Musings and then a second helping. please...

     I had written the beginning of a wonderful piece about Thanksgiving and the lead up to the holiday. What it means to so many people and how it brings families together. I started to write about the NFL and where it stands right now in the weekend before Turkey Day. Then my computer up and ate my prose. This 9 year old Dell computer is way past its prime; it is time to head to the Apple Store and buy something new, to prevent this from happening, as it is now the second time in a couple of months that my essay has been sabotaged. Unless, of course, someone is hacking my material--I should be so lucky as to have such diverse readership!!

     So, as we travel to our destinations for reuniting with family this Thursday and start preparing for Christmas for so many, we watch the weather finally turn colder as a prelude to Winter. There is a lot to talk about in sports at this time.

     As the National Football League enters its 12th week, at least the New York Jets aren't playing in this last bye week, coming off the disastrous game versus Tampa Bay and ex-Jets QB Ryan Fitzpatrick. The 1-8 New York Giants have the joyous task of playing the Kansas City Chiefs in the Meadowlands; their season is in greater disarray than the Jets. Can there be a worse coach than Ben Mc Adoo?

     We have surprise division leaders in the NFC with Los Angeles, Minnesota, New Orleans and Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the AFC has more likely front runners in Kansas City, New England and Pittsburgh, along with upstart Jacksonville. In the year of the quarterback, newcomers Carson Wentz (Eagles), Case Keenum (Vikings) and Jared Goff (Rams) are in the mix with veterans like Alex Smith (Chiefs), Tom Brady (Patriots) and Big Ben Roethlisberger (Steelers). The Cleveland Browns have been futile thus far--even botching a trade at the deadline--and are in the hunt for the No. 1 pick in the Draft Lottery. Close on their heels are the Giants and San Francisco 49'ers.

     Thus, we have the top teams working to secure their playoff spots while there is always the mad scramble for Wild Card berths--2 in the AFC and 2 in the NFC. But that is not the story in the NFL this week.

     The feud between Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones--a force in the NFLsince he wons the most valauble franchise--has broken wide open. They have seemingly been best buds in the past. However, when the League (a.k.a. Goodell) sought to punish Cowboys' star running back Ezekiel Elliott for domestic violence (since resolved), Elliott fought the 6 game suspension in the courts and Jones stewed when Goodell allegedly welshed on a promise not to suspend Elliott. Coupled with the outrageous demands that Goodell has made for compensation ($49 million/year and the use of a private plane plus medical expenses among other requests), Jones has threatened to sue if the other owners extend Goodell's contract when the NFL is awash with so much controversy which has split the country and has caused a significant drop in ratings. Goodell, imbued with near omnipotence, has been setting up Jones to leverage him out of ownership if Jones follows through on his threats. As the Cowboys plummet in the standings without their star running back, expect this will to nastier in the upcoming days.

     It is the second month of the NBA and the top story is the Boston Celtics' run of 15 straight wins after dropping the first two games to begin the season. They are doing it without injured star forward Gordon Heyward and All-NBA point guard Kyrie Irving, free of the restraints he had while playing in Cleveland with Lebron James, has led this talented squad under the tutelage of baby-faced Head Coach Brad Stevens. The Celtics play hard--they outplayed the defending champion Golden State Warriors on Friday night on the parquet floor of the TD Garden. Boston has a definite opportunity to dethrone Cleveland as the Eastern Conference champions. Whether they can upset Golden State should they meet in the NBA Finals is mere conjecture at this early point in the season. I do think that now the Celtics have the Warriors attention.

    Subplots to the Celtics and Warriors are the rise of the Philadelphia 76'ers behind Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid; how well the Houston Rockets can be since Chris Paul has returned from injury to join James Harden and Carmelo Anthony; and how abysmal Los Angeles Lakers' top rookie Lonzo Ball is shooting. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Stay tuned for further updates.

     Pleasing to me are the rise of the New Jersey Devils, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets to the top of the National Hockey League standings. Tampa Bay and St. Louis have been torrid. Expansion Las Vegas has kept its head above water in their first 18 games; it will be interesting to see how they fare at home tonight against the division leading Los Angeles Kings.The usual suspects are nearby--Columbus and Ottawa, along with last year's Stanley Cup finalists Nashville and Pittsburgh. Not even a quarter of the schedule has been played, so it is way too early to prognosticate.

     Baseball named its award winners this past week. Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger unanimously won the A.L. and N.L. Rookie of the Year trophies. Cy Young Award winners were the A.L's Corey Kluber of Cleveland, while in he N.l., Max Scherzer won for the second consecutive time and third overall, thereby making him a virtual lock for immortality in Cooperstown. Houston's diminutive Jose Altuve dwarfed the gigantic Judge in the A.L. M.V.P. voting; in the N.L. Giancarlo Stanton's monster year on a below .500 Miami Marlins team deservedly edged out Joey Votto of the also below .500 Cincinnati Reds by a mere 2 votes.

     The New York Yankees have been busy interviewing candidates for the vacant manager's position. Hal Steinbrenner, George's son and Managing Partner, candidly stated that former Manager Joe Girardi probably still would have not had his contract renewed even if the Yankees had won the World Series. Talk about pressure for the incoming dugout leader!!

     Tennis is closing its season today with the World Tour Finals in London. Except that neither Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are in the final. Talk about disappointment.

     NASCAR gets very little mention here. Today is the NASCAR Cup final four at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex, Jr., a New Jersey native, battle it out for the 2017 championship. Also newsworthy in NASCAR nation is the retirement of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with this race. He is royalty/star power to the stock car fans, and his presence will be missed.

     Additionally, Danica Patrick announced that she will no longer compete in NASCAR in 2018 and she will end her career with the 2018 Indianapolis 500. Never a big winner, she became an icon as a female driver in a male-dominated sport.  It did not hurt that she was attractive and could sell products, even if she could not win much in stock car or Indy Car racing.

     I was at the 153rd edition of the Lafayette-Lehigh football rivalry on Saturday at rain-soaked Murray H. Goodman Field in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Lehigh won the game and secured the right to the Patriot League bid to the NCAA FCS playoffs. Lafayette was highly competitive and led into the fourth quarter. It was the Leopards' lack of any offense in the fourth quarter which led to their undoing; Lafayette had capitalized on Lehigh mistakes and added a 96 yard kickoff return to force Lehigh to scramble and claw its way to the victory, capped by a perfectly thrown pass to the end zone on a post pattern.

     Nothing really unpredictable happened in college football this weekend. A lot will transpire in the next couple of weeks when Alabama and Auburn meet and the conference championships take place. Maybe I was a little surprised how Rutgers was blown out by Indiana 41-0 in Bloomington. Then again, this is the schizophrenic RU team which could lose to Eastern Michigan then reel off wins against conference foes Purdue, Maryland and Illinois.

     Finally, we were watching the UCLA-USC rivalry game from the ancient Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, soon to undergo a $250 million upgrade which will be completed in time for the Trojans' 2019 season. The importance of he event was not just that USC won 28-23, nor the fact that Bruins' Head Coach Jim Mora was relieved of his duties today by Athletic Director Dan Guerrero. It featured the two top undergraduate quarterbacks, who will land in the top 5 of the NFL draft next April--Sam Darnold of USC and Josh Rosen of the Bruins. I am sure that Cleveland, the Giants, the 49'ers. the Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos, and perhaps the Jets, all in need of a young new QB, took interest in the contest.

     Rosen had the better stats but Darnold had the winning team because he played with better athletes. Darnold is more in question whether he will come out of college early. I think he needs a bit more experience that one more year at USC could offer. But the lure of big money in the NFL will be very pressing.

     Rosen looks to be the real deal. He is a natural athlete--he was a highly ranked tennis player as a junior in the highly competitive Southern California region and was also a top 50 player nationally. His father, an orthopedic spine surgeon, was a nationally-ranked ice skater who nearly qualified for the Olympics and his mother captained the Princeton women's lacrosse team. Smart, athletic genes at work here. He appears to be charismatic and he is Jewish; his mother is a Quaker but Rosen became a bar mitzvah and stayed in Southern California because he felt there was the need for a Jewish star athlete in the area.  Imagine if he went to the Chargers or if he made it across the country to play in New York? Stardom awaits this interesting young man.

     Yet the burning question which came from my astute, inquiring wife was this--which was the higher ranked school academically? I thought that it was UCLA, as it was always perceived to be more difficult to enter. Instead, U.S. News and World Report ranks USC one spot ahead of UCLA, which finished at 24. The top two Pac 12 schools are Stanford University at number 5, and the University of California-Berkeley at number 20; Stanford and Cal met in The Game, which the Cardinal triumphed over the Golden Bears. The lowest-ranked Pac 12 school is Washington State at number 143. Six of the Pac 12 schools, including the aforementioned four and Colorado and Washington, are inside of the top 100.

     So which conference comes out on top? It looks to be the Atlantic Coast Conference, led by Duke and Notre Dame. The University of Louisville is the lowest at 171. Second lowest are Florida State and North Carolina State, which are tied at number 92. The remaining 11 schools are in the top 75, with 9 schools in the top 60.

     The prestigious Big Ten has its highest ranking at number 15--Northwestern University, followed by the University of Michigan at 27. Eight Big Ten schools are in the top 60, and 5 of them are in the top 50. Rutgers resides at 70 and Minnesota at 71 is within the top 75. Nebraska is the lowest ranked member at 111. Indiana is next at 86, then Iowa and Michigan State at 82. Overall, it tops the Pac 10 but is far behind the ACC.

     Surprisingly, 5 of the Southeastern Conference schools rank in the 100. But the lowest ranked school is Mississippi State University at 176. Next is Mississippi at 135, which is tied with the University of Arkansas and Louisiana State University. The Conference football powerhouse, the University of Alabama, is tied with Tennessee at 103. Alabama takes second to in state rival Auburn, which is placed at 99. Vanderbilt University is the best SEC school at number 15, even with the ACC's Notre Dame. It is a far better academic conference than it is given credit for. The University of Georgia is a fine school at number 56, and the University of Florida has risen to number 50.

     For the Big 12, the top tier schools are Texas, Baylor and Texas Christian University. West Virginia University is the bottom dweller and they are in the top 200. As far as the Patriot League football schools, Georgetown is in a class of its own; Colgate, Holy Cross and Bucknell are ahead of Lafayette College, which is the 36th rated National Liberal Arts school. Lehigh is number 46 in National Universities. I leave it to the mathematicians to figure out which is better academically--Lehigh or Lafayette. Based on yesterday, the Lehigh followers are more boisterous.

     Remember that this is not an indictment or analysis of the sports teams and their academic rankings. But when you are at the dining room table ready to gorge yourself or before and after dinner, or when you are watching the three NFL contests (including the important Minnesota-Detroit festivities) you can have a little fun with friends and family courtesy of Retiredlawyersportsop. That is, if the tryptophan doesn't zonk you out too soon and you have not over indulged on green bean casserole, yams and dessert...