5-at-10: Who won the weekend, big pay day and Dale Jr.

Happy Monday. Or not.

Let's decide who won the weekend and who lost the weekend. And we will continue the conversation on Press Row today starting at 3 on ESPN 105.1 FM and right here at timesfreepress.com. Deal? Deal.

From the "Talks too much" studios,

Weekend winners

We will offer five nominees because, well, we are the 5-at-10 so we do things in fives or 10s. Unless of course it's a Rushmore, then that's four, but the 4-at-10 does not flow.

UTC. Kudos to the Mocs, who drew more than 10,000 - nice crowd for a TV game on a Chamber of Commerce day that offered a wide array of options - and delivered in the clutch for the home folks with a 38-31 win, The offense delivered and we concur with UTC coach Russ Huesman's statement that it is hard to win college football games. Win and advance. Advance with wins. You get the picture, and now UTC is 4-0 in the SoCon for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the Earth and/or since Jomo said something nice about UT.

Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben goes nuts - 522 yards and six TD passes - as the Steelers roll the Colts in a fun NFL tackle football game Sunday afternoon. Good times. Here's the kicker - it was Roethlisberger's 100th career win, and he is one of four QBs to get to 100 career wins in 150 or fewer starts (you likely have heard of the other three, some cats named Peyton, Brady and Bradshaw). So we can't help but ask, with two rings and a 100-50 mark as a starter, do we is Ben underrated?

photo Former University of Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin

Lane Kiffin. Dude returned to the scene of the crime and delivered a knockout blow on the first swing - a perfect play call that exploited a jack-up UT defense and crowd and got the ball to the SEC's most explosive eligible football player. Kiffin's early script was pitch perfect.

The Fab 4 picks. Wow, at worse we went 5-0-1, and the five-star gem of Georgia Southern minus-16.5 over Georgia State was never in doubt since the Eagles hung 69 points on the Panthers. OK, we actually need a ruling on something. We wrote "And remember, as we always suggest, you enhance your entertainment value by buying the entertainment hook when the spreads are 3, 7, 10 and 14. Deal? Deal." last Thursday. The lone non-win last week was South Alabama minus-14 over Troy, which scored a TD in the final minute to push the line at 27-13. But, if you had bought the half like we suggest on numbers such as 14, then you win and the 5-at-10 has hit 10 straight against the number. What say you?

Steve Spurrier. Dude went to a gun fight against a superior offense with a switch blade and Dylan Thompson, and the Ol' Ball Coach reminded all of us why there are guys who pretend to have swagger and then's there OBC swagger. Dude unloaded the full arsenal in South Carolina's 42-35 loss, and if Thompson had one or two more throws, who knows? Side note: Rushmore of Dylans: Dylan McKay from 90210, Bob Dylan, Matt Dillon, Marshall Dillon, perhaps?

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Weekend's losers

photo Atlanta Falcons head coach Mike Smith, right, stands on the touchline during his game against Detroit Lions at Wembley Stadium, London, on Oct. 26, 2014.

Mike Smith. Smith has done the unthinkable for the Falcons and their longtime supporters. He's made winning an expectation, and that's a good thing. But dude apparently is a rebuilder not a mountain climber because the Falcons are now dreck and his game-management decisions are puzzling. Up 21-0 with the ball and timeouts in the last 90 seconds of the first half, Smith chose to runout the clock. Detroit was reeling - the London kickoff was actually at 8:30 a.m. according the Lions' body clock and they were noticeably stinky early - and Smith strolled to the locker room with three-TD cushion. The Lions rallied for a 22-21 win on a game-winning field goal after Atlanta bungled the two-minute offense late in the game. The loss drops the Falcons to a woeful 2-6.

Baseball. If a World Series happens and no one other than TFP all-around ace and monster Johnny Giants Fan David Uchiyama is there to watch it, does it really happen?

Ole Miss. Man, don't mess with Les Miles at night in his house, right? Ole Miss tried some last-second clock tinkering, eschewing a 47-yard field-goal try in the final 10 seconds with no timeouts for a pass to get closer. That closer became a killer as Bo Wallace's ill-advised pass was picked and Miles and the Tigers grabbed a 10-7 win. Ole Miss fell from No. 3 to No. 7 in the AP poll, and if we thought "when you lost" matter in the BCS, it looks like it could be paramount in the new set-up. Side note: Here's hoping you Johnny Rebels Fans handled it better than this lady.

Brady Hoke. As a motivation tool/ploy, Hoke presented his team with a tent stake before Saturday's date with in-state rival Michigan State. The players stuck it in the turf at the Spartans' stadium. Bad idea. Michigan State drummed Michigan 35-11, and the last MSU TD scored with less than 30 seconds was linked to the stake and "respect" by MSU coach Mark Dantoni after the game. (Side note: It also covered the spread for the entertainment hunters that had MSU.) Hoke is now 4-10 in his last 14 games at Michigan. Michigan. It was hard to watch Michigan struggle that badly. Question for the group: Of the 1990 power programs Michigan, Miami and Tennessee, which has fallen more?

LaMarr Houston. OK, it was bad enough that the Chicago Bears defensive end was on the wrong end of a 25-point spanking Sunday. But Houston injured himself celebrating a sack of Patriots back-up QB Jimmy Garoppolo. Here's the clip. Sweet Lord, hold his sign.

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Pay Day

We are stoked to see the fallout from tomorrow night's inaugural rankings released by the college football playoff committee. Good times.

We enjoyed the night cap of games Saturday night. Hot pizza, cold Co-Colas. Thrilling games at LSU and at Auburn. Great times. (Seriously, Spurrier had the 5-at-10's blood pressure soaring Saturday night.)

And with all that, the weekend brought a convergence of stories that show the dichotomies that college football faces.

OK, Nick Saban is very good at his job. We believe Alabama is the best team in the country. Saban deserves a huge amount of the credit for reshaping that program in the juggernaut it currently is. He gets that credit and roughly $7 million per year. You can make an argument that since Alabama football generated roughly $40 million for the university last year and likely double that for the town of Tuscaloosa on the eight Saturdays in the fall that 100,000 money-spending Tide backers converge on campus, that Saban is underpaid.

Well, a collection of enterprising boosters has handled that and added a layer of peace of mind about the annual whispers of Saban leaving. Alabama's backers paid off Saban's house in 2013, buying it from Saban for $3.1 million.

This is the extreme case of course, because Saban could like get as much as $10 million from a deep-pocketed outfit like a Michigan or a Florida if he really wanted it. (Heck we've even proposed that if all the other teams in the SEC put $1 million in the pot for him not to coach ever again, that Alabama likely would match that $13 million.)

But stories like this make it tough for those of us who are against paying players.

As for the other news, well, now recruiting violations are officially everywhere. Army - yes, Army - has been using alcohol and co-eds in recruiting in ways that are in violations of the rules.

Well, there you go.

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This and that

photo Dale Earnhardt Jr.

- Dale Jr. won at Martinsville. That is all. Oh yeah, and Kevin Harvick struggled and is now behind the 8-ball to get to the final shootout.

- We mentioned baseball before, but Madison Bumgarner is a postseason magician. Dude is 4-0 in the World Series and has allowed one run in 31 innings.

- Happy Birthday, Dick Trickle, and thanks for the joy you have knowingly and unknowingly spread to the fans of SportsCenter everywhere. Dick would have been 73 today.

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Today's question

Who won the weekend? Who lost the weekend?

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