Surprises and Disappointments; Brady's Conflict; NFL Gets Its Kicks; Whatever Happened to Free Speech?

As usual, Saturday was a day of big surprises and disappointments in college football.

Biggest surprise: No. 19 Indiana annihilated No. 9 Illinois, 63-10. Curt Cignetti might be the best coach in college football right now. The Hoosiers have been dissed by many so-called "experts", who believed last year's 11-2 season was a fluke, that Indiana "didn't play anybody." Well, they played a top 10 team Saturday, and destroyed them.

Leading the way was former Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who completed 21 of 23 passes for 267yards and five touchdowns. The Hoosiers also rushed for 312 yards. Mendoza has been improving steadily since he started 2023 as Cal's No. 4 quarterback, and is now recognized as a probable first round NFL draft pick.

Biggest Faceplant: Mendoza's old team, the Cal Golden Bears, lost to San Diego State 34-0. After a 3-0 start, people were actually mentioning the Bears as a possible playoff team, given the fact that they don't play Miami, Florida State or Clemson, and have a rising young QB in freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele.

But somehow Cal found a way to get completely embarrassed by a mediocre SDS team that a week earlier had been crushed by Washington State, 36-10. Head coach Justin Wilcox seemingly can't stand prosperity. Last year his team lost several games they should've won because of missed field goals.

The Best Team Money Can Buy: Texas Tech spent over $5 Million bringing in five top defensive linemen, including former Stanford edge David Bailey. On Saturday they ran roughshod over an offensive line Utah coach Kyle Whittingham says is the best he's had at Utah in over two decades. Texas Tech also has two excellent quarterbacks in senior Behren Morton and freshman Will Hammond. They could be a playoff team.

Biggest Disappointment: Clemson is now 1-3 after losing to Syracuse 34-21. The Tigers can't run the ball, quarterback Cade Klubnik is underperforming, and the defense floundered against Georgia Tech and Syracuse.

I've always respected Coach Dabo Swinney for his desire to build teams from the ground up, developing his own players rather than through the transfer portal, but in today's world, that may not be possible anymore.

Back to Earth: Stanford rebounded from two disappointing losses to beat Boston College last week, but returned to reality Saturday night with a dis-spiriting 48-20 loss to Virginia. The Cavaliers moved the ball and scored at wil against the Cardinal, racking up 590 yards in total offense. Interim coach Frank Reich's team has a chance to get back in the win column at home against San Jose State this week.

Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris, who threw for 380 yards and four TDs against Stanford, is the epitome of today's transfer-dominated game. Virginia is his fourth team. He started at Oklahoma, then spent two years as a part-time starter at TCU, then last year at North Texas, where he threw for 3774 yards and 31 TDs. You have to wonder if he even remembers the names of any of the guys he's played with.

Welcome to College Football: Bill Belichick, he of the six Super Bowl rings and 24-year old girlfriend, is getting a rude introduction to college football. After Saturday's 34-9 loss to UCF, his North Carolina Tar Heels have been embarrassed by a combined score of 82-23 to UCF and TCU. His two wins came against lower division foes Charlotte and Richmond. Next up, a Clemson team that will be out for blood, but Belichick is very fortunate he doesn't have to play Miami, Florida State or Georgia Tech this season.

Moving on to pro football...

Brady's Conflict: There's been a lot of noise throughout the sports media this week about the apparent conflict of interest Tom Brady represents as both the lead analyst on Fox's NFL broadcasts and minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.

The concerns reached a crescendo after cameras showed Brady sitting in the Raiders' coaches' booth wearing a headset last Monday night. That led even casual observers to question how much of a role the seven-time Super Bowl champion-turned broadcaster was playing in running the Raiders.

Namely, is he a quiet minority investor or something akin to an offensive consultant or director of football operations?

From here, it seems like Brady wants it all. He wants to be the lead voice of Fox's NFL coverage while also being a decision maker in Las Vegas. If so, it raises an integrity question the league shouldn't ignore.

Raiders' offensive coordinator Chip Kelly says he talks to Brady frequently to go over game plans and offensive strategy. 

That should concern all the Raiders' opponents that Brady covers as a broadcaster.

Brady was on the call for yesterday's Chicago Bears vs. Dallas Cowboys game. He met with coaches and players from both teams as part of his "preparation" for the broadcast.

Next week, Chicago plays the Raiders. Did Las Vegas get an inside scouting report as a result of Brady's interviews?

Given how paranoid Brady's coach, Bill Belichick, was about providing any information about his team, and how he schemed to videotape other team's practices, it would seem that he might understand how big of a conflict this presents.

Clearly, he's more involved in football strategy than your typical minority team owner. I doubt Serena Williams (Dolphins) and Condoleeza Rice (Broncos) are sitting in the coaches' booth wearing headsets during games.

NFL Gets Its Kicks: Several games in the NFL swung on blocked field goal attempts yesterday. We won't outline them here, but Rams-Eagles, Buccaneers-Jets and Packers-Browns all were impacted by blocked FGs. 

One that wasn't blocked was the 49ers' game-winner over Arizona. The Niners have to be glad they finally cut the cord with third round draft bust Jake Moody and brought in Eddy Pineiro, who drilled a 35-yard walk-off field goal yesterday and has hit 88.5% over his career.

Two other big plusses for unbeaten San Francisco were the play of backup quarterback Mac Jones, who led the game-winning drive, and receiver Ricky Pearsall, who had eight catches for 117 yards.

Censorship, Anyone?

The Inside Track blog is being shut down by the FCC and the White House.

It seems we've been targeted because of posts that criticized the current administration, berated lawmakers for failing to enact sensible gun laws, and implied that murdered activist Charlie Kirk wasn't a saint.

I'm just kidding, of course.

Fact it, The Inside Track's distribution isn't big enough to worry President Trump and his minions, and we have no corporate parent planning a merger or acquisition that needs federal approval.

But it could happen.

After Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel were trashed, and earlier ABC, CBS, several elite universities, some of our nation's top law firms, and a parade of powerful CEOs, including Jeff Bezos, capitulated or surrendered, you wonder who's next.

Trump has already filed multi-billion dollar lawsuits against the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, and he's identified Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon as his next late-night targets.

Whatever happened to free speech?

The foundation of a democracy is the ability for people to disagree with each other, sometimes passionately and forcefully, without fear of reprisal.

Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FCC chair Brendan Carr need to familiarize themselves with the First Amendment, which protects five fundamental freedoms--freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition the government.

In his second term, without the guardrails that could be provided by sensible, qualified cabinet members, or Congressmen and Senators with a backbone, Trump has been hellbent on suppressing free speech, bringing the media to its knees, punishing his enemies, and stifling protest.

Even Republican Senator, Ted Cruz, with whom I don't think I've ever agreed with on anything, sees the danger here, recently declaring:

"I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying, 'We're going to decide what speech we like and what we don't, and we're going to threaten to take you off the air if we don't like what you're saying.'"

But that's exactly what Trump and Carr are doing.

This is no longer a democracy, folks. It more closely resembles Putin's Russia and 1930s Germany. It's exactly the type of tyranny that our forefathers fought against 250 years ago.

We can all sit back and wait for them to come for us. Or we can make our voices heard and stand with those who are defending democracy, free speech, and the rule of law..

Before it's too late.