On Saturday, Clemson turned the ball over four times, trailed by as much as 14, benched its starting QB and won. That, Dabo Swinney said, is the headline.
Got it?
No, don’t ask about that QB controversy. It doesn’t exist. Figment of your imagination. Swinney is essentially Kevin Bacon at the end of “Animal House,” standing in the midst of a stampede and yelling, “All is well!”
Swinney spent the entire offseason hyping DJ Uiagalelei, despite his struggles in 2021. The coach has spent the first seven weeks of this season dishing out one “I told you so” after another, including as recently as last week, when he called doubts of Uiagalelei “embarrassing” and a product of “the world we live in now.”
And when Clemson was trailing by 10 and Uiagalelei coughed up his third turnover of the game midway through the third quarter, Swinney came with the hook.
Why? Swinney believed freshman Cade Klubnik could give the offense a spark, and the move worked. Clemson scored on three of its next four drives. Sure, Klubnik completed just two passes in the game, so his inspiration was more Rob Schneider in “The Waterboy” than Jeff Daniels in “Independence Day.” But hey, a win is a win.
In the aftermath, Swinney emphatically assured Clemson fans that Uiagalelei is still the starter as the Tigers, now 8-0, head into an off week with their ACC Atlantic Division crown all but assured. They will not play another ranked opponent this year.
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Clemson switches quarterbacks in the second half and overcomes four turnovers to beat Syracuse 24-21.
But Swinney is right. The world is a cold, callous place, and so we must also ask the bigger question: Is this an 8-0 team capable of winning a national championship?
If this were 2020, the answer might be an emphatic, “Yes!” After all, we’d seen Clemson shrug off mediocrity before and still keep winning. Look back at Swinney’s first national title in the 2016 campaign. That season, the Tigers struggled against Troy, only beat NC State because of a missed chip shot as time expired and lost to Pitt. But Deshaun Watson still found Hunter Renfrow in the back corner of the end zone at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium in the title game against Alabama, and no one need remember those regular-season struggles after that.
But then 2021 happened, and despite its 10-3 finish, Clemson was clearly vulnerable. The wins were less destiny than they were rugged determination. That is commendable but perhaps not sustainable.
Clemson needed double overtime to get past Wake Forest and nearly coughed up a big lead a week ago against Florida State. And if not for Syracuse‘s utterly mind-boggling decision to put Sean Tucker into witness protection on Saturday — “I felt like he was the one guy who could flat-out beat us,” Swinney said afterward — there’s every reason to think this might be more 2021 than 2016.
And yet, is this question any different than the ones posed at Oregon or Alabama or Michigan and on down the line?
The Ducks demolished UCLA on Saturday and look like a clear top-four team, but does that matter when they’ve already been curb stomped by Georgia in the opener?
Ole Miss offered the SEC an alternative to the Crimson Tide, but LSU sent the Rebels scurrying on out of Louisiana like a crawdad in a steam pot, as Brian Kelly would say.
Are we sold on Tennessee? Are we sure Alabama is elite? Even Georgia has looked human over the past few weeks.
If we’re nitpicking, we’ll find nearly all teams left wanting.
But Swinney isn’t nitpicking. Well, sure, he picked a few nits with his starting QB on Saturday, but bygones are bygones now.
In the end, Clemson is 8-0, one of just six teams (Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio State, Michigan and TCU if it wins) left with a zero in the loss column.
Eight is enough
Over the summer, Mario Cristobal wanted to assure the public that Miami was serious about winning and didn’t need any gimmicks to get the job done. So, Cristobal said, no more turnover chain.
Big mistake.
The turnover chain was not a gimmick. It was a sacred relic, and its destruction has signaled the end times in Coral Gables.
Duke annihilated Miami 45-21 on Saturday, as the Hurricanes coughed up the football eight times.
Eight. Times.
Now, it’d be easy enough to chalk up all the turnovers to the simple fact that Miami is a very bad football team. But that would be like suggesting there are so many “Fast and Furious” movies because Vin Diesel is America’s greatest living thespian. Both things are true, but those facts alone cannot explain such prolific output.
No, for Miami there can be but one obvious culprit: Cristobal angered the football gods, and he must now go on a mythic quest, through corridors haunted by the ghosts of Al Golden and Randy Shannon, scale the unconquerable mountains of the ACC Coastal Division and survive an epic freestyle battle with Uncle Luke to retrieve the turnover chain and return it to its rightful place on Miami’s sideline.
Quinn Ewers has had some rough moments this season. His car was towed. He hurt his shoulder. He had to watch Oklahoma play for an entire game. But Saturday was his rock bottom.
Ewers completed just 19 of 49 throws and tossed three interceptions in Texas’ 41-34 loss at Oklahoma State.
The Pokes were playing with a battered offensive line, but Spencer Sanders still delivered some critical throws, tossing two touchdowns, while Jaden Nixon showed he could’ve run over Texas’ defense wearing bedroom slippers.
It was a huge bounce-back win for Oklahoma State after blowing a late lead against TCU Horned Frogs last week. The Cowboys are 6-1, and Sanders has firmly established himself as either the best bad QB or worst good QB in the country.
After the Longhorns lost twice without Ewers earlier this season, Saturday’s defeat can at least remove any linger “What if” debates and allow Texas to completely turn its attention to keeping trick-or-treaters safe from monkey attacks this week.
Under-the-radar play of the week
If you missed the ending to Stanford vs. Arizona State, we understand. Watching that game was punishment for shoplifting in several states. And perhaps fittingly, the final moments were every bit as unfortunate as a matchup between two bad teams would suggest.
Trailing 15-14, Arizona State chucked a Hail Mary throw down the sideline on fourth-and-19, which appeared to be hauled in by Elijhah Badger to set up a game-winning field goal with just seconds remaining.
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Arizona State falls to Stanford in the final seconds as Emory Jones has one foot out on the 4th-and-19 catch that would have set up a game-winning field goal.
Upon replay review, however, the call was overturned, with officials saying Badger had a toe out of bounds on the catch, allowing Stanford to snap a 10-game conference losing streak.
We hate to be the ones to bring this up, but it needs to be said: Liberty is 7-1.
We know, we know: When quarterback Malik Willis left, we all hoped we could safely stop paying attention to the Flames. But somehow, they’ve kept winning, including a 41-14 stomping of BYU on Saturday behind 213 rushing yards from Dae Dae Hunter.
Liberty’s lone loss came on a missed 2-point try against 6-1 Wake Forest.
Liberty has won with three different starting QBs.
Liberty is — deep breaths — good.
Is it possible Hugh Freeze is fueled by the country’s anger at him, like the emperor in “Star Wars?” (We also assume that if Twitter existed in a galaxy far, far away, Palpatine would slide into Obi-Wan’s DMs to complain about rebel criticisms too.) There’s simply no keeping the guy down (even when he is literally kept down).
The most college football thing to happen Saturday
We talk often about the plague of #CollegeKickers, with flubbed chip shots invariably costing teams a needed win on an almost weekly basis. Long-snappers, on the other hand, tend to fly below the radar.
Unfortunately for Weber State‘s Grant Sands, his Saturday will be remembered for a long time.
Sands snapped the football over the punter’s head and out of the back of the end zone for a safety four times against Montana State on Saturday, handing the Bobcats eight points in a game that Montana State ultimately won 43-38.
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Weber State is on the wrong end of the record books as it surrenders four safeties on errant special teams snaps.
Big bets and bad beats
Miami has been favored to win four times this season. The Hurricanes are now 1-3 in those games after a miserable eight-turnover loss to Duke on Saturday. Miami has now lost as a 25.5-point favorite to Middle Tennessee, a 10-point favorite to Duke and a four-point favorite to North Carolina. The Hurricanes’ lone win as a favorite came against Virginia Tech, after they failed to cover a nine-point spread in a 20-14 victory.
Clemson trailed Syracuse 21-10 at the half on Saturday, which was just about the perfect spot for the Tigers — or at least for sharp bettors. The Tigers were -9.5 in the second half, and they covered that number easily, outscoring the Orange 17-0 in the final two frames. That makes Clemson coach Dabo Swinney 11-2 against the second-half spread in his career when trailing at halftime.
After giving up Ohtani’s 431-foot blast, Misiorowski responded with another dominant outing. He struck out a career-high 12 batters — including two-way superstar Ohtani in the third inning — to lead the Brewers to a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.
“It’s Shohei Ohtani,” Misiorowski said. “You kind of expect [that]. It’s cool to see him do it in action, but it fires me up even more coming back the next at-bat and striking him out. I’m right there. I think it was a moment of like, ‘OK, now we go.'”
Misiorowski, whose fastball routinely tops 100 mph, threw an 88.2 mph curveball on an 0-2 count to Ohtani, who crushed it for his 31st homer. That’s the most by a Dodgers player before the All-Star break.
It was the 21st career leadoff homer for the three-time MVP, who struck out swinging on a curveball in the third and walked to start the sixth. That was the only walk given up by Misiorowski, who scattered four hits.
“Really good stuff, aggressive in the zone,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “But what really stood out to me was his command and control.”
Misiorowski outdueled three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw, who surpassed 3,000 career strikeouts in his previous outing. Asked Monday about his matchup with Misiorowski, Kershaw said he only knew that the 6-foot-7 right-hander threw hard.
“I know him now, huh?” Kershaw said Tuesday. “That was super impressive. That was unbelievable. It was really special. Everything. Obviously the velo, but he’s got four pitches, commands the ball. I don’t know how you hit that, honestly. That’s just really tough.”
Misiorowski was glad to get Kershaw’s attention.
“I saw something online that he didn’t now who I was, so I hope he knows me now,” Misiorowski said. “It’s kind of cool.”
In five starts since the Brewers called him up from the minors, Misiorowski has already beaten Kershaw and 2024 NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes. In another outing, Misiorowski carried a perfect game into the seventh inning.
“He’s just broken the shell,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He’s just out of the egg, all arms and legs. He’s still got gooey stuff coming off, you can see it, all arms and legs, but there’s something special about him.”
The numbers would indicate as much. Misiorowski is 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA and has given up only 12 hits in 25⅔ innings.
He topped out at 101.6 mph and threw 20 pitches of at least 100 on Tuesday. He also threw 19 curveballs after using curves only 10% of the time before Tuesday.
He was coming off his only shaky performance, giving up five runs — including a grand slam by Brandon Nimmo — and three walks over 3⅔ innings Wednesday in a 7-3 loss to the New York Mets.
It looked as if it might be more of the same after Ohtani went deep. Misiorowski responded by striking out 12 of the next 16 batters.
“I think that’s my job, is to figure it out on the fly,” he said. “I feel like I did it tonight.”
He got out of a jam in the sixth. The Dodgers trailed 2-1 and had runners on second and third with one out, but third baseman Andruw Monasterio fielded a grounder and threw out Ohtani at the plate, and Misiorowski retired Michael Conforto on a grounder.
Misiorowski pumped his fist as he headed toward the dugout, then watched the Brewers’ bullpen nail down the win.
“It’s so satisfying,” Misiorowski said. “It’s just a dream come true, to do what I did.”
Bailey became just the third catcher in MLB history to hit a walk-off, inside-the-park home run, joining the Chicago Cubs’ Pat Moran in 1907 and the Washington Nationals’ Bennie Tate in 1926.
Bailey’s homer would have been an outside-the-park home run in 29 of 30 ballparks, with Oracle Park being the exception.
Mike Yastrzemski reached base twice and scored to help the Giants to their sixth win in seven games.
Bailey, who grounded into a double play and struck out in two of his previous at-bats, then smashed a 1-0 fastball from Jordan Romano (1-4) into right-center field that ricocheted off the brick part of the wall.
Ryan Walker (2-3) retired one batter, with two on in the top of the ninth, to earn the win.
Phillies All-Star Kyle Schwarber had two hits, including his team-leading 28th home run.
Schwarber flew out, struck out and was hit by a pitch before homering off Giants reliever Spencer Bivens into McCovey Cove. Brandon Marsh, who singled as a pinch hitter leading off the inning, scored on the play.
Two days after being named an All-Star for the second time in his career, Robbie Ray gave up four hits and one run in 5⅔ innings.
BALTIMORE — The New York Mets consider Juan Soto to be a bona fide All-Star, despite the snub he received from those who selected the National League squad for the Midsummer Classic on July 15.
Soto, in his first year with the Mets, has performed well enough to earn the respect of his manager and teammates. In their opinion, he’s deserving of a place in the All-Star Game next week in Atlanta.
“He’s an All-Star for us,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday night after the Mets beat Baltimore 7-6. “It’s frustrating, but I’m hoping in the next couple of days we hear something and he makes it.”
Soto drove in the winning run with a sharp single on the first pitch of the 10th inning. That capped a night in which he went 3 for 5 to raise his batting average to .269 with 21 homers and 52 RBIs.
Soto has walked 72 times, by far the most in the majors, but he can also lash out at a pitcher when necessary.
“He’s got a pretty good understanding of what the pitchers are trying to do to him,” Mendoza said. “There is his awareness of the game, he’s going to see pitchers. There are times when he’s going to be aggressive. Tonight was one of those nights. First pitch in the 10th, he’s attacking.”
Soto made the All-Star team as a member of the Nationals, Padres and Yankees each year since 2021. The streak appears to be over. But his teammates believe he deserves to go.
“What he done all year is just incredible, and the results are good enough,” Mets starting pitcher Clay Holmes said. “The consistency he’s showed up with, at the at-bats he’s taken, is more than an All-Star. He’s one of the best in the game and a big part of our lineup.”
Soto seems rather philosophical about the snub.
“Sometimes, you’re going to make it and sometimes you don’t,” he told reporters after Sunday’s loss to the Yankees. “It’s just part of baseball.”