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Welcome to version 2.0 of our 2021 NFL mock draft. For the 202o edition go here. For our final 2020 MLB mock draft go here, the latest NBA mock is linked here and the NHL can be found at this link.
Far as we know, we’re the only independently owned, mom and pop shop style website that makes a mock draft for all four major sports. Also, here is the link to a list of 70 of the worst NFL Draft cliches, buzzwords and other pointless word salad.
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The next college football champion will be crowned Monday night, in Miami, when #1 Alabama and #3 Ohio State square off in the national title game. If this match-up feels familiar, even redundant, it’s because it definitely is.
The Crimson Tide are first in College Football Playoff games played (10) and games won (7). They’re tied with Clemson (2) for most titles won in this format. The Buckeyes are third in CFP games played (5), and they’ve gone 3-2 overall, winning the very first final four in 2014. In other words, this is a matchup of “they’ve been there before.”
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Here we go, the only reason the Big Ten bothered to even stage a season in 2020: trying to get one of their teams into the College Football Playoff. That team is #4 Ohio State of course, a program that rules the conference in the same way that Bayern Munich has dominion over the Bundesliga.
If getting the Buckeyes into the playoff means changing the rules and requirements for the league title game, as a stepping stone to the CFP, well so be it. The rules and regulations were all made up on the fly, and without a ton of legitimacy anyway. The next and final sacrificial lamb for the Buckeyes is #14 Northwestern.
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The NFL season is still young, but already fans and self-appointed “experts” alike have identified the players and trends which they believe will dictate the season. As with most sports, football has been rocked to its core by the Covid-19 pandemic, with spectators locked out of games, and frequent disruption due to positive cases altering schedules. [Read more…]
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College football is my favorite sport; there I said it. Therefore it is with a very heavy heart that I write this post and send it along to you. However, I have realized, for quite some time that we won’t have collegiate pigskin this autumn. The warning signs have been there all along, and today, the inconvenient truth is right there in front of us.
The faster you realize this, the quicker you can reach level five, “acceptance” in the stages of grief.
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The NFL Draft, for the first time ever, will be conducted without any centralized physical location. League Commissioner Roger Goodell will announce picks from his home, and teams will make their selections from their headquarters. Basically, it will be the first online only NFL Draft, as everything will be conducted virtually.
Obviously, the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic calls for such measures, but it’s not a totally unprecedented format. After all, day three of the NFL Draft, for the past few years, has had no actual location. Anyone who watches it closely notices all the picks being announced remotely. Now they’re simply doing that for the whole thing.
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On some levels, the retirement announcement Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio made yesterday was surprising. After all, it’s a very strange time in the calendar to be stepping away from college football. On other levels though, this was totally expected.
In September, rumors that Dantonio was set to retire at the end of the year ran rampant. It was a poorly kept secret. In October, Coach D. lashed out at a reporter who asked him about his future with the program, and the exchange conveyed that something was really up, just behind the scenes.
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Absolutely anyone who cares about Big Ten basketball, no matter the size of their audience, publishes a Big Ten basketball power rankings. It’s the least original endeavor possible, and this year all of these power rankings are created equal.
From the Midwestern paper of record to somebody on Twitter with three followers and no avatar, to the people who make college basketball picks against the spread, they’re all equally valid.
[Read more…]
Today saw Gonzaga become the sixth different team to be ranked #1 in the AP poll. The all time record, for an entire season is seven, and today is just Christmas Eve Eve/Festivus. In other words, that record will inevitably be shattered to pieces and this fact conveys just how much chaos there really is, nationally, in college basketball this season.
Not just nationally, but on a local level too! When you’re making free college basketball picks against the spread, in the Big Ten, anything can happen! Upsets are occurring all the time and now that everyone in the Big 10 has played two conference games, 12 of the 14 teams in the league are 1-1. Michigan State is 2-0 while Northwestern is 0-2. Until MSU’s 77-72 win at Northwestern on Wednesday night, the home team had won every single Big Ten league team. So up until midweek, we had perfect symmetry in the Midwestern league.
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Art Schlichter is a former Ohio State Buckeyes and Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts quarterback, best known for the four-decade long compulsive gambling habit he possessed, which ultimately destroyed him.
While in college a biography entitled “Straight Arrow” was penned about him, and the book proved to be the ultimate example of irony. Schlichter would go on to serve time in 40 different jails and prisons and he is currently serving ten years in federal prison for stealing millions of dollars in order to pay off his gambling debts. The story of Art Schlichter is one of a small town farm boy who had it all going for him, but became undone by the power of addiction.
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This week is rivalry week in college football. Which conjures up memories of the Toledo War and the Frostbitten Convention. This weekend brings awesome games with cool names like “The Iron Bowl” (Alabama-Auburn) and “The Holy War” (BYU-Utah). But only one of these rivalry games can claim an actual war in the history of its geographic region. That’s the Michigan Wolverines vs. the Ohio State Buckeyes, or “The Game,” as it’s called.
The Toledo War is one of the many reasons ESPN Classic is running a marathon of past tOSU-UM games today.
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