It is Kansas' turn at No. 1 in the Top 25 men's college basketball poll, while another blue blood -- North Carolina -- is out for the first time in nearly six years.

The Jayhawks (9-1) moved up one spot to become the fifth team to top the poll in an already wild season. It is the first time the AP poll has had five different No. 1s before New Year's Day; the record for an entire season is seven, set in 1982-83.

Michigan State, Kentucky, Duke and Louisville have been the other top-ranked teams so far in a year with no dominant squad.

The Jayhawks, who received 47 of 65 first-place votes, haven't lost since falling to Duke in the Champions Classic to open the season. That run has included winning the Maui Invitational and beating a then-ranked Colorado team, with all but an overtime win against Dayton for the Maui title coming by double-digit margins.

Kansas coach Bill Self said his team has "been pretty good and fairly consistent" since the Duke loss.

"I think we are getting better, but still, up until about January, rankings don't really mean that much," Self said last week of potentially rising to No. 1, "but it is worth a little bit more as we get toward conference play."

North Carolina (6-4) had been ranked for 106 consecutive weeks dating to February 2014, including starting this year in the top 10 and peaking at No. 5 on Nov. 18.

The Tar Heels failed to crack 50 points in losses to both highly ranked Ohio State and Virginia, then lost Sunday to Wofford in Chapel Hill with star freshman point guard Cole Anthony and fellow starter Leaky Black out with injuries.

THE TOP TIER

Losses by four of last week's top five teams led to a reshuffled top tier.

Gonzaga (11-1) jumped four spots to No. 2 and earned 15 first-place votes, followed by last week's No. 1, Louisville, falling to third after losing to Texas Tech. Duke rose three spots to fourth, followed by Ohio State falling two spots to No. 5 after a loss at Minnesota.

Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon, reigning national champion Virginia and Baylor round out the top 10.

RISING

San Diego State (10-0) had the week's biggest jump, rising five spots to No. 20. In all, 13 teams moved up from last week's poll, most by one or two spots.

SLIDING

Michigan (8-3) had the biggest slide of the week, falling nine spots to No. 14 after losses to Illinois and in overtime to Oregon. The Wolverines were unranked to start the season but shot up to No. 4 after winning the Thanksgiving-week Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.

Six teams slid in this week's poll overall.

STATUS QUO

Ninth-ranked Virginia and No. 12 Auburn, who met in last year's Final Four, were the only teams to remain at the same position.

LONG WAIT

Penn State checked in at No. 23 for the program's first poll appearance in more than two decades.

The Nittany Lions (9-2) hadn't appeared in the AP poll since being ranked 18th in March 1996. Before that season, Penn State was last ranked in December 1954.

WELCOME

Joining Penn State as the week's new additions were No. 22 Washington, No. 24 Texas Tech and No. 25 West Virginia, though the Huskies and Red Raiders were both ranked previously this year.

FAREWELL FOR NOW

North Carolina (No. 17), Seton Hall (No. 22), Xavier (No. 23) and Colorado (No. 24) fell out after being ranked last week.

CONFERENCE WATCH

The Big Ten led the way with five ranked teams, including current No. 15 and preseason No. 1 Michigan State. The Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference each had four ranked teams, while the Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences each had three.

No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Ohio State each placed three players on the Associated Press All-America first team released Monday.

Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow of LSU highlights the first-team offense and Heisman finalist Chase Young of Ohio State leads the defense on the team presented by Regions Bank, which was chosen by a panel of 15 college football poll voters.

The top-ranked Tigers also placed receiver Ja'Marr Chase and cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. on the first team. Young was joined on the first team by Ohio State teammates Wyatt Davis, a guard, and Jeff Okudah, a cornerback. No. 3 Clemson's only first-team All-American was linebacker Isaiah Simmons. No. 4 Oklahoma was represented on the first team by receiver CeeDee Lamb.

No. 5 Georgia and No. 11 Wisconsin were the other teams with multiple first-team selections. Georgia placed tackle Andrew Thomas and safety J.R. Reed on the All-America team.

Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor is the only player this season to repeat as a first-team All-American. Badgers center Tyler Biadasz also made the first team.

Ohio State led all teams with seven players selected to the three All-America teams, including quarterback Justin Fields, who made the second team.

No. 9 Alabama had no players selected to the first team for the first time since 2010, but it had five players combined on the second and third teams. Oklahoma and Utah also had five selections on the three teams, and LSU and Clemson each had four.

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The 2019 Associated Press All-America Team presented by Regions Bank:

FIRST TEAM

OFFENSE

Quarterback -- Joe Burrow, senior, LSU.

Running backs -- Chuba Hubbard, sophomore, Oklahoma State; Jonathan Taylor, junior, Wisconsin.

Tackles -- Penei Sewell, sophomore, Oregon; Andrew Thomas, junior, Georgia.

Guards -- Wyatt Davis, sophomore, Ohio State; Kevin Dotson, senior, Louisiana-Lafayette.

Center -- Tyler Biadasz, junior, Wisconsin.

Tight end -- Harrison Bryant, senior, Florida Atlantic.

Wide receivers -- Ja'Marr Chase, sophomore, LSU; CeeDee Lamb, junior, Oklahoma.

All-purpose player -- Lynn Bowden Jr., junior, Kentucky.

Kicker -- Keith Duncan, junior, Iowa.

DEFENSE

Ends -- Chase Young, junior, Ohio State; James Lynch, junior, Baylor.

Tackles -- Derrick Brown, senior, Auburn; Javon Kinlaw, senior, South Carolina.

Linebackers -- Isaiah Simmons, junior, Clemson; Evan Weaver, senior, California; Micah Parsons, sophomore, Penn State.

Cornerbacks -- Derek Stingley, freshman, LSU; Jeff Okudah, junior, Ohio State.

Safeties -- Antoine Winfield Jr., sophomore, Minnesota; J.R. Reed, senior, Georgia.

Punter -- Max Duffy, junior, Kentucky.

SECOND TEAM

OFFENSE

Quarterback -- Justin Fields, sophomore, Ohio State.

Running backs -- J.K. Dobbins, junior, Ohio State; Travis Etienne, junior, Clemson.

Tackles -- Jedrick Wills Jr., junior, Alabama; Tristan Wirfs, junior, Iowa.

Guards -- Shane Lemieux, senior, Oregon; John Simpson, senior, Clemson.

Center -- Creed Humphrey, sophomore, Oklahoma.

Tight end -- Hunter Bryant, junior, Washington.

Wide receivers -- DeVonta Smith, junior, Alabama; Michael Pittman, senior, Southern California.

All-purpose player -- Jaylen Waddle, sophomore, Alabama.

Kicker -- Rodrigo Blankenship, senior, Georgia.

DEFENSE

Ends -- A.J. Epenesa, junior, Iowa; Curtis Weaver, junior, Boise State.

Tackles -- Jaylen Twyman, sophomore, Pittsburgh; Jordan Elliott, junior, Missouri.

Linebackers -- Hamilcar Rashed Jr., junior, Oregon State; Zack Baun, senior, Wisconsin; Jordyn Brooks, senior, Texas Tech..

Cornerbacks -- Amik Robertson, junior, Louisiana Tech; Jaylon Johnson, junior, Utah.

Safeties -- Julian Blackmon, senior, Utah; Grant Delpit, junior, LSU.

Punter -- Braden Mann, senior, Texas A&M.

THIRD TEAM

OFFENSE

Quarterback -- Jalen Hurts, senior, Oklahoma.

Running backs -- Zack Moss, senior, Utah; AJ Dillon, junior, Boston College.

Tackles -- Calvin Throckmorton, senior, Oregon; Colton McKivitz, senior, West Virginia.

Guards -- Jonah Jackson, senior, Ohio State; Ben Bredeson, senior, Michigan.

Center -- Matt Hennessy, junior, Temple.

Tight end -- Charlie Kolar, sophomore, Iowa State.

Wide receivers -- Omar Bayless, senior, Arkansas State; Rashod Bateman, sophomore, Minnesota.

All-purpose player -- Brandon Aiyuk, senior, Arizona State.

Kicker -- Nick Sciba, sophomore, Wake Forest.

DEFENSE

Ends -- Bradlee Anae, senior, Utah; Alex Highsmith, senior, Charlotte.

Tackles -- Leki Fotu, senior, Utah; Neville Gallimore, senior, Oklahoma.

Linebackers -- Logan Wilson, senior, Wyoming; Kenneth Murray, junior, Oklahoma; Malik Harrison, senior, Ohio State.

Cornerbacks -- Trevon Diggs, senior, Alabama; Luq Barcoo, senior, San Diego State.

Safeties -- Tanner Muse, senior, Clemson; Xavier McKinney, junior, Alabama.

Punter -- Sterling Hofrichter, senior, Syracuse.

We're down to four teams for the 2019 college football national championship, as the College Football Playoff is set to begin later this month. But who were the best players this season?

Let's take a look as we unveil our annual ESPN All-America team. Nine of the players are in the playoff, with Ohio State and LSU leading the way with three selections each. There's not much suspense at quarterback, but what a thankless task to narrow it down at some of the other positions, namely picking just two running backs and three linebackers. Several of these players were on our preseason and midseason All-America teams, but this is the one that counts.

Offense

QB: Joe Burrow, LSU
What a whirlwind for Burrow, who has gone from transferring from Ohio State to being a solid player last season at LSU to being a runaway winner this season for the Heisman Trophy. His numbers are staggering. He passed for 4,715 yards and 48 touchdowns with only six interceptions while completing 77.9% of his passes. And, for the record, it's now Joe Burreaux on the Bayou.

RB: Chuba Hubbard, Oklahoma State
The Canadian running back showed this season he's a lot more than just a track star playing football. The 6-foot-1, 207-pound redshirt sophomore was the FBS leader in rushing yards (1,936), rushing yards per game (161.3), 200-yard rushing games (four) and all-purpose yards per game (180.1). Hubbard led all FBS running backs with seven plays of 50 yards or longer from scrimmage and scored 21 touchdowns.

RB: Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin
Taylor solidified a historic career with his third consecutive 1,900-yard rushing season while scoring a career-high 21 touchdowns on the ground. Taylor became just the seventh player in NCAA history to eclipse 6,000 career rushing yards, and he continued to build on his FBS record for most rushing yards through the first three seasons in college.

WR: Ja'Marr Chase, LSU
LSU's remarkable transformation on offense wasn't all just about Burrow, who spread the ball around to a talented crop of receivers. Chase, a 6-1, 200-pound sophomore, has been simply spectacular, with 1,498 receiving yards and 18 touchdown catches in taking home the Biletnikoff Award as the top receiver in college football.

WR: CeeDee Lamb, Oklahoma
The Sooners have produced a wealth of dynamic skill players over the years, and Lamb has been as explosive as any of them. The 6-2, 189-pound junior ranks seventh nationally in yards per catch (20.83) and is the only player in the top 10 to catch more than 55 passes (58). Lamb is tied for first nationally with five catches of 60 yards or longer and enters the College Football Playoff with 14 touchdown receptions.

TE: Harrison Bryant, Florida Atlantic
In high school, Bryant also played offensive tackle and defensive end, but he leaves FAU as the Mackey Award winner as the nation's top tight end. The 6-5, 240-pound senior leads all FBS tight ends in receptions (65) and yards (1,004) and is tied for the national lead among tight ends in touchdown catches (7). Bryant is the first non-Power 5/Notre Dame player to win the Mackey Award.

T: Penei Sewell, Oregon
Only a sophomore, the 6-6, 326-pound Sewell looks exactly like you want your left tackle to look, and he plays like a grizzled NFL veteran. Sewell was one of the top players, period, this season in the Pac-12 and a force on an extremely talented Oregon offensive line. He's as skilled protecting the passer as he is mauling defenders in the running game and won the Outland Trophy as the nation's top interior lineman.

G: Wyatt Davis, Ohio State
After making just two starts last season, the 6-4, 313-pound redshirt sophomore emerged as one of the top interior offensive linemen in college football and one of the most improved players in the country. Davis' strength and power are on display every snap, and he repeatedly got the better of some of the top interior defensive linemen in the Big Ten. He didn't allow a sack from his right guard spot.

C: Tyler Biadasz, Wisconsin
What would an All-America offensive line look like without a Wisconsin lineman? Biadasz, a 6-3, 320-pound redshirt junior, has been the anchor of that Badgers offensive line and helped to clear the way for Taylor to romp for 1,909 yards this season. Biadasz has the versatility to potentially move to guard in the NFL and is also an outstanding pass-protector.

G: John Simpson, Clemson
When you're as balanced as Clemson has been this season on offense, that means a lot of people are getting it done up front on the offensive line. Simpson, a 6-4, 330-pound senior, has been the best of the bunch and was one of the six semifinalists for the Outland Trophy. He's a mauler in the run game and cleared the way for Travis Etienne to rush for 1,500 yards and 17 touchdowns this season.

T: Andrew Thomas, Georgia
The 6-5, 320-pound junior has been a staple on the Bulldogs' offensive line from the day he walked onto campus, the first season at right tackle and the past two at left tackle. Thomas faced one top pass-rusher after another this season in the SEC and is a big reason why Georgia enters its bowl game tied for fourth nationally in sacks allowed (12 in 13 games).

All-purpose: Lynn Bowden Jr., Kentucky
After starting the season as a receiver/kick returner, Bowden moved over to quarterback because of injuries at that position. The 6-1, 199-pound junior was the only FBS player to lead his team in both rushing (1,235 yards and 11 touchdowns) and receiving (30 catches for 348 yards and a touchdown). In the regular-season finale, Bowden shredded rival Louisville for 284 rushing yards, breaking the SEC single-game record for rushing yards by a quarterback.

Defense

DE: Chase Young, Ohio State
The most dominant and most feared defender in college football this season, Young ransacked opposing offensive lines on his way to being a Heisman Trophy finalist. Despite having to sit out two games because of a suspension, he still racked up 16.5 sacks to lead the country. He also forced six fumbles and was every opposing offensive coordinator's worst nightmare on every play.

DT: Derrick Brown, Auburn
With the athleticism of an edge defender, the 6-5, 318-pound Brown dominated from his inside spot at tackle. When he wasn't blowing up double-teams to get to ball carriers, he was collapsing the pocket and putting pressure on quarterbacks. Brown's 12.5 tackles for loss tied for the team lead, and his presence in the middle of one of the most talented defensive lines in college football made everybody around him better.

DT/E: James Lynch, Baylor
Lining up as an end in Baylor's base 3-3-5 defense, Lynch also played some inside and was the centerpiece of a Bears unit that made massive strides and ranked in the top 20 nationally in scoring defense. The 6-4, 295-pound junior gave Big 12 offenses fits with his blend of power and athleticism. He collected 12.5 sacks, broke up five passes and forced three fumbles.

DE: Bradlee Anae, Utah
For the third consecutive season, Anae led Utah in sacks (12.5), and his 29.5 career sacks rank fourth among active FBS players. The 6-3, 265-pound senior was one of the Pac-12's most dynamic edge disruptors and a driving force on a Utes squad that ranked third nationally in total defense and tied for fifth nationally in scoring defense.

LB: Isaiah Simmons, Clemson
Simmons' versatility is what sets him apart. The 6-4, 230-pound redshirt junior started his career at safety. He's as comfortable in coverage as he is rushing the passer, and his instincts make him a big play waiting to happen on defense. Simmons, Clemson's first Butkus Award winner as the nation's top linebacker, has 14 tackles for loss, 14 quarterback pressures and two interceptions.

LB: Evan Weaver, Cal
The 6-3, 235-pound senior has been a tackling machine for the Bears from his inside linebacker position. He leads the country with 173 total tackles, including 10 for loss, and was voted by the coaches this season as the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. Weaver needs 20 tackles in the bowl game to eclipse the NCAA single-season record of 193 set in 14 games by Texas Tech's Lawrence Flugence in 2002.

LB: Micah Parsons, Penn State
Hard-hitting linebackers and Penn State have been synonymous over the years. Parsons, a 6-3, 245-pound sophomore, is one of the surest tacklers in college football and one of those defenders who's an impact player on all three downs. He led the Nittany Lions this season with 95 total tackles, including 11 for loss, and also forced two fumbles.

CB: Jeff Okudah, Ohio State
Okudah has the length, ball skills and speed all coaches covet in a cornerback, and he has been one of the catalysts for an Ohio State defense that improved dramatically from 2018 and ranks third nationally in scoring defense. The 6-1, 200-pound Okudah has three interceptions and two forced fumbles, and opposing offenses rarely test him.

S: Antoine Winfield Jr., Minnesota
The bloodlines are strong for Winfield, whose father won the Thorpe Award at Ohio State in 1998 as the top defensive back in college football and was a first-round NFL draft pick. The younger Winfield is following in those footsteps. A redshirt sophomore, Winfield bounced back from injuries the past two years to lead the Golden Gophers in tackles (83) and interceptions (seven). He had two picks in the victory over Penn State.

S: Xavier McKinney, Alabama
The Crimson Tide might not have been as dominant in the front seven as in recent years, but their secondary was excellent in 2019. McKinney, a 6-1, 200-pound junior, set the tone with a team-leading 85 total tackles. He also intercepted three passes and forced four fumbles. Nick Saban has coached his share of elite safeties at Alabama, and McKinney certainly belongs in that group.

CB: Derek Stingley Jr., LSU
The debate will continue to rage about which school really is "DBU," but in his freshman season, Stingley was as good as (and maybe even better than) LSU hoped he would be coming out of high school as one of the nation's top cornerback prospects. He led the SEC with six interceptions and also broke up 15 passes. Being a true freshman, Stingley was targeted by a lot of opposing quarterbacks, but won a lot more battles than he lost.

Special teams

K: Nick Sciba, Wake Forest
The sophomore from Clover, South Carolina, saw his NCAA record of 34 consecutive made field goals snapped this season when he missed a 48-yarder in the regular-season finale against Syracuse. Sciba regrouped to drill a 43-yarder in the final seconds to send that game into overtime and finished 24-of-25 on the season. He tied a school record with five field goals in the 22-20 win over Florida State.

P: Max Duffy, Kentucky
Another in a long line of talented Aussie punters, Duffy won the Ray Guy Award this season as the top punter in college football. Duffy leads the nation in punting with an average of 48.6 yards, and the Wildcats also lead the country in net punting with an average of 45.13 yards. Only nine of Duffy's 47 punts have been returned this season.

KR: Joshua Youngblood, Kansas State
The future is bright in the Little Apple with coach Chris Klieman, and a big reason why is the kind of young players he's bringing into the program in the mold of Youngblood. The freshman receiver, who was a quarterback in high school, returned just 13 kickoffs this season, but three of them went for touchdowns, against Texas, Texas Tech and Iowa State. He became the first freshman to be named the Big 12's Special Teams Player of the Year.

A WOMAN DECKED out in a purple-and-gold sequin dress, looking for all the world like a Mardi Gras disco ball, is trying to be stealthy. She nudges her companion, lest she miss this incredible stroke of good luck, to show her who's standing right there across the sidewalk. The friend, whose fandom is less flashy -- just an LSU No. 9 jersey for her -- looks up to find a mass of 30 or 40 people milling around a white canopy, mostly wearing No. 9 themselves. She doesn't even offer the courtesy of pretending not to stare.

Those are his parents! The two women nod to each other, then walk away, their celebrity sighting duly confirmed.

They're right, of course. There, among the dozens tailgating in the shadow of Tiger Stadium, are Jimmy and Robin Burrow -- Joe Burrow's parents, which is mostly how they're known in this town. Which is why they're celebrities in this town, the kind who attract a stream of gawkers to their tailgate. Baton Rouge has fallen hard.

Joe's crew isn't exactly taking great pains to obfuscate. Jimmy and Robin are wearing Burrow jerseys, his plain, hers a bedazzled version, the purple No. 9 sparkling when the sun hits right. Joe's oldest brother, Jamie, has a jersey on too, except the Cajun spirit got him and he sports one that says "Burreaux." A family friend from back home in Athens, Ohio, went with a purple and gold tee that proclaims, "We are EAUX-HI-EAUX."

It's the final frenzied hours before Burrow plays in Tiger Stadium for the last time, against Texas A&M, and what do you know, more lookie-loos "happen upon" his family's tailgate. A middle-aged woman hollers in Jimmy's direction, "The next Joe Burrow is with us! No. 7, right here!" Her No. 7 is a high schooler, her son presumably, with a mop of dirty brown hair and a Leonard Fournette jersey. Next-Joe-Burrow's family stops to chat up actual-Joe-Burrow's family, then they take a picture together for posterity. Everyone is desperate to capture this moment.

Jimmy is silver-haired and ruddy, his cheeks a forever shade of crimson, so he constantly looks tickled, like this is all still a hoot to him. Like he still can't believe this is what his son has done. He smiles and shrugs. It's all he has left to offer. What can he say? These are strange times.

These people, the Burrows, are close to Joe, and so they are close to the sun.

He still tries to visit the tailgate, Joe does. Even as his numbers soar silly high and he whack-a-moles LSU and SEC passing records. Even as the team barrels toward its first playoff berth. He comes by after games, though each week it devolves into a more complicated affair.

After LSU beat Arkansas in late November -- earning a spot in the SEC title game for the first time in eight years and becoming the first team in SEC history to claim a 4,000-yard passer, two 1,000-yard receivers and a 1,000-yard rusher all in the same season -- the team coordinated Joe's arrival for his postgame family reunion. It was an undertaking befitting a head of state, which, if we're being honest, Burrow is by now in the state of Louisiana.

Handlers hustled Burrow from deep inside Tiger Stadium into an unmarked police car, which shuttled down South Stadium Drive, then deposited him in front of his family's tailgate. It was a very official, mostly futile attempt to shield him from the onslaught.

"I've never seen a frenzy like this," LSU coach Ed Orgeron says. "Never in any school I've been in."

TWO DAYS AFTER his quarterback's final home game, Orgeron sits on a couch tucked in the northwest corner of Tiger Stadium and tries to make sense of what Burrow has done in -- and to -- Baton Rouge this season.

When the game ended that Nov. 30 night -- Texas A&M's soul well and truly crushed after Burrow and the Tigers offense did unmentionable things to the Aggies -- Burrow beelined for the delirious LSU student section. He blew kisses to the crowd like a jubilant beauty queen; he clasped his hands, raising them high above his head, waving them to and fro like a conquering prizefighter. There will be a Heisman won, a playoff game or two to come -- yet more work to be done, starting with Oklahoma, to hold on to this a little longer, college football's most raucous mutual admiration society.

"He can do what he wants," Orgeron jokes about his quarterback. Probably. He probably jokes.

Burrow himself joked later that night that he bum-rushed the students for a reason. He doesn't go to class -- he came to LSU as a graduate transfer by way of Ohio State, degree in hand, and now takes online courses toward his master's -- so this was his shot to thank them, these people who adore him but don't ever see him, don't really know him at all beyond the mythic vision they watch on Saturdays.

He doesn't really roam campus at all, holing up in his apartment, mostly emerging to make the five-minute drive to the football facility. That part of his fishbowl experience, at least, is familiar. Celebrities can't go out in public, not really, and that's what he is here: the state's brightest star. His parents, who travel to every game, home or away, do his grocery shopping for him when they land in Baton Rouge on Fridays. When LSU went on the road for two weeks, first to Alabama and then to Ole Miss, Jimmy and Robin weren't in town to restock, so he just ... went without groceries.

"Yeah, this is different," Orgeron says.

"I've never seen a frenzy like this." Ed Orgeron

There's a lot of that this fall: the old ladies who saw Burrow walk into a clothing store, on the hunt for a new suit, then followed him in; the fans who camp out in the parking lot for autographs, for who knows how many hours, scouting out the entrance to the practice facility, waiting for their mark -- Burrow -- like they're on a sting; the locals who've gotten wind that he frequents Brocato, a one-room salon that looks nothing at all like a salon and everything like a worn-in cottage, where Matt Brocato, the owner, sees to Burrow's hair once a month. When he needs a breather from the mayhem of the season, this is where he retreats to, Brocato, because it feels "old school ... like I'm in the '80s or '90s," Burrow says.

Brocato takes care to protect Burrow's privacy, even though virtually all his customers have asked for a heads-up when Burrow's on his way. "No way," he tells them. He's 61 -- hippie-bookish, with thick black glasses and a mess of brown hair -- and a Baton Rouge lifer. He was born 5 miles from Tiger Stadium but never once went to a game until he took on Burrow as a client.

"Right now, he owns the city," Brocato says. "He really does."

Oh, you've heard this one before? The one about the star football player who's a huge hit with the football-loving college town? Rohan Davey has heard it too. Like Burrow, he was a quarterback here who broke records. In 2001, Davey became the first passer ever to throw for more than 3,000 yards in a season for the Tigers. He's seen prolific quarterbacks come through (Matt Mauck, JaMarcus Russell) and beloved stars (Tyrann Mathieu, Leonard Fournette) and championship-hopeful teams (2003, 2007, 2011), but he professes, as Orgeron professes, that this is different from all those other people and all those other times. He knew it on Nov. 22.

He emceed the Bengal Belles Senior Luncheon that Friday afternoon, and as he sat in the Raising Cane's River Center ballroom, he looked up as Burrow's name was announced. Two police officers walked in front, two trailed behind, with Burrow sandwiched in between. They stood at attention, watchdogs guarding how close the public could encroach.

Did Davey ever experience anything like that?

"No. Hell no," he says.

Mathieu? Fournette, even?

"No. Hell no," he says again. "Nowhere near."

In a neat trick, Burrow seems at once pretty unruffled by it all and keen to stoke this gumbo-soaked fervor. Clandestine operations to get him out of the stadium? Crowd control on his person? "Never in a million years thought I'd be doing that," he says.

He's sitting on a bench in the team's weight room, wearing a Looney Tunes sweatshirt, as he is wont to do. "Joe is ... definitely himself," says his former Ohio State teammate J.T. Barrett, as does nearly anyone who has ever spent any amount of time with Burrow.

Burrow has a tendency to rake his hands through his hair midsentence. He smiles a lot too, never too wide, mind you, so that you're never quite sure whether he's letting you in on the joke or you are the joke. Between his flair for odd fashion and perpetual half-smirk, he looks a little mischievous, which is appropriate for a guy who could pass for a grown-up Kevin McCallister. A grown-up Kevin McCallister after he has chucked a brick at Marv's face.

The first time his youth coach, Sam Smathers, laid eyes on him, Burrow walked -- strutted, according to Smathers -- up a hill wearing a pair of sunglasses. Burrow, the third-grader, suffered from some sensitivity to light at the time, but Smathers didn't know that. He knew only what he saw. "Hey, there's Joe Cool," he thought to himself that day.

Burrow shows flashes of that now too. Hey, there's Joe Cool, pageant-waving goodbye to departing, defeated Texas fans. Hey, there's Joe Cool, smiling coyly at the camera when asked if he has anything to say to Nebraska, the school where his father and older brothers played football but which didn't really give him a look. Twice. Hey, there's Joe Cool, handing the SEC title game ball off to Orgeron, then saying he'll keep the national championship game ball for himself.

Hey, there's Joe Cool, sunglasses on once more, cruising down the Tiger Walk.

His parents have met him there before every home game this year, waiting for him at the end, just outside the entrance to the locker room. Jimmy and Robin leave their tailgate early, knowing that as they navigate to the Tiger Walk, they'll be stopped five, 10, 15 times by fans along the way.

"They have fun out there," Burrow says, then smiles his half-smile. This is all still a hoot for him too, you see. The fans who not only love him but love his whole family by proxy. The grateful Louisianans who thank them all for coming to their state.

"My whole family's like, 'Well, thanks for resurrecting my career.'"

BEFORE HE WAS a Heisman winner, Joe Burrow was a quarterback without a home.

The May before last, Orgeron did his damnedest to sell Burrow on the prestige of playing quarterback in Baton Rouge. Burrow, at the time, was a newly minted free agent in the college football transfer market, having thrown all of 39 passes in his three years at Ohio State. Still, Orgeron's offer was one without much historical merit, the program mostly able to push out good but not exceptional quarterbacks. LSU's most recent undisputed star at the position, JaMarcus Russell, is now best known for his all-time flameout as a professional.

Burrow wasn't a proven commodity either -- not quite castoff, but not quite can't-miss wager. He came to Baton Rouge by way of Columbus, having bided his time behind a historically ridiculous assembly of quarterback talent at Ohio State -- Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones, oh my. But by the time those guys cleared the decks, he still wasn't the clear choice to be starter -- Dwayne Haskins had logged precious minutes as a backup in 2017 while Burrow battled a broken hand -- so he decided to take his talents somewhere new.

Orgeron and Burrow convened over crawfish at Mike Anderson's, a seafood haunt that's been around since the 1970s and greets its patrons with a hulking deer, its antlers nearly scraping the ceiling, sitting in repose over a brick archway. That day, the two took the first tentative steps toward this partnership, the one that has upended everything in Baton Rouge.

"He fell in love with me," Burrow says. "And I fell in love with him."

A few days before the SEC championship win against Georgia (four touchdowns, 349 yards, 96.3 QBR and one Heisman-icing performance for Burrow), Orgeron stood on a podium in front of a roomful of media expounding on all the reasons he thinks Burrow is unlike any quarterback he's been around. "I think it's a combination of smarts," he said. "It's a combination of grits," he went on, likely -- in his exhilaration -- landing on some fusion of grit and guts. Or maybe he just meant grits.

Later, back on the couch in a quiet nook in Tiger Stadium, Orgeron the coach, Orgeron the native Louisianan, comes right out and says it. Or starts to.

"To me, he's been the most important ..." Like any coach fluent in coachspeak, Orgeron's inner diplomat kicks in, putting a muzzle on all that effusiveness. A bit. He smiles. "I guess I can't say that. One of the most important people in LSU history."

THERE IS A strange desperation in Baton Rouge these days.

These people have been waiting for so long for exactly this -- a Heisman-caliber (now crowned) quarterback steering a 21st-century offense -- that they all seem frantic to not just revel in this success but to remind themselves that it's a real thing and that it's happening here.

In the hours before kickoff against Texas A&M, former LSU players paced the sideline, their credentials around their necks listing their names, like ID-tag-toting guests at a reunion, which in a way, they were. Hi, my name is Joseph Addai.

Addai won a championship here 16 years ago, won a Super Bowl a few years after that with Indianapolis, yet he still finds himself daydreaming about what it would be like to play now, with a quarterback like this, in a system like this.

"I would've loved it. It's so different," Addai said to another LSU old-timer, the two stationed about 30 yards from where Burrow stood warming up. He said it quietly, shaking his head, like if he spoke it out loud, poof, it would vanish. It's a real thing, and it's happening here.

"It's cool as hell," JaMarcus Russell says. He stood outside a Tiger Stadium elevator on his way up to his seats for the Texas A&M game, one more LSU alum on hand to bear witness.

Here we are, at the end of 2019, and we've spent an entire fall in bizarro Baton Rouge: LSU is scarily dominant on offense. More, it's scarily modern. Is that the Tigers going ... no-huddle? (It is! On 67% of plays this season, compared with 34% the five seasons prior.) Is that the Tigers throwing ... on first down? (With gusto! On 61% of first downs, fourth most in the FBS and nearly twice as often as they did just two years ago, when they ranked 115th.) Is that the Tigers trotting out ... three-plus-wide-receiver sets? (Why, yes! On 708 plays, twice as many as last season.)

"Right now, he owns the city." Matt Brocato

This team bears so little resemblance to its ground-and-pound lineage that it feels almost futile to try to capture the distance between then and now.

Six months ago, in the dead heat of summer in Louisiana, Burrow vowed that this team would score 40, 50, 60 points a game. His bravado felt foolhardy, fantastical. At the very least, it was critically ahistorical. For one, Burrow's first season at LSU was mostly just ... fine. He threw for 16 touchdowns in all of 2018, a number he eclipsed in one month (one month!) this season. For another, you had to go back to 2013 to find an LSU team that even approached the right to be called a scoring machine, and even then, even with Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry lining up together, the Tigers cashed in at 35.8 points per game. Twenty-two teams outpaced them that season. That we now do expect 40, 50, 60 points a game, that we're now surprised when they don't hit those marks -- LSU has scored 40, 50, 60 points a game in all but three outings so far this season -- is a feat of sorcery.

Or at least meticulous planning. Planning from Orgeron, who pulled the plug on the old way. After Alabama blanked LSU 29-0 last season, Orgeron told his offensive coordinator, Steve Ensminger, they had to go to the spread. Planning from Ensminger, who told Orgeron that yes, of course he'd be willing to let someone new come in here and teach this team a new offense. Planning from Joe Brady, who was that someone new, by way of the New Orleans Saints, and who arrived this past offseason armed to the gills with these newfangled run-pass options and three-receiver sets and up-tempo play. And planning from Burrow, who executed it all in his first year in this particular system.

Those dominoes, incidentally, hit every other domino right on its sweet spot to produce this: historically great accuracy (Burrow's 77.9% pass completion rate is on pace to be the best mark in FBS history, a point higher than the previous record, set by Colt McCoy in 2008); gluttonous production (48 touchdown passes, an SEC record); and, you know, wins (13 of them to date).

Along the way, Burrow metamorphosed from fringe draft prospect to first-player-taken prospect, a rise that leaves people who study this kind of thing for a living flummoxed, stumped on naming a proper comparison. "His ascension has been ridiculous," says Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl's executive director and a draft analyst. "It really is a little unprecedented. At the quarterback position, man, I'm struggling to come up with one."

The police escorts and the unmarked police cars and the mania that has settled around Burrow makes a certain kind of sense then. It feels like an actual physical relief to watch him and his offense operate, for the old players who missed out on this system and for the fan base that clamored for it year after year after year.

"I'm just so happy that it's finally here," Rohan Davey says. "Thank god."

JUST ABOUT A thousand miles away, in a breakfast and lunch diner in The Plains, Ohio, a pair of older men are hashing out the latest betting odds for Burrow to win the Heisman, pondering just how astronomical the quarterback's chances can balloon. (Spoiler: Burrow's Heisman win will be seismic. His margin of victory, 1,846 more points than Jalen Hurts, will go down as the largest gap in history.) They're sitting in the second-to-last booth by the wall, under a banner that reads "Gigi's Country Kitchen of Baton Rouge."

Travis Brand, the owner of Gigi's Country Kitchen, which is very much not in Baton Rouge, passes by and catches wind of the topic at hand. It's the topic at hand at a lot of diner booths here in The Plains, Burrow's hometown, and Athens, the town just a few streets over.

"If he said, 'I'd like to be a mayor down there,'" Brand says, "I think the mayor would say, 'Here, let me give you my salary.'"

Brand has seen it for himself, this Baton Rouge-Joe Burrow lovefest. That's where the banner came from, in fact. Gigi's has morphed into a semi-tourist trap these days, with Brand to thank for it. Over the swinging door that leads to the kitchen: an LSU license plate; "HERE WE GEAUX JEAUX 12 AND 0" spelled out on the Gigi's sign that lords over North Plains Road; and that custom Gigi's banner, a gift from some friends he made down in Louisiana. He went south for the Texas A&M game, and a few LSU fans who had seen and admired Brand's LSU-centric decor served as tailgating tour guides, upgraded his hotel room and bestowed him with this customized memento.

Gigi's is a five-minute drive from Burrow's childhood home, a two-story colonial with an LSU flag hanging on its front door, tucked away on a winding road. Inside, there's not all that much evidence that a Heisman-winning quarterback once lived here, not downstairs, anyway. Joe's LSU jersey is draped over a dining chair; a tea towel hangs in the kitchen, showing a map of the United States with a heart over the state of Ohio, another over Louisiana and the caption "It's really not that far ..." (The shrine -- yes, of course, there's one -- resides in the basement.) Jimmy sits down among these tokens and tries to explain what has happened to his son. What his son has made happen.

"Just to think that ..." he starts, then cuts himself off. "There's this one picture."

He pulls up his phone, then swipes until he finds the shot he's after, the one someone snapped of Joe and Jimmy on the field during the pregame senior presentation before the Texas A&M game. Joe's got that half-smile, his eyes trained on the camera. Jimmy can't seem to take his eyes off Joe. He's beaming at his son.

Everyone back home is a little lovesick, really: the Burrows' neighbors, the dozen who have planted LSU flags in their front yards; the especially zealous neighbor who made what looks to be a 6-foot banner -- it's so big the metal fencing over which it's draped is buckling under the weight; the locals who flocked to Little Professor Book Center. The shop, in nearby Athens, had to release an apology on Facebook: "Bad news folks, our magazine distributor contacted us today and let us know they are not able to provide us with extra copies of the Joe Burrow Sports Illustrated."

"People were rushing to the stores. 'Oh, Piggly Wiggly has 20 copies! Oh, that was 30 minutes ago. I know I'm too late.' It was pandemonium, people wanting this Sports Illustrated," Brand says.

There's a bizarre, unlikely marriage between Ohioans and Louisianans these days, even as the specter of a possible Ohio State-LSU national championship matchup looms. They're infatuated with the same man.

Back in Baton Rouge, Patrick Wilkerson, the owner of the boutique LSU clothing shop Bengals & Bandits, fields, oh, 30 calls a week from LSU fans asking if his store carries any Burrow-branded gear, which of course it does not, in compliance with NCAA restrictions. Wilkerson's theory is that it's Burrow's very otherness that works in his favor.

"I don't know that if he was from here if he would have been embraced as much," he says.

Burrow didn't just come to LSU, is what he's saying. He adopted the whole darn state.

So he does things like commission a Burreaux jersey one day, going full Cajun, and becomes a literal billboard for Louisiana appreciation. Really. The billboards went up the Tuesday after he wore the jersey. And he thanks an entire state for allowing him to become a native.

"Isn't that cool?" Orgeron says, the gravel in his voice turning to boulders he gets so choked up. "Isn't that something?"

"Oh, he knows how to capture them," Orgeron says.

JOE BURROW NEVER got the chance to capture Billy Cannon.

Burrow chose Louisiana two days before Cannon died on May 20, 2018, but his daughter, Bunnie, suspects he knew. She hopes he did. She would like to think he at least heard the name of the man who will now always be tied to him. Cannon won the Heisman 60 years ago, the only player from LSU to win it -- until Saturday night.

Bunnie wears a silver charm on her necklace with the imprint of Billy's fingerprint. He used to point that finger at her when she landed in trouble, and now it's her reminder to behave. Bunnie always looks for him, keeps an eye out for his No. 20, and found one when she arrived in New York on Friday. Her cab pulled to a stop in front of a building, No. 20 of some street she can't remember now, but its address big and bold, even from her seat in the taxi.

"It's so obvious everywhere I go," she says.

Billy Cannon's here, in New York too.

Bunnie and her mother, Dot, wrote a letter to Burrow because they wanted him to know that. He read it on the way to Manhattan. The private plane that shuttled Burrow and his family from Atlanta, for one set of awards, to New York, for more, sat only one person per row, so he read the letter by himself. Loneliness is a part of this story too. Burrow passed the letter to his mother, who sat across from him. She gave it to Jimmy, who sat behind him. Before Jimmy knew whom the letter was from or what it said, he looked at his son's face and his wife's face and understood it was one more thing they'd want to hold on to after all this is done.

Dot Cannon told Burrow that he reminded her of Billy in all sorts of ways. Dot goes to every home game, arriving two hours before kickoff to sit in the seat her husband used to occupy, and she watches. Burrow's strength and character make her think of Billy.

"And his little crooked smile," Bunnie says.

Billy Cannon never wanted to be this team's only Heisman winner. He won the award, then spent the rest of his 80 years waiting for someone to join him, would wonder with Bunnie at the start of every football season whether this was the year someone might. He was ready for someone new to take over.

She put these thoughts to paper, telling Burrow to take his friends and family with him on this journey. There were also some things she didn't say but she wants him to know. He'll always have to be on now. The luxury of his anonymity is gone. Whether Billy showed up to a pizza joint or a white-tablecloth restaurant, an airport in California or an airport in Montana, when he entered a room, people swarmed. He was always being watched, always seen.

"Everybody's going to want something from him," Bunnie says. "This is the pinnacle of every kid's dream, but there's a price to pay for it."

At 10:22 on Saturday night, a Heisman winner for less than two hours, Burrow walks into a dimly lit room and people swarm. He's come to the back of a rooftop bar of the Knickerbocker Hotel, a view of Times Square and the billboard that already coronates him visible below. His parents are here, his high school coaches. Orgeron arrives about 30 minutes after Burrow; Joe Brady does too. Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, is at the meat-carving station toward the back, and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards stops in also. "That's one of the richest men in Louisiana," one partygoer says, nodding to another man in another dark suit. "Shale oil."

All these people, who know Burrow or just want to, toast his success and their proximity to it, with champagne in flute glasses and beer in disposable cups with Burrow's number in purple.

Burrow comes in, and this roomful of people stops. They've been waiting. They break into applause while juggling their phones, lifting them up like torches to get a picture of the man at the center of this bedlam. He snakes his way through, shaking hands and stopping for photos, and the 50-foot journey from one end of the room to the other takes him nearly half an hour. He eventually sits, parking himself on a U-shaped sofa in the corner of the room. He looks happy and spent, like the emotion of his speech -- he took 30 seconds to gather himself before starting; he took 13 more before he was able to thank Coach Orgeron -- tapped him dry. It is hard to be a 23-year-old head of state.

He'll stay here, mostly sequestered, for the better part of two hours, sipping at champagne, his girlfriend to his right and his mother to his left and a wall of people that inches inward.

There are distractions. When Orgeron walks in, he's met with an ovation too. Someone in a suit brings in Burrow's Heisman Trophy, his name and the school's name now engraved in gold plating, and for a while, that's a shiny toy for the crowd to focus its energy on. But they return, always, to Burrow, a moon controlling the tide. When he stands up to greet another well-wisher, the room actually feels as if it tilts sideways as the masses creep closer, taking more photos. When he briefly leaves the room, standing in the hallway just behind it, the crowd gravitates there too.

After about two hours, Burrow starts the slow process of leaving. He shakes more hands and takes more photos, until a handler steps in to carve a path forward.

"Excuse us, excuse us."

The handler leads the way, Robin following the trail he leaves open. She holds out her hand behind her and her son grabs it, making his way out of the room and these strange times.

Full-back Rob Kearney has been omitted from a 45-man squad for Andy Farrell's first training session as Ireland head coach in Dublin on 22-23 December.

The 95-times capped Leinster player was a regular first-choice number 15 under previous coach Joe Schmidt.

A number of uncapped players will join a "24-hour mid-season stocktake" at the IRFU's High Performance Centre.

They include Leinster scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park and Ulster pair Billy Burns and Tom O'Toole.

England-born Burns, who joined Ulster in 2018, qualifies for Ireland through a paternal grandparent. Prop O'Toole has become a regular in the Ulster team, scoring his first try for the province in the weekend European Cup win over Harlequins.

The other players involved who have yet to make a senior international appearance are Connacht number nine Caolin Blade and four more Leinster men - flanker Will Connors, number eights Caelan Doris and Max Deegan and back Ronan Kelleher.

Ulster prop Marty Moore, who last played for his country as part of the team which won the Six Nations title in 2015, is recalled to the extended squad, while second row Devin Toner returns after failing to make the World Cup squad.

'A better insight into players'

Along with Kearney, Jordi Murphy, Sean Cronin, Jack Carty and Kieran Marmion have also failed to make the cut, while injured duo John Ryan and Tadhg Beirne are absent.

Johnny Sexton is named despite being an injury doubt for the Six Nations opener against Scotland on 1 February.

Rory Scannell, Stuart McCloskey, Ross Byrne and Dave Kearney are among those looking to make a greater impression for a Test place under Farrell.

"The national coaches have been around the provinces watching games and having good conversations with players and the provincial coaches," said Farrell.

"We have limited opportunities across the busy provincial season to bring a broad group like this together but this 24-hour window will allow us to plant a few seeds.

"It will also give the coaches a better insight into a few players who been performing consistently well for their provinces.

"The next six weeks is the window for players to put their hands up for selection for our first squad which will be named in late January ahead of the Six Nations."

45-man Ireland squad

Connacht: Bundee Aki, Caolin Blade, Ultan Dillane, Dave Heffernan, Quinn Roux

Leinster: Ross Byrne, Will Connors, Max Deegan, Caelan Doris, Tadhg Furlong, Jamison Gibson-Park, Cian Healy, Robbie Henshaw, Dave Kearney, Ronan Kelleher, Jordan Larmour, Luke McGrath, Andrew Porter, Garry Ringrose, Rhys Ruddock, James Ryan, Jonathan Sexton, Devin Toner, Josh van der Flier

Munster: Joey Carbery, Andrew Conway, Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Mike Haley, Dave Kilcoyne, Jean Kleyn, Conor Murray, Peter O'Mahony, Niall Scannell, Rory Scannell, CJ Stander

Ulster: Will Addison, Billy Burns, John Cooney, Iain Henderson, Rob Herring, Stuart McCloskey, Marty Moore, Tom O'Toole, Jacob Stockdale

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – American Honda Motor Co. and Richie Morris Racing have signed Henry Wiles to contest American Flat Track Singles season aboard a Honda CRF450R.

After returning to the scene following more than 25 years away and coming within six points of claiming the AFT Singles title in 2019, American Honda is set to increase their involvement and support of RMR for the upcoming season.

“RMR has been a great partner, earning second place in the 2019 AFT Singles championship during our first year of collaboration,” said Brandon Wilson, Manager of Advertising & Motorcycle Sports at American Honda. “For 2020, we’re excited to have Henry Wiles on a CRF450R, and we look forward to him and the team continuing Honda’s proud history in the sport of dirt track racing.”

“It’s an honor to have American Honda back with RMR in an even larger capacity in 2020,” said Richie Morris, owner of Richie Morris Racing. “I’m so excited that this partnership includes the recruitment of Henry Wiles. In my opinion, Henry is one of the best flat track pros to ever swing a leg over a 450; RMR is proud to have him. We’re certain that he’s the right man to bring home the championship in 2020.”

Wiles is arguably one of the most accomplished Singles riders in the history of the sport. The Winn, Mich., native was crowned GNC1 Singles champion in 2009 and ’10, and boasts 26 premier-class victories aboard four-stroke singles, including a string of 14 straight at the legendary Peoria TT.

In fact, from 2009 to 2016 (the final year singles were included in the premier category), he won half (19 of 38) of the races he started on single-cylinder equipment.

Wiles is AFT’s all-time winningest TT rider with 19 victories in the discipline and stands equal with Chris Carr at the top of the order in Short Track wins at nine. He ranks 11th in career American Flat Track wins at 30, having also demonstrated the ability to take the checkered flag first aboard twin-cylinder machinery and at Half-Mile venues. That versatility was well demonstrated in 2018, when he finished as the AFT Twins championship runner-up with six podiums and 13 top-fives.

“Richie gave me a call and was talking about going and winning a 450 championship,” said Wiles. “It’s absolutely exciting to be associated with American Honda, and I’m walking on to a good team that already has some things sorted out. That’s going to be good for me… and I think it’s going to be bad for everybody else. Richie was very up front with me about what the goal is. They’ve got everything in place, and Richie has won championships before. He’s a team owner who knows how to put the right people in place to do just that.”

Wiles will team with returning RMR rider Cole Zabala, who registered five top-10 finishes in AFT Singles action a year ago with RMR.

“Cole is truly a good kid,” Morris said. “He’s not afraid of hard work and I admire that. He learned much last season and is important to one of our associate sponsors, Tucker Powersports. It’s going to be fun to watch him learn from Henry and become the future of American Flat Track.”

“I’m really excited to continue the relationship with RMR and American Honda. Last year was a huge improvement in my program, and I’m stoked for this upcoming season,” Zabala said.

INDIANAPOLIS – Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis bears a rich history when it comes to stock car racing, including numerous NASCAR national series events through the years.

The Super Cup Stock Car Series will take its turn at adding a page to the record books on June 20, adding a second facility in the Hoosier State to its season calendar thanks to promoter Mike Moore of RevsRacing LLC.

Super Cup competition will be part of the Indy Summer Nationals at LOR, headlined by a special non-winged sprint car event sanctioned by the Must See Racing Sprint Car Series.

“We have the opportunity to put our footprint in the Midwest, and adding Lucas Oil Raceway to our schedule this year is just absolutely exciting to me,” said SCSCS Director of Competition Joe Schmaling. “To bring our series to this part of the country is fabulous. We want to thank Mike for inviting us to the Indy Summer Nationals, which we are going to be a part of with our friends at Must See and a few others. We’re going to have a big day and thankful to be a part of it.

“The future starts right now and it’s going to go right through the Crossroads of America here in Indy.”

The Indy Summer Nationals will feature something for everyone, whether they are visiting from out of town or are from the local area.

Headlining the festivities on the oval will be the return of non-winged sprint cars for the first time since 2011 to LOR courtesy of Must See Racing, utilizing the same rules as the famed Little 500, held annually at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway the night before the Indianapolis 500. Hall of Famer Tom Bigelow will serve as the event’s grand marshal.

Also accompanying the 3,300-pound, 600-horsepower SCSCS machines as part of the supporting cast will be the Midwest Supermodified Series and the Midwest Compacts.

Meanwhile, the adjacent Lucas Oil Raceway drag strip will have all kinds of competition over a three-day period, with a car show and swap meet also being planned.

“I kind of took my lemons and made lemonade and said okay I have a facility – a dragstrip, an oval site, a swap meet,” Moore noted. “We’re going to put together a big mega-event, as I’m calling it, an auto enthusiast ‘kid in a candy store’ event. We’re doing anything from Hot Wheels to race cars. Every kid that comes out is going to walk away with a Hot Wheel (die-cast), and it’s just going to be everything from one aspect to the other.

“Basically, we’re having four ‘A-list’ series come in.”

For additional entertainment when not taking in the drag racing action or Saturday evening at the short track, there’s always the neighboring town of Speedway and bustling downtown Indianapolis to show dad and family around on Father’s Day weekend.

If that’s not enough, fans also have the option down the road to enjoy the IMS Museum and daytime ambiance taking place at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as the Trans Am Series and Sportscar Vintage Racing Ass’n tackle the road course layout.

SCSCS veteran Bill Ashton will be one of many that will not be seeing the multipurpose Clermont, Ind., facility for the first time.

The current leader in consecutive points race starts from Uniontown, Pa., echoed Schmaling’s thanks to Moore for the opportunity and his initiative to organize the event.

“It’s going to be something else,” Ashton said. “I drove my Street Stock at Lucas Oil Raceway a couple years ago and I love the track. It’s a very classy facility and I can’t wait to drive there.”

In addition to Ashton, numerous drivers that competed in a SCSCS race in 2019 have been to LOR before.

Mike Potter and Joe Cooksey participated in the same Xfinity race in 2001, while Josh Clemons and Will Kimmel have both been on the track in Super Late Models. Dale Shearer drove there in an ARCA car, Doug George did so in the Truck Series, and J.J. Pack and Allen Purkhiser each made Pro Cup starts at LOR.

Tim Richardson has even been there, albeit in an open-wheel F2000 car.

Past Super Cup champion Bob Schacht had perhaps the most success at the Lucas Oil paved oval, scoring two ARCA victories there in the 1980s by outrunning late NASCAR Cup Series star Davey Allison, among others.

FLORIDA, N.Y. – Behrent’s Performance Warehouse, a provider of parts and services in the oval-track racing industry, has renewed its support of the Bob Hilbert Sportswear Short Track Super Series fueled by Sunoco.

At every STSS modified event – in both the Halmar Int’l North Region and Velocita-USA South Region presented by Design for Vision and Sunglass Central – the drivers placing fourth and ninth will each receive a $50 Behrent’s Performance Warehouse gift card.

The per-race certificate giveaways will include the inaugural ‘Sunshine Swing’ at All-Tech Raceway in Lake City, Fla., Feb. 5-8.

At the year’s end, the fourth- and ninth-place finishers in the STSS Modified North and South Region standings will receive $200 Behrent’s certificates at the awards banquet.

Behrent’s Performance Warehouse has also renewed its title sponsorship of the ‘Hard Clay Finale’ at Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, N.Y., on Oct. 23.

The event at the Legendary House of Power annually decides the STSS Halmar Int’l North Region champion.

Behrent’s Performance Warehouse was founded by Harry Behrent in 1972 as Behrent’s Speed Center Inc., a general speed and tire shop aimed at the general automotive market.

In 1982, a decision was made to focus on the parts and service market and leave behind Behrent’s career as a driver. The speed center has since grown into a nationally-known leader in the automotive racing industry.