Toughest schedules for 2017 belong to Michigan, Alabama
The sports blog Bleacher Report has rated the top 25 most difficult schedules for next season’s football with Michigan, Alabama and Ohio State as the top three. Other tough slates belong to No. 5 Florida State, No. 6 Auburn, No. 7 Florida, Clemson at No. 15, LSU No. 16, Georgia Tech at No. 19 and Georgia at No. 23. … The same sports site listed the top Heisman Trophy contenders in this order: USC QB Sam Darnold, Louisville QB Lamar Jackson, Oklahoma’s QB Baker Mayfield and Alabama running back Bo Scarbrough.
March dreaming
When the news came that North Carolina State had fired basketball coach Mark Gottfried in midseason, it hit like an unwelcome smell in a restaurant.
Gottfried was in his sixth season in Raleigh and had taken the Wolfpack to the NCAA tournament in four of those years. The news prompted Kentucky coach John Calipari to go on a rant, raving about how badly college basketball coaches are treated. (Are you kidding me, John?).
Nonetheless, the firing came with a deluge of names that may face the same fate in the next few weeks with top jobs like
LSU, Missouri, Washington, Illinois and Arkansas supposedly thinking along the same lines.
It also brought names like Archie Miller of Dayton, Kevin Keatts of UNC-Wilmington and Gregg Marshall at Wichita State as possible replacements.
Maybe not this year, but up-andcoming names headed to bigger jobs are Cuonzo Martin at Cal, Scott Drew at Baylor, Lorenzo Romar at Washington, Frank Martin at South Carolina, Ben Howland at Mississippi State and Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood.
Two more lists
ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas named his Mount Rushmore of college coaches. They are, in descending order, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, UConn’s Geno Auriemma and UCLA’s John Wooden. … Football analyst Paul Finebaum was asked to name his Mount Rushmore.
He picked Alabama’s Nick Saban, Notre Dame’s Frank Leahy, Alabama’s Bear Bryant and Penn State’s Joe Paterno.
Word is that former Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati football coach Tommy Tuberville is seriously considering running for governor of Alabama!… Jerry Kill, who resigned as head coach at Minnesota because of epileptic seizures, has been named offensive coordinator at Rutgers. … Maybe the only thing that came out of this game was bragging rights, but Life University in Marietta defeated mighty Alabama in hockey, 9-7. Hockey is a club spot at both schools. … NBA superstar James
Harden was asked if he was the best basketball player in the world. Harden’s answer was “for sure.” … Dustin Johnson is the newest No. 1 on the PGA tour. Johnson is the sixth No. 1 named since August of 2015. … Big news in the NBA is that the Sacramento Kings traded former Kentucky star DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans to play along side another former Wildcat star, Anthony Davis. Of course, Kentucky coach John Calipari was asked if he’d be leaving Lexington to coach two of his former best player. Calipari said, “absolutely not, they saw enough of me in college.” … Five-star running back Zamir White out of North Carolina has listed his four top schools with Georgia right in there along with Clemson, Alabama and North Carolina. … Several ACC coaches have praised Georgia Tech’s Josh Pastner and put him in line for ACC Coach of the Year. … Nineteen of Atlanta United’s soccer games will be televised by Fox Sports South, and the remainder will appear on ESPN, Fox Sports or Univision.