Mark Stoops has had Kentucky moving steadily upward in his four years as the head football coach in Lexington. Stoops inherited a mess in 2013. After the obligatory 2-10 season to get started, he promptly got the Wildcats to respectability, winning five games each of the next two years. The past two seasons have seen […]
There are four teams that have clinched division titles going into the final season and the Atlanta Braves are the odd sock. The other three—Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and Houston Astros were expected to be in the postseason. But the Braves were in an NL East that was all but ceded to the Washington […]
For a two-time defending World Series champion, the 1974 Oakland A’s entered the season in a bit of flux. They had a new manager. After Dick Williams resigned immediately following the championship in 1973, Alvin Dark was the new man in charge. But the players on the field were fundamentally the same and that added […]
The American Athletic Conference is the best of the so-called “Little Five” conferences—the leagues that compete for the one major bowl bid that the big boys will toss them. The American currently has three teams that are still undefeated. They’re the most likely league to get the major bowl spot if everyone in the Little […]
The early 1990s were the heyday of the Steve Young era in San Francisco. From 1992-95, the 49ers joined the Cowboys as the two teams recognized as the best in the NFL. The 1993 San Francisco 49ers were the weakest edition of that four-year run, but they still reached an NFC Championship Game for the […]
The Los Angeles Rams are the 9-2 betting favorite to win the Super Bowl this year. The Rams have followed up last year’s breakout 11-5 campaign with a 3-0 start to this year. They have a high-profile Thursday Night home game against the Minnesota Vikings coming up in a couple days. Are the Rams a […]
College football and the NBA don’t have a lot in common when it comes to structure and atmospherics. One is driven by a focused intensity in front of screaming crowds for 14 weeks in the fall, with one loss being a significant hit to anyone’s goals. The other is marked by a marathon regular season, […]
The Denver Broncos have been in decline for the last two years. After their run of consecutive playoff appearances from 2011-15 culminated with a Super Bowl championship in Peyton Manning’s grand finale, the Broncos first slipped to 8-8. Last year, the first under rookie head coach Vance Joseph, was a 5-11 disaster amidst complete chaos […]
1972 was a breakthrough year for the Oakland A’s, as they won their first World Series title on the West Coast. The 1973 Oakland A’s built on the success, winning a second straight championship. Reggie Jackson led the way, with one of the great seasons of his Hall of Fame career. Reggie hit 32 home […]
The Oakland A’s were a franchise that was coming. In 1968, they had relocated from Kansas City and posted the franchise’s first winning season since 1932—when they were in Philadelphia and managed by Connie Mack. In their new west coast home, the A’s continued to play winning baseball in 1969 and 1970. In 1971, they […]
No one can ever accuse the Stanford Cardinal football program of ducking anyone. They went and opened the season with San Diego State, one of the best mid-major programs in the country. They go to Notre Dame next week. That’s in addition to the nine-game Pac-12 schedule that’s already had a game with USC and […]
The 1993 Dallas Cowboys bid for a second straight Super Bowl title got off to a rocky start when running back Emmitt Smith held out of training camp and the first two regular season games.
On the surface, you would think this Dallas team could still compete—there were still two key elements of “The Big Three” in quarterback Troy Aikman and wide receiver Michael Irvin. There were still three Pro Bowlers on the offensive line. The defense was still one of the best in the NFL. But it turned out, Emmitt mattered much more than owner Jerry Jones realized
