Casual Diehard

 College football is always ripe for a hypothetical, and the ACC has given us a good one. Duke, at 7-5 overall, finished in a five-way tie at 6-2 in conference play with Miami, Georgia Tech, Pitt, and SMU. The Blue Devils will face Virginia in the conference title game, the Cavaliers' appearance coming with two conference losses of their own, except only one that counted, because their loss to N.C. State was not a conference game. Things used to be much simpler, right? Well, here's the hypothetical: what if we went back to 2007 conference alignments, sending Pitt back to the Big East and SMU to Conference USA's West division? As we bring back divisions to the ACC, we find that Miami, Georgia Tech, and Duke all were in the Coastal... where they would be tied for second behind Virginia. So, the Cavaliers' opponent for the conference championship game would not be one of the teams that went 6-2 against the 2025 ACC, but the champion of the Atlantic... which finished with a...

Introduction: What is The Sosa Society? In 2022, his first season with the Phillies, Kyle Schwarber hit a then-career high and National League-leading 46 home runs, joining Alex Rodriguez (2001), Ken Griffey Jr. (1998), Orlando Cepeda (1961), Babe Ruth (1930, 1929), Hack Wilson and Cy Williams (1927), Ken Williams (1922), George Kelly (1921), and Cy Williams alone (1920) as the league leader in either the American or National League in a season when someone else set a record for the other league in the live ball era. The following year, Schwarber did himself one better with 47 dingers, but Matt Olson went and hit 54 for Atlanta to lead the National League. That made Schwarber the 27th player to be a league home run king, but not lead the league in the season he set his career high. It might have been bittersweet for Schwarber if he thought about it, which assuredly he did not. Most likely, his thought process was "gonna try to hit even more." He didn't quite do ...

Last weekend, on Shutdown Fullcast's After Dark episode , there was a discussion of Ohio State's offense, and an advantage the Buckeyes may have going into the College Football Playoff: by running an extremely low total of offensive plays during the regular season -- OSU ranks near the bottom of FBS in plays run -- their physical toll paid through the season will be much less than their rivals, to the point of being like an extra bye week. This made me think about football's other defending national champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, bidding to become the first back-to-back Super Bowl winners since (checks notes)... Kansas City the previous two years. The Eagles making the playoffs isn't in doubt, as they're running away with the NFC East, but their dreams of a repeat do feel shaky for several reasons. Like any Super Bowl champion, Philadelphia lost several key players from last year's roster. Those personnel changes have shown up both in the eye test and in th...