College Football Is About To Change So Is the NFL. If California can pull this off it will allow college athletes to make money off their likeness. The NFL changes for this season are starting to show. Not sure that the results are really what the NFL was going for. There has been a rash of offensive pass interference penalties called. I guess it has been called by the way the rule is written but as you are watching the game it really seems crazy some of the penalties that are being called. In the third week of College Football have we really been able to find out anything about any of the teams or conferences. Baseball is in the finals stretch of their regular season. Seems like the Baseball season has been going all year long. Oh it has. LOL All this and more in the week that was.
California to Change College Sports
The California legislature has passed a law that gives athletes on scholarship the the right to make money off their name on endorsements. it will make it illegal for a scholarship to be taken away from a player for making money off their name. This is all in response the the lack of action by the NCAA. Finally someone has decided that if the NCAA is not going to make the move. They will force their hand. Of course the NCAA is going to fight this. If they were smart then they would have been the ones that were leading this charge. This is a win for all involved. It will not cost the colleges or the NCAA a dime. The money will come from third parties. Of course the colleges have been doing this for a long time. Just look at the money they take from the shoe companies. The NCAA and the Colleges are making money like crazy. It is time for the players to get some as well. This bill does not mean that the colleges will have to pay the players. It means that the players will be able to accept endorsements. This will not cost the NCAA or the Colleges anything. I think a lot of people are not understanding exactly what this bill does. Regardless once this bill is singed in California then other states will have to follow. Other wise there would be no reason for the top players that could make that endorsement money to play anywhere else other than California. This is a change that has been a long time coming and has been needed for a while.
For the Tim Tebows of the world that think college players should play for free because they love their University. Get it together man. Those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can love your university and make some extra money. I am sure there are coaches out there that love the university they coach for but you don’t see them saying no to that multi million dollar pay check. I also don’t see Tim Tebow playing minor league baseball for free or working for the SEC network for free.
The Conferences
The B1G had a really down week. Michigan and Wisconsin had the week off. That is two teams in the top half of the league not playing. That might have been a good thing considering how things went for the B1G this weekend. Michigan State and Illinois both had bad games. Penn State did not do much better. I guess at least Michigan State lost to a power five team. That is of course if we are still calling the PAC 12 a power five conference at this point. Probably should not say that since Illinois was worse. They lost to MAC power house team Eastern Michigan. What?? Eastern Michigan is not a power house team? Oh well I guess that is a pretty bad loss then. High Flying Maryland who made our number one last week. Decided to reward us for giving them that honor by losing to Temple. Temple might be an alright team but that was a huge let down by Maryland. At least Minnesota was able to pull out a three point win against Georgia Southern. A team they should beat easily but at least they won. Penn State barely won against a Pitt team that really is not that good this year. I get it is a rivalry game but really in a home game like this you have to show up.
I would have to put the Michigan State loss as the worst game for the Big Ten. They were an 18 point favorite against a team that has a true freshman quarterback. Missing three field goals in the game sealed the deal. I guess they say now that there was a missed penalty that should have been called against Arizona State that should have given Michigan State another try at the field goal. The truth is that Michigan State should not have been in that situation in the first place.
The ACC did not do much better. Georgia Tech lost to The Citadel. Virginia Tech had to score late to beat Furman. Boston College lost to Kansas. At this point none of those are good things to happen. I guess Virginia Tech getting the win is good but really Furman. Even though one of the four playoff teams will come from the ACC. It is really a conference of one and the rest. Clemson is so far ahead of everyone else. The same can be said of the B1G. There is Ohio State and the rest. I hate to say it but the SEC really does have a few teams that could win the SEC. Alabama, LSU and Georgia all look to be ahead of the pack.
The SEC has three teams that have a chance to get into the playoff. Alabama, Georgia and LSU. Alabama is pretty much just Alabama. They are right behind Clemson. At this point they may be better than Clemson but they are second because Clemson beat them last year. That is fair. Once they are in the playoff then it really does not matter what their ranking is. The SEC is setting themselves up to have two teams in the playoff again. Between the top three in the SEC they could all end up with one loss. They will probably be close games as well. the winner of the SEC will be in the playoff automatically. Then with close games between them one of the other teams could make it as well.
Five Things in College Football
- Jalen Hurts is a beast. That or Lincoln Riley may be the best Quarterback coach ever. He is putting up some crazy numbers and if Oklahoma wins out and gets into the playoff he could be the third Heisman winner in a row from Oklahoma. Granted we are only a few games in to the season and there is a long way to go but Hurts looks good.
- The SEC has three teams that are going to be in the top ten if not the top five all year long. Alabama, LSU and Georgia are all looking great right now.
- The PAC 12 and Big Ten could be on the outside looking in again. Ohio State, Michigan or Wisconsin are going to have to go undefeated to get into the Playoff. At this point I did not see a PAC 12 Team that can get in.
- Maryland let us down – After a great start they crashed and burned. We will not make that mistake again.
- Iowa beat Iowa State in a crazy game. College GameDay was there. Iowa State was primed for a win. Watch out for Iowa to challenge Wisconsin for the Big Ten West
NFL Week Two
The NFL week always starts on Thursday now. Hard to believe that we are already on week two. While watching the Thursday night game between the Panthers and the Buccaneers. It was brought to my attention that the NFL has a feature called Next Gen Stats. It gives you information about the players on the field in real time. This is a really cool innovation. I am not sure of the technology behind it. It could be RFID or some kind of GPS tracker. Not sure but it is a really cool innovation. Of course while watching the game the lightning decided to come and the game was delayed. It happens at this time of year.
The Dolphins are a huge mess. It is beyond just tanking. This is just a sad display. Yes I am not against tanking. It can be a good strategy. There are several things that teams need to take into account though. One of them being the fans. The fans in Miami are not the same as the fans in Cleveland. The fans in Cleveland are going to show up no matter what. The fans in Miami are not like that. It has happened with all their sports teams. The Marlins and Panthers had trouble attracting fans even when they were winning. The Dolphins numbers are down. With the way they are tanking they are going to be down even more. The question is will they come back? That is a clear UNCERTAIN. The Dolphins will have to strike gold with interesting players and win to get them to come back. It will be difficult to do that. I get the strategy just not sure they are executing it correctly. There is a good change that after the fans in Miami leave that they may never come back. We will see if this strategy was worth the risk.
Lamar Jackson is putting up some amazing numbers. Watching him play is a lot of fun. He is very creative and very talented. The problem is that the way he plays he is going to leave himself open for a serious hit. We have seen this happen before. Robert Griffin III took the league by storm his first season too. Till the one moment he did not. He has not been the same since. It is interesting that they are both on the Ravens now. Through two games Jackson has 596 yards, 7 touchdowns and no interceptions. Those are amazing numbers for anyone. As the should people are going nuts talking about how great he is and how he is going to be the next great quarterback. That may be true. But we are only two games in. As Lee Corso would say. “Not So Fast My Friend”. And here is why. The two games that the Ravens have had were against the Dolphins and the Cardinals. Neither of those teams are tearing it up at this point. The Dolphins have no defense. The Cardinals may end up being a better team this year but right now they are not. Next week the Ravens have the Chiefs. The Chiefs defense is not great but it is not as bad as the Dolphins or the Cardinals and the Chiefs offense will be able to hold onto the ball for large chunks of the game. The Ravens and Lamar Jackson will get a much better test next week.
The Packers had what seemed like two games last weekend against the Vikings. The first quarter and a half Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were unstoppable. The rest of the game. Not so much. They ended up hanging on for the win due to the $84 million man Kirk Cousins giving the Packers defense a gift interception on first and goal. Really at that point he should have just thrown the ball away and lived to play another down. He did not and now the Packers lead the NFC North. Amazingly two games in and the NFC North is the only division in the NFL that no team has a losing record. Amazingly the Lions are actually in second place. Miracles do happen. I saw a commercial for the NFL where they were asking the NFL owners their favorite memory. Martha Ford said her favorite memory has not happened yet. It will be holding the Lombardi Trophy after the Lions win it. Not sure that is going to happen any time soon. Good luck to her though.
Five things in the NFL
- At this point the Patriots are looking like they will be a 16 – 0 team. Still a long way to go but usually at this point people are talking about the demise of the Patriots. They have not started out 2 – 0 since the 2007 Patriots that went 16 – 0.
- Two Huge losses – Not game losses but losses of players. Drew Brees is going to be out at least 6 week. More likely 8 weeks with a thumb injury. The Steelers will be with out Ben Ben Roethlisberger for the rest of the season. Who thought the Steelers would be with out their big three in 2019. No one. They are in a world of hurt this year.
- The Dolphins are BAD – Nothing more to say here
- If Dalvin Cook can stay healthy he will lead the league in rushing. Ahead of Saquon Barkley and Ezekiel Elliott
- The Jets are in Huge Trouble. They will have at least two wins since they get to play the Dolphins twice
MLB in the Home Stretch
MLB is finally almost done with its regular season. In the American League it looks like it will be the Yankees and the Astros playing to get to the World Series. It will be pitching vs home run hitting. It will be interesting to see how that one plays out. In the National League it will probably be the Braves and the Dodgers. I see this being the Dodgers and the Astros in the World Series. This has been a pretty interesting season in baseball. Have to give them credit for trying a few new things. Of course as usual you have the “Baseball Purists” that think their is a conspiracy to increase the number of home runs. There is no conspiracy. Baseball is looking for fans. Fans want to see scoring. One of the most exciting plays in sports is a home run. I do believe that you can over do it. You have to be really careful how you craft this. I do not know at this point if they have crossed the line. We will see what happens with the numbers for the World Series. At least the World Series is scheduled to end in October this year.
I am looking for people that are interested in writing posts on biglakesports.net If you are interested you can send me an email at jbigalke at biglakespots.net and we can go over what I am looking for and see if you are a fit. There would be no pay at this time but you would be able to put your writing out there and could post it on other sites if you wanted to.
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