"The Stack" 9-27-18
New York Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom lowered his ERA for the year to 1.70 in a 3-0 shutout win over the Atlanta Braves. deGrom has to be considered the Cy Young favorite and maybe an MVP candidate.
The Stack is back on this Thursday and we have plenty of football for you today, but let’s not forget the baseball. New York Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom lowered his ERA to 1.70 following the Mets 3-0 win over the Atlanta Braves. deGrom is going to win the Cy Young. Can he win MVP too? I wouldn’t be opposed. The NL Central and NL West races are incredibly close as is the NL Wild Card. October baseball is going to be here faster than we know it and it is going to be great. We’ll be talking plenty about that next week. Now though, let’s get right to “the stack” for today, Thursday, September 27th:
Kelly Bryant to transfer from Clemson
In some rather stunning news, Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant is transferring from the university after losing his job to freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Lawrence is very good, but it seems rather surprising that head coach Dabo Sweeney would turn away from a guy like Bryant. Sure Lawrence played some throughout Clemson’s first four games, but Bryant didn’t really do anything that would warrant the change, at least in my opinion. The big question now, besides where Bryant will transfer to, is how the team will respond. Hopefully they keep doing their thing, because they have a great chance to make it back to the College Football Playoff. A move like this though could come with some unintended consequences. Hopefully things work out okay for all parties, but it would not surprise me to Clemson go flat this week against Syracuse and barely win. Tough situation for sure and definitely a surprising one.
College football weekend forecast
There are some really good games on the docket for this weekend. A Big 12 matchup that I’m sure everyone had pitting ranked team versus ranked team is #12 West Virginia vs. #25 Texas Tech (Noon ET ESPN2). This is a really long flight for the Mountaineers so I am not giving them a great chance to win this one. Hope they do, but don’t see it happening.
7:30 PM ET/6:30 PM CT is must-see appointment television. That is when #7 Stanford visits #8 Notre Dame on NBC and #4 Ohio State travels to Happy Valley for a whiteout game against #9 Penn State on ABC. After Stanford’s incredible comeback win last week, do they really have enough in the tank? Ian Book was incredible last week in his first start at quarterback for the Fighting Irish. Does he have it in him again? It will be a much more difficult defense, but I think Notre Dame can win. As for the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions, I want to take Penn State with Trace McSorely, but Ohio State just seems to be too good. I hope Penn State proves me wrong, but I will take Ohio State in a close one.
BYU is ranked, yes they are. #20 BYU takes on #11 Washington in Seattle at 8:30 PM ET on FOX. All of a sudden this is a very intriguing game. Washington will win, but they can’t look past BYU. The other game featured ranked teams is #19 Oregon vs. #24 California 10:30 PM ET FS1. That was a heartbreaking loss for the Ducks last week to Stanford, but they are better than California. Give me the Ducks.
Pac-12 After Dark has another good matchup with USC at Arizona (10:30 PM ET ESPN2). This game could very well decide who wins the Pac-12 South. Something zany is going to happen….Can #17 Kentucky stay undefeated and improve to 5-0? They host 2-1 South Carolina at 7:30 PM ET on the SEC Network. ,, I think they can. #18 Texas (@ Kansas State) and #14 Michigan (@ Northwestern) face somewhat difficult road tests, but they should both win comfortably. Some crazy things are bound to happen on Saturday. They always do. Enjoy your college football weekend and if you care at all about the Dakota Marker game featuring South Dakota State and North Dakota State, it’s at 2:30 PM CT. The Bison are very likely to win.
Minnesota Vikings @ Los Angeles Rams 8:20 PM ET FOX & NFL Network
It has been a somewhat tumultuous four days for the Vikings after getting railroaded by the Buffalo Bills inexplicably on Sunday. Couple that with defensive end Everson Griffen dealing with mental health issues and there is a lot going on with this team. That’s not what you want when you are going against the best team in the NFL. No Aqib Talib in the secondary though for the Rams and maybe no Marcus Peters either so maybe their secondary can be had. That would require the Vikings to throw the ball down the field, something they couldn’t do last week. The Vikings offensive line was not good and now they have to deal with Aaron Donald, Ndamukong Suh and company. Good luck. The Vikings will play much better than last week, but the Rams are just too good. They win this potential NFC playoff preview.
Prediction: Rams 27 Vikings 20
Before we go…
Ryder Cup starts on Friday from just outside Paris. Can Team USA beat Team Europe? It’s going to be tough and very even, but I think Team USA will win and I will make a prediction that Tiger Woods comes through with a crucial hole or putt to help Team USA win it. It should be a lot of fun.
Coming up Friday: NFL week 4 preview and predictions
Listen to this week's "The Sports Block" podcast here.
