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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- “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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.