Starting Five

The most discussed sports topics at water coolers across America

1. Stalions is Everywhere, and Twitter Will Find Him

The Scoop: The Michigan cheating scandal is the gift that keeps on giving. Last week, we reported that internet sleuths found clips of a Michigan staffer named Connor Stalions holding play sheets with pictures of hand signals on them and communicating with Michigan coaches. An Athletic article early this week, showed Stalions in disguise on the sideline of a Central Michigan vs. Michigan State game earlier in the season. You can see him in the side of the video, hiding his face from the camera. Here a twitter user found a blue light on his shades that might be a secret camera. There is no news yet on if the NCAA or Big Ten Executive Committee will make a move to punish the Wolverines, but the content from this story continues to be hilarious.

Conversation Starter: Do you think Michigan has an unfair advantage? Should there be punishments?

2. College Football Playoff Rankings Finally Out

The Scoop: The College Football champion is crowned after a four-game playoff. The teams that will compete are the top 4 in the CFP Rankings at the end of the season. Tuesday, the Playoff Committee released their first official rankings of the season. The Committee weighs a team’s resume (who they have played against, key statistical measurements, win differential, etc.) and the “eye-test” (how good we think this team is).

Leading the way is #1 Ohio State, who sometimes fails the eye-test with an offense that struggles, but have two top-15 wins over Penn State and Notre Dame to bolster their resume. Georgia and Michigan are right behind them who have dominated all year, but have their toughest games on the schedule remaining. For the full rankings, see here. 

Conversation Starter: What’s more important, resume or the eye-test? Should a dominant team with a “good loss” be ranked behind an undefeated team who has struggled?

3. Texas Rangers are World Series Champs!

The Scoop: The hostile Arizona crowd did nothing to deter the Rangers, who won 3-1, 11-7, and 5-0 to win the World Series. This is the organization’s first ever World Series Championship, the oldest team in baseball to have never won one. Corey Seager won World Series MVP after three home runs in the five-game series. They also set the record for most road wins ever in the MLB postseason, with a perfect 10-0 streak.

Seager is now the second player in MLB history to win a World Series MVP with multiple teams, having also done so with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020. The team celebrated with champagne showers, and fans in Arlington are ready for the parade!

Conversation Starter: What’s more exciting to you, watching a team who’s never won before, or teams who consistently win with stars that most fans recognize?

4. Make Duke Hateable Again

The Scoop: For those who live in Durham, North Carolina, Duke basketball is a way of life. For most other sports fans, it’s a vile program that nothing good should ever happen to (can you tell our editors are UNC fans?). For years, Duke had players with, for lack of a better term, punchable faces. From Christian Laettner, to Bobby Hurley, to JJ Reddick, to Kyle Singler, to Grayson Allen, it was a bunch of scumbags.

Lately, Duke hasn’t had a signature player fans can really hate. Meet new Duke commit and #1 player in the country Cooper Flagg. For some reason, Duke has been promoting him in a way that some commentators say gives tiki-torch white nationalist vibes, then using Duke’s slogan “the brotherhood” on every graphic. Many Twitter users are making jokes about the pictures, and honestly I can’t quite figure out why Duke went with this PR campaign.

Conversation Starter: Is there anything worse on this planet than Duke Basketball?

5. Personal Feature: Section 4 absolutely dominates in GSB Olympics

The Scoop: It has come to our editors’ attention that the majority of current readers are at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The biggest story on everyone’s mind is the masterclass performance of Section 4 in Wednesday’s Section Olympics, an annual event that pits arbitrary subdivisions of first-year GSB students against each other in a variety of epic competitions.

It helps when you have an NFL quarterback leading the dodgeball team, a 6’10” Division 1 basketball player leading the hoops squad, and a Scripps Spelling Bee contestant taking home first in spelling. But the mastermind behind the scenes organizing everything also should take his victory lap (trust me, I did). Not sure who that guy is, but he put his classmates in a position to win, and dominate they did. 

Conversation Starter: Where can I find footage of the carnage Section 4 created on Wilbur Field? Seriously we’re asking, send vids.

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Sports Memes Demystified

Do you have a friend who always sends you memes you need context for? We’re here to give you that context. Feel free to ask us to demystify a meme here!

Wednesday night, a video went viral showing the Washington Wizards throwing an off the backboard alley-oop while down 20 points. This is coming off a video this weekend, of Wizards star Jordan Poole shooting a 180-degree-spin-three-pointer and completely airballing. The Wizards are losing games in an entertaining fashion, and some twitter users are calling them the most “unserious team” in basketball. 

Generally these sort of plays are seen as show-boating, messing around with your opponent when you’re winning by a lot. What makes this funny is the Wizards are doing it while getting absolutely annihilated. Will the fun they’re having on the court equate to future wins? Maybe, but in the meantime, they’re an absolute content factory.

What We’re Watching This Week

If you're at a bar, they might be showing these games. Here's what you should know:

College Football

Saturday’s Games

• #2 Georgia (8-0) vs #14 Missouri (7-1): The two-time defending champs Georgia have their first real challenge of the season against a scrappy Mizzou team that keeps doing just enough to win. We don’t think it’ll be enough this week as the Bulldogs are just too good

• #13 LSU (6-2) vs #8 Alabama (7-1): Few things are quite as special as Tuscaloosa under the lights. Tuning in to just see the atmosphere alone would be worth it, but the teams are talented and both hoping to challenge Georgia for the SEC championship

• #9 Oklahoma (7-1) vs #22 Oklahoma State (6-2): This rivalry is called Bedlam for a reason and this one will mean just a little more. With Oklahoma switching conferences to the SEC next season, we don’t know when these two will play again. The winner can look forward to many years of bragging rights

NBA

• The season is in full swing, with all teams playing their first games, you can check out the schedule here to see when your local team plays!

Subscriber Question of the Week

Do you have a sports topic you want to get smart on? Let us know here.

This week, Erin from Illinois asked, "My boyfriend says we can’t hang out tonight because of “Maction.” What is Maction?"

Hi Erin! Sadly, we’re on the side of your boyfriend here, Maction is simply the best time of the year!

The MAC (Mid American Conference) is a lower tier division one football conference in the Midwest. In order to negotiate higher TV rights, the conference plays games on Tuesday and Wednesday, so as not to compete with the larger conferences. Because the brand of football is worse, there are so many meme-able moments, bonehead mistakes, and ridiculous plays for the true sports sickos. Yesterday did not disappoint, with a game in the snow where the ball could hardly be seen, a sideline Dunk Tank, and a post game brawl. 

So Erin, our advice is to just watch Maction with your boyfriend! It’s always entertaining! We hope this helps!

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Until next week,

The Fastbreakk