College Basketball Trying to Move in On Football – The Week That Was

College Basketball Trying to Move in On Football.  A week after Kentucky took down number one Michigan State they lost to unranked Evansville.   Such is the way that College Basketball goes.  Even with the exciting start to the College Basketball season they are not putting a dent in the numbers for football.  Basketball will have its time.  Two more unbeaten teams went down in College Football.  NASCAR came to an end and I am not sure other than the families of the teams anyone was watching.  I am really not sure if NASCAR can survive with the way they are running things now.  It seems like a huge mess and it is not nearly as interesting as it used to be.

Sunday in The NFL was as crazy as ever.  Teams that should win easily were having trouble and teams that should be losing were playing well.  So once again same as it ever was in the NFL.    All this and more in the week that was.

 

NFL Week Starts with a Mess

The NFL week started with what was supposed to be a rivalry match up that set the course for the rest of the season.  Cleveland came out on top of the Steelers 21 – 7 but they were actually the loser in this game. What a mess that turned into for everyone.  There were mistakes made by every one involved.  None of it justifies the actions of Myles Garrett.  No matter what any of the talking heads out there say.  While Mason Rudolph may have made some poor choices.  Those choices do not justify what Garrett decided to do in a fit of rage.   While I do believe that more than just Garrett made poor choices here and should be punished he is the only one that made a choice that could have killed someone.  To the Browns fans that started the change . org petition to get Garrett reinstated to play this year.  You are all wrong.  He will be given his chance to prove that what he did was just one bad choice.  On really bad choice.  It just won’t be this season.

Five biglakesports key NFL observations for the week

1. We thought there was a chance we would add a team to the 0 – 16 club.  We did not think that it would be the Bengals.  In their upcoming schedule I only saw them having a chance to beat the Jets or the Dolphins.  I don’t think that is likely anymore.  The Bengals are not good.  This would give Ohio its second go in the 0 – 16 club.  It is interesting that the teams that have the 0 – 16 are all grouped together pretty closely.  Detroit, Cleveland and looking like Cincinnati.
2. The Chiefs won but they did not look great.  It took a spectacular game by the Chiefs defense.  Or you could look at it as a horrible game by Phillip Rivers.  Even with the four interceptions thrown by Rivers it was a one score game.  The game the Chiefs have next week against the Raiders will be for first place in the AFC West.
3. The MVP this year will come down to two players.  Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson.  They are both doing some really amazing things on the field.  Both pushing their teams to wins.  The Ravens will more than likely be the second seed in the AFC.  The Seahawks could get to the first seed in the NFC.  It will come down to their last game of the season against the 49ers.
4. After a really nice start to the season.  The Lions have completely fallen off the rails.  Matt Patricia their head coach that looks like a homeless man has completely lost the team.   It seems to happen with almost every coach that comes out of the Bill Belichick coaching tree.  They all seem to think that they are him with out actually having put in the time as a head coach.  I don’t see him being able to get this team back.  It does not help that Matt Stafford is probably going to to be out for the rest of the season.  Time for the Lions to regroup and look toward next year.  At least they had a good start to the season so they are not going for the zero in the win column.
5. Dak Prescott is doing his best Matt Stafford impersonation. Putting up some huge numbers.  Will probably get over 5000 yards for the season and more than likely it will not matter.  The Cowboys needed every yard of the 444 he threw for against the Lions to win.

 

College Football Pretenders – Go Home

Alabama wins and loses at the same time.  To all you second guessers out there.  You are not qualified to make any speculative comments about what happened with Tua.  You are not qualified to make any judgments at all.  We lost two more undefeated teams this past week.  No one was really sure what Minnesota and Baylor really brought to the table.  Saying that either of those teams could have written their ticket to the playoff by winning out.  As it stands now even winning their conference championship will not ensure they are going to be in.  This week I am sure that the Playoff rankings will not change much.  Everyone at the top won.  There is not reason to shake it up.  It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Five things of note in College Football

1.  Down to three teams with out a loss now in College Football.  Since none of these teams can play each other before the playoff it is possible that we end the regular season with three undefeated teams this  year.  Not probable but it is possible.
2. It is not the fault of Nick Saban that Tua Tagovailoa got hurt.  Yes it was a game that the outcome had been decided already.  It was only in the first half yet.  Alabama was going to practice its two minute offense.  Injuries happen in football.  The injury that Tagovailoa sustained was not related to his previous injury.  It happens.  After the fact it is always easy to look back and say that something should not have happened.
3. The PAC 12 is actually in a surprisingly good spot.  That is as long as Oregon and Utah keep winning.  The PAC 12 is putting themselves in a position to get the fourth seed.  In order for the PAC 12 to get in they really need to have Oregon and Utah meet in the PAC 12 championship game as two one loss teams.  If a two loss team wins the PAC 12 then their shot at the fourth seed will not be looking good.
4. MSU Coach Mark Dantonio has said that he is going to come back next year.   I know he has written his own ticket at MSU with the program he had built.  That program is not what it was a few years ago.  All he had built up is gone.  Sometimes you just need to know when it is time to leave.  Pretty sure that MSU will not ever let him go after what he has done for the Football program.  We have seen this happen before.  A coach just cannot admit is it time to go.  It happened at Texas and at Florida State.  They are having trouble rebuilding and they are football power house schools.  At MSU it will be even more difficult.
5. Biglakesports College Football Top Five: 1. LSU 2. Ohio State 3. Clemson 4. Georgia the first three are the only three teams left without a loss.  I just makes sense that they would be the top three in the rankings.  Just throwing Georgia in there at number four because I can’t put Alabama there anymore.

College Basketball Start of the Season Shuffle

The start of the college basketball season has its merits.  In the big picture none of these games really means anything.  If you are the top ranked team and you lose to as few games at the beginning of the season it just mean that you will drop in the polls a bit.  It will not affect much of anything when it gets to the end of the season.  We saw this with the top ranked teams losing in the first few weeks of the season.  Another reason why polls this early have no meaning.  W

We are four games into the College Basketball season.  There really is not much that we can figure out from this short amount of time.  With Football going on it is difficult to get the time to watch most of the games.  At last for me.  I am sure there are some basketball fans out there that do make the time.  Duke is back on top of the polls at number one.  The preseason number one Michigan State is coming up on Dukes schedule on December third.  The ACC Big Ten challenge is always pretty interesting.  It is a fun challenge that really gets things going for both of those conferences.  The Big Ten has the only school that is in the top ten in both Football and Basketball.  We will find out what Ohio State is really made of when they play North Carolina on December 4th.   As we move into December that is when College Basketball will get more interesting.  Also as football winds down.

NASCAR 2019 – DONE

The 2019 NASCAR season is done. Kyle Busch won his second championship.  He used to be a really unlikable driver but now he is not so bad.  I guess he has mellowed out a bit as he has aged.  I really forgot the race was even on. There was way to much going on with football.  No on to the 8 week off season before NASCAR Starts back up in 2020.  With NASCAR buying almost all the tracks it will be interesting to see how they move around the schedule.  For most of the tracks since they are in control they will be able to move around races as needed.  They will also not have to do as many two visits to the same track each season.   That is what really seems to be killing a lot of NASCAR.  To keep the track owners happy they had to bow to what those owners wanted.  By taking that equation out of it they will be able to do what could be good for the sport.  It is difficult to say what they will do but they have the opportunity to do it now.

 

You can find last weeks post here

Follow us on Facebook Here