Tag: Blogs

Washington State RB had the best reaction to Mike Leach’s departure

Wazzu running back Max Borghi has a good feeling about this.

Mike Leach is known for a lot of things, particularly his quirks and peculiar in-depth analysis on things like which Pac-12 mascots (or coaches) would survive a battle royale.

On the football field, it’s all about his “Air Raid” offense with his aggressive passing attack. In Leach’s 18 seasons as a head coach at Texas Tech and Washington State, his offenses have led the nation in passing 10 times, and every season since 2013, the Cougars have finished ranked in the top five in both total passing yards and passing yards per game.

Despite a disappointing 6-7 2019 season, Washington State is No. 1 with 5,683 passing yards and 437.2 yards per game. (LSU is No. 2 in both categories and seems likely to pass the Cougars in total passing yards in the national championship game Monday.)

But Thursday, news broke that Leach is leaving Washington State for the SEC to take over at Mississippi State after the Bulldogs fired Joe Moorhead last week at the end of his second season.

A lot of people are excited about this news, including new Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and college football Twitter in general. But Washington State sophomore running back Max Borghi is too, judging by his response to a tweet from Leach.

The 5-foot-10, 197-pound running back from Colorado was Washington State’s leading rusher this season with 817 yards and 11 touchdowns and broke the 100-yard mark four times. But that’s nowhere near some of the most productive players in the FBS.

His total rushing yards barely put him among the top-100 backs in the nation, while his 127 attempts rank 144th. He did, however, finish the season with 86 catches for 597 yards, making him the team’s fourth best receiver.

Obviously, the Cougars don’t have a new head coach yet, and even if Leach’s replacement had a slightly more balanced offensive approach, it’s not like they’re going to abandon the passing game entirely. However, it is a good bet that Borghi will, in fact, rush more.

And he had a great reaction to that probability.

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Family Feud Canada: New video reveals the awful answers that led to ‘Popeye’ blunder

Family Feud Canada found the most clueless game show contestants of all time.

If you’ve glanced at social media on Friday, you probably saw the hysterical clip from an episode of Family Feud Canada that just went viral. In a sudden-death round to determine which family would get to play for the grand prize of $10,000, a contestant named Eve buzzed in first to provide the most popular answer to the question “What is Popeye’s favorite food?”

With an unbelievable amount of swagger, Eve confidently said… “chicken.”

There’s so much more to this story, however, and it turns out that Eve didn’t provide the worst answer of the night, believe it or not.

Family Feud Canada revealed on Twitter that the contestants only ever got to the Popeye question after each family’s representative each flubbed three previous sudden-death questions. Per the Family Feud Canada rules, they had to stay at the podium and keep answering clues until someone finally identified the most popular answer.

The second sudden-death question produced what may have been the worst answer in show history. Eve buzzed in first but was unable to produce an answer to “Name something people dye,” giving Logan a golden chance to send his family to the fast money round. He didn’t listen carefully, however, and said “gunshot.”

Steve Harvey would have fainted on stage. Host Gerry Dee, to his credit, was a savage in between takes. “You guys sucked at that one!”

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James Holzhauer’s hysterical trash talking now includes giving Brad Rutter a participation award

James Holzhauer is the GOAT of Jeopardy! trash talk.

We won’t know until next week if James Holzhauer will be crowned the Jeopardy! GOAT by beating Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in the Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time tournament. But one thing that is absolutely clear is that the professional sports gambler is the Jeopardy! GOAT trash talker.

And it started on Twitter months before this tournament did.

But in addition to taunting Rutter mid-game the other day and teasing Jennings about never winning a Jeopardy! tournament, Holzhauer has been on fire on Twitter with his trash talk since this special tournament began Tuesday.

(Remember, this is all in good fun, and these guys are clearly joking with each other and having a good time competing. The two runners-up also get $250,000, so no one’s really a loser here.)

For this tournament, the first player to win three matches (made up of two regular Jeopardy! games) will be named the GOAT. So far, Jennings has won two — he won the first match Tuesday and the third Thursday — Holzhauer has won one and Rutter is still looking for his first match win.

Although Rutter — who has the record for most money won on Jeopardy! with $4,688,436 — has struggled this week, including missing several Daily Doubles after he and Jennings have followed Holzhauer’s lead to go all in every time.

But while Jennings has capitalized on the chance to double his totals, falling back to zero on Daily Doubles is a large reason why Rutter has consistently finished third each night.

And Holzhauer has had a little fun with that, honoring Rutter with a participation certificate.

Holzhauer is also still making jokes about himself, especially after Rutter got back-to-back Daily Doubles correct during Thursday’s episode.

During Holzhauer’s 32-game win streak on regular Jeopardy! in 2019, he employed some gambling moves when going all in on his Daily Doubles, which is how he’d regularly separate himself from his opponents by tens of thousands of dollars. He would often pretend to push all his chips in as a way of risking everything, and Jennings has since adopted that move.

However, Holzhauer had some hilarious criticism about that.

The Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time tournament continues Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Family Feud Canada has given us one of the great game show moments ever

Her answer is wrong. It’s very wrong. But is she really that wrong?

We are apparently a game show website right now, with most of my colleagues covering the Jeopardy! GOAT tournament with the breathless excitement and in-depth analysis usually reserved for, like, gold medal games. And I want in on the fun.

So that’s right: It’s time for some Family Feud Canada coverage.

This clip happened on their new version of the show, and it is just so good:

It’s not the wrong answer that’s so good, though it is very good. It’sĀ the confidenceĀ with which she unveils that answer. She heard “Popeye” and “food” and didn’t bother thinking about context or the fact that there is more than one iteration of Popeye in our zeitgeist.

She thought chicken. And she went for it, with gusto.Ā And aĀ dance.Ā 

In her defense, Popeye’s chicken is almost infinitely better than spinach. Any preparation.

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Here are the results from Day 3 of ‘Jeopardy!’ Greatest of All Time

Here’s what happened in Thursday night’s match.

WARNING:Ā JEOPARDY! SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT SCROLL DOWN UNLESS YOUā€™VE WATCHED THE JAN. 9 EPISODE OR WANT IT SPOILED!

Are we all ready?

Okay.

On Tuesday, we saw the first round ofĀ Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time, pitting legendary championsĀ James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad RutterĀ against each other inĀ a multi-night battleĀ to declare whoā€™s the GOAT of the quiz show hosted by Alex Trebek. After all theĀ joking trash talkĀ andĀ possible leaks, we finally got to the actual games.

Jennings took the first game, and Holzhauer took the second, so both of them were two wins away from an overall victory.

Here are the results from Thursday night ā€” weā€™ll break it down to the two games the trio played, along with who won the entire second match (and again: SPOILER ALERT!Ā Everything is below this awesome photo of Holzhauer and Alex Trebek):

(Photo by Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images)

Game 1

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before — Holzhauer led after the first round and Rutter was in third. And once again, Rutter got a chance with a Daily Double early in the second round but missed. Jennings went all in with 9,200 points on the other Daily Double and nailed the answer. By the end of Double Jeopardy, Jennings held the lead with 25,600, Holzhauer had 13,600 and Rutter had 8,800.

The Final Jeopardy category wasĀ U.S. Political History, and here was the clue:

These 2 now-defunct parties each gave the U.S. 4 presidents in the 19th century.

All three got the answer: What are the Democratic-Republican and Whigs?

And it’s worth noting they all bet ALL OF THEIR POINTS!

Their scores after the first game were:

Jennings: 51,200

Holzhauer: 27,200

Rutter: 17,600

Game 2

Holzhauer started the match getting answers left and right, accruing 5,000 points before finding a Daily Double, he went all in … and he missed! Jennings took the lead in the first round with Rutter in third. Rutter got a Daily Double correct, then followed that up with another DD that he got. Holzhauer struggled with a handful of wrong answers (to be fair, he had to be aggressive after that first game) and Jennings took advantage. After Double Jeopardy, Jennings led with 17,600, Rutter had 10,000 and Holzhauer had 7,400.

The Final Jeopardy category was 21st Century Oscar Winners and here was clue:

These 2 foreign-born directors have each won 2 Best Director Oscars, but none of their films has won Best Picture.

Here were the scores after Final Jeopardy, which none of them got: “Who are Alfonso Cuaron and Ang Lee?”

Jennings: 16,400

Rutter: 5,867

Holzhauer: 6,492

Overall Match winner

Remember, the winner of the night is the total points scored in both games together. So here are the final totals:

Jennings: 67,600

Holzhauer: 33,692

Rutter: 23,467

Ken Jennings won and has two victories, one away from the GOAT title and $1 million. Holzhauer has one win and Rutter has zero.

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LSU made an absolutely jaw-dropping hype video for the CFP National Championship

Chills. Literally, chills.

When it comes to hype videos, LSU’s social media team really is the gold standard. From production quality to content, it’s tough to imagine any college football team topping LSU’s social videos anytime soon.

And after Thursday’s LSU hype video, other team accounts shouldn’t even bother trying.

With four days to go until LSU faces Clemson in the College Football Playoff National Championship in New Orleans, the LSU Football Twitter account released a hype video that honestly could have been mistaken for a big-budget film trailer.

Seriously, you don’t even need to have a rooting interest in LSU for this video to get you ready to run through a wall.

The video was narrated by New Orleans native and freaking Falcon from the MCU, Anthony Mackie, and it hit a next level once the music transitioned into Fast Life Yungstaz’s “Swag Surfin.”

Between the narration, music and cinematography, LSU basically created the perfect hype video.

Your move, Clemson.

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7 takeaways from round two of NBA All-Star voting

TACKO FALL AND ALEX CARUSO ARE CLIMBING.

Do you hear that? Ah, yes. It’s the sweet, sweet sound of internet chaos. Round two of NBA All-Star voting is in and everyone is just as mad as they were the first go around.

For those of us who love to watch Twitter burn? This is great. For everyone else? All-Star voting is a complete sham. A popularity contest. Do away with the fan vote.

If we’re being honest here, they’re probably right.Ā But that’s also the beauty of the fan vote. It’s chaos!

Here’s a look at how the second round of voting has gone so far. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

Once again, remember, fan voting doesn’t end until January 20. Player voting (25%) and media panel voting (25%) make up the other half of the vote for starters.Ā  The reserves will be chosen by NBA coaches.

In other words, this isn’t how the team is going to look. There’s still a big chance for your favorite player to land on the All-Star team.

In the meantime, though, here are seven takeaways from the NBA’s totally chaotic second go-round of All-Star voting.

LeBron James is king again…

After falling down to third in the first round of All-Star voting, LeBron James has jumped up to first overall with 3,359,871 total votes. Luka Doncic is second with 3,277,870 and Giannis Antetokounmpo is third with 3,259,383.

Alright, look y’all. I’ll say it.Ā Look, James is great. We get it. But THIS IS BORING.

Give us Team Doncic and Team Antetokounmpo. It’s time for the torch to be passed. Just once, it’d be nice to see James be human. Have him drafted with all of the other run-of-the-mill All-Stars. Could you imagine James being drafted as not the number one pick in an All-Star draft? DRAMA.

This is what we need. For the love of everything chaotic in the NBA, vote Doncic and Antetokounmpo.

Trae Young is still the leading guard in the East

TRAE YOUNG HIVE STAND UP! The Hawks guard leads all Eastern Conference guards with 1,389,628 votes.

We do not care that Young plays for the worst team in the NBA. We do not care that he can’t play a lick of defense. We don’t even care that we don’t fully know what’s going on with his hairline.

All we know is that he’s probably the most fun player to watch in basketball right now. That’s all that matters, numbers aside. All-Star games are about fun. This vote is correct.

Tacko Fall!? ALEX CARUSO!?!? CLIMBING!?!?

YUP. THAT’S RIGHT.

We’re doing it, y’all. We’re really going to make Tacko Fall and Alex Caruso All-Stars. We had no idea this was possible, yet here we are being incredibly dumb and incredibly great all at one time.

Tacko Fall has 543,352 votes. Alex Caruso moved up to sixth among all West guards. Objectively speaking, this is incorrect. But if this is incorrect, then what’s the actual point in being right?

This is great. Bald Mamba forever. Tacko Fall forever.

Carmelo Anthony is going to get that legacy spot

Anthony isn’t going to be a starter and that’s fine. But the fans want to see him in this game ā€” that’s clear. He’s still sitting at 8th in the West’s front court voting and has been a pretty fun story this year.

We’ve got to get him in that same legacy spot that went to Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade last year. It makes too much sense.

Kyrie Irving knows what’s good

Kyrie Irving has been injured for most of the season and still has the second most votes as a guard in the East with 1,351,997 votes.

It’s hard to condone a dude who has missed 70% of his teams games so far being an All-Star starter. But, like Young, Kyrie Irving is just incredibly fun in an All-Star game. And he knows it, too.

…. Fair enough.

At the same time, Spencer Dinwiddie is being disrespected

We have to do better. Spencer Dinwiddie appeared in the first returns for the vote with 94,618 votes. Now, he’s nowhere to be found. He’s been replaced at the 10th spot with Fred VanVleet.

With all due respect to VanVleet, Dinwiddie has been flat out better this season. Hopefully, the players and media do him some justice.

What year is it again?

Because if you look at the voting too quickly you might think it’s 2010.

Derrick Rose is fourth at guard in the East with 918,550 votes and Dwight Howard is 10th in the West front court with 390,037 votes thanks to that Lakers bump.

Two years ago, this being a thing was laughable. Now? It’s…well…still pretty laughable. Yet, here we are.

Yup. We’re definitely living in a simulation.

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Steph Curry revealed what he told Giannis Antetokounmpo in viral courtside exchange

Curry offered an explanation.

Giannis Antetokounmpo still has another season until he fits free agency, but NBA fans are always — and I mean ALWAYS — on Tampering Watch when it comes to the Greek Freak.

Just look at what happened after the Bucks’ 107-98 win against the Warriors.

As the game came to an end, cameras caught a courtside exchange between Giannis and the injured Steph Curry. It appeared that Curry said something along the lines of, “Letā€™s do it, c’mon man.” But out-of-context lip-reading can be entirely unreliable.

Still, that didn’t stop NBA fans from immediately assuming that Steph was putting forth a recruiting effort out in the open. So, Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes reached out to Curry for his side of the interaction.

Steph told Haynes that he was only giving Giannis a gamer tag and asking him team up and “do some damage” in PlayerUnknown’s Battleground.

Given where the Warriors’ season is right now, I guess it’s somewhat plausible that Curry’s mind would be at gaming after another loss. But NBA fans weren’t exactly buying the explanation from Curry.

Giannis will hit unrestricted free agency after the 2020-21 season.

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The arrivals of Mike Leach and Lane Kiffin in Mississippi just made the Egg Bowl a must-watch rivalry

Mike Leach is taking over at Mississippi State, and Ole Miss recently hired Lane Kiffin.

Mike Leach is leaving Washington State to take over as head coach for Mississippi State, USA TODAY Sports confirmed Thursday. This is huge news for the 58-year-old coach who’s famous for his air raid offense and is approaching two decades as a head coach.

Leach had been with the Cougars since the 2012 season after getting his first head coaching job in college at Texas Tech and spending 10 years with the Red Raiders.

After a 6-7 2019 season, the Bulldogs fired Joe Moorhead Friday at the end of his second season with the program. Mississippi State lost in the Music City Bowl to Louisville in December.

Leach taking over means the SEC has yet another big-personality coach in the conference, particularly the SEC West. But while the always blunt and often entertaining coach joins Alabama’s Nick Saban and LSU’s Ed Orgeron in that category, perhaps the most entertaining aspect of this news involves the program’s rivalry with Ole Miss, which recently hired Lane Kiffin.

The Egg Bowl rivalry game between the two teams is often wildly entertaining, sometimes regardless of the score. And even the most recent on in November ended in absurd fashion with a last-second touchdown, a penalty for a player mimicking a dog urinating on the field and a devastating missed extra point. A dog urinating moment also occurred in the 2017 matchup too.

So how could a game with a history of ridiculousness get even better? Pitting Leach against Kiffin is a great start. So mark your calendar because the first Egg Bowl with these two coaches is November 26, 2020.

College football Twitter is rightfully pumped about this new element of the rivalry with Leach’s arrival at Mississippi State, and that even includes the former Alabama assistant and FAU coach.

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Richard Sherman spoke out against the NFL’s lack of diversity in head-coaching hires

“It doesn’t matter how much you talk about it because it’s not changing.”

Like many around the league, Richard Sherman easily noticed the lack of diversity in coaching hires around the league.

The latest NFL head-coaching cycle has yielded entirely white hires with the Giants even elevating former Patriots wide receivers coach Joe Judge to head coach. The Cleveland Browns are the only remaining team with a head-coaching vacancy, but Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski has recently been linked to the position.

If the current makeup holds, there will be just three black NFL head coaches — the same number as when the NFL instituted the Rooney Rule in 2003, requiring teams to interview minority candidates for head-coaching vacancies.

That rule clearly hasn’t helped provide real opportunities for qualified minority candidates, and according to Sherman, it’ll take a drastic shift in NFL ownership to see more black head coaches in the league.

Sherman said to reporters on Wednesday:

“It’s always going to be a challenge in this game whether it’s male, female, or whether it’s coaches of color getting head-coaching gigs. I think it’s going to be a conversation. The owners still look a certain way, and they still come from a very old background. So, it’s going to be this way until things change.”

He continued, saying that most coaches of color who get interviewed are brought in just to meet Rooney Rule requirements:

“You can be terrible as a head coach and, hey, no matter what in a couple more years, you’re gonna get another job. And you’re going to get recycled back if you look a certain way. And that’s the unfortunate part.

“Obviously, Robert Saleh is a person of color and got an interview. But, you know, I think Lovie Smith, there’s tons of coaches out there that deserve a head-coaching job, (Eric) Bieniemy. But those guys aren’t even getting a look. And the ones that are getting a look are just getting it so they can check the Rooney Rule box off. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much you talk about it because it’s not changing. The people who could change it make billions and billions of dollars, and they can care less.”

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