Seasons longer, but stats same

SIGNIFICANT football context has been abandoned by TV the same as comparing Yogi Berra’s World Series-only totals to those who play three rounds of postseason baseball.

ESPN recently noted that “Miami is seeking its first 12-win season since 1990.” The fact they now have an extra game to do so — with a 17-game season since 2021 instead of the previous 16-game schedule — was left unmentioned.

This omission is even more egregious when discussing, say, the standard for a superior season among NFL running backs. Achieving a 1,000-yard season has been marginalized with current seasons’ extended seasons — thus averaging 59 yards per game is now equally as special to rushing for 1,000 yards in 12-, 14- and 16-game seasons.

But last week’s winner, naturally, was ESPN, which reported that Michigan became “the sixth team in major college football history to finish 15-0 or better in a season.”

But such has been possible due to seasons extended to 12-games plus conference championships years ago then playoff games beginning in 2015.

The one exception was the 1897 Penn team that went 15-0 while defeating opponents by a total of 463-20. But ESPN knew that.

Rather disappointing that Nick Saban, in departing Alabama, didn’t credit all his recruits who would be arrested for everything and anything from sexual assault to illegal possessions of guns. Hey, he couldn’t have done it without them!

A good, high-scoring NBA game was played last week in spite of (or due to) the paucity of 3-point shots.

The visiting Nuggets beat the Warriors, 130-127, shooting a mere 26 3-pointers — very few, these days — and missing 17 of them. Radical!

Last week’s gold medal-winning U.S. junior ice hockey team draped their arms around one another while singing our national anthem as it played in Sweden. U.S. Medal of Honor recipient, as per President Biden, the self-entitled, classless, vulgar Megan Rapinoe and her U.S. women’s national soccer teammates must have been appalled.

I blew it here Friday, writing that South Carolina lost to Mississippi State. In fact, it won the game.