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There are 93 days until 2017 Notre Dame Football season begins on Saturday Sept. 2nd when the Fighting Irish host Temple. If that seems like a long ways away, then consider this, ACC Media Days will be here in 51 days.
In the meantime, let’s look at what those preseason college football publications (the magazines make such great beach/poolside reading don’t they?) are saying about the Irish.
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If you’re growing bored from the college sports offseason, take heart in the fact that we’re actually not that far off from the B1G Kickoff Luncheon. Pretty soon you might be asking yourself “what are the expectations for Purdue football in 2017?”
Well as Meredith said in The Talented Mr. Ripley, “You should always save pain for daylight.” Thus, if you’re a Purdue football fan, hopefully you’re reading this while the sun is still up.
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You know that tremendous buzz that all of Illini football nation felt when Lovie Smith was hired?
Well, we’re now at the polar opposite of that. College football preseason preview magazines are filled with almost all pessimistic words about Illinois’ upcoming season. Believe it or not, we’re just 54 days away from the Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon.
Both Lindy’s and Athlon picked the Illini to finish 7th, dead last in the Big Ten West.
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The fate of our country lies in the hands of sane, moderate Republicans. Think of them as Republican classic, from the 1980s or early 1990s, long before they became hijacked by the lunatic fringes of the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus and religious extremists.
Today it’s on Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to stand up, be strong and send a message that the GOP is actually something more than just the party of getting nothing done.
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Major League Baseball sometimes struggles in moving the needle on the internet.
Baseball is very unique in that the high level of popularity enjoyed by the sport is often not well reflected by web traffic statistics. Page view numbers can consistently fall far below what you’d expect given how many Americans love the sport, and it’s a phenomena more commonplace to MLB than in the other major sports.
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Kentucky Wildcats Coach John Calipari might actually face one of his own players in a tournament this offseason. Redshirt sophomore Tai Wynyard was once again selected to participate in the upcoming FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup. He will play again for his native nation of New Zealand, a team with which he won Gold in the 3×3 tournament in 2015.
Coach Cal has a team in the summer tourney field as well. Thus, you may have a developing story line that is a lot more compelling than what you typically see in most offseason international competition.
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May is traditionally the dead period for college sports. Almost all “news” that is produced and consumed during this time of year is essentially non-news, pointless filler.
For 2017 Illini basketball, the polar opposite is true. It’s been a postseason and then off-season of incessant news. We’re far from finished too. For Illini basketball news, it’s been March madness to April anarchy to May mania. Let’s briefly revisit how we got here (click the link where highlighted for more analysis on each story), and re-evaluate where we stand today.
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Westgate Las Vegas has opened with the Golden State Warriors as clear favorites over the Cleveland Cavaliers. The bookmaker site positions the Warriors at -240 and the Cavaliers at +200. That means Westgate believes Golden State has about a 67-70% chance of taking the series, while the Cavs have a 33-30% chance of repeating as champions.
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This is the real party right here, right now. The actual NBA postseason is FINALLY HERE!
It’s the Cleveland Cavaliers versus the Golden State Warriors, and now it’s the rubber match of the series. G.S. took the first one in 2015, the Cavs won last year, and now we’ll watch an epic NBA Finals series that should certainly redeem what was a dreadfully tedious and utterly pointless NBA playoffs.
You knew it was going to be these two teams all along, and the road here was filled with completely predictable and essentially boring chalk. Although we did all have some fun on social media with some of the laughable blowouts.
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The 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 featured more drivers leading the race (15) than any in history. Although it was a very slow moving race due to several cautions, and the long depth of the stoppages, it was still a very exciting race. New ground was broken when former Formula One driver Takuma Sato took home the checkered flag, thus becoming the first Japanese winner in history.
Seeing this special moment in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’s history transpire, one felt compelled to make a Tweet that although totally falling on deaf ears at the time, ended up being rather prescient and completely relevant.
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It was the hottest Little 500 ticket in recent memory. There’s nothing like a fallen and disgraced celebrity and still hometown hero to bring ’em out on a Saturday night. If the sport is auto racing, and that native son also happened to have once accidentally killed somebody on the track, well that makes all the more a big attraction.
Tony Stewart, yes, “Smoke” himself, native of Columbus, Indiana, just about 90 minutes down the road from Anderson Speedway was in Anderson, Indiana Saturday night to compete in the Little 500.
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Today’s top news story centers around Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. Friday night, yet another news bombshell broke, via the Washington Post.
WaPo informed the world that: “Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.”
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