The Friday Five: August 26, 2016

Ahhhhh yes.  The beginning of 4 months of good times.  I was pumped about the opening of the NFL preseason… even with the NFL botching the Hall of Fame game and leaving us a whole week without live action football… but tonight is the real deal for college football.  It doesn’t seem real that we’re 6 weeks away from the opening of the SEC schedule, and yet, here we are.  Tonight, the College Football season officially is under way.  But on top of that, there are a ton of stories going on that I want to talk about in today’s Friday five.

If you have not already, check out our podcast on iTunes and any other podcast app that you’d like, or you can just listen at Soundcloud.com/WinningCuresEverything.  You can also check out this week’s episode 2 and episode 3 by clicking these two links.  Give it a listen – I’m sure you’ll enjoy.  For now though, here’s the Friday Five.

1. College Football is BACK.

I’m pumped.  Yes, I understand that it’s Hawaii and California.  And it’s in Sydney, Australia.  But it’s football, and this one actually counts.  Hawaii is 2-4 in their last 6 opening games against Pac-12 teams, and Cal is 5-2 in their last 7 openers.  Now, I’ll toss in there that Hawaii won 2 games against Colorado, 3 losses were to USC, and 1 loss was a 17-16 defeat to Washington.  They covered all but one of those games.  Cal’s wins were against UC-Davis, Grambling St, Northwestern (in a bad year), etc.  They’ve not been super reliable in early games unless they’re playing tiny schools.

Hawaii is returning 15 starters, including an experienced QB, while Cal lost their #1 NFL draft pick QB, their top 6 receivers, and most of their defense.  Cal is basically an entirely new team.  The Golden Bears did, however, bring in grad transfer Davis Webb from Texas Tech – a kid that can really fling the ball around.  We don’t really know anything about Cal, and Hawaii has a first year head coach, so we don’t know much about them.  What we do know is that 20 points seems like a really big line for 2 teams that had to travel all the way around the world for an opening week football game.

Chris and I both picked, in our Episode 3 podcast, Hawaii +20, so we’re pretty pumped for this one.  It’s only one game, but next week starts the whole thing.  We’ll be ready to make our weekly picks and our season picks in next week’s college football podcast.

2. Brazil wants to charge Ryan Locthe.

Brazil has decided that Ryan Locthe should be charged for falsely reporting a crime.  If he’s convicted, he could be sentenced to 1-6 months in prison in Brazil, or, the more likely outcome, a fine.  He doesn’t need to appear in court, as he can send his lawyers, and the ruling can be appealed.

This seems like it’s just going waaaay too far over this.  I really think this kid didn’t do anything super wrong.  As I said last week, he and his friends were goofing around and vandalizing (in a minor way) a gas station in Rio, damaged a sign, pissed where they shouldn’t have, and then were stopped by rent-a-cops at gunpoint and extorted for $400.  In America, that’s robbery.  So yes, he was robbed.  The details of the story were a lil shady, but dear Lord, it was 4:30am and they were drunk.  So how was he expected to remember every detail?  And he didn’t report this to authorities – he told his mother.  That’s it.

Brazil is trying to make an example of these swimmers, and is trying to show that their major city isn’t really as corrupt and violent as it is.  This is the same city with dead bodies washing up in the bay where they were holding Olympic meets.  Where over 1700 murders occur annually.  Here in Memphis, we’re sitting around 140 murders so far this year, and it’s the most this city has had to this point maybe ever.

Somebody done done these boys wrong.  Here’s hoping the United States stands behind them.

3. Tony Romo got hurt.  Again.

The Cowboys trotted out Tony Romo in preseason game #3.  It was his first action in a game since the Carolina game last year where he broke his clavicle for a 2nd time.  On the first play, Romo threw a short pass to the left to Terrence Williams for 11 yards.  Cowboys fans perked up – their starter was back.  On the 2nd play, he handed off to Ezekiel Elliot between the tackles for 3 yards.  Then, on play 3, Romo dropped back… and was abruptly sacked by Cliff Avery.  His body bent a little crooked, and Romo winced in pain and laid on the field, unable to get up.

Every Dallas fan in the country immediately lost their breath and got nauseous at the same time.  Eventually Romo got up and walked off the field under his own power.

And then Dak Prescott came in, went 5/7 for 30 yards, and threw a touchdown pass to Jason Witten.

If you play fantasy football, Dak may come in handy very very soon this season.

4. Ezekiel Elliot got spotted in a weed dispensary in Seattle. 

Ezekiel Elliot also made his debut for the Cowboys in Seattle last night.

But not before he made his debut in one of Seattle’s marijuana dispensaries called “Herban Legends.”

Sometime before the ballgame, he was photographed in the dispensary.  Now, for most people this wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  But for the first running back taken in the draft, who is already having to deal with domestic assault charges from an ex-girlfriend, this doesn’t look good.  Weed is still a banned substance in the NFL, as we have seen several players get suspended for their love for the ganja (Marcel Dareus, LeVeon Bell, etc).

Jerry Jones saw the pictures and said “It’s just not good.  That’s a part of just really getting the big picture here.”  Here’s hoping the kid makes better decisions through his first season.

5. Auburn names Sean White their starter.

This entire SEC offseason, the biggest name coming out of Auburn was John Franklin III, the much hyped JUCO QB that stars in the new Netflix series “Last Chance U.”  Hundreds of articles were written about how he was exactly what the Auburn offense needed to get the Gus Bus rolling again.

Malzahn’s offense was a shell of itself last year with Jeremy Johnson and Sean White at the helm – neither were mobile enough to keep defenses honest, and neither was great throwing the football.  Defenses could sit in the box and effectively stop this team.  It was a far cry from the team that had Nick Marshall and Tre Mason the first two seasons Malzahn was there.

This team has gone from 12-2 and a national championship appearance in their first season, to 8-5 in their second year, to 7-6 last year, and Malzahn, even after signing an extension this offseason, is firmly on the hot seat entering this year.

So these guys are trotting out Sean White against Clemson in the first game of the season?  Hey, at least it’s at home…

Gary Segars

Gary began his first website in 1998 as a sophomore in high school, writing reviews of cds and live shows in the Memphis area. He became editor of his college newspaper, then moved towards a career in music.He started the infamous MemphisTider.com blog during the 2006 football season, and was lucky enough to get into blogging just before the coaching search that landed Nick Saban at Alabama. The month and a half long coaching search netted his site, which was known for tracking airplanes, over 1 million hits in less than 90 days. The website introduced Gary to tons of new friends, including Nico and Todd, who had just started the site RollBamaRoll.com.After diving into more than just Alabama news, Gary started up his first installment of WinningCuresEverything.com in 2012. After keeping the site quiet for a while, it was started back up in April 2016. Gary then joined forces with high school friend Chris Giannini and began a podcast during the 2016 football season that runs at least 2 times a week, focusing on college football, NFL football, and sports wagering, and diving into other sports and pop-culture topics.E-mail: gary@winningcureseverything.com Twitter: @GaryWCE

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