Baseball: Jeter in HoF. Battle for NY results on 9/11 anniversary.
Football-NCAAF: 5 Upsets in Top 25. GameDay to Penn St vs Auburn. Big 12 newcomers.
Football-NFL: Bucs won season opener. Packers killed by Saints. Mahomes and Chiefs in trouble but win. Texans > Jags. Washington dumpster fire – well close. MNF tonight! Sports betting sets records.
Golf: Season begins this week in Napa. Ryder Cup teams set.
Olympic Sports: Diamond League finale. Marathon winner DQ’d. UKR wants winter games.
Tennis: US Open sees 2 new champs.
Baseball-MLB:
- Derek Jeter is now officially in the Hall of Fame. In typical Jeter fashion (and in his #2 jersey), his speech was appreciative and yet funny when he poked fun at the one writer who did not vote for him to be inducted. He was only 1 vote shy of being unanimously voted into the HoF; let’s guess where that vote came from *cough* Red Sox *cough*. Jeter won 5 World Series for the team during his 20 year career with the team and had 3,465 hits (6th most in MLB). He only played for the NY team, was a 14x All-Star and his #2 has been retired by the Yankees. Congrats Derek.
- In the battle for NY on the anniversary of 9/11, the two teams split the games. The Yankees won the first and the Mets won the 2nd. Aaron Judge hit 2 HRs during game 1 and described how special that moment was for the city. Mets SS Francisco Lindor hit 3 HRs in game 2, dropping the Yankees out of playoff position. The Mets won the regular season matchups 4-2.
- MLB Regular season ends on Oct 3 so I will now include the standings on the weekly basis.
- American League: Rays, Astros & White Sox
- National League: Giants, Dodgers & Brewers
Football-NCAAF:
- Week 2 did not look like it was going to be great but man it expected expectations.
- Florida St suffered its first loss to an FCS team in program history, losing to Jacksonville St in the final play of the game. To add insult to injury, FCS teams get paid to come to Power 5 (or D1 in general) schools stadiums to play so FSU actually paid Jacksonville St $400k to lose.
- Arkansas b***** slapped #15 Texas, who was favored by 8. #3 Ohio St got beat by a talented #12 Oregon team that no one saw coming after they barely beat Fresno St in opening week and was without their star defensive player.
- The battle for the state of Iowa was won by the #10 Hawkeyes. Despite being ranked higher, the #9 Iowa St Cyclones just cannot get it done against their instate rivals.
- #21 Utah also lost in the God Bowl to Big12 newcomer BYU. Utah had won this match up the last 9xs. #8 Notre Dame squeaked out another victory against a ranked opponent but #4 Oklahoma looked much better posting a shut out against their FCS opponent, W Carolina … the fourth quarter was even shortened to 12 minutes.
- Week 3 has some good ones to watch! Oklahoma vs Nebraska doesn’t promise to be a good game but it’s being called the Game of a Century as those two teams used to own college football in the 80s. they were frequently both in the top 5 and ruined national championship runs for each other. Auburn plays Penn St this week in a top 25 show down and is hosting College GameDay. Watch out for the white out.
- Upset watch: #10 Penn St, #24 Miami, #15 VTech and I feel like I need to put Notre Dame on here too due to the last 2 weeks…
- Big 12 has voted to accept Houston, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU after Oklahoma and Texas left the conference for the SEC. BYU will join the Big 12 for the 2023 season, the other 3 will join for the 2024 season. OU and Texas are scheduled to leave in 2025.
Football-NFL:
- The Bucs won the Super Bowl last year and they win the NFL season opener against the Cowboys 31-29. The Dallas team saw the return of QB Dak Prescott who looked great, throwing for 403 yards but just couldn’t get it done. RB Ezekiel Elliott had the 3rd fewest carries in his career only running for 33 yards. The Bucs scored a last FG to take the W.
- Besides having the first black female referee (whoop whoop), here are some other noteworthy things to do about the games the games this past week:
- The Packers were destroyed by the Saints in a shocking score of 38-3. The Saints obviously had a reason to play well, doing for their city after hurricane Ida. But dam Packers! Aaron Rodgers was benched after going 15 of 28 for only 133 yards and 2 interceptions. The Packers won 13 games straight last season so to say this was a shock was an understatement. Also Jameis Winston is now the starting QB for the Saints due to the retirement of longtime QB Drew Brees. Apparently the new arrangement is working so far!
- As if that weren’t odd enough, the Browns almost edged out Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs but they did end up losing 33-29. The Chiefs outscored the Browns 23-7 in the second half.
- The Texans and their new QB Tayrod Taylor got their first W (remember they didn’t have many last year) against the Jags, winning 37-21. The Jags remember also had a new QB in Clemson Trevor Lawrence and new HC Urban Meyer. Don’t overreact, its game 1 but still. The Texans were up big by the end of the first half 27-7.
- Washington lost to the Chargers after their starting QB Matt Fitzpatrick went out of the game after just 20 minutes with a leg injury. If that wasn’t bad enough, fans had a pipe burst on them in the stadium. It was not sewage as many people thought, just rain water but still. Their seats were upgraded to suites for the remainder of the game.
- The Ravens play the Raiders tonight in Vegas for the NFL’s first MNF game.
- 58.2MM transactions were accounted for between Thursday – Sunday involving sports betting during the NFL’s opening weekend. This is an increase of 126% Y/Y. Sports books are also seeing an increase with one SuperBook in Nevada giving the stat of a 20% increase Y/Y. College football betting also increase 50% Y/Y according to MGM. With more markets opening up and online betting getting much easier, I think it’s safe to say sports betting is here to stay.
Golf:
- The 2021/2022 season begins next week in Napa at the Fortinet Championship and the Ryder Cup will be played the week following. Captains’ picks for the Ryder Cup will be announced tomorrow!
- Ryder Cup picks are final and the teams are set! An updated Ryder Cup post is coming soon! But in the meantime here are the teams.
Olympic Sports:
- The final Diamond League meet was this past week in Zurich. And just like the Olympics and plenty of other meets this year, Elaine Thompson-Herah stood atop the podium in the W 100m. She ran a meet record time of 10.65. Other gold medalists triumphed as well: NOR 400m H Olympic champion Karestn Warholm won, M HJ ITA Gianmarco Tamberi won and Armaund Duplantis won the M PV although failed to clear his WR height of 6.19m. USA Kerley, silver medalists from Tokyo, won the m 100m.
- How would you like to win a marathon but be DQ’d for your shoes? Well that’s what happened to ETH Derara Hurisa in Vienna on Sunday. He was DQ’d for wearing shoes that had 1 cm thicker soles than those shoes allowed.
- UKR is looking to host a winter Olympic games. The soonest the country could do so is 2030. Other cities that are being discussed from games between 2030-2038 are Slat Lake City, Sapporo JPN and Barcelona-Pyrenees. Ukrainian city, Lviv, was briefly considered for the 2022 games before withdrawing its bid due to the political turmoil in the country at the time.
Tennis:
- US Open and all tennis grand slams are over for the year and we have 2 new Grand Slam champions!
- There was an all teenage final for the women with GBR Emma Raducanu vs CAN Leylah Fernandez. But the Brit got it done in straight sets winning 6-4, 6-3. She is the first to go through the qualifying rounds to get into the tournament to make the final, let alone winning the whole thing. This is the first GS win for England since 1977. Even Queen Elizabeth II took notice, sending Emma a congratulatory message.
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- Djokovic was 1 win short of the calendar slam when Daniil Medvedev handed Novak the GS loss in straight sets 6-4 in all 3. This was Medvedev’s first major victory. He won 20 of his first 23 service points and had 16 aces.
What to watch this week
Baseball-MLB:
- Tues 9/14
- Indians at Twins @ 6:40pm on FS1
- Wed 9/15
- Diamondbacks at Dodgers @ 9pm on ESPN
- Bumgarner vs Urias
- Diamondbacks at Dodgers @ 9pm on ESPN
- Sun 9/20
- Phillies at Mets @ 6pm on ESPN
- Gibson vs Hill
- Phillies at Mets @ 6pm on ESPN
Football- NCAAF:
|
Top 25 |
||||
|
Week 3 |
||||
|
Top 25 Games |
||||
|
Visitor |
Home |
Day |
Time (CT) |
TV |
|
Michigan St |
24. Miami |
Sat 9/18 |
11:00 AM |
ABC |
|
1. Alabama |
11. Florida |
Sat 9/18 |
2:30 PM |
CBS |
|
22. Auburn |
10. Penn St |
Sat 9/18 |
6:30 PM |
ABC |
|
19. Arizona St |
23. BYU |
Sat 9/18 |
9:30 PM |
|
|
*GameDay indicated in bold* |
||||
Football-NFL:
- Thurs 9/16
- Giants at Washington @ 7:20pm on NBC
- Sun 9/19
- 9 games on @ 12pm depending on location on CBS/FOX
- Bengal’s at Bears on FOX
- Texans at Browns on CBS
- Rams at Colts on FOX
- Bills at Dolphins on FOX
- Patriots at Jets on CBS
- 49ers at Eagles on FOX
- Raiders at Steelers on CBS
- Saints at Panthers on FOX
- Broncos at Jaguars on CBS
- Vikings at Cardinals – or – Falcons at Bucs @ 3:05pm on FOX
- Cowboys at Chargers – or – Titans at Seahawks @ 3:25pm on CBS
- Chiefs at Ravens @ 7:20pm on NBC
- 9 games on @ 12pm depending on location on CBS/FOX
- Mon 9/20
- Lions at Packers @ 7:15pm on ESPN
Golf:
- Thurs 9/16
- Fortinet Championship – Round 1 @ 5pm on Golf Channel
- Fri 9/17
- Fortinet Championship – Round 1 @ 5pm on Golf Channel
- Sat 9/18
- Fortinet Championship – Round 1 @ 5pm on Golf Channel
- Sun 9/19
- Fortinet Championship – Round 1 @ 5pm on Golf Channel
Motorsports:
- Fri 9/17
- NASCAR Xfinity: Food City 300 @ 6:30pm on NBCSN
- Sat 9/18
- NASCAR Bass Pro Shops Night Race @ 6:30pm on NBCSN
- IndyCar: Firestone GP Qualifying @ 10:30pm on NBCSN
- Sun 9/19
- IndyCar: Race @ 2:30pm on NBC
- MotoGP: Misano GP Race @ 5pm on NBCSN
- MotoAmerica: Race @ 5pm on FS1
Olympic Sports:
- Sat 9/18
- Surfing: World Surf League – Mexico Corona Open @ 9am on FS1
Soccer:
- Wed 9/15
- CONCACAF: Phili Union vs Club America @ 7:50pm on FS1
- Fri 9/17
- Premier League: Newcastle vs Leeds @ 2pm on NBCSN
- MLS: Inter Miami vs NY Red Bulls @ 6pm on FS1
- Sat 9/18
- Premier League: Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Brentfrod @ 6:30am on NBCSN
- Premier League: Teams TBA @ 9am on NBCSN
- Sun 9/19
- Mexico Primera Division: Guadalajara vs Pachua @ 12am on NBCSN
- Premier League: West Ham vs ManU @ 8am on NBCSN
- MLS: Portland Timbers vs LA FC @ 6:30pm on FS1
