1. When I moved to New York City after college, for the first time I entered a world where college football didn’t seem essential. Walking around Manhattan, you’d see NFL shirts and hats and signs, but college football was mostly an afterthought. Growing up in the South, I’d been led to believe that just the opposite was true: College > NFL. And I believed it.
Saturday’s slate of college games helped remind me why I enjoy college football so much: Because you never know what might happen. Georgia destroying an undefeated Kentucky? Notre Dame getting drilled by Louisville? USC almost losing to Arizona? Arkansas nearly knocking off Ole Miss? Oklahoma coming from behind against Texas? Or how about the wildest finish of the season, when Miami refused to kneel down and instead ended up taking an L to Georgia Tech? There were so many great plays and moments, and it went from noon to well after midnight.
I know the NFL has amazing players and polished offenses and all that stuff. But college football has chaos. And they can’t take that away from me.
2. I mentioned Georgia above, because you might want to start paying attention to the Dawgs, who seem to overcome a moribund start to their season and found some purpose. The resurrection began in the second half two weeks ago against Auburn, when Carson Beck took control and led the Dawgs to a 27-20 comeback win. And then this week against Kentucky, Beck came out on fire, completing his first 11 passes and leading UGA to a 34-7 halftime advantage. Beck finished 28-35, with 389 passing yards and 4 TDs. He looked confident and in control, and UGA’s offense seemed to be in sync for the first time all season. More impressive, to me, was the way UGA’s defense found some footing, holding Kentucky to 183 total yards (just 55 rushing) one week after Auburn ran all over them.
Everyone knew the Dawgs were going to have something of a transition season, after losing a ton of players to the NFL and the transfer portal. UGA also lost their offensive coordinator to the NFL as well as the guy who QB’ed them to back-to-back national championships. So, for most of the first few weeks of the season, ranking UGA first overall seemed like giving them respect more than anything else, a pat on the back for going two years without a loss.
But with the way UGA is playing right now? Number one feels like the exact right place to put them.
3. I get that the New England Patriots are 1-4, and Bill Belichick has had the two worst losses of his career in back-to-back weeks. But can we pump the brakes on talk of him getting fired midseason? Like, really?
Sure, he’s a grump and seems permanently ruffled, and maybe he’s not quite as good a coach as he once was (I have no idea if this is true and neither does anyone else). But he’s guided the Pats to six Super Bowl titles and is by consensus the greatest coach of the modern era. Doesn’t he deserve the grace of finishing out the season? Or heck, finishing his career and walking away however he wants to walk away? Will firing Belichick turn things around immediately?
Perhaps Belichick’s time has come, and eventually he’ll need to move on. But after the career he’s had, doesn’t Bill Belichick deserve some dignity. (And I say this as a Falcons fan, meaning I was on the wrong end of perhaps Belichick’s greatest win of them all!)