Looking Back

With so many sports going on at once, how can you keep track of them all? You don't have to, but I will. Every Monday I will look back and hit briefly upon the 5 story lines that stuck out from the previous weekend.

1. The Big 12 officially has the depth to compete with the SEC as college football's best conference. What a huge Saturday, and nobody made more noise than these two conferences. To say that another conference is even close is absolutely absurd. What we are witnessing happen is teams beating each other up in conference play. This will lead to teams getting worse bowl games than they deserve, which will lead to the Maryland's of the world being absolutely torched.

Consider:

Texas is now the number one team in the country after beating Oklahoma, but if you don't think Oklahoma is still a top 5 team, you didn't watch that game.

Kansas looked dominant. They're 16 and should be higher.

Oklahoma St. is undefeated. It really wasn't that huge of an upset over Missouri.

2. Wake Forest is the best team in the ACC. Which means that Maryland will probably beat them Saturday. If Maryland does, the Coastal is there for the taking, because the next three best teams (VT, GT, and UNC) are all in the Atlantic.

3. The MLB playoffs are fun again. After some boring divisional series, the championships series are already heating up. Tampa Bay proved their mettle - again - by outlasting the Sox in game 2 after being blanked by Dice-K in game 1. And the Dodgers certainly made things interesting last night in their beat-down of the Phillies, especially Hiroki Kuroda, who threw the ball on a line at Shane Victorino's head.

I love the Dodgers player, who, after the game said: "It wasn't at his head, it was over his head."

Yea, he ducked.

4. Contender or Pretender? 

Contender: Colts, Jags, Chargers, Bucs, Cardinals

Pretender: Pats, Dolphins, Ravens

5. Matt Ryan is already better than a lot of starting quarterbacks in the NFL. Did you see that throw he made with 6 seconds left to put the team in field goal range? Terrific throw. Every time I see a Falcons highlight, it's Matt Ryan heaving the ball 40 yards downfield right on the money. 

Meanwhile, Joe Flacco is playing like ... a rookie from Delaware who should be the third string quarterback on his team this year but, due to a couple injuries, is forced to start behind a young offensive line and with a new head coach.

He will get better, but it may not be this year.