Daily briefing: On the SEC’s huge Saturday, Oregon State-Washington and the connection between World Series no-hitters and this week’s top 10
Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:
A big-time doubleheader in the SEC
Showdown Saturday in the SEC: Georgia has not played a team this talented, but Tennessee hasn’t been in an environment as hostile as it’ll find in Sanford Stadium. I think the Vols will struggle to shut down the Dawgs’ tight ends the way everyone else has. You know it’s a big game when Alabama-LSU is not the conference’s marquee event. Nick Saban has a five-game winning streak in Death Valley. The past three times the Crimson Tide went to LSU, they won by a combined 94-17. Granted, Brian Kelly is not Ed Orgeron. And I don’t put much stock in the fact that Kelly’s Notre Dame teams had two one-sided playoff losses to Alabama. But Saban has been upbeat this week. He likes the way his team responded to its off-week, and as much as LSU has progressed this season, I’d feel uneasy depending on quarterback Jayden Daniels as my best rusher against Will Anderson Jr. and friends.
Pac-12 after dark – on a Friday
It’s easy to like No. 23 Oregon State. The Beavers are perpetual underdogs. Coach Jonathan Smith is homegrown, a former underrated Oregon State quarterback who has transformed his alma mater. And yet the Beavers are 4.5-point underdogs Friday night at Washington. Remember the Huskies? They’re 6-2 overall and 3-2 in the Pac-12, just like the Beavers. But after Washington lost at UCLA and at home to Arizona State on consecutive Saturdays, the Huskies became a Pac-12 afterthought. They still have Michael Penix Jr., who, barring an outbreak of the Wishbone, will be the first FBS passer to reach 3,000 yards this season. Penix not only has thrown for 300 yards in every game this season, his average of 366.8 yards per game is nearly 29 yards more than runner-up Kyle Vantrease of Georgia Southern. Penix has thrown 22 touchdown passes. The Beavers have allowed only eight. This chess match will entertain.
A history lesson
Make of this what you will: The week that Don Larsen threw his World Series perfect game in 1956 (the only no-hitter in World Series history until Houston’s on Wednesday night), Ohio State, TCU and Tennessee were in the top 10. From 1957-2021, that had happened in only two polls until this week. This might be a good omen for the Volunteers, who finished the 1956 season undefeated. But in those days, the polls declared their national champions before the bowls, and Oklahoma, which hadn’t lost a game in four seasons, got voted No. 1 ahead of Tennessee. The Big Seven – Oklahoma State had yet to make it the Big Eight – had a no-repeat rule on bowls, so the No. 2 Vols couldn’t play the Sooners on New Year’s Day. No. 3 Iowa played No. 10 Oregon State in the Rose Bowl. Tennessee already had beaten No. 4 Georgia Tech, No. 5 Texas A&M was on probation and because of bowl tie-ins and the Big Ten allowing no teams to play outside the Rose, Tennessee couldn’t play anyone else in the top 10. So the Vols went to the Sugar Bowl and settled for playing No. 11 Baylor – which upset them 13-7.