Happy Friday everyone. Question for the group: Who had a better opener, Deion Sanders or Dan Campbell? Discuss.
Let's handle our business.
Rushmore of U.S. political families — Adams, Bush, Roosevelt, Kennedy.
Rushmore of Lee — Lee Greeson (yes, it's a homer pick — sue me), Tommy Lee Jones, Stan Lee (dude launched the MCU people), Bruce Lee.
Rushmore of fire — Beavis saying "fire, fire, fire," "Great Ball of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis (who was close to being on half the Rushmores this week), fighting fire with fire, "Chariots of Fire."
Rushmore of 'labor' — In labor, Labor Day, labor of love, labor union.
You know the rules. Here's Paschall on UT football.
Here's Hargis on the star-studded match-up tonight when Baylor hosts Lipscomb Academy. Yeah, get there early, and if you don't have a ticket, you may want to find a different game.
And pardon me for this, but the first question is from the host. To the bag.
From Jay
Jay, love the 5-at-10. It's the best thing on the interwebs.
Please tell me you saw the video with Rory and the kid with the brain tumor?
Keep on keeping on, and if your bosses are reading this, you deserve a huge raise.
Jay
Thanks for the kind words. You are clearly highly insightful and spot on in almost all assessments.
I did see the Rory video, and it took less than 30 seconds for it to get extremely dusty in my kitchen as someone was chopping onions and a 55-gallon drum of pollen was unleashed.
Here's the video, and God bless you Rory.
How cool is that? Truly. And in an era when so many are so rude — be they famous or infamous — we exalt and celebrate kindness because of it.
That's wicked cool of Rory, and wicked sad for the state of our society that being kind to a 7-year-old with a brain tumor feels like going the extra mile, you know?
That said, I am a complete and total lump of goo in a glass case of emotion for two kinds of videos:
Kindness for kids with serious medical issues — like this one or the Iowa football stadium waving to the children's hospital to start the fourth quarter at home games — and the videos of soldiers returning home and surprising their families.
This one with a U.S. Marine returning home and pretending to be the umpire several years ago at his 10 year old's baseball game gets me. Every. Single Time.
From Bicycle Bob
Jay,
In a column earlier this week, you mentioned that it didn't appear the rule changes for CFB had helped speed up the game. I concur. I sat through a game last Saturday that lasted 3:45, and it was an ordeal. You know, MLB made some effective changes to speed up their game, and after watching the Braves all season play most games in less than 2:30, I'm not sure how I am going to make it through football season. I think part of the problem is the endless use of replay review. Again, MLB has it right, don't you think? There, if you believe a call is wrong, you have to ask for a review. And if you are wrong, you don't get to ask again. Play Ball!
BB
I don't think college football's problem is replay, at least in this regard.
Yes, replay is an issue. It's an issue because either we need to commit to using technology and getting every call as right as possible. As in using a chip in the football to mark progress or crossing the goal line rather than several AARP members using two sticks connected by a chain. Literally. It also means baseball needs to get on with automated strike zones.
Let's go already.
But in terms of the dreadful watchability of the first 10 days of college football, it's the super-extended commercial breaks more than replays that have negatively altered my viewing experience.
Yes, I'm a fan. Yes, I will keep watching. But when the game action is shorter but the broadcast times are the same, that clearly means the commercials have increased.
And maybe the networks helped make this happen because of the huge price tags for the broadcast privileges of the high-profile programs.
Either way, it's a change, but it's not an improvement.
From E-Money
Jay, don't know you well enough to call you a Savant ("a person who has an exceptional aptitude in one particular field despite having significant impairment in other areas of intellectual or social functioning") but having ridden your last two Dinger Tuesday picks of (Bryce) Harper and (Pete) Alonso all the way to the house I'm tempted. Is it a fit?
E-Money
Yes, we shared this email earlier this week in the Plays of the Day email, but thought it was worth sharing.
First, the Dinger Tuesday promo from FanDuel is my favorite online sports betting promo. Sure, we have hit the last couple, but we likely are only a few clicks over even across the whole season.
No, it's my favorite because it gives a casual player 'juice' on every pitch to every hitter involved in whatever game in which you picked a player.
Win or lose, that's great investment in terms of connection and stakes in my view.
Golf is like that too, which I enjoy betting on as well. (Although I am less than good at it.)
From SJ
Chris Washburn!? How many readers do you think will get that one. Very funny though. First team all time dummy. (Jim) Valvano had an amazing run in '83, but he set that program back a couple of decades by what he left behind. You know things are going south when 60 Minutes does a piece on the situation. His legacy is his cancer awareness and cure and been hugely successful, but without that, he would be relegated as a one shining moment in a helluva mess program.
I watched the Clemson game and besides their ineptness, that Duke QB was a stud.
SJ
Not sure how many will get the Washburn reference but I am A-OK putting reference in there every now and then maybe only one person gets, you know?
And I don't mean this come off crass but if Jimmy V did not get cancer and make that speech and get Dickie V on his side, he's Jerry Tarkanian, you know?
From Chris
Jay, I know you are an Auburn grad, and your team heads to Cal this weekend.
So I wondered which you thought was the best all-time game-ending play in college football.
The Cal-Stanford Band Game or the Kick Six?
Thanks, and my friends at work and I read the 5@10 every day and we are still missing you on the radio.
Chris
Never can tell what may or may not happen in the audio media world in the future, and as Forrest said, that's all I got to say about that.
The Kick Six is infinitely better. By wide margins. Heck, I'm not sure the Band Game is better than Flutie's Hail Mary or any of multiple others that had way more meaning.
The Cal-Stanford ending in 1982 was a circus; the Kick Six was planned and perfectly executed and happened before the eyes of America.
I'm not sure it's even close.
Have a great weekend friends, and enjoy the full menu of football.