ON MY MONDAY MIND:
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PROGRAM HEALTH RATINGS: As Tony teased Friday we will discuss which college football programs appear to be the healthiest entering the 2016 season on Monday’s edition of the
Tony Basilio Show. Unlike my scholastic years, when Tony gives me a homework assignment I generally complete it. We specifically intend to discuss how many programs we perceive as healthier than Tennessee’s. My guess upon hearing the topic was no more than a dozen would be ranked healthier than our beloved Tennessee Football Program. What I came up with based on little or nothing more than a gut feeling mirrored my assumption:
HEALTHIER
1-ALABAMA: Flagship program of the best conference with the best college football coach alive
2-CLEMSON: Has overtaken South Carolina in-state and Florida State in-conference. Best QB in America and success-breeding-success
3- OHIO STATE: The Big-10 version of Alabama
4-STANFORD: Truly unique program that has wisely selected it’s last two coaches
5-FLORIDA STATE: Jimbo Fisher appears to be the only limb of Saban’s tree and Florida and Miami are down
6-OREGON: Money and recruits keep pouring in.
7-MICHIGAN STATE: Blue-collar program with a coach that reflects that attitude. Has taken full advantage of Michigan being down
8-MICHIGAN: Starving program that circumstances allowed to hire the perfect guy at the perfect time.
9-TCU: Horned Frog’s savior is a defense-first guy that didn’t forget you need to score as well.
10-BAYLOR: An outside-the-box hire with a unique offensive attack allowed the one-time doormat to become a Big-12 power
11-OKLAHOMA: Thumped in the playoffs but made the Final-4 nonetheless
WHY NOT THESE TEAMS?
OLE MISS: Laremy Tunsil, Robert Nkemdiche and Laquon Treadwell are gone and the NCAA is in town to stay
LSU: A Les Miles mutiny was barely quelled…but for how long?
MISSISSIPPI STATE: As well as Dan Mullen has done its still Mississippi State and they’re still in the SEC West
FLORIDA: If you don’t sign top-flight classes at Florida there’s something wrong
GEORGIA: Perennial underachieving program with a 1st year coach
TEXAS A&M: Something is rotten in College Station
NORTH CAROLINA: Really like Fedora but football is still an afterthought in Chapel Hill
VIRGINIA TECH: Hard to follow the best coach in program history
MIAMI: Academics vs athletics war being waged; no real fan base and a retread hire.
NOTRE DAME: No longer good enough to stand alone.
WISCONSIN: Can’t keep a solid coach with a meddlesome icon as an AD
NEBRASKA: For reasons that will stump historians for centuries the Cornhuskers are in the Big-10 and Mike Riley is their coach.
USC: The clumsy firing of Kiffin, the misstep of replacing him with Sarkisian, followed by a third consecutive underwhelming hire has Troy in turmoil.
UCLA: Returned 18 starters from a 10-2 Top-10 team and went 8-5 last season?
OKLAHOMA STATE: All Boone Pickens’ money won’t change the fact the Cowboys are second-class citizens in their own state, coming off a three game losing streak and a four TD bowl ass-whippin to Ole Miss
TEXAS: All the money in Texas and their own TV Network won’t change the fact Charlie Strong is their head coach.
KANSAS STATE: It’s in the wrong Manhattan and as great as he’s been Bill Snyder coached against Neyland.
VOL BASEBALL:
-All you needed to see was the first inning of both Friday and Saturday’s games to define Dave Serrano’s tenure:
FRIDAY: After loading the bases without a hit (Error, HBP, Walk) with no outs Vincent Jackson’s sinking liner to RF was caught; Benito Santiago wandered off third and didn’t tag and score; the RF threw behind Nick Senzel at 1st to double him up. The next batter walked reloading the bases then a strikeout was the latest failure with 2 outs and runners in scoring position.
SATURDAY: LSU scored six runs in the Top of the 1st
-Serrano also moved Will Neely to Friday to give Zach Warren and Aaron Soto more favorable matchups. That worked well as the Vols gave up double-digit runs both days while Neely pitched a gem on Friday.
-Going into the last weekend of regular season SEC Baseball the Vols must overtake two teams in the standings to make it to Hoover. The candidates have been the same for weeks including Georgia (10-17), Missouri (8-19), Auburn (8-19) and Arkansas (7-20). That means the Vols must do TWO of the following:
-Win one more game than Arkansas (@ Miss St) since the Vols and Hogs have identical 7-20 SEC records. Since they did not play in the regular season I am uncertain who would go to Hoover if the teams tied for the 12th best record.
-Win two more games than Auburn (@Vandy) since the Tigers currently hold a one game lead on the Vols AND have the tiebreaker advantage
-Win two more games than Missouri (@KY) since this is the same scenario as Auburn
-Sweep Georgia which would give the Vols and Dawgs identical 10-20 records and Tennessee would hold the tiebreaker.
-In other words the Vols CANNOT make it to Hoover unless they win at least two games in Athens.
MLB:
-The Yankees finally showed some signs of life winning 7 of 10 on the home stand versus Boston, Kansas City and the White Sox. Most of the damage was done with A-Rod, Ellsbury, Teixeira, and Sabathia on the shelf. Makes me long even more for two years from now when most -if not all- of them will be retired or in another uniform.
-The Mets may want to put Noah Syndergaard and Bartolo Colon in the everyday lineup. With Daniel Murphy now in the Nation’s Capital they need someone…anyone to protect Yoenis Cespedes
-I guess everyone in the game doesn’t -like Bryce Harper- believe it’s okay -even in today’s game- to show up your opponent. The Rangers took the aged-old “players police the game” route plunking Jose Bautista in his last regular season at-bat versus them in retaliation for his waaaay over-the-top bat flip in last season’s playoffs. Bautista then went in hard at second base and Roughned Odor added insult to injury by jacking his jaw. Count me among those that take some joy in the fact that there is still some old-school left in MLB.
MONDAY MUSING: Now the NBA playoffs get so good even casual fans like me can’t look away.
