No Alibis. No Sympathy. Just Results.

Anthony Joshua didn’t just beat Jake Paul, he exposed the ceiling. Paul said he was “tired” late in the fight. Sure. Everyone gets tired when the running stops and the consequences start. The novelty is gone. The curiosity is gone. And now the question isn’t what’s next for Jake Paul. It’s whether this was always the inevitable end of the experiment once he stepped in with a real heavyweight who didn’t play along.

Then there’s college football, where accountability continues to be optional. Alabama dug themselves a 17–0 hole, and Oklahoma still found a way to hand the game back. Fans will yell about the officials. They’ll scream about the fumble that should’ve been reviewed. Cool. None of that changes the fact that if you’re up 17–0 at home, in your own building, you’re supposed to finish. They didn’t. Sloppy execution, missed chances, and not enough plays when it mattered. That’s not bad luck, that’s bad football.

In the NFL, we go right back to Los Angeles vs Seattle, revisiting that review from yesterday. The one that keeps reigniting the same conversation about consistency, replay logic, and who actually gets the benefit of the doubt when games are on the line.

We also fold in the WNBA situation, because it deserves more than lip service. Bigger rosters. Childcare. Retirement benefits. Fair revenue sharing. These aren’t outrageous demands. And the league can’t keep marketing empowerment while dragging its feet when players ask to be treated like professionals.

And finally, the pearl-clutching over Diego Pavia is embarrassing. People in their 40s and 50s trying to police the personality and career choices of a player barely out of college looks less like concern and more like entitlement. He doesn’t like you anymore. You’ll live. Not every athlete exists to make you comfortable, grateful, or validated.

#collegefootballplayoff #jakepaulvsanthonyjoshua #wnba

Joel Klatt trashes college basketball and wants no part of Cinderella stories. Fine. But this is Hot Take Society at full volume — and it’s been spiraling ever since Jim Rome lit the fuse.

Let’s not dance around it. Joel Klatt calling college basketball “the worst sport” and rolling his eyes at Cinderella teams isn’t insight, it’s posture. It’s a hot take designed to travel, not to inform. And if you don’t like underdogs, speak for yourself, don’t pretend that’s some universal truth.

Here’s the part people don’t want to admit: Hot Take Society didn’t come out of nowhere. It started with, Jim Rome. And yes, this is a compliment...mostly. Rome built something powerful, undeniable, and irreversible. He changed sports media forever. But what he also created was a factory. A blueprint. A clone machine. And decades later, people are still lining up to be the next version of him. Louder, sharper, and often emptier. There is no turning back from that lane now.

That same lack of imagination shows up in the NBA expansion conversation. I’ve got no problem with, Las Vegas. No problem with, Seattle. But why does every decision funnel back to the same handful of “approved” cities? If the league actually cared about balance, growth, and opportunity, places like Kansas City wouldn’t be an afterthought. This is about more than basketball. It’s about revenue, jobs, and spreading opportunity instead of hoarding it.

Then there’s, Miami. Tua Tagovailoa getting benched is the headline, but it’s not the story. The real issue is who the Miami Dolphins are, top to bottom. Culture. Direction. Accountability. Mike McDaniel looks less like a coach building something and more like one trying to survive. If he gets another season, it feels like borrowed time. Tua is in the middle of it, but he’s not the root.

And after all that noise, I end where substance still matters. I can’t wait for Booyah on ESPN, honoring Stuart Scott. He didn’t need hot takes to matter. He made sports human. He made you feel like you were sitting next to him, talking ball. That kind of connection? We may never see it again.

#espn #collegebasketball #collegefootballplayoff

Notre Dame isn’t playing in a bowl game — and it doesn’t matter. Bowl games have become sponsor-driven propaganda, a way for networks and the NCAA to squeeze ratings and money out of teams that finished 5–7. No other level of football does this. The NFL doesn’t hand out “almost made it” trophies. High school football doesn’t either. So why does college?

Then, the Sherrone Moore situation. Jemele Hill called Moore a “cornball,” and while I understand the broader point she’s making about selective forgiveness and how Black coaches are treated differently, I don’t agree with how it was delivered. Jumping ahead of the full story doesn’t help the conversation — it muddies it.

Finally, we put the noise down and actually talk football. The College Football Playoff is here. Game by game, matchup by matchup, what this opening weekend really looks like on the field.

No fake outrage. No hot-take theater. Just The Smoke.

#notredame #collegefootball #collegefootballplayoff

Notre Dame Didn’t Blow This, The Committee Did

Paul Finebaum wants to run his mouth about Notre Dame “just needing to join a conference.” That is the most tired, surface-level take you could possibly throw out, and it flat-out ignores everything that actually happened. Joining a conference doesn’t magically make a committee suddenly honest. If Notre Dame were in the ACC, we still don’t know they’d be in the title game, because the ACC didn’t even send, MIAMI. They sent Duke and, Virginia. So stop pretending this is some easy alternate universe where Notre Dame controls its own destiny. They don’t, because the committee keeps moving the goalposts.

Meanwhile Alabama gets blown out by 21 in the SEC title game, and the committee literally said they weren’t going to punish them for it. Tell BYU that, because they absolutely punished BYU for losing their conference title game. So what is it? Losing matters or losing doesn’t matter? Oh, right, it depends on the logo.

Alabama has three losses and two of those by 35 total, but suddenly the August loss “shouldn’t count” because Florida State had a down year. Notre Dame? One loss. By three. Four total points all season. But somehow, THAT team needs a conference? Give me a break.

This isn’t about conferences, and it sure as hell isn’t about fairness. It’s about protecting certain brands, excusing certain conferences, and pretending the math changes when the helmet changes. If Finebaum wants to talk embarrassing, maybe he should look at the committee’s logic instead of pretending Notre Dame forgot to fill out the right membership form.

The Knicks got the win over Cleveland — but let’s not act like they didn’t almost give it away again. It’s the same story we’ve been seeing for years. In February 2022, they blew four double-digit leads in a single month. Then came Miami in 2023. Then Indiana in the playoffs last year — up 14 with under three minutes left, and still lost. At some point, it’s not bad luck. It’s who they are.

I also get into Draymond Green — because the numbers prove he’s not even close to being the league’s dirtiest player, no matter what people say. His villain label? Pure fabrication.

And to close it out — Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly are officially running out of rope with their awful records against ranked opponents. Meanwhile, Curt Cignetti’s doing more with less at Indiana, showing that money and hype don’t always equal saw.

In a bruising ACC showdown, Louisville outplayed and out-hustled Miami from start to finish, capitalizing on four turnovers from quarterback Carson Beck — the same mistakes that have long shadowed his career. Beck’s inconsistency once again proved costly, stalling Miami drives and shifting momentum squarely toward the Cardinals. Still, for Miami fans, all is not lost; with the right breaks down the stretch, the Hurricanes remain in the College Football Playoff conversation. But after last night, it’s clear — the road just got a lot tougher.

#miamifootball #louisvillefootball #football

You can look at the firing of James Franklin one of two ways. Either it’s a calculated risk — Penn State’s bold declaration that “we want to win, and we want to win now.” Or it’s straight-up buffoonery — a tone-deaf move that ignores where the program was when Franklin took over and how far he brought it. Given the foundation he built, the stability he created, and the consistent relevance he maintained in an ever-changing college football landscape, this decision could prove to be one of the most short-sighted in the university’s history.

Bill Belichick’s ego is costing recruits at North Carolina as he blocks Patriots scouts out of spite. Joe Flacco’s run in Cleveland looks fragile — how long before Browns fans start chanting for Shedeur Sanders? Jerry Jones wants credit for a Micah Parsons trade he never wanted to make. And the AP Top 25 is already a mess: Kansas State is losing, Alabama looks overrated, USF beat two “ranked” teams that don’t look ranked anymore, and Syracuse’s Fran Brown is running players after wins while running talent out the door.

Without Tom Brady, Bill Belichick is just another coach with a losing record — 45% wins compared to Brady’s 70% dominance. NFL owners saw it too, that’s why nobody lined up to hire him. Last night’s disaster with North Carolina getting embarrassed is just more proof: the mystique is gone, the genius label was always propped up by Brady, and Belichick is finally being revealed for who he really is.

Jerry Jones is lying through his teeth about the Micah Parsons trade, Boise State’s beatdown by USF proves preseason polls are a flat-out joke, and Ohio State vs. Texas preview. No fluff—just the raw truth, straight up.

#nfl #collegefootball #dallascowboys