Writer for ESPN. Professional nerd. SP+. Author of Study Hall and The 50 Best* College Football Teams of All Time. Puma addiction.
Jan 4, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
UPDATED SP+ RANKINGS
* Title game projection: Georgia 34.9, TCU 24.0
* We have a fresh, new No. 2! (It's Bama. Of course.)
* Biggest bowl winners: SEC West, Texas Tech
* Biggest bowl losers: Purdue, Sun Belt
* South Carolina: special teams national champ
espn.com/college-footba…
It's a lot more fun when it's not bluebloods getting the biggest Weird Bump in the ratings, but yes, Texas ends the year in the top 10, OU in the top 20.
For a hint as to why, look at second-order wins. SP+ saw Texas as a 10-win team, OU 8 wins.
I wrote about the stats and trends I found from this World Cup, in which more teams dominated possession, fewer teams won games doing so, the ball remained in the wide areas, and teams continued to trade shot quantity for shot quality.
espn.com/soccer/fifa-wo…
This was basically the companion piece to one of my faves -- my 1966-2018 trends piece I wrote (what feels like 17 years ago) in Nov. We've definitely seen the continuation of developments from 2014-18 (though suddenly no one's scoring from set pieces).
Most players lost to the transfer portal over the last year (by my count):
37: Tennessee
27: Kansas
25: Memphis
23: TCU, WKU, Wazzu
22: Auburn, Miss St, WVU
21: Buff, Mich, Mich St, UMass, UNC, Vandy
Avg players lost to the portal by conference:
SEC 16.9 per team
Big 12: 16.1
AAC 13.2
Big Ten 13.1
ACC 12.9
Pac-12 12.3
MAC 11.9
C-USA 11.4
Sun Belt 10.3
MWC 9.5
Tenn driving SEC avgs up, but 6 of 14 SEC teams are at 19+.
Jun 8, 2021 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
Random question for you on a sunny Tuesday morning:
In your lifetime of rooting for [insert your team here], what opposing receiver scared you the most?
To be honest, I should have added a "...besides Larry Fitzgerald and Randy Moss" disclaimer.
Other than the dreadful error that led to a goal, the panic against the press, the constantly odd spacing and the nearly 100% bad touches in the attacking third, it’s not going THAT bad for the USMNT...
...and the hilariously bad marking on set pieces...
Apr 19, 2020 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
So yeah, it's April 19. 25 years ago, Tim McVeigh blew up the building across from my dad's office.
I posted a thread 5 years ago, but it was pre-threading and pre-280 characters, so I'll reproduce/update it. It's a long-threads kind of weekend, I guess.
My dad was a political science professor at SW Okla St when I was growing up. He burned out on dumb university politics, took a sabbatical, started doing policy work in OKC. I never had any idea where he worked in OKC. I just knew he got home later and was less miserable.
