Coaching Changes, College Football Thrills, NFL Kickoff & Tennis Drama: Your Week in Sports
The Key for the week of September 3, 2024
The Coaching Carousel may be spinning soon…
If Florida State doesn’t put a win on the board next weekend. The Seminoles came into the season as the defending ACC champion, the preseason choice to repeat as conference champs and a top 20 ranking, but now are looking at an 0-2 start (0-3 if you count last bowl season’s 63-3 loss to Georgia). Florida State head coach Mike Norvell said he didn’t prepare his team for the Boston College game and vowed to put it all together for the next game against Memphis on September 14. A winning streak may be all that will save Norvell’s job this time.
New QB with impressive debut for UC
Good news on two fronts for Bearcat fans this week. Defensive lineman Dontay Corleone has been cleared to play in this weekend’s game against Pitt. You might remember Corleone was diagnosed this summer with blood clots, but has been part of weightlifting and conditioning drills most of the off season. He’ll find out later this week if he’ll play against the Panthers. And, new UC quarterback Brendan Sorsby was named Big 12 newcomer of the week after the Bearcats’ win over Towson. The IU transfer passed for 383 yards and had a part of four UC touchdowns—that yardage total, the most by a UC quarterback since 2015 and the most in a Bearcats’ debut since Gunner Kiel (another transfer) did it 10 years ago.
The NFL is back in a big way
Grab your popcorn, the NFL season starts Thursday night with Baltimore and Kansas City facing off in a playoff rematch from last season. But Wait! There’s More! The NFL now has a Friday night game on this first weekend, with Green Bay and Philly on Peacock. The Bengals (still without Ja’marr Chase, as of this writing) say his status for Week 1 against the Patriots is day to day, but let’s face it, Chase won’t need a whole lot of practice to get back into rhythm with JoeyB. Going to the Bengals game Sunday? Wear orange.
Ben’s Best Bet
The final major on the tennis circuit has been interesting, to say the least. First, if you were watching Sunday, at 7:20 p.m. in the middle of fourth-round matches, ESPN and the Disney networks went dark on DirecTV over a contract renewal dispute. On the court, the two defending champions are out, Jannik Sinner, the world’s number 1 on the men’s side, is cruising into the quarterfinals, while the world’s number 1 for the women, Iga Swiatek, hasn’t dropped a set at Flushing Meadows. Right now Bet MGM has both top seeds installed as favorites to win. Ben says that’s not a bad bet to take—even if you’re a DirectTV customer and you still can’t watch. (Ben says don’t be surprised if that little cable kerfuffle is settled just in time for Monday Night Football)
