Pac-12 football is oddly irrelevant
Short takes from the 3-Dot Lounge, where we’d bet on
Giancarlo Stanton returning home to Southern California to play for the Dodgers — but we’d love to be surprised:
It’s strange to have a Pac-12 football championship unfold without national implications. Maybe someday they’ll get it right and install an eight-team playoff, but for now, here’s a forecast for the conference title games: Clemson over Miami, Auburn over Georgia, Wisconsin over Ohio State and Oklahoma over TCU. That sets up a spotless set of playoff semifinals, no questions asked, with no two-loss teams involved and, most importantly, no conference with two teams. This has to be a national event, representing four separate regions. See the bigger picture, focus on won-lost records and don’t get caught up in “quality wins” or schedule analysis. Those arguments just spin around in circles, leading nowhere (example: Is beating Washington State a “quality win” when the Cougars got crushed 37-3 at Cal?) ... Next season could go down as an all-timer for Pac-12 quarterbacking if USC’s Sam Darnold and UCLA’s Josh Rosen return to school — highly advisable in both cases — to join Washington’s Jake Browning, Oregon’s Justin Herbert and Arizona’s Khalil Tate. Stanford’s K.J. Costello would love to put himself in that elite-level conversation, and he’s made great strides in his redshirt freshman season. It’s an open question at Cal, where Ross Bowers will have to fend off freshman Chase
Garbers and South Carolina transfer Brandon McIlwain ... With the focus on Michael
Crabtree’s suspension and how it hurts the Raiders’ cause, one has to ask: What the hell does jewelry have to do with football? I’d be ticked off, too, if I saw an opponent all decked out in some sort of fashion show.
There’s a growing backlash against replay in all the major sports. Virtually every game grinds to a halt at least once for a five-minute investigation of nothing. It sounds crazy to back off the technology, but too many routine-looking plays are subject to replay at a time when just about everyone — fans, players, coaches, media — could live with the original call. Warriors coach Steve Kerr appeared on a recent Bill
Simmons podcast, and when asked if he could change any in-game rule, he answered, “I would get rid of replay, other than buzzer-beaters. It would enhance the flow. I would have very, very limited replay.” ... Fanciful thought around the old hot stove: Dusty Baker and Dave Righetti hooking up somewhere as manager and pitching coach ... With the Giants working hard to shake things up, it’s important to remember the transition from
Brian Sabean to Bobby Evans in the general manager’s post. When a big personnel decision comes down, “It’s Bobby’s call,” said president
Larry Baer. “You can’t have two people doing it. Brian has 18 years of experience but he’s not down there every day with
Bruce Bochy anymore, hearing it, seeing it, not to mention negotiating with agents, being able to trade and work well with other teams, deal internally with MLB, all the roster manipulation — it’s just a 24-7 immersion. And Bobby’s been here 20 years with Brian. It’s not like he just showed up.” ... The late Bill Walsh knew his quarterbacks, and he’d likely be disgusted with the lack of talent in today’s NFL. He was fond of reminiscing about the golden era of quarterbacks, and as we land on the 50-year anniversary of the 1967 season, check out this group (NFL and AFL): Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton, Don Meredith, Sonny Jurgensen, John Brodie, Jim Hart, Frank Ryan, Joe Kapp, Len Dawson, John Hadl, Jack Kemp, Bob Griese, Daryle Lamonica and Joe Namath. “A highwater mark,” as Walsh once said, “in so many ways.”
Fine work by the aforementioned Simmons in his Bay Area-based Inside Tennis, by far the most informative magazine in the sport: Devoting the first 14 pages of the NovemberDecember issue to retired Stanford coach Dick Gould and making a strong case for his election into the International Hall of Fame. In a 35year career, Gould produced 776 wins, 17 NCAA championship teams, 10 national singles champions, 16 Olympians and 50 All-Americans, from
Roscoe Tanner and Sandy Mayer to John McEnroe and
doubles team of Bob and
Mike Bryan. Gould was the driving force behind the construction of the Taube Family Tennis Center, and he remains Stanford’s Director of Tennis. “Dick had a joie de vivre that spread,” said McEnroe, an NCAA singles and doubles champion in his only year on campus (1978). “Even when he had to make some hard decisions that some of the players weren’t happy with, they all
loved him. Dick always reaches out, like when my dad passed. He just always has a way about him. Puts a smile on your face.” ... Meanwhile, tennis lost two of the greats last week in Pancho Segura and Jana Novotna. Many identify Segura as Jimmy
Connors’ first out-of-family coach, when Connors moved to Los Angeles from Missouri, but he was a shining light in his playing days, a showman and brilliant tactician who reached No. 1 in the world (1950) and was part of the barnstorming pro tour including Jack Kramer, Rod
Laver, Pancho Gonzales and Lew Hoad, among others, ata time when only amateurs were allowed to play the majors ... Novotna’s passing touched the heartstrings, as I was a Centre Court witness to her worst and most triumphant moments. A graceful all-court player known to tense up under the pressure of big matches, Novotna lost the 1993 Wimbledon final to Steffi Graf after leading 4-1 in the third set — and it was a complete, eerie unraveling. Novotna cried on the Duchess of Kent’s shoulder during the ceremony that day, unable to contain her despair, but she made amends in 1998, beating Venus Williams, Martina Hingis and Nathalie Tauziat in her final three matches to win the title. There were tears of joy and relief, and “I don’t recall a more ecstatic locker room,” former doubles great Pam Shriver told reporters. The day of reckoning had arrived at last.