PPM

 It is conference championship week for the PPM this week and we will be picking the victors in all of the college title games.

Last Week: 11-4

Overall: 116-67

College

Pac 12

Utah over Oregon 35-21

CUSA
UTSA over Western Kentucky 29-21

Big 12

Oklahoma State over Baylor 26-17

MAC

Kent State over Northern Illinois 31-27

Mountain West

San Diego State over Utah State 45-32

Sun Belt

Appalachian State over Louisiana 33-31

SEC

Georgia over Alabama 21-7

American

Cincinnati over Houston 36-28

Big Ten

Michigan over Iowa 17-10

ACC

Wake Forest over Pittsburgh 50-46

Pro

Cowboys over Saints 24-13

Games of the Week

Bills over Patriots 24-21

Chiefs over Broncos 31-21

Devils Extend Jack Hughes

    The New Jersey Devils may have lost their game to the visiting San Jose Sharks Tuesday night in a 5-2 defeat that saw the Devils play an absolutely terrible second period but the Devils did have two pieces of good news- both involving Jack Hughes.

The short-term good news was the return to the lineup for Hughes, who was injured in the second game of the season and missed the next seventeen games.

Hughes failed to score a point against San Jose in seventeen and a half minutes of ice time, but there is some rust that will need to be shaven off before returning to peak form but the even bigger news would come from the podium not on the ice as the Devils announced before the game that the franchise signed Hughes to an eight-year contract extension worth sixty-four million dollars.

Hughes was the first overall selection of the 2019 draft by New Jersey and scored eleven goals with twenty assists in fifty-six games last season and scored two goals with an assist in his first two games before his injury.

Give the Devils credit for locking up Hughes before he could possibly reach the point of a stalemate down the road which almost always causes hard feelings from the player and treating the player that they want to build around a fair deal.

And give some kudos to Jack Hughes, who realizes that in a few years that he will be able to play with his brother (2021first rounder Luke) and that is an opportunity that few brothers are able to do at all, let alone when the brothers are at their peak as players, and took fewer dollars in return for a long-term commitment to the franchise and a secure contract.

Here's my dilemma on the deal.

Hughes is certainly talented and he certainly has the chance to be an impact player along with being the face of the franchise with his playmaking skills.

At only 20 years old, Hughes is signed until he turns 29, so should Hughes live up to his potential, this contract could be a long-term bargain.

However, Hughes has struggled with injuries in his short career, has a very slight frame (5'11 175 pounds) which could make him more vulnerable to hits and injuries. and despite showing some flashes of elite performance potential, there is some risk involved with an eight-year extension based on the current body of work for Hughes.

This contract is completely on the projection that Jack Hughes will develop into a number one center and while if the Devils are correct about Hughes, this contract will be a bargain by the final years of the contract.

However, it's not without risk, and should Hughes not reach that level for whatever reason then the deal could be an overpay depending on how much production that Hughes is able to bring to the Devils.

I would consider the extension a high reward/moderate risk contract for the Devils and at long as one realizes the risk that the team is taking, which seems to me based on Hughes not being injury-prone, I'm okay with the extension especially with the upside of Hughes becoming a star and not paying him a cap clogging price.

Cleaning out the Inbox

    It's been quite a while since I cleaned the inbox and surprisingly it's not nearly as full as usual although the recent passings are starting to pile up a bit. 

I seem to find these a lot for the inbox but yet another rare colored lobster has been caught, this one in Maine.

The "Cotton Candy" Blue Lobster doesn't look much more remarkable than the average blue lobster (which is a rarity itself) but the picture of "Haddie" doesn't do it justice as she is reported to have every color BUT blue in her shell and under lights has an oyster shell color to the shell.

Haddie was shipped to the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire to live out her remaining days.

It may not have the same resonance as Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle", but  "Trash Can across the Atlantic" showed just how the Gulf Stream can work as it carried a beach trash can with the stickers from the city of Myrtle Beach South Carolina to Ireland on a trip that carried it over 3.500 miles from Myrtle Beach.

No idea how long the voyage took for the waste receptacle but when it arrived in Ireland, it did have barnacles on some of its surface.

ESPN writes a terrific article on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma "Game of the Century with comments from figures from both sides including Nebraska's 1972 Heisman winner Johnny Rodgers and Oklahoma star Greg Pruitt with coaches from both teams as well.

When the college football community celebrated its 150th anniversary two years, the game was voted the greatest game ever with the 1971 Cornhuskers earning the title of the best team ever and the 1971 Sooners winning the vote for the greatest team with one loss.

The Hustle tells the story of the University of Florida and just why they receive twenty million dollars a year from Gatorade.

The inventor of the sports drink, Dr.Robert Cade, discusses why there was the need to invent such a beverage, the business arrangement behind the scenes, why the University gets paid, and why they could have been making two to three times the amount each year had they been a bit more forward-thinking.

The Pepsi Co. which now is in charge of Gatorade has attempted to change the face of the product with changes to the logo that uses a "G" rather than the traditional Gatorade logo but despite efforts to change or eliminate an agreement with the Gatorade trust, Pepsi is still paying those rights fees every year.

We wrap up with the Hagerstown Herald-Mail writes of the future Atlantic League team coming to Hagerstown for 2023 asking the city to have Municipal Stadium remain available for the 2023 season in the event of the new downtown stadium not being completed for the opening season.

The "Supply Line Disruption" has the owners and the Atlantic League concerned that they may have some issues in being able to procure the needed materials on time to have the stadium ready for business.

Municipal Stadium was scheduled for demolition in 2022 in order to prepare for a sports complex that has been a pet project of city councilman Kristen (yes, that's his name) Aleshire for years even when the Hagerstown Suns were attempting to finance a new stadium, so the council would have to approve keeping Municipal standing for another year in case it would be needed.

This of course has made the councilman unhappy but Atlantic League rules do require teams to have an alternate place to play when a new stadium is built to house a new team in case of potential construction issues.

I'm not sure how many times each season that I'll be visiting the new park but I'd definitely go to a game or two played at Municipal even if only to say the goodbye that the pandemic didn't allow me to say in 2020.

Boxing Challenge: Fulton squeezes past Figueroa

   The Showtime Saturday card unified two 122-pound titles in a tremendous battle that also had a post-fight altercation that was as entertaining as the fight itself.

WBO junior featherweight champion Stephen Fulton added the WBC champion previously held by Brandon Figueroa with a hotly contested majority decision victory over Figueroa in Las Vegas.

This fight certainly deserves consideration for the 2021 fight of the year as Figueroa continually walked forward, throwing and landing more punches as he forced the pace of the fight with Fulton surprisingly deciding to stand his ground and slug for most of the bout.

Figueroa did throw and land more but Fulton was landing the cleaner punches and landed the higher percentage of punches over the course of the fight.

I had Figueroa a 115-113 winner but I would have been OK with the same score for Fulton as the fight really was that close.

What I didn't care for was Figueroa's behavior after the fight in which he interrupted Fulton's postfight talk with Showtime's Jim Gray and whined about how he won the fight.

While I agreed with Figueroa's claim, the fight was far from the worst robbery of the year as Figueroa stated and things were close to being ugly before things calmed down a bit.

Fulton did verbally spar with Figueroa but he didn't cross the line and Fulton was far more classy in the affair.

I would love to see a rematch in which both fighters at first agreed to meet again but Figueroa seemed to demur when talking to Gray after Fulton left the ring.

It would be nice if Fulton could meet WBA and IBF champion Murodjon Akhmadaaliev and settle the best fighter in the division but I would say it's unlikely for now with rival promoters and mandatory obligations in a very solid division.

The undercards saw the likely next fight for Fulton as Ra'eese Aleem won an easy unanimous decision over Eduardo Baez.

No knockdowns in a good, not great affair with my scoring going for Aleem 98-92.

A fight between Fulton and Aleem seems to be a solid fight and one that could be an excellent Showtime main event in 2022.

The opener was much more entertaining as undefeated bantamweight Gary Antonio Russell survived his toughest test from veteran Alejandro Santiago.

Russell took an early lead and seemed to be on his way to an impressive victory but Santiago took command in the middle rounds with the last rounds featuring many exchanges between the two in a fun fight to start the evening.

Russell took the majority decision that wasn't debatable with two scores of 96-94 for Russell and a 95-95 draw.

As in the main event, I scored a very close fight for the loser as I thought Santiago won 96-94 but I had no issues with Russell's win with the scores being very fair.

In the boxing challenge, I scored four points to Ramon Malpica's three to move my lead to 158-139. 

Browns bounced in Baltimore 16-10

    The Cleveland Browns defense did about all one could ask for in controlling Lamar Jackson (other than allowing one touchdown and one huge gainer when Jackson basically tossed the ball up to avoid a sack) in sacking Jackson twice and intercepting four times but in the end, it didn't matter as the Baker Mayfield-led offense could only manage ten points against the Baltimore defense in a 16-10 defeat in Baltimore.

Baker Mayfield threw for 247 yards and the only Cleveland touchdown to David Njoku, while Jarvis Landry led the receivers with six catches for 111 yards.

Cleveland falls to 6-6 and has this week off before hosting these same Ravens in Cleveland.

Brownie Bits

1) What a wasted defensive performance for a team that has been erratic all season.

Four interceptions of Lamar Jackson, three of them in a two-minute span, and an effective pass rush against a player that has often confounded them.

What a waste.

2) Holding Baltimore to only one touchdown and that score was essentially a fluke as Jackson threw a prayer as he avoided several Browns that found a waiting Mark Andrews in the end zone.

Andrews is another noted Browns killer and the coverage breakdown was understandable as players attempted to keep Jackson from racing upfield

3) Jadeveon Clowney was a player that came to Cleveland with a rap as a player that didn't always bust his hump on every play.

I haven't seen that player in Cleveland as I've seen a guy that doesn't take plays off and some of that could be limiting his use a bit, Clowney has an impact on the pass rush and has done exactly what the Browns could have hoped for with Myles Garrett.

I would be more than fine with another one or even two-year deal with Clowney if it can be afforded.

4) Myles Garrett was another player that seemed to be everywhere with a sack, a batted-down pass that would have been a touchdown as the receiver was open in the end zone, and several near misses on Lamar Jackson.

5) The word was that Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was drafted to be the type of versatile defender that could spy on Lamar Jackson and not allow him to run with abandon.

The first game for JOK appeared to be a success as Jackson rushed for 68 yards with a long run of thirteen yards.

Owusu-Koramoah finished with six solo tackles, six assisted tackles, and half a sack, so Owusu-Koramoah seems to be an excellent fit for the job.

6) Onto the offense which was utterly terrible.

Baker Mayfield wasn't as bad as he had been at times this season and he didn't throw an interception for a change but he wasn't accurate and once again failed to complete fifty percent of his passes (18/37).

Don't blame Mayfield completely for the loss but he didn't do very much to help matters either.

7) Kevin Stefanski concerns me with his third week in a row with Jarvis Landry taking snaps at quarterback and taking a big loss as a result.

Stefanski was excellent as a play-caller last season but he has struggled to find his path this season and I'm wondering if the demands of coaching an expected playoff team and calling the plays aren't beginning to wear on him.

8) More Stefanski with a team that is paying big money to both of their guards and has built their team to run the football behind a rugged offensive line to wear teams down late in the game.

Yet with two of the better running backs in the game, Kareem Hunt ran the ball seven times (20 yards) and Nick Chubb only eight (16 yards) and there wasn't an excuse of not being able to run the ball because they were behind in the game.

Why Kevin Stefanski didn't use the one part of his offense that is above average right now more is baffling to me.

9) Off off those four turnovers that the Browns defense provided, the Browns turned those into a grand total of three points.

10) While there was pressure on Baker Mayfield on the final fourth down play that saw Mayfield complete the pass to David Njoku but the pattern didn't have Njoku reaching the sticks and Njoku was tackled short of the first down.

Few things in football frustrate me more than a five-yard pattern when you need seven yards.

11) The Browns have scored 17 points or less in seven of their last nine games.

12) The Browns aren't returning to the playoffs.

At 6-6 with five games to go and placed in twelfth place when seven teams make it AND losing tiebreakers to several teams involved in such a race, I think it's over unless they run the table and win all five remaining games.

Baltimore, Las Vegas, Cincinnati at home, and Pittsburgh and Green Bay on the road is not a very likely run to 5-0 and I'm not even sure that winning them and finishing at 11-6 will be a sure thing considering their lack of tiebreakers against teams that they have to jump.

Boxing Challenge: Kambosos stuns Lopez!

  In a 2021 filled with major upsets, the upset that may have the biggest immediate impact took place in New York City as George Kambosos knocked down Teofimo Lopez in the first round and outslugged the heavily favored Lopez to win a split decision and take the three lightweight titles (WBA, IBF, and WBO) away from Lopez.

Lopez had vowed to stop Kambosos in the first round and while he stormed out in an attempt to do Kambosos in early, it was the Australian that scored the knockdown in the first round.

While Lopez wasn't badly hurt, it established that Kambosos was not going to roll over for Lopez and Kambosos began to bank rounds with hurting Lopez in the fourth round.

Both fighters showed facial damage but Lopez was cut over each eye and was sliced along his mouth and certainly was the more battered of the pair.

Lopez began to work his way back into the fight and in the tenth round floored Kambosos and suddenly it appeared that Lopez was going to save his titles but by the end of the round Kambosos was fighting back effectively.

With the fight on the line in the final two rounds, I gave both to Kambosos to win 115-111, which agreed with one judge with another scoring 115-112 for Kambosos with the odd judge giving the fight to Lopez 114-113.

Lopez didn't himself any favors by interrupting the DAZN post-fight interview with Kambosos insisting that he won and wasn't a "Sore Loser" while appearing to be just that to the boos of the crowd that was in favor of him when the fight began.

While on the sheer difference in talent, I still grade the Sandor Martin upset of Mikey Garcia as a bigger surprise, the Kambosos win will easily have the largest impact for 2022.

Kambosos could unify with WBC champion Devin Haney or Joseph Diaz, should Diaz dethrone Haney in their upcoming fight or fight any of the lightweight stars although I would bet he will make a showcase title defense in Australia to bank some big bucks in his home area.

Lopez looked like a fighter that needed to move up in weight and said he would love to face unified 140-pound champion, Josh Taylor, next but with this loss that fight may have lost some immediate luster and Lopez may first have to notch a win or two at 140 pounds before a potential Taylor matchup.

Larry Merchant always called boxing "the theatre of the absurd" and the saga of Lopez-Kambosos is one that fits the phrase when you consider the out-of-the-ring purse bids, cancellations, promoter changes, and finally the stunning upset.

In the co-feature, Kenichi Ogawa knocked down Azinga Fuzile three times, twice in the final round to win the IBF junior lightweight title that was declared vacant after Joseph Diaz missed weight before a title defense against Shavkat Rakhimov.

I had Ogawa a winner at 117-108.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I missed on both fights from New York.

I will have the Browns loss in Baltimore next as I haven't had time to watch the Saturday fights from PBC and Showtime yet.

Ohio State run over in the Snow-Lose to Michigan

     Ohio State had everything they needed to take their rightful place in the Big Ten title game and a step closer to the final four.

Until they didn't.

The Michigan Wolverines pounded the Buckeye defense again and again on the ground, took their first win over Ohio State since 2011, and for the first time over a good Ohio State team since 2003.

C.J. Stroud threw for 394 yards and two touchdowns and both Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Garrett Wilson caught double-digit passes and finished with over one hundred receiving yards.

The disappointing loss means that Ohio State finished 10-2, 8-1 in the Big Ten which gives them co-champion status with Michigan with the Wolverines winning the head-to-head tiebreaker and the resulting trip to Indianapolis.

Ohio State will likely wind in the Rose Bowl against the winner of the Pac 12 championship game between Oregon and Utah.

Olentangy Offerings

1) Michigan ran for almost three hundred yards (297) and ran for each of their six touchdowns, so it doesn't take very much to circle the key stat in the upset win.

2) Give Jim Harbaugh credit for having his team ready to play and even had a few wrinkles in his fairly staid offense.

Harbaugh had been criticized for not focusing enough on this game and he vowed that this year would be different and for one year- it was.

3) I as almost everyone did, picked Ohio State to win but one thing that I mentioned when asked about the game was my concern about C.J. Stroud.

Despite Stroud's numbers this season, the best team that Ohio State had played on the road in front of a hostile crowd was Minnesota and how would the redshirt freshman react?

4) Stroud didn't throw any interceptions but he resembled another Ohio quarterback a few hours north up I-71 with many missed passes going high.

Stroud didn't play badly but he didn't dazzle in defeat either.

5) One reason that the crowd may have become a factor?

Ohio State didn't take nearly as many deep shots down the field to Chris Olave or Garrett Wilson and as a result, the crossing and curl patterns that the Buckeyes often turn a twelve-yard gain into a sixty-five-yard move were stifled by very few yards after the catch.

Was this on Stroud's being bothered by the Michigan pass rush and wanted to get the ball out fast? Or was Ryan Day being overly safe under the circumstances?

6) The other main worry of mine entering the game was the Michigan defensive ends, Aiden Hutchinson and Ojabo and both were a handful with four sacks, three of those by Hutchinson.

Ohio State has had the dominant pass rushers in this rivalry for years but they didn't have them on Saturday.

7) Is that a long-term issue for the Buckeyes?

I doubt it- remember Ohio State nabbed both of the top two defensive linemen in last year's recruiting in J.T, Tuimoloau, and Jack Sawyer and while neither had huge impacts this season both should take huge jumps next season.

8) The first half touchdown catch by Garrett Wilson was out of this world and while players like Chris Olave and Wilson will be hard to replace the Buckeyes are more than equipped to do so (remember this is a team so deep in wideouts that Jameson Williams transferred to Alabama, of all places, to make the field regularly.

9) I would think both Olave and Wilson will be first-rounders and guarantee that at least one of them will be.

The fact that with three receivers like Ohio State has and does not have a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award is a joke.

10) The Buckeye defense let them down on the biggest stage and makes me wonder what would have happened against a higher-powered offense but there were a few bright spots.

Steele Chambers seemed to be all over the field and Bryson Shaw made a very good interception in the first quarter in the end zone to kill a Michigan scoring drive,

11) The win snapped an eight-game losing streak for Michigan against Ohio State and the first win for Michigan in ten years, since Michigan skipped last year's game due to issues with Covid-19.

12) It wouldn't be Jim Harbaugh, a guy that took seven years to win this game, without being able to be a sore winner as after the game Harbaugh referred to Ryan Day as a guy that "was born on third base and thought he hit a triple".

The observation of Day as a coach that won immediately with a team built by Urban Meyer isn't completely unfair ( the term for that is called pulling a Mike Tomlin) but in typical fashion came off as a smug jackass.

13) As for Ryan Day, the next two games against Michigan could set his legacy at Ohio State after such a stunning loss.

Next year's game will be key in Columbus as in taking their measure for this loss and Jim Harbaugh's smack talk to show it was the rare win in the series and not allow Michigan to set the narrative that the tide had turned.

14) However, even with a 2022 win for the Buckeyes in Columbus, the pressure will not truly be relieved until a 2023 win in Ann Arbor for a second win in a row and a road win.

That is how important regaining control of this series rather than allow Michigan to think of themselves as equals.

Dominance cannot be taken for granted.

15) Wrapping up with this hot take- Is it possible that C.J. Stroud has made his first and last start in a game against Michigan?

After all, Ohio State signed not just the number one quarterback in the nation, but the number one PLAYER in the nation in Quinn Evers, and would Ryan Day take the chance of losing a talent like Evers to keep Stroud?

I might wonder if in this loss if it isn't possible that one of the many things that were lost in Ann Arbor in this game, one may have been C.J.Stroud moving from Heisman finalist to possibly not even starting the game in 2022?