the Buckeyes in their near loss to Indiana earlier.
Sorry, Bobby C. Navy’s Keenan Reynolds will get some votes, and he may be invited to New York, but he’ll finish fourth at best. Reynolds does, however, deserve a “lifetime achievement” award.
–Another writer I read each Sunday/Monday during the college season, Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times, reminds me that with Arizona’s upset of Utah, it is the fourth straight year the Wildcats have defeated a top-10 opponent. As Ronald Reagan would have said…not bad, not bad at all.
—Division I-AA rankings
1. Jacksonville State 9-1
2. North Dakota State 8-2
3. McNeese State 9-0
4. Coastal Carolina 9-1
5. South Dakota State 8-2
13. Fordham 9-2
NFL
AFC South…ughh
Indianapolis 4-5
Houston 4-5
Jacksonville 3-6
Tennessee 2-7
NFC East…ughh II
Giants 5-5
Washington 4-5
Philadelphia 4-5
Dallas 2-7
NFC West…Seattle in major trouble
Arizona 7-2
St. Louis 4-5
Seattle 4-5
San Francisco 3-6
—Cincinnati fell from the unbeaten ranks, now 8-1, losing to Houston (4-5) 10-6 on Monday night in Cincy. So only New England and Carolina are still undefeated.
This was kind of like a playoff game for the Bengals, at least in terms of the bright lights, so that meant “Bad Andy” Dalton showed up. Dalton has a solid career passer rating of 87.6, but as Cincinnati fans are all too painfully aware, he is 0-4, with one touchdown and six interceptions, in the playoffs, with a passer rating of 57.8.
Monday he was 22-for-38, 197 yards, 0-1, 61.0, though to be fair, tight end Tyler Eifert dropped some big ones, while wide receiver A.J. Green lost a fumble after a fourth-down catch for what would have been a first down at the Houston 23-yard line.
Meanwhile with Houston now being tied for first in the pathetic AFC South, us Jets fans are very worried about our contest down there this coming Sunday.
And this Jets tidbit, courtesy of Andrew Beaton of the Wall Street Journal. Jets’ tight ends have a total of six receptions in nine games this season. “Not only is that the fewest in the NFL this year, it’s not even one-third the total of the next lowest team, Houston, which has completed 19 passes to its tight ends.”
–The fallout from Peyton Manning’s hideous performance on Sunday is growing, as it’s now been revealed he has a torn plantar fascia in his left foot, which helps explain the 0.0 passer rating but as Jarrett Bell of USA TODAY Sports notes, “also adds another damning layer to the inevitable.”
“Manning, 39, is not poised for a storybook ending.
“Sure, there’s a flicker of hope that he will participate in another playoff chase in a few weeks with a still-in-first-place Denver Broncos team that has a championship defense in tow. And judging by his history, he will remain determined to fight to the finish.
“But rather than Manning riding off into the sunset with a championship, like his boss, Broncos executive John Elway, it’s more likely he’s going away in the midst of torrential rain.
“Even with good health, there would still be the matter of possibly having to win road playoff games at places like Foxborough, Mass. and/or Cincinnati.
“It does not add up. Not with his NFL-high 17 picks…. [Ed. last year, Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers led the league with 18.]
“The foot injury, which apparently flared up during the Week 9 loss at Indianapolis (of all places) comes on top of the shoulder and rib ailments that had Manning on the injury report last week.
“I’m nobody’s doctor, and as a defiant Manning paraphrased his former coach, Jim Mora, following the big Week 8 win against the Green Bay Packers, sometimes we think we know what we really don’t know.
“Yet here’s what it looks like: An aging body, breaking down.”
Brock Osweiler is going to start for Denver next Sunday against the Bears, and it’s not known how long Peyton will be out.
–The Cleveland Browns announced that Johnny Manziel will start the rest of the season, which with the team 2-8 is the right move. You’ve gotta find out if he can be a franchise quarterback, especially with the option, Josh McCown, being 36…which is five in dog years.
–New England wide receiver Julian Edelman underwent surgery for a broken bone in his left foot, suffered in Sunday’s win over the Giants, and will be out a reported 6-8 weeks, so he could return certainly in time for the playoffs, if not sooner.
–I forgot to note last time that Detroit’s 18-16 win over Green Bay on Sunday, at Lambeau Field, was the Lions’ first win in Green Bay since Dec. 15, 1991. 24 straight times without a victory, the longest road losing streak in NFL history. As my grandfather used to say, “Gee willickers!”
The new longest active streak of 13 straight losses is held by the Texans at the Colts. [Michael Salfino / Wall Street Journal]
–New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz will miss the entire season after it was announced he was having season-ending calf surgery. Cruz hasn’t played since Week 6 of 2014 after he tore the patellar tendon in his right knee. Then, after rehabbing that injury, he appeared ready in training camp to complete his comeback, but he tore a muscle in his left calf that didn’t heal.
While Cruz talks of coming back next year, the Giants are likely to release him. He has three years left on a five-year, $43 million deal he signed before the 2014 season, but none of the remaining money is guaranteed, though he is owed $7.9 million, $7.4 million and $8.4 million in salary for 2016-18. The Giants will try and get him to restructure the contract, but if he doesn’t it’s bye-bye.
It seems like eons ago that Cruz had back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons, with 19 TD receptions, in 2011-12, and was as exciting as any receiver in the game.
With the news on Cruz, who for those outside the New York area you have to understand it was virtually week to week that fans were being told he could return, the team has now re-signed former teammate Hakeem Nicks, who is still only 27, but has been out of the game this year after a disappointing 2014 with Indianapolis. He comes in as No. 4 or 5 on the depth chart.
–Meanwhile, Giants fans are reliving Sunday’s crushing 27-26 loss to the Patriots. I didn’t have time to give many details Sunday night, but of course I understand why fans are bemoaning yet another lost final few minutes. By all rights the Giants should be 8-2, not 5-5.
Or, as Bill Pennington of the New York Times wrote of Sunday’s finish:
“What if the rookie Landon Collins had held on to the interception he appeared to have grabbed, at least initially, on the first play of the Patriots’ game-winning drive?
“What if the late reception in the end zone by Odell Beckham Jr. – ruled a touchdown on the field – had remained a score that put the Giants up by 5 points with roughly two minutes left to play?
“What if the Giants had run the football near the goal line in the closing minutes, taking more time off the game clock and limiting the Patriots’ flexibility during their final drive?….
“ ‘I mean, just get the game over with,’ a red-faced and exasperated Coach Tom Coughlin said of all the ways his Giants had squandered opportunities to put the game away. ‘I don’t know how to explain it.’
“But this year’s Giants (5-5) have turned fourth-quarter collapses into an art form. Sunday was just another new way to lose.”
–I was watching the Saints-Redskins game on Sunday, the disastrous 47-14 New Orleans loss, and looking at Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan on the sidelines and thinking, ‘How does this guy keep his job?’
Well he got fired on Monday. Granted, he had the No. 4 defense in football back in 2013, but they tumbled to 31st in 2014 and are dead last this season.
–It’s been the year from hell for the Baltimore Ravens, picked by some to reach the Super Bowl and instead are 2-7.
And then they get jobbed on Sunday, a 22-20 loss to the Jaguars that the NFL said on Monday really should have been a 20-19 Ravens victory.
As reported by Jamison Hensley of EPN.com:
“League spokesman Michael Signora said the Jacksonville Jaguars should’ve been penalized for a false start on their final play from scrimmage, which would’ve resulted in a 10-second runoff and a 20-19 victory…
“Instead, the Jaguars were allowed to snap the ball, and Elvis Dumervil was flagged for a facemask of quarterback Blake Bortles. Jason Myers then kicked a game-winning 53-yard field goal with no time remaining for a controversial 22-20 win for the Jags.
“ ‘The correct call in this case would have been to penalize the offense for a false start because all 11 players were not set, and whistle to stop the play,’ Signora said. ‘The ensuing 10-second runoff should have ended the game.’”
How heartbreaking is this loss? Consider that the Ravens are the first team in NFL history to start a season with nine straight games decided by eight points or fewer, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
College Basketball
It will be a few weeks before I give more than a cursory look at the AP poll, but after the first weekend’s action….
1. UNC
2. Kentucky
3. Maryland
4. Kansas
5. Duke
6. Virginia
9. Wichita State
San Diego State no votes
–On Monday, George Washington upset Virginia, 73-68, in Washington. You never make too much of a game like this, and GWU isn’t chopped liver. [22-13 in 2015, 24-9 in 2014]
—San Diego State lost to No. 16 Utah 81-76 in Salt Lake City. While I didn’t catch any of this, it being past my bedtime, clearly from the recap the Aztecs blew it.
–Then Tuesday you had some big ones. No. 13 Michigan State defeated No. 4 Kansas in Chicago, 79-73, as Denzel Valentine had a triple-double; a career-high 29 points, 12 assists and 12 rebounds, a rather Magic-like performance that elicited a phone call afterwards from the Magic man himself.
This is a nice early-season win for the Spartans, who have a reputation for slow starts before heating up right around March Madness time.
Kentucky beat Duke 74-63. Grayson Allen, one of the surprises of last year’s title run by the Blue Devils, was just 2-of-11 from the field. This one is totally meaningless.
Maryland beat Georgetown 75-71 in a renewal of their old rivalry.
And early in the day, Dayton crushed Alabama 80-48.
–Johnny Mac was looking at some rosters and St. John’s doesn’t have one kid from New York City, and six from overseas, while St. Francis (Brooklyn) has two players from Iceland.
NBA
–I said a couple weeks ago that the Knicks’ 20-year-old rookie, Kristaps Porzingis, was about to take Gotham by storm and it hasn’t taken long. Tuesday, there were chants of “Por-zing-is” echoing through Madison Square Garden as the 6-6 Knicks defeated the Charlotte Hornets 102-94.
Porzingis had his best game yet, 29 points and 11 rebounds in just 31 minutes, going 10-for-17 from the field, including 2-for-2 from 3-point land. Plus he was 7-for-7 from the three-throw line.
This kid, from the day he was drafted, the selection accompanied by boos, has said all the right things, including after last night’s effort.
“The easy part is to play one game like this – the hard part is to keep playing every game like that.
“Everybody [was] saying project, few years,” he added. “I will get better in a few years, but I know I’ll be able to play right now.”
Last year the Knicks didn’t win their sixth game until Jan. 19. Believe it or not, the city is beginning to buzz again. Heck, playing .500 ball would be a gigantic step up and would keep us interested all season.
–Since I mentioned Kobe Bryant the other day, in the interests of fairness, I have to note his performance late Sunday after I had posted. Kobe had 17 points (though 6-for-19 shooting), nine assists and eight rebounds in 36 minutes as the Lakers picked up their second win, 97-85 over the Pistons at the Staples Center.
Kobe is only supposed to play 32 minutes, per the plan the team has for him, but Coach Byron Scott decided Kobe wouldn’t play in Monday’s game against Phoenix (which L.A. lost 120-101 to fall to 2-9).
The Los Angeles Times’ Mike Bresnahan wrote of Kobe after Sunday’s game that “He barely made it out of Staples Center, his knees and back buzzing loudly at him as he stood in the locker room afterward.
“ ‘I’m not looking forward to walking to the car,’ Bryant said, quickly answering reporters’ laughter after he said it. ‘Seriously.’”
Yup, I’d say this is the end for him.
MLB
–No surprises in the rookie of the year voting, with Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant and Houston shortstop Carlos Correa getting the nod.
Correa was the first overall pick in the 2012 draft, while Bryant was No. 2 in 2013. Yup, both developed as advertised. But I didn’t realize Correa was just the second Astros player to win the award, the other being Jeff Bagwell in 1991.
Actually, Correa edged out another shortstop, Cleveland’s Francisco Lindor, 124-109, receiving 17 first-place votes to Lindor’s 13.
Bryant, though, swept all 30 first-place votes.
–The Cubs’ Joe Maddon won his third Manager of the Year award, beating out the Cards’ Mike Matheny and the Mets’ Terry Collins, not that anyone gives a damn about this except for the manager and his agent, while the Rangers’ Jeff Banister was the A.L. winner over the Astros’ A.J. Hinch.
—David Ortiz is going to announce his retirement after the 2016 season today, according to multiple reports. The Big Needle has 503 career home runs, with some of his best seasons coming in his latter years owing to a magical elixir of herbs and spices.
Today is his 40th birthday and last season he clubbed 37 homers and drove in 108. Ortiz, also known more affectionately among his fans as Big Papi, is just one home run behind Eddie Murray on the all-time list and I can tell you unequivocally, Hall of Famer Murray was not using a magic elixir.
Once his career is over, Ortiz will travel the world as a spokesman for Big Needle’s Fruit Juice.
—Legendary scout George Genovese died. He was 93. As reported by the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin:
“Genovese was renowned for his ability to identify the raw skills that an unheralded high school or college player might develop. George Foster was a poor hitter at El Camino College in Torrance and Jack Clark a pitcher at Gladstone High School in Covina, but Genovese signed both players. Each finished his career ranking among the top 100 home-run hitters in major league history.”
Genovese was born in Staten Island, New York, 1922, and played 12 seasons in the minors, his career interrupted by military service during World War II. He got one at-bat in the big leagues, with the 1950 Washington Senators. [0-for-1 with a walk, so a .500 OBP!]
He then managed in the minors for a decade when the San Francisco Giants turned him into a scout, his territory being Southern California.
“In three decades with the Giants, Genovese signed some 40 players who made the major leagues, including such Southern California standouts as Foster, Clark, Bobby Bonds, Chili Davis, Gary Matthews, Matt Williams and Royce Clayton.”
Chase for the Sprint Cup
It’s down to one final race for the championship. Four drivers with a shot at the title:
Reigning series champion Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., and Jeff Gordon; Gordon in his NASCAR finale. It could be dramatic.
[Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the rain-soaked race very late Sunday night in Phoenix, but he had been eliminated from the playoffs in the second round.]
Gordon is a four-time champ, Harvick won his first last year, and Busch and Truex are racing for the Sprint Cup title for the first time in their career.
So on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it’s real simple. The highest finisher among the four wins…no bonuses for leading the most laps, etc.
While Truex is a Jersey boy (Mayetta…south Jersey), of course I’d love to see Gordon win. That would be a helluva way to go out.
Time to put post-it notes all over my place so I don’t forget to tune in for the last hour or so.
NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship
The tournament begins Nov. 19 and Wake Forest is the No. 1 seed! They won their only national championship in 2007 (I can’t believe it was that long ago…I’m aging far quicker than I thought), while the No. 2 seed in the 48-team field is Clemson. Georgetown is 3, Akron 4.
The 16 seeds receive first-round byes, with the second round Sunday, Nov. 22.
The ACC has seven teams, the others being UNC, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Boston College and Virginia.
University of North Florida, Radford and Utah Valley University are all making their first appearance in the tournament. If you heard of Utah Valley you’re a better man than me.
Golf Balls
There are some PGA Tour victories that are bigger than others and on Monday, we had one. Graeme McDowell prevailed in Mexico at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in a playoff over Russell Knox (sorry, Steve G.) and Jason Bohn. It was McDowell’s third PGA Tour triumph and 14th worldwide, but more importantly his first anywhere since 2014 (French Open).
Despite not winning much, McDowell is a popular player and still just 36. This has to be a huge shot in the arm for his confidence and I’d love to see him competing in the big events in 2016.
For Bohn, though, it was his seventh runner-up since his last win in 2010.
As for Knox, he has earned $2,052,160 in a five-week stretch, after earning $1,916,666 in 28 tournaments all of last season, his best on Tour.
Just one more tournament, this week’s event at Sea Island (looking like another wet one, at least Thursday, mused the amateur weatherman), then the Tour takes a 45-day hiatus until reemerging in Hawaii in January. I’m ready for next year’s action. It should be a repeat of the great stuff we had last spring and summer.
Stuff
–Congratulations to the Republic of Ireland for securing a spot in Euro 2016 with a 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina, after losing their first contest 1-0 (so IRL wins on aggregate, 2-1). The Republic joins Northern Ireland, England and Wales in the tourney slated for France next summer, which, needless to say has some wondering about security.
It was six years ago that Thierry Henry’s infamous handball denied Ireland a place at the 2010 World Cup.
–Las Vegas’ sports books got taken to the cleaners with Ronda Rousey’s loss to Holly Holm on Saturday night. “The consensus line: bettors had to wager $900 on Rousey to win $100 and could wager $100 on Holm to win $600,” as reported by Josh Peter of USA TODAY. According to one official at Westgate Las Vegas Superbook, betting tickets on Holm outnumbered those on Rousey by a 5-to-1 margin.
–So I am one of those old-fashioned guys that still subscribes to real magazines. Like real hard copy. One of them is the Weekly Standard and I rip articles out and throw them in various piles and, anyway, just got around to reading a book review on “Player and Pawns: How Chess Builds Community and Culture” by Gary Alan Fine.
Back in my youth, I used to play a lot of chess with my father and I wish I had kept it up. I literally haven’t played since then. But I admire grandmasters like Garry Kasparov, for sure, and so this book has some interesting tidbits.
Except for Bobby Fischer’s three years as world champion (1972-75), which was the era I played with Dad (remember Shelby Lyman covering the Fischer-Spassky match on PBS?), Russians retained the world championship of chess between 1948 and 2000, and they dominate today, though the current world champion is Norway’s dynamic Magnus Carlsen.
Martin Morse Wooster has the review of the book and notes this nugget:
“During the Cold War, chess was so strongly associated with Soviet intelligence efforts that when the longtime Russian ambassador in Washington Anatoly Dobrynin offered to play a friendly game with Henry Kissinger in the 1970s, Kissinger refused – for security reasons. (‘The KGB doubtless thought that they could deduce from my play the characteristics of my personality,’ Kissinger once recalled in a television interview.)”
Garry Kasparov, world champion between 1985 and 2000, observes that “a grandmaster needs to retain thousands of games in his head, for games are to him what the words of their mother tongue are to ordinary people, or notes or scores to musicians.” I love that.
Clocks, by the way, were introduced to tournaments in 1862, and by 1883, players had to make 15 moves in an hour. It’s gotten faster since.
Metropolitan New York has 80 percent of the chess masters in the U.S., with Greenwich Village’s Marshall Chess Club (from which Shelby Lyman came), remaining the major center.
But outside New York, the scene is fractured, and as many of you suspect, “A majority of the fees received by the United States Chess Federation comes from players under the age of 18, and most of these players lose their interest in chess once they enter college.”
–Fellow runner Pete M. (we did a few marathons together… waaaay back….) passed along the story of the Bangkok half-marathon.
From The Guardian:
“Instead of a 13-mile run through Thailand’s capital, the Standard Chartered Bangkok marathon on Sunday accidentally extended its annual half-marathon to almost 17 miles.
“The bonus miles came as a surprise to runners, who unleashed a tirade of complaints on social media after the event.”
Oh, I would have let loose. As Pete and I were musing, four extra miles, 40-50 extra minutes (for us lousy runners), means 3-4 fewer beers after! [Runners understand the ability to drink copious amounts of beer after a long race is self-evident.]
Note to Kiawah Marathon/Half-Marathon organizers. Do a better job with the post-race beer line than you did last year. [My race is Dec. 12…at which point this column could end.]
—Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are SNL’s musical guest on Dec. 19. Gee, do you think they’ll play “Santa Claus Is Coming…”? This will be a big ratings night…Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are co-hosting.
Incredibly, Springsteen last performed on SNL in Oct. 2002, during his “The Rising” tour.
Top 3 songs for the week 11/20/76: #1 “Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)” (Rod Stewart and Britt Ekland…uhhh uhhhh…) #2 “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” (Gordon Lightfoot…interminable …) #3 “Love So Right” (Bee Gees)…and …#4 “Muskrat Love” (Captain & Tennille) #5 “Disco Duck” (Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots) #6 “The Rubberband Man” Spinners) #7 “Rock’n Me” (Steve Miller) #8 “Just To Be Close To You” (Commodores…big slow dance song back in my Wake Forest days…cough cough…) #9 “Beth” (Kiss) #10 “Do You Feel Like We Do” (Peter Frampton)
NFL Quiz Answers: Raiders: 1) 3 to rush for 5,000… Marcus Allen 8,545, 4.1 avg., 1982-92; Mark van Eeghen 5,907, 4.0, 1974-81; Clem Daniels 5,103, 4.5, 1961-67. 2) 3 to throw for 15,000 yards… Ken Stabler 19,078, 150 TD, 1970-79; Rich Gannon 17,585, 114, 1999-2004; Daryle Lamonica 16,655, 148, 1967-74. [These are the only three to throw for 100 TDs.]
And Bazooka Joe says, Mark van Eeghen went to Colgate! [3rd round pick in 1974.]
Next Bar Chat, Monday.
