Football
College football is a beautiful sport that combines communities and leads to some of the greatest upsets in history. The phrase “Any given day” was in full force this weekend, with the college landscape witnessing some of the greatest upsets in modern history. The first and most obvious example was the Vanderbilt Commodores taking a stunning victory over the then-first-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. The Commodores have been one of the laughingstocks of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) for decades, with their last winning season in 2013. However, they defied the odds against an Alabama team they hadn’t beaten since 1984, defeating the Tide 40-35 in Nashville. In addition to winning against Alabama for the first time since the Reagan Administration, it was Vanderbilt’s first win against a top-five team in their program’s history and the third time that Alabama had lost to an unranked team as the No. 1 ranked team. Fans stormed the field and tore down the goalposts, carrying them to the Cumberland River through downtown Nashville, Tennessee, in celebration.
Vanderbilt wasn’t the only team that was involved in a top-five upset, however. The No. 4 Tennessee Volunteers were shocked on the road, losing 19-14 to an unranked Arkansas Razorbacks team. This surprising defeat made week six the first time since the introduction of the AP Top-25 poll that multiple top-five teams lost to unranked competition in the same week. Additional upsets in the college football landscape included: No. 10 Michigan losing 17-27 to unranked Washington University; No. 11 USC losing 17-24 to unranked Minnesota; and No. 9 Missouri losing 10-41 to No. 25 Texas A&M.
The NFL would never live up to the excitement of the previous day’s college football action, and it didn’t aim to try. Besides a close finish to the Rams-Packers game (Packers hold off a late Los Angeles charge to win 24-19), the only other notes are that Chicago Bears rookie Caleb Williams might be a legitimate talent. Also, Deshaun Watson might need to get fired into the sun if the Cleveland Browns want to win a game in the next three years.
Baseball
In what might be the single-most toxic playoff bracket ever dreamed of in the history of postseason sports, both the American League (AL) and National League (NL) Divisional Series contenders have been set. The AL features a modern recreation of the “Moneyball” tactic, pitting the small-market Kansas City Royals as underdogs against the despised New York Yankees. KC is one of three teams from their division — the AL Central — who made the playoffs this season, and all of them are somehow still in contention. Despite being one of the worst divisions in baseball just a few seasons ago, at least one team will represent the division in the Championship Series after this round. The Cleveland Guardians earned the bye for the first round of the playoffs and now play the Detroit Tigers, a team that went from setting records for losses to defeating the Houston Astros in the wild-card round a week ago.
On the National League side, two divisional rivals are facing off on each half of the bracket in a perfect storm of hatred and rivalry. The New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies make up one of the most storied rivalries in baseball history and one of the most even as well. Both teams had a perfect 500-500 record in their last 1,000 meetings, so it was no surprise that they split the first two games of their postseason series. On the other half of the bracket, two West Coast rivals — the LA Dodgers and the San Diego Padres — faced off in a meeting that has already gotten testy throughout the regular season. If you don’t know what time the game is on, don’t worry. Just turn on FOX Sports and look for the massive Shohei Ohtani Ohtani sticker that will undoubtedly pop up at some point. You’ll even get a nifty little graphic telling you when he’s batting next!
