Sports Shorts

Here are some of my thoughts on recent developments in the world of sports:

• Baylor football has finally hired its replacement for Art Briles: Matt Rhule, who comes to Waco from Temple, where he's guided the Owls to back-to-back 10 win seasons.  Some may think it's a questionable hire, given Rhule's utter lack of connections to Texas.  While it may not as be as sexy as if BU had hired Tom Herman or Les Miles, I like it.  Rhule has experience creating a winning program and he will certainly have more resources and access to football talent in the Big 12 at Baylor compared to what he had in the American at Temple.  Obviously, time will tell, but given the mess at Baylor, Rhule seems like a good fit: a disciplinarian who is young and charismatic.  Sic 'em, Coach Rhule!
• I think it will be interesting to see what happens to Art Briles this winter.  He's made no secret of his desire to coach again (and soon), but you really haven't heard his name mentioned for any openings.  In fact, Houston issued a press release to specifically state that they WEREN'T going to interview Briles, something I'm not sure has ever happened before.  I realize that there are opposing viewpoints on Briles amongst the Baylor faithful.  While I think the Board of Regents and Baylor in general deserve some blame, I absolutely believe that Briles should have been held responsible for the things that happened on his watch.  He took on some players who had questionable pasts at other schools and it wound up blowing up on him.  Even Briles admits that he set up a system where he was the last to know things, which tells you a lot.  What will tell us even more is if he doesn't get any job offers this winter.  Somebody with his on field results should have his phone ringing off the hook.  If nobody calls him, it will speak volumes what folks outside of the Baylor Bubble think of him.
• The College Football Playoff needs to be expanded to 8 teams: the five Power 5 conference champs and then the next 3 best teams.  If they can make a real playoff work in FCS, Division II and Division III, there's no reason they can't do it in FBS.  The fact that there's not room in the playoff for the champions of what was unquestionably the best conference in the country this year (the Big 10) is ridiculous.  If they aren't going to expand it from 4 to 8 teams, then at least stop insulting our intelligence by telling us that conference championships and head-to-head results matter.  You've already proven that isn't true, so just drop the charade.
• I admit to taking a lot of enjoyment over the debacle that is the Los Angeles Rams this season.  LA fans, who gleefully made fun of the supposed lackluster support of St. Louis fans, are quickly seeing for themselves what a mess they have inherited.  The Rams are already playing in front of empty seats and the best TV ratings they've had in LA this season are still worse than the worst TV ratings they had in St. Louis last season.  Even more ridiculous is the fact that they gave a contract extension to Jeff Fisher, who is poised to become the losingest (is that even a word?) coach in NFL history.  This is a guy who hasn't coached a team to a winning record since George W. Bush was president!  And somehow he not only doesn't get fired - he gets an extension!  That sums up the incompetence of sports ownership embodied by Stan Kroenke.  13 consecutive non-winning seasons and counting!
• Speaking of Stan Kroenke, is there a worse owner in professional sports?  The Rams stink (again).  The Avalanche are terrible (again) and their attendance stinks.  The Nuggets are perennial losers who are in the bottom handful of the NBA in attendance.  The fans of Arsenal do anti-Kroenke chants during games.  I guess when the deck isn't stacked in his favor (like it is in business, thanks to marrying a Walmart heiress), he isn't such a good businessman after all.
• Cleveland won a championship in the NBA this year.  The Cubs won a World Series this year.  Surely that means that a Stanley Cup is in the cards for the Blues soon, right?  Right?  It has to happen eventually, doesn't it?
• I used to view Scott Drew as a great recruiter but a mediocre coach.  But given what Baylor has accomplished on the hardwood since he implemented the two-three zone several years ago, I think he's proving to be a really good coach as well.
• Thank goodness BU has a good basketball team because Mizzou and SLU are awful.  They should schedule each other so that at least one of them can get a win!

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading!