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Ten Piece Nuggets-Sports

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Hopefully, you haven’t lost your sense of taste or smell.  Covid-19 can do that and worse to a human as you know.  We’re taking ten nuggets out of the oven this AM for you.  The disease has interrupted our fun as sports fans all over again and is unfortunately interspersed in the conversation below.

  1.  Notre Dame inserted itself squarely into the FBS playoff race conversation with its double-overtime thrilling win over Clemson in South Bend Saturday night.  There’s still work to do, but the two teams now appear on a collision course to meet again in the ACC Championship game.  Did you even know that Notre Dame joined the ACC for this season?  Covid times basically forced their hand as it’s regularly scheduled opponents were iffy on starting a season back then.
  2. Dabo Swinney, post-game, played the role of Dabo Swinney quite well.  “We’re 7-1,” coach Swinney said after the loss to Notre Dame. “Nobody was handing out a trophy tonight. Nobody was rolling a stage out there tonight. We got a ways to go. We have a lot of guys that have grown and learned a lot from this year. It’s obviously been challenging on everyone.”  His nasally whining, holier than thou, poor us, and we have work to do attitude is challenging on a lot of college football fans.
  3. The SEC has canceled three games this week due to cases sprouting up on teams and the inevitable tracing that knocks those immediately around the infected out for a bit too.  Gone are the games pitting Auburn v. Mississippi St., Texas A&M v. Tennessee, and Alabama v. LSU.  When and/or if they will be made up is up in the air.  The postponed games are piling up, and the SEC Championship Game is coming up, so some games may not get rescheduled at all.
  4. If you’re a competitor or a dyed in the wool fan, you’re disappointed in the cancellations.  If you’re a fan of Mississippi St., Tennessee, or LSU you might secretly be breathing a sigh of relief.  Miss St. started 1-0 with a big upset (at least we thought it was then) at LSU and faded very fast.  Tennessee started 2-0 and has slid to the point where they want Jeremy Pruitt to volunteer to no longer be the Volunteers coach.  LSU started poorly, leveled off briefly, then forgot to show up for its game two weeks ago v Auburn.
  5. A few other games for this weekend have also been postponed.  And, a few are teetering on the proverbial brink as well.  The season is wobbling.  Can it forge its way through?  The college game is tricky.  You can’t bubble them.  You think you can, but you can’t keep them from friends, bars, nor parties.
  6. The PAC 12 just started.  In hindsight, why did they wait?  They said it was for a lack of quick results in the then testing.  Now that we have quick response testing, we only find out faster what we already knew.  People will continue to spread this thing around until there is a vaccine in widespread distribution.  We have our fingers crossed Pfizer.
  7.  “Hello friends,” says Jim Nance.  Live from the Augusta National Golf Course tomorrow is The Masters on CBS.  It was postponed from its usual early April start.  They avoided the first wave of the disease and walked headlong into the second one with this date.  No fans (the club calls them patrons) will be allowed onto the Holy Grail of golf courses.  Former champion Sergio Garica won’t be allowed in either.  He announced that he tested positive for you know what earlier this week.
  8.  The laid back Wednesday traditional nine-hole par-three tourney is a no go today.  One of its trademarks is for the pros to attempt to skip a ball across the water on one of the par threes.  Jon Rahm, currently ranked no. 2 in the world decided to honor the tradition while practicing on the regular course yesterday.  How did he do?  If you haven’t seen it, you must.  It’s right here.
  9.  In the NFL the Pittsburgh Steelers reached the halfway point at a perfect 8-0.  Along the way they beat the Titans and the Ravens in back to back road games to get to that clean record.  No small feat.  But the AFC is loaded with good teams and the best record is far from secured this early.  KC is loaded and shows no signs of a Super Bowl hangover.  Baltimore has a strong D and a QB who can change a game by himself.  Tennessee has a tough run game and a solid D.  Buffalo is winning in different ways which is always a good sign.  And, don’t look now, but here comes Tua and the Miami Dolphins.
  10. New Orleans is the flavor of the week in the NFC.  They did to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay team on Sunday night what Tom Brady and the New England team used to do to the Jets twice a year.  The NFC has several good teams, but will they have a great one by regular season’s end?  Green Bay fits the mold of good, but not great.  Seattle can’t stop anyone.  Arizona is interesting but likely a year away.  Chicago thinks they’re good, but they aren’t.  The Rams are 5-3 but they’ve only beaten up on the woeful NFC East thus far.  Don’t look now, but the Vikings might have righted their ship (see what we did there?).

It’s hump day morning.  Soon it’ll be downhill from here.

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-NCAA, NFL, and Potluck

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

You’ve got to be tired of leftovers.  Have some info and protein rich Ten Piece Nuggets below.  They’re randomly served.  Get all of your food groups in early.  Variety is good for you.

  1. The NFL is down to 12 teams while the NCAA is down to two.  Let the playoffs begin for the NCAA this coming weekend, while the NCAA’s playoff will crown a champion on January 13. There are still some good bowl games to be played (Alabama v. Michigan, Baylor v. Georgia, Wisconsin v. Oregon), but the last of one of all in NOLA is the biggest.  LSU was installed as a 3 point overnight favorite over Clemson but by dawn that rose to 5.5 on Sunday.
  2.  Did you listen to Dabo Swinney after his team’s thrilling comeback over THE?  His shtick is already tired and we get to hear from him for two more weeks.  “We’ll need to win 30 in a row to be champion.”  Hmm.  Is last year’s record relevant this year?  If so, yes you will need to win 30 in a row since 29 are done.  ” They’re ranked 1st and we’re only ranked 3rd.”  So?  “Nobody in the media believes in us.”  Clemson was never ranked lower than fourth all year long.  Lastly, why is Swinney pronounced sween nee?  William Christopher “Dabo” Swinney’s Clemson Tigers are 10-1 in their last 11 games v. the SEC.  If he wants “r-e-s-p-e-c-t” he’ll need to make it 11-1 according to him.  Poor Dabo.
  3. Today is Black Monday in the NFL.  It’s the day players clean out their lockers till fall and fired head coaches clean out their offices permanently.  Jay Gruden lasted only 6 games in Washington while Ron Rivera (more on him later) got booted a month ago in Carolina.  Freddie Kitchens is out as of this AM in Cleveland.  Doug Marrone is as good as gone in Jacksonville.  They’ll be others.
  4. Is Jason Garrett out in Dallas?  Jerry Jones was quiet after yesterday’s final regular season game when asked.  Jerry Jones is never quiet.  Garrett owns an 85-67 record in 10 seasons in Dallas. He took the Cowboys to the playoffs three times, each ending in the divisional round.  Garrett’s contract wasn’t renewed last off season.  It expires on 1/14/2020.  He’ll be gone before that.  Sometimes it’s just time.
  5. Let the Urban Meyer and Lincoln Riley rumors fly.  Urban has never coached a single down in the NFL.  Ask Nick Saban if the transition from the NCAA always works out.  Riley looks the part.  He’s young and offensive minded.  The NFL is a copycat league.  Sean McVay paved the way for Kliff Kingsbury.   Is Riley next?  If he is, he needs to hire a DC and stay the hell away from the D.  His Oklahoma teams stop nobody and the Big 12 isn’t very good.  They have been worked over in their CFP playoff appearances.  LSU had 49 in the first half and throttled way down to a 63 point total Saturday afternoon.  Riley said afterwards, “they went on a little bit of a run.”  Little bit?
  6. Did you want a weird and mostly worthless trivial stat this AM?  We thought so.  Alvin Kamara has caught exactly 81 passes in the regular season each season in his first three years in the NFL.  It’s a ton for a RB especially when Michael Thomas is playing WR on the same team.
  7.  What’s wrong with New England?  Yesterday they tripped all over themselves losing as a 16 point favorite at home to Miami.  It cost them a first week bye  They’ll need to dispatch of the Tennessee Titans this weekend then hit the road twice to get to the big show.  NE, under Belichick, has never advanced to the Super Bowl from lower than the #2 seed.  He had timeouts and time when they forced a Miami punt with 1:45 left in the second quarter.  He let the clock run down on the punt, then had Tom Brady hand the ball off twice to go into the locker room tied at 10.  Hmm.  Brady was seen on the sidelines working to loosen his right arm all afternoon.  Hmm.  It’s going to be very hard for them to derail the team that has “it” this year-the Baltimore Ravens.  The Ravens will spend the week getting healthy while NE clashes with the Titans.
  8.  Ron Rivera will very likely be introduced as the next Washington Redskins head coach today or tomorrow.  Be careful what you wish for.  That organization has been a mess for two decades and running.  They over pay for free agents, miss on draft picks, and cannot evaluate QB talent.  Bruce Allen is out as president there as well.  The one constant in the last twenty years there?  The owner.  Daniel Snyder makes Jerry Jones look like a smart owner.
  9.  Two live wild cards are Minnesota and Seattle.  Minnesota travels to N.O.  Seattle goes across the country to face Philly.  Two teams getting no respect are Green Bay and Kansas City.  Both are two seeds, both get the week off, and both are very tough outs at home.
  10.  This BBR staff writer goes to a movie in a theater about as often as the Cleveland Browns go to the playoffs.  However, we took in Richard Jewell yesterday.  It’s good work done by Clint Eastwood.  If Abby were a movie critic she would give it four bones out of five.  Quick question, Jewell was accused of the 1996 pipe bombing in Centennial Olympic Park during the Olympics held in Atlanta, but was he ever arrested?  Convicted?  Who did place the backpack filled with three bombs? The FBI stunk this one up almost as bad as they behaved in the “Russia collusion” investigation.  Go see it.    A bag of popcorn is seven dollars these days.  Who knew?  Sneak some nuggets in instead.