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Good morning and happy hump day to you. Here are your freshly-baked bullets to get your day started.
Three thoughts
1. Promising TV numbers: The SEC seemingly set up for success with a 16-team super-league and the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 discussing forming an alliance had me looking for reasons to be optimistic on Tuesday. So I finally read a piece I’d previously bookmarked on TV viewership from 2015-19. I came away much more encouraged than expected. OSU ranked top-20 on the list during that span and outranked all but one Pac-12 school — USC — suggesting that, despite outward appearances, not all is doom and gloom. If a conference wants to expand, OSU could (and should) be among the first calls. (Whether a conference in the current power structure does expand is a separate matter I touched on here.)
2. Brennan Presley return work: OSU’s stellar sophomore receiver, Brennan Presley, is in line for a big breakout in 2021 as one of the team’s top pass-catchers. But darn it if I’m not way too excited to see what he can do in the return game. Electric factory with the ball in his hands. It feels like it’s been a long time since OSU has had a dynamic playmaker in the return game and with all due respect to always-steady Dillon Stoner, that game-breaking ability is something that could liven up OSU’s special teams in a significant way.
3. The Big 12 announced its COVID-19 forfeiture policies on Tuesday for the 2021 season and said that if a conference game is canceled because a team does not have enough players (because of COVID-19 or any other reasons), that team will be forced to forfeit and handed an L. That’s a change from last year and probably an extra kick of motivation for programs to get as fully vaccinated as possible to reduce the risk of not having a full squad.
Two quotes
This follow from the Tulsa World’s Guerin Emig on the $14 million shortfall facing the remaining Big 12 teams with OU and Texas leaving for the SEC was really good. This line slayed me. Slayed me. (Guerin is a strong follow on Twitter, by the way. Get at him.)
The only “similar replacements” for OU and Texas in terms of the Big 12 regaining lost market value are in the SEC (Alabama being most obvious), Big Ten (Ohio State and Michigan), Pac-12 (USC) and ACC (Clemson). There is also Notre Dame, but the Irish abandoning its treasured football independence to rescue the Big 12 is crazier than Gus Malzahn punting on second down.
OSU’s women’s soccer team opens its season on Thursday. This from Marshall was a great primer for what’s ahead. Team is so darn likable, from head coach Colin Carmichael on down.
“When that group is healthy and we’re all on the field together, we have the chance to be pretty special,” Carmichael said.
One question
What streaming service would you choose if you could only keep one? (I.e. Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max ..) We cut HBO Max and Disney+ to save $ and share family logins with the others, but … I kinda think HBO Max might be the best product?
Non-OSU Bullets
- I separated the big college hoops title contenders into tiers for CBS. It was an exercise that made me completely terrified of just how good Chris Beard is going to be at Texas.
- This from The Atlantic’s Ed Yong on how the pandemic ends and how the Delta variant has changed the calculus of the pandemic was really really great and informative.
- A really great read here that opened my eyes a lot about those who live with O.C.D. and just how hard the pandemic has been for those afflicted with it.
The post Daily Bullets (Aug. 18): Big TV Numbers, Return Work for Presley? appeared first on Pistols Firing.