kelly Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It’s impossible to be completely miserable (or happy) during the sports equinox
There are 17 gazillion things happening in sports right now, and as much as I’d like to update you on all the happenings of the opening weeks of the NBA and NHL, the World Series-deciding MLB rounds, College Football Playoff-ramification slates, and every NFL, EPL, MMA, boxing match, game, contest, ...

College football Week 8: It’s hard to stop chasing the dragon after last week
Expecting the college football gods to give us a second helping of last week’s madness is asking a lot. Four undefeated Top-10 schools fell, and three different crowds rushed the field, with the Vols starting a GoFundMe-type deal for their goalposts that were dumped into the Tennessee River....

Coaching HBCU football is a stepping stone for Deion Sanders, but a brick wall for his peers
The spotlight Deion Sanders has brought to historically black college football programs has been unparalleled. Interest is at an all-time high and Sanders has championed multiplying exposure for the talent at HBCU programs. Sanders was specifically referring to the players, but the same sentiments c...

Catching up with the soap opera drama of the NBA
The NBA is one of the longest-running unscripted nighttime soaps on television. Even outside of tip-offs and the final buzzer, its headliners are some of the most accessible figures in professional sports. The rosters are smaller, their faces aren’t obstructed, their games air nightly for at least h...

Those seeking College Football Playoff clarity this weekend should think again
This year more than others in recent memory seems to have a lot of standout teams. It feels like the top 10 squads have evaded missteps that they might normally fall prey to. We saw the Tide escape against Texas A&M, Georgia overcome a brain fart against Mizzou, USC barely get by Oregon State, the V...

College Football Marty McFly Rankings Week 6: Tennessee, L.A. football, and Texas are all back
Like a poorly thought-through movie-to-TV series, it appears the Marty McFly rankings are on life support. The actor I hired to play Michael J. Fox’s character is no Michael J. Fox, the de-aging for Christopher Lloyd is too expensive, and the DeLoreans keep breaking down. Never mind that these are t...

Ranking the 12 NFL head coaches hired straight from the Power 5 college ranks since 2000
Dear NFL GMs and owners, you may want to think twice about hiring a head coach straight outta the college ranks. While there have been success stories — Jimmy Johnson going from the U to Big D being the best example — that really hasn’t been the case in this millennium. Matt Rhule is the latest flop...

‘How to lose an all-star before his rookie extension’: A Charlotte Hornets production
This year was supposed to be Zion Williamson season. Not Zion Williamson’s season. Zion Williamson season in the same fashion that it’s duck or rabbit season. Prior to missing all of 2021-22 to rehab a foot injury, the discussion heading into the year was “Will Zion forgo his max rookie extension to...

Two takeaways from college football on Saturday
There wasn’t much surprising about the results from Saturday. Oklahoma continued its free fall, getting shut out by Texas, 49-0. Even though Jimbo Fisher gave Nick Saban a game in Bryce Young’s absence, the Crimson Tide pulled through. None of the top 10 lost despite Oklahoma State playing with its ...

There’s a reason Mike Leach’s quarterbacks have never cost him his job
The next time a pundit says “Missing on such-and-such QB cost coach X his job” will be my next visit to the psych ward. You know why Spencer Rattler didn’t cost Lincoln Riley his job, and Paul Chryst couldn’t survive Graham Mertz? One looks at a chalkboard as a place to draw plays, and the other see...

Serious question: Was this the worst primetime football game ever?
The J-Lo and Josh Duhamel movie trailer that came on after this game ended was better than the game itself. I don’t even remember the title, but the sheer jubilation I received after I no longer had to watch that football game made that trailer all the more enjoyable. HOLY SMOKES! Both teams were al...

College football Marty McFly Rankings Week 5: Is UCLA back? Is Chip Kelly back? Do they even qualify for being back?
I think we’re going to need to redefine what is a lost program. For example, if Virginia Tech returns to the form that Frank Beamer consistently had them at, would they be back? I ask because schools that were trying to get back this year are disappearing like Spider-Man in Infinity War. (I can’t re...

Dave Aranda and Matt Campbell are a few clones away from being billionaires
College football programs are racing to fire their coaches so they can perfect that desperate vibe in an attempt to attract a new hire. You know which desperate vibe I’m talking about. It’s the one that single people are allergic to, the one that says, “I’m lonely and have gone through way too much ...

God giveth, and god taketh away
It wasn’t all hoots and hollers echoing across the Puget Sound on Friday night. I know not all Seattleites are University of Washington fans (shoutout Wazzu), but the campus is in the city, and there’s definitely a hefty overlap of Mariners and Huskies fans. For as euphoric as the M’s win was, the s...

College Football Week 5: A veritable smorgasbord of appetizing games
There’s no more hiding for college football teams. The tune-ups are over, and now conference foes are getting thrown together like peanut butter and jelly. Don’t like that? How about Bell pepper, meet onion? Cereal, meet milk. Alabama, meet Arkansas. NC State, meet Clemson. Oklahoma State, meet a po...

USMNT’s Gregg Berhalter is going to have to get over himself
All right, I’m gonna be Sammy Sunshine about the USMNT. It’s not easy, but there’s a lot of dark clouds after the team went 0-for-180 minutes in scoring goals, or looking like they could get a goal, or even looking like they were interested in scoring a goal, in their last two friendlies before the ...

Which USMNT players punched their ticket to Qatar?
The United States men’s national team has zero minutes of game time remaining before it lines up against Wales at the FIFA World Cup, the country’s first contest on soccer’s biggest showcase in eight years. Tuesday’s scoreless draw against Saudi Arabia gave us one final look at the Yanks before head...

Brian Kelly vs. Mike Leach, a Notre Dame win watch, and more from college football’s unranked
There are so many good games featuring at least one ranked school this weekend that it’s easy to overlook the unranked matchups that are still compelling this early in the season before teams amass nicks and cuts and flaws and people deem their season a loss. If you’ve only got one TV/screen, you’re...

Don’t celebrate just yet, SEC fans, there’s another independent who could claim a CFP bid
For the segment of college football fans who blackout with anger every time Notre Dame makes the College Football Playoff, this season could not have started better. Marcus Freeman’s team came up short against Ohio State and then stumbled trying to get back up against Marshall, and there’s really no...
