Tag: Florida State

What to Watch: Football, Fast Cars and a Labor Day Hangover

What to Watch: Football, Fast Cars and a Labor Day Hangover

College Football Owns Labor Day Weekend

The real season starts now, and it doesn’t let up until Monday night.

Clemson at LSU, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ABC). Lane Kiffin’s debut in Baton Rouge, and Clemson’s the team that beat him at home last year. Second straight year these two have opened against each other. Somebody’s going to feel very differently about their offseason by 11 p.m.

Baylor vs. Auburn, Saturday, Atlanta (ESPN). Alex Golesh’s first game running Auburn. Referendum on two coaches at once.

Wisconsin vs. Notre Dame, Sunday, Lambeau Field (NBC/Peacock). Shamrock Series, and Notre Dame’s already being penciled into playoff conversations behind CJ Carr. Fickell’s on the clock in Wisconsin whether anyone says it out loud or not.

No. 19 SMU at Florida State, Monday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN). The weekend’s closer, and it’s got real teeth — first game of the season with actual ACC title-race implications. FSU’s 1-0 after a Week 0 tune-up; SMU’s arriving with legitimate Charlotte aspirations.

Final Word: Plenty of games, three days, one Labor Day hangover. The sport’s back for real.

Monza Says Hello Again

F1 — Italian Grand Prix, Sunday, 9 a.m. ET. Antonelli’s racing at home with a grid penalty hanging over him, which is either poetic or cruel depending on how the Tifosi are feeling. Norris has won two straight and looks like he’s building toward a third — at the fastest track on the calendar, that’s a genuinely scary thought for everyone else.

The Chase Starts, and So Does the Countdown

NASCAR — Cook Out Southern 500, Darlington, Sunday, ~5 p.m. ET (USA/HBO Max). First race of the Chase. Denny Hamlin’s the No. 1 seed. Defending winner Chase Briscoe wants to go back-to-back at the track everyone calls “too tough to tame” for a reason.

IndyCar — Season Finale, Laguna Seca, Sunday, prerace 2:30 p.m. ET (FOX). The championship gets decided here. Palou’s chasing a fourth straight title, and Laguna Seca doesn’t hand out easy Sundays to anybody.

Baseball’s Real Stakes

Braves at Phillies, Friday–Sunday. The Phillies are close to a lock for October, but this is about seeding — sweep this and Atlanta starts sweating the return series next weekend. Four games back with a month to play; this is the kind of series that decides who’s hosting in October.

Deep Soccer Weekend, and a Deadline Day Hangover

No international break, so every league is live at once.

Arsenal vs. Chelsea, Sunday, 11:30 a.m. ET (Sky Sports/Peacock). Early-season derby. Overhyped every year, worth it every year anyway.

Newcastle vs. Bournemouth, Saturday, 7:30 a.m. ET (TNT Sports).

Barcelona at Valencia, Sunday, 10:15 a.m. ET (ESPN+). Defending champs on the road at a ground that’s historically given them fits.

Real Madrid at Real Betis, Friday, 3 p.m. ET (ESPN+).

Inter vs. Napoli, Saturday, 11 a.m. ET, and Juventus vs. Milan, Sunday, 1:45 p.m. ET (Paramount+). Serie A’s first real heavyweight weekend — both games, same slate.

USMNT Deadline Day Fallout. Jack McGlynn’s a Stoke City player now, a $5.5 million move from Houston Dynamo landing him at a Championship side that’s lost its first three matches — sink or swim immediately. And Folarin Balogun’s move to Everton somehow collapsed after he physically showed up on Merseyside for a medical. He’s stuck at Monaco, hasn’t played a competitive minute all season, and took down Chelsea’s separate deal for his own teammate on his way out the door. Chaos, but make it USMNT.

Also Live: The US Open Grinds Toward the Second Week

Tennis, Flushing Meadows, ongoing. Third round wraps this weekend, fourth round starts rolling Sunday. No finals drama yet, but Sabalenka’s chasing a third straight title and Alcaraz is playing every match on an injury-comeback storyline that makes each one appointment viewing. The field that survives this weekend is the field with a real shot at next Saturday and Sunday.

Final Word: College football leads, but this is the first weekend since spring where literally every sport on the board has something worth watching.

College Football Playoff Preview

Let’s face it, we all wanted to get rid of the BCS, but is the current version of the College Football Playoff really that much better? Every Tuesday, 12 supposedly un-biased members of a playoff committee flew to Dallas to meet and discuss the playoff rankings which were announced on a weekly special on ESPN. If “weekly special on ESPN” doesn’t make you question the honesty of a committee, I am not sure what will, but then they went out and blatantly showed that is was all for money and ratings at the end of it all. TCU was ranked as the number three team in the playoff standings with one week to go, meanwhile Baylor was left out despite having beaten TCU head-to-head. Then, in the final week, TCU goes out and absolutely destroys Iowa State 55-3 leaving anyone with any sense about them to reasonably conclude they had secured a spot in the Playoff. Not only was that not true, but they fell all the way to sixth, behind the Baylor team that many had been arguing should have been ahead of TCU all along.

So, every ranking before the final rankings were clearly just a made for TV special so ESPN could make a few extra bucks and boost their ratings. If the rankings are so blatantly manipulated for ratings and discussion, why didn’t they manipulate the final rankings for premium viewership? Alabama got the number one seed, allowing them to stay in the South and play in the Sugar Bowl, and Oregon gets to stay on the West Coast and play in the Rose Bowl. That left Florida State and Ohio State as the next two team in the playoff, and the seeding is obvious right? Send Florida State to the Sugar Bowl to play Alabama and Ohio State to the Rose Bowl to create a traditional Pac-12 vs. Big Ten matchup. No, apparently a couple months of lip service BS specials on TV was enough devious manipulation for the committee and the easiest one would be too obvious for them. So Ohio State heads to the Sugar Bowl and undefeated, yet third ranked, Florida State heads West to the Rose Bowl.

Enough about the garbage that was the committee, let’s take a look at the games. The Playoff could feature the top three overall picks in the coming NFL draft, and a third string quarterback who said on Twitter “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS”. Yes Cardale Jones, you got a free ride to a premier university to be a third string quarterback and not go to class, I am sure you will be wildly successful in life after college.

So the third string QB who hates college despite playing college football will face the number one team in the nation, the Alabama Crimson Tide. This is a matchup that is as interesting for the coaching matchup as it is the players on the field. There might not be two better college football coaches in the game today than Urban Meyer and Nick Saban, so it will certainly be fun to watch. Also fun to watch is receiver Amari Cooper, who is likely to be the first receiver taken in the coming NFL draft. In the end, Alabama should be able to win this game rather easily with their defense against a quarterback who has just one start under his belt.

In the Rose Bowl, the last two Heisman Trophy winners take the field in Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota. Winston’s off-field issues will likely cause him to drop some in the NFL draft, but these two could end up being the top two pick come April 30th. Florida State has not lost a game in two years, but they also haven’t faced a team like the Oregon Ducks. The Ducks obviously have a high powered offense, but their defense gets underrated and I see them just pulling out a very close game.

That would set up a National Championship matchup of Alabama and Oregon in Jerry’s World in Dallas. Oregon has not faired well against premier SEC teams in recent years, but this team has the best chance to get it done. While I would be rooting for an Oregon victory, and could see it happening, if I had to place good money on the game, I would have to go with Alabama purely because of Nick Saban. The Tide is playing as well as any team in the nation down the stretch and they have the best big game coach in the country, but it won’t be a blowout, instead a very competitive game.