The last time Syracuse football was ranked in the AP Top 25 at any point during the season was 2001, also the last time they finished the year in the rankings. After winning a 51-41 shootout with N.C. State on Saturday, the Orange broke the first streak and showed up at #22 this week. With […]
The Green Bay Packers have been mediocre this season, even with a healthy Aaron Rodgers back in the saddle. The Packers are 3-2-1. They rank in the middle of the NFL in both points scored and points allowed. The smart money in Las Vegas has lost confidence in them—Green Bay is available at healthy 25-1 […]
They’re two of baseball’s proud franchises. Their home cities have a long history of antagonism from the NBA. They’ve often circled each other in October, with the possibility of a championship battle lurking. But the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers have never actually met in the World Series until this year, at least […]
The Purdue Boilermakers pulled the signature upset of this past college football weekend—indeed of the entire season, when they dismantled Ohio State by a 49-20 count for a national prime-time audience. After a slow start, Purdue is now 4-3 and a wide range of possibilities—anything from the Rose Bowl to missing a bowl altogether is […]
N.C. State has played respectable football over the years. They’ve had head coaching names like Lou Holtz and Monte Kiffin, along with Dick Sheridan and Tom O’Brien. Quarterbacks like Philip Rivers and Russell Wilson have played here. The program has averaged two bowl bids every three years over the past four decades-plus. But there is […]
Prior to the start of the college football season, I wrote that Iowa faced a crossroads year with a number of young players and a schedule that left room for a wide range of possibilities. The question this summer was whether Iowa could at least maintain themselves around an eight-win level and set the tone […]
When Michigan lost its season opener at Notre Dame 24-17, the rumblings that had been going on in Ann Arbor all summer sharply increased. When was Jim Harbaugh, a head coach paid like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, going to start winning on a level commensurate with his paycheck? Would Harbaugh ever win the games […]
The college football season saw its first significant reshuffle of the deck on Saturday, as the favorites fell. The most significant loss was Georgia getting pounded at LSU, creating the first crack in our Playoff projections. Other games up and down the card, most notably West Virginia losing decisively to Iowa State, created more fluidity […]
They’re the best two teams in baseball. You have the American League’s most productive offense in Boston and its stingiest pitching staff in Houston. Each franchise has a World Series title within the last five years that was won for a city dealing with tragedy (The Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013 and Hurricane Harvey in […]
Two teams with contrasting histories meet in the National League Championship Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers make their 13th appearance in the NLCS since this round of play started in 1969. This year is their third straight NLCS and their sixth straight year in the playoffs. That’s to say nothing of a rich pre-1969 history […]
I wasn’t a believer in Notre Dame football when the season started. This morning, I re-read the July post I had written about the Irish and my outlook was even bleaker than I recalled. But these Fighting Irish team is making a believer out of me. They’ve now put together three quality wins (Michigan, Stanford, […]
The American League is where the heavyweights are. The Red Sox, Astros and Yankees are all 100-win teams. The Indians are just two years removed from an AL pennant and have a two-time World Series winner in Terry Francona in the dugout. Two really good teams are going to go home early with a bad […]