ARLINGTON, Texas — On a September Saturday in 2022, the Southwest Conference had itself a weekend. In Dallas, SMU had a record crowd on hand to greet the traitor Sonny Dykes, who had jumped ship to rival TCU, only to watch the Horned Frogs come away with the Iron Skillet in their 101st meeting.
Just 24 miles away, Texas A&M knocked off a top-10 Arkansas in their 79th two-step together, in a weird, tense game that typifies their matchups since their old rivalry resumed at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. And in Lubbock, another 336 or so miles from Arlington, Texas Tech upset No. 22 Texas in front of the Red Raiders’ first sellout crowd since 2018, and many of the 60,975 in attendance flooded the field in the aftermath.
Now, the SWC hasn’t existed since 1996, but the passion will never die, despite attempts to kill it. On one Saturday in Texas, there were three games with three packed stadiums amid an attendance crisis for administrators at many schools, a reminder that sometimes it’s more fun to play someone with a little extra hate on the line.
Since the SWC’s breakup, TCU has played in four conferences (WAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and now, the Big 12) while SMU was aligned in the WAC and CUSA before landing in the American. Still, despite their nomadic journeys in search of future relevance, they’ve managed to maintain a regional rivalry for more than a century.
“I think it makes sense for teams that are close to each other to play each other,” Dykes said two weeks ago when the drumbeat started for his return to Dallas. “You know, that’s why it makes so much sense for USC to be in the Big Ten … they’re right there next to each other.”
Dykes’ sarcasm comes at a time when realignment continues to pull at the strings of college football’s fabric, breaking up long-standing rivalries and making it harder for fans to get to, or even care about, games. The Iron Skillet — once so celebrated that legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice called the 1935 edition the “Game of the Century” — has no guarantee of continuing past 2024 when the current contract ends.
As leagues go to more conference games and athletic budgets are determined by home games, Power 5 teams like TCU don’t often make trips to Group of 5 schools, so TCU might opt to ditch playing in Dallas every other year, when it could schedule another home game. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have already made it clear Bedlam will not continue when the Sooners leave for the SEC, just like the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry has been dormant since the Aggies headed Southeast.
Texas Tech’s upset this weekend came in what very well could be Texas’ last trip to Lubbock with the Longhorns’ impending SEC move, likely ending a series that has been played 72 times.
Dykes understood the appeal of his return, saying “I’d boo me too” in the week before the game. It was a boon for SMU, with the Mustangs selling more than 35,000 tickets at a place that has struggled to draw big crowds. And while the stadium never quite filled in part due to the searing heat, the middle of SMU’s campus which was packed with tailgaters along the Boulevard.
“The energy, the excitement, you just can’t replicate that,” said Rogge Dunn, an attorney and SMU fan. “We’re not in the Big 12. We’re not in the Southwest Conference. All our traditional rivals are gone. It’s hard to get up for UAB or East Carolina. The great thing about this rivalry is it’s so close.”
Down the Boulevard, at a tent selling red shirts with “TCU SUCKS” on them, Chipper Haynes, a 2003 SMU grad, lamented the possible demise of a game that’s circled on his calendar every year.
“It means everything to us,” Haynes said. “That’s probably what breaks my heart the most about the big realignment stuff is you lose these huge rivalries. We’ve made these shirts for the last 20 years. The idea that we might not play TCU coming up because of realignment and everything going on, it sucks. It takes part of the spirit of college football away.”
Dykes agreed, saying in his postgame news conference he knew the fans would be up for his return and give him their best shot.
“I thought that stuff off the field was college football,” Dykes said. “That’s why this game was well-attended. That’s why Kansas is sold out today. That’s why Texas A&M-Arkansas is sold out at JerryWorld, that’s why we’re sold out next week. Because it’s just so exciting. It’s great for the fans. Sometimes it’s hard to be the brunt of some of that. But you’ve got a job to do.”
He said he was happy to get this week behind him, but that he was able to focus on the game and not the emotion around it.
“I’m 52 years old. … If I can’t do that, I need to go work for Ricky Chicken over at Chicken Express,” he said, in a reference to fast-food chicken magnate Ricky Stuart II, a TCU trustee.
At Jerry Jones’ house in Arlington, as Dykes mentioned, the Aggies and Razorbacks met in a series that ended in 1991 when the Hogs left the SWC for the SEC, then returned as a neutral-site game in 2009. Both schools are eager to get the series back on campus starting in 2025 now that it has become a heated conference game with the potential to sell lots of tickets.
While the Aggies and the Hogs never had the hate for each other that they each had for the Longhorns before the end of the SWC, their SEC era has been inflamed by their proximity as Arkansas’ enrollment has grown. In 2021, 6,720 of Arkansas’ 24,265 undergraduate students were Texans.
Texas A&M grad Tommy Shiflett and his daughter Logan, one of those Texans who is a freshman at Arkansas, walked the concourse Saturday together with their split allegiances on their shirts.
“It’s a bigger rivalry now because she had 12 months of talking noise to me, and I need it back,” Shiflett said in reference to the Razorbacks ending the Aggies’ nine-game winning streak in the series last year. “I need to be able to run my mouth a little bit. That’s why there’s just the two of us here. The rest of the family isn’t here.”
Logan, for her part, couldn’t handle the Aggies having the lead. “I can’t do this right now,” she said, with a laugh.
Yet, even as a newcomer, Logan agreed that rivalries are fun. Arkansas fans even booed a dog — Texas A&M’s mascot, Reveille — when she was shown on Jerry Jones’ giant video screen. And still, all the Ags and Hogs in the place could come together as one when the highlights from Texas’ loss to Texas Tech got the big-screen treatment, leading to one of the biggest cheers of the night.
In places like Texas, where rivalries that go back more than 100 years are in danger of being lost — if they’re not already — there’s more at stake than just wins and losses. Houston and Rice met for the 44th time Saturday for the Bayou Bucket, another crosstown rivalry that is scheduled only through 2023 and might not continue with Houston moving to the Big 12.
“In the state of Texas, you want to be No. 1,” said Drew Hogan, a TCU fan at the SMU game. “It doesn’t matter what game it is, who it is, you want to win for bragging rights at dinner.”
John Jenkins, the flamboyant coach who was best known for beating SMU 95-21 while with Houston in 1989, the Mustangs’ first season back from the NCAA “death penalty,” grew up in the Panhandle of Texas, coached at every level in the state and was in attendance for the Aggies’ win over his alma mater, Arkansas.
“Playing my high school ball in Texas, coaching high school football in Texas right on up through the college ranks and pro football, it means everything to me, with the attached rivalries that you’ve had in this state,” Jenkins said. “To see this thing get splintered and fragmented just really hurts. It’s ridiculous. Doesn’t matter, doesn’t make a damn about rivalries or football strength. It’s all about media markets.”
As the Big Ten grabs USC and UCLA to get those elusive markets, followed by whatever comes next in the realignment derby, there will be more tradition lost.
“I realize that with some of the megaconferences now, they’re gonna have fewer nonconference games,” Dunn said. “But there’s still room for these games. They may have other agendas, but this is what the fans want.”
Even new die-hards who didn’t grow up with the sport, like Tony Simulik, a Canadian from Ottawa who was drawn to college football’s passion, are concerned about the future.
Simulik travels to SEC country each year to take in big games. He came to Arlington hoping to see the Aggies and Hogs play in the Cowboys’ stadium, saying “it was just an astonishing experience.”
“It’s like cultural history,” he said. “It’s iconic. The fans, the chants, the singing, the activity. That’s already worth the price of admission just to see that and feel that in that stadium. It’s the atmosphere. I’ve often thought at times the game is almost anticlimactic.”
Almost, but not quite, for the tens of thousands of fans who celebrated victories over longtime rivals and, in some cases, wondered if they’d be able to do so again.
EDMONTON, Alberta — Reilly Smith scored with 0.4 seconds left on a shot that deflected in off Edmonton forward Leon Draisaitl‘s stick to give the Vegas Golden Knights a stunning 4-3 victory in Game 3 on Saturday night.
Smith’s goal is tied for the latest game winner in regulation in Stanley Cup playoffs history along with Nazem Kadri‘s goal for the Colorado Avalanche in 2020 and Jussi Jokinen’s goal for the Carolina Hurricanes in 2009, according to ESPN Research.
“Honestly, I’ve seen [Vegas forward William Karlsson] use that play a few times where he forechecks and spins it out in front of the net, jumping off the bench,” Smith said when asked about the play. “I think there was around seven seconds. I just tried. And being first on it. … So I thought there was a chance. And once it popped out I saw a lot of guys sell out. So I just hope that I had enough time to kind of pump-fake and find a lane and, you know, worked out.”
The game-winning goal came after Oilers star Connor McDavid tied it with 3:02 to go with a centering pass that went in off defender Brayden McNabb‘s skate.
“We didn’t sort it out very well to let the puck get into the slot. After that, it’s unlucky, it’s unfortunate,” Draisaitl said of the game-winning goal. “It goes off my stick, and I’m just trying to keep it out of the net. It’s just a bad bounce.”
After Corey Perry gave Edmonton an early 2-0 lead, Nicolas Roy and Smith tied it with goals in a 54-second span late in the first period. Karlsson put the Golden Knights in front with 2:55 left in the second, beating goalie Stuart Skinner off a give-and-go play with Noah Hanifin. And Adin Hill made 17 saves for Vegas.
The Golden Knights’ win Saturday cut Edmonton’s lead to 2-1 in the Western Conference semifinal series. Game 4 is Monday night in Edmonton.
“Before the series starts, if you were to tell us that we were gonna be up 2-1 after three, we’d be happy,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We’d be pleased with that, not only up 2-1, but Game 4 at home.”
“Big win for our team,” Smith said. “We need to use the momentum in front of us to push forward, but focus one game at a time. That’s kind of always been the mindset for this group. We have a lot of resiliency. So as long as you focus on that next game and get a little bit better every night.”
Roy, playing a day after being fined but not suspended for cross-checking Trent Frederic in the face in overtime in Game 2, cut it to 2-1 off a rebound with 4:43 left in the first. Smith then slipped a backhander through Skinner’s legs with 3:49 to go in the period.
Skinner stopped 20 shots, taking over in goal for the injured Calvin Pickard. Pickard appeared uncomfortable and was seen shaking out his left leg after Vegas forward Tomas Hertl landed on his left pad in Game 2.
History was made in Vatican City on Thursday, when Pope Leo XIV was introduced as the first American to be elected pontiff.
Leo XIV (birth name Robert Francis Prevost) was born and raised in southern Chicagoland, where he served as an altar boy in the St. Mary of the Assumption parish. Now, as he ascends to the papacy, an unlikely Second City staple is celebrating the moment: the Chicago Cubs.
After his election, ABC reported that Leo XIV was a fan of the Cubs.
But John Prevost — Leo XIV’s brother — had a different view. Prevost spoke to WGN News in Chicago after Leo XIV’s election and rebuked the idea that the Pope was a Cubs fan.
“He was never, ever a Cubs fan,” Prevost said. “So I don’t know where that came from. He was always a [Chicago White] Sox fan.”
Later on Thursday, Chicago’s ABC7 affiliate also reported on Leo XIV’s White Sox fandom. The White Sox themselves got in on the action, posting their own video board celebration and a clip of Prevost’s interview with WGN.
Prevost’s theory for the possible confusion? Their mother, whose family was from the north side of the city, was a Cubs fan.
The lone team that can conclusively claim to hold the rights to the new Pope’s fandom until further clarification is the Villanova Wildcats. Leo XIV graduated from the university as part of the Class of 1977.
“Roommates Show,” a podcast hosted by Wildcats-turned-New York Knicks teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, joked that they’d be having their fellow Villanova alumnus on the show in the near future.
DENVER — For the next week or so, Kris Bryant will be restricted to not much more than a casual walk as he recovers from a procedure to fix his chronically bothersome back.
The Colorado Rockies designated hitter just hopes this finally alleviates the pain. Bryant returned to town after recently traveling to Los Angeles to undergo a procedure referred to as an ablation, which is designed to interrupt pain signals being sent from the back to the brain. He explained Saturday that it took roughly 45 minutes.
“I feel like I got stabbed in the back right now,” Bryant said before the Rockies played the San Diego Padres. “Not ideal, but I’m in good spirits.”
Once he’s cleared for more than a light stroll, Bryant will return to the weight room in an effort to build strength. There’s no timetable for a return to baseball activities quite yet.
“Just got to let nature take its course,” manager Bud Black explained.
Bryant’s currently on the injured list with lumbar degenerative disk disease, which involves the deterioration of the spinal disks that act as cushions between the vertebrae. It’s his ninth stint on the IL since 2022 due to a series of health issues.
His back has gotten to the point where cortisone shots no longer work. That’s why he had the ablation procedure. Anything to avoid back surgery.
“I don’t want to get to that point. I don’t want to get ahead of myself,” Bryant said. “Just trying to check boxes as they go. We tried all the other, I guess you say, conservative treatments, or more traditional approaches with cortisone shots. They just didn’t work for me. So this was another step along the way.”
“I’m willing to try anything,” added Bryant, whose pain at times has brought on nausea. “It’s weighed on me, for sure. It just sucks.”
The 33-year-old Bryant is hitting .154 this season with no homers, one RBI, 13 strikeouts in 11 games.
Bryant has been limited to 170 games with Colorado since signing a $182 million, seven-year contract before the 2022 season. He’s suffered from an array of injuries, including plantar fasciitis, a bone bruise in his foot, heel issues, a broken finger, a back strain, a lower rib contusion and back problems.
“Right now I feel like I’m in a good spot,” said Bryant, the 2016 NL MVP with the Chicago Cubs. “It just wears on you. It’s not an easy thing for me to deal with but doing the best I can with a pretty crappy situation.”
He hasn’t set any sort of baseball goals quite yet.
“It’s really just one day at a time,” Bryant said. “Just continuing to do everything I can that’s in my power — and the training staff’s power — to find a way to navigate this.”
