Missed some of the action around Europe this weekend? Have no fear: Gab Marcotti is here to catch you up with all the talking points in the latest Monday Musings.
Liverpool rise to the challenge vs. Spurs, who don't
It wasn't something to be taken for granted. A week before, you dropped league points for the first time all season. You did win big in midweek, but that was against Genk, who are playing more like Gunk right now, sitting sixth in the Belgian league with two wins out of eight ahead of Liverpool's visit.
Manchester City's victory over Aston Villa the day before leaves them three points back. Then you take the pitch against Tottenham Hotspur and within a minute, you're a goal down.
In those situations, a wobble is not just understandable, but expected. But Liverpool took it in stride and seemed to get stronger as the game wore on. It wasn't just the possession -- Spurs chose to play on the break -- but the intensity and the sense of unwavering belief that they were going to turn it around. Don't let the scoreline fool you: it finished 2-1 but could have been more, if not for some massive saves by Paulo Gazzaniga.
Manager effects are often overstated. Truth be told, whether teams win or lose in the medium term usually has far more to do with wage bill and net spend, chance and probability, injuries and suspensions. But you suspect Klopp is a bit different. When you get the sort of buy-in he has from players and fans alike, when you exude this level of up-and-at-them confidence in the face of adversity, it almost feels like a cult and its leader. That dynamic might not be great in real life, but it can be really useful when it comes to playing football.
As for Tottenham, Mauricio Pochettino looks like a guy searching for answers. He dropped Jan Vertonghen for Davinson Sanchez, left out record signing Tanguy Ndombele and brought back Christian Eriksen. We're not privy to what happens in training and maybe there are reasons we don't know behind his choices, but it feels like somebody unhappy with his current lot, opting to proceed by trial and error.
Playing on the counter after the early lead wasn't necessarily a bad choice, but, again, the execution was poor. These aren't necessarily bad players, these are players playing poorly and there likely are reasons for each. There's a series of gambles that backfired.
In nine-and-a-half weeks' time, Vertonghen and Eriksen can sign for any club outside the Premier League as free agents. (To remain in England, they'd need to wait until the summer.) Tottenham may have thought it was worth keeping them around in the summer either because they'd eventually extend their deals or they'd want to play well to impress potential suitors. That ship has likely sailed. Technically, Jan. 1 is when they can start talking to other clubs, but it's hard to believe stuff isn't already happening behind the scenes, stuff that won't be influenced by lacklustre performances in the autumn.
Tottenham left Danny Rose out of their tour to Asia so he could move to another club; after it being made clear he wasn't in their plans, he's now their first-choice left back. The gamble was that he'd be galvanised and more realistic and might play better and get himself the sort of deal he wants at White Hart Lane. Don't hold your breath.
Kieran Trippier was allowed to leave for Atletico Madrid, the gamble being that either Kyle Walker-Peters would establish himself as a viable right-back or Serge Aurier, without competition, would finally live up to his gifts and cut out the silly mistakes. We know how that one worked out.
As for the summer signings? Ndombele has played 90 minutes once all season. Giovani Lo Celso has yet to start a game. Ryan Sessegnon, who is injured, hasn't played at all.
Transfers and contracts are, fundamentally, wagers. You win some, you lose some. If you're clever or lucky, you win more than you lose. Spurs have been neither. To me, that's a far simpler explanation than the popular one whereby they've gone stale and players are bored/indifferent to Pochettino's messaging. It's a neat idea -- the old trope whereby every three years you either change the manager or change the team -- but it's also a convenient catch-all.
You have to go back to 2008-09, the season when Juande Ramos was replaced by Harry Redknapp and they lost six of their first 10 games, to find the last campaign that began worse than this one. Managers are measured not just by how well they do on their way up and how high they go, but also how well they cope when they're down and whether they can right the ship. This is where Pochettino can earn his Spurs. Again.
Juventus suffer a chemistry issue without Ronaldo
Juventus dropped points drawing 1-1 at Lecce, but the fact that Napoli and Inter did not win mitigates the damage. What it doesn't do is mitigate the nitpicking, which has centered on chance creation when Cristiano Ronaldo is absent (he was rested on Saturday) and Matthijs de Ligt's supposed penchant for handling in the box and conceding penalties, which happened against both Lecce and Inter and probably should have happened against Bologna.
Maurizio Sarri's crew actually created plenty against Lecce -- and recorded their highest xG in more than a year -- but if things don't look super-smooth, it may well have to do with the fact that Ronaldo's absence makes them play differently. When he's on the pitch, he's generally free from defensive responsibilities. Chemistry matters to Sarri: if a piece is missing, it has a knock-on effect.
As for de Ligt, I thought it was harsh -- contrary to what some ex-pros keep spouting, there is still a level of discretion even when it comes to silhouette, and the ball was deflected toward him while he tried to retract his arm -- but it's hard to ignore the fact that more expert defenders seem to be avoiding these situations. Of course, this shouldn't be surprising. He's 20 years old. Let him grow.
VAR needs major fixes in the Premier League
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Premier League 'too reactionary' with VAR use
Ale Moreno is concerned criticism of VAR will cause the Premier League to "set the bar too low."
After weeks of lying dormant with the excuse that it would be used only in the case of extremely serious errors -- which meant almost never, since nobody defined this "high bar" nonsense -- VAR sprang to life in the Premier League at the weekend, overruling referees left, right and center. Some will say the pendulum swung too far in the other direction, but that's what happens when, as the Premier League did, you decide to rewrite the VAR protocol ignoring the thousands of games that took place elsewhere and thinking you have some sort of magic formula.
The decision to effectively abolish on-field reviews (the monitors are there for some reason, but referees are told not to use them) has meant faceless no-names in Stockley Park are making subjective decisions. I touched upon this last week at Old Trafford, but this week bordered on the grotesque. Daniel James' penalty at Norwich, Aaron Connolly's at the Amex and Sokratis Papastathopoulos,' disallowed goal are Exhibits A, B and C here.
It's not so much that they were incorrect decisions by VAR -- the first two obviously were, the third one somewhat less so -- but they all involved a degree of subjectivity. Which is fine, as that's the nature of officiating, but to rob the guy on the field of the right to make the final call is simply foolish. It leads to re-refereeing of games, which is exactly what we were told must not happen, it undermines the guy on the pitch (as well as faith in VAR) and it leaves a subjective decision in the hands of a less qualified person. It's the difference between getting an opinion from a world-class oncologist who has observed you over time and having your tumor diagnosed by a guy who got his medical degree over the internet.
Time for a rethink.
Wait, how was that goal given to David Silva?
While we're on the subject of Premier League quirks, how about David Silva's goal for Manchester City in their 3-0 win against Aston Villa? Kevin De Bruyne's free kick comes in from the left, the Spanish midfielder's boot either does or does not deflect it, and it goes past both Tom Heaton in the Villa goal and Raheem Sterling standing in front of him.
It's pretty simple. If Silva didn't touch it, then it's a goal because Sterling was onside when the free kick was taken. If he did touch it, then it should be offside because Sterling is in an offside position and interfering with an opponent.
It should be one or the other, but VAR somehow managed to rule that Silva did not touch it and allowed the goal to stand, while at the same time the league ruled that Silva scored. (It means he must have touched it because while Silva is an outstanding footballer, he's not so outstanding that he can score without touching the ball.)
It was no biggie as Man City won 3-0, bouncing back after the break following a poor first half. But really, Silva's career tally of 107 goals should forever be accompanied by an asterisk.
Lewandowski to the rescue for injury-cursed Bayern
Bayern's defensive crisis -- Niklas Sule, Lucas Hernandez and Javi Martinez out, David Alaba unfit and on the bench -- has reached Manchester City levels to the point that Alphonso Davies lined up as an emergency left-back against Union Berlin. The good news? Even with a makeshift defence and an attack that blew hot and cold, the gulf in quality was big enough for Bayern to get the three points in a 2-1 win.
It helped that Benjamin Pavard uncorked a volley reminiscent of his ballistic heroics against Argentina at the World Cup. It helped even more that Robert Lewandowski scored again, just as he has done in every single Bayern match this season since Round 1 of the German Cup on Aug. 12. That's 19 goals in 13 matches -- including a record-setting nine straight in the Bundesliga -- for those keeping score at home. That's simply out of this world.
Don't worry about Pulisic... seriously
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Christian Pulisic 'tremendous and decisive' with hat trick display
Janusz Michallik praises Christian Pulisic for his hat trick, but says he needs to show more consistency.
I wonder if Christian Pulisic's hat trick -- a perfect hat trick, no less, scored with his right foot, left foot and head -- for Chelsea in Saturday's 4-2 win over Burnley might persuade the hair-pullers and teeth-gnashers stateside that maybe Frank Lampard isn't an ogre and maybe some time off for a guy who had a whole seven days off this past summer was just what he needed. And no, he doesn't need to look for a new club in January.
Lampard's crew have now won seven in a row in all competitions and sit a mere two points behind Manchester City. And their best player, N'Golo Kante, has started just three league games all year. Not bad so far for a transition season that began with a transfer ban.
PSG expose the talent gap vs. Marseille
Olympique Marseille may be Paris Saint-Germain's fiercest rivals on paper, but Sunday night served as a reminder of the gap in talent between these two.
Andre Villas-Boas hoped to surprise PSG by pressing high and hard early and it backfired quickly, with Kylian Mbappe and Mauro Icardi bagging two each by half-time to seal the 4-0 win. Hindsight being 20-20, it felt like one of those "AVB being too clever by half" moves given PSG's ability to play through the press and the pace up front.
Icardi, on loan from Inter, has seven goals from his last five games, each of them a first-time finish. The guy who was described as an unstable, selfish figure at Inter is now the epitome of productivity. Funny how that happens. Either it's all down to a magical change of scenery or maybe he wasn't the root of all evils at San Siro.
Don't read too much into Man United beating Norwich
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Man United's win vs. Norwich 'a step in the right direction'
Steve Nicol and Craig Burley explain why Man United's win over Norwich was a sign of progress for the club.
Manchester United's 3-1 win at Norwich marked the first time they scored three goals on the road since last February, when conventional wisdom had it that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer could do no wrong and that sacking Jose Mourinho had solved all of the club's problems.
Norwich's approach made it easy for United, who nevertheless looked sharp and executed well. Most encouraging (for those of us who have lost faith in Solskjaer, anyway) is that they understood they could not approach this game the way they approached the Liverpool game at Old Trafford. Instead, against an open opponent, they went for the jugular and punished them. We'll get a better sense of where they are against Bournemouth next weekend.
Granada's Cinderella season continues
OK, so Barcelona and Real Madrid have a game in hand because the Clasico got postponed. And if it had been played, it would be mathematically impossible for Granada to be top. I get it. But the fact is that, after beating Betis 1-0, this newly promoted side are in fact leading La Liga for the first time since 1973.
Will it last? Almost certainly not. They've had the rub of the green too, including against Betis, and their six clean sheets have a lot to do with standout goalkeeper Rui Silva. But it's a neat story and it's a testament to the work Diego Martinez has done. Enjoy it while you can.
More is expected from dismal Dortmund
Borussia Dortmund are in full safety-first mode, a shadow of the side many admired last season (or even in August). They showed it again against Schalke, getting battered for much of the first half and seeing their opponents hit the woodwork twice in a pulsating 0-0 draw.
A point isn't a horrendous result given the circumstances -- given the vagaries of this wacky Bundesliga season, they're only three points off the top and one out of the Champions League spots -- and there's plenty left to salvage. Equally though, they've managed two wins in their past eight and played plenty of uninspired football. You expect more from Lucien Favre, especially after the summer spend.
Atletico keep hanging around in La Liga title picture
Atletico Madrid are still doing their thing, still hanging out close enough to the top of the table -- they're fifth but just a point off the pace, although Barcelona and Real Madrid have a game in hand -- after their 2-0 win over Athletic Bilbao.
Saturday's victory was marked by yet another decisive Jan Oblak save (if you don't have him in your top three keepers, well... I can't help you) and more "Cholismo" than we'd seen most of this year, as Diego Simeone tried to make them more expansive. They're a work in progress, yes, but they're also deeper than they've been at any time during the Diego Simeone Era. Count them out at your peril...
Conte up to his usual tricks at Inter?
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Do Inter have enough to challenge Juve for the Scudetto?
With both Juventus and Inter drawing this weekend, Ale Moreno feels both sides will be kicking themselves.
It's deja vu all over again. Inter get held at home by Parma, 2-2, and Antonio Conte starts talking about his limited options on the bench, how he's been hammered by injuries and his annoyance at having to play youngsters like Alessandro Bastoni (20) and Sebastiano Esposito (17). To some, this is a rerun of what we saw from Conte at Chelsea and Juventus: after initial success, he starts demanding more and more investment from the club and puts pressure on them via the media.
You hope it's not that because right now, Inter's budget is limited. They just got out of their Financial Fair Play settlement and have already gambled this season on spending and wages. It's not as if Inter have been hit harder by injuries than, say, Roma or Juventus. And, in a normal world, you'd think he'd be more on board with getting minutes for guys like Bastoni and Esposito rather than worrying about "burning them out." Bastoni featured 24 times in Serie A last year and was a starter for half the campaign, while Esposito has played all of 47 minutes in all competitions this year.
I think they can handle it.
Arsenal's mess deepens with "Xhaka-gate"
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Burley: Subbing Xhaka shows the state of Arsenal
Craig Burley says Arsenal subbing off its captain in two consecutive games shows dysfunction at the club.
The supporters' right to boo is sacrosanct and in Granit Xhaka's case, I get why they did it. It's not just (another) lacklustre performance. It's a 2-2 draw vs. Crystal Palace at home, there's half an hour to go, he's been substituted and he's leaving the pitch with all the urgency of a sloth on sleeping pills.
Nor can you defend his reaction: waving his arms to the crowd, removing his shirt and disappearing down the tunnel. But this shouldn't just be a "fans vs. Xhaka" narrative. You have to ask about the guy in charge, Unai Emery, whose job is (among other things) to set the culture at a club. And you have to ask why, after 15 months, he'd even leave the door open for something like this -- fans booing their club captain -- to happen.
Arsenal insiders insist Xhaka is hugely popular at the club -- the fact that he was voted captain underscores this -- and several teammates went to visit him Sunday night because he was so upset. And sure, it must be upsetting to be booed like that. Just as it's upsetting to spend a sizable chunk of your salary to watch a guy seemingly not putting out a modicum of effort to get off the pitch so play can restart and you can try to win.
But the buck stops with Emery. If he's going to allow the players to choose the captain and they choose a guy who is prone to react this way and he does nothing to step in and then substitutes him... hey, you make your bed, you lie in it.
Gladbach are the best in Germany right now
Borussia Moenchengladbach continue to set the pace in the Bundesliga, unleashing a 4-2 beatdown on Eintracht Frankfurt and probably playing the best football in Germany. Manager Marco Rose is the toast of the town right now and rightly so.
That front three of Marcus Thuram, Alassane Plea and Breel Embolo (who picked up an injury against Frankfurt) are a sight to behold, switching from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 depending on possession and the type of pressing they apply. Rose often gets compared to his buddy Klopp at Liverpool, though his brand of football is perhaps a bit more precise and a bit less intense. He was a hot commodity last summer and is bound to be one again should he decide to move on.
Though given he just arrived and given how well they're doing, expect him to stick around for a while.
Atalanta soaring thanks to free-attacking football
Atalanta's attacking pyrotechnics continue. They went a goal down at home to Udinese and then roared back to a 7-1 victory. Their numbers are Playstation stuff: they've scored 28 goals in nine games, only bettered by Manchester City (32 in 10) in the "Big Five" European leagues. And they're third in Serie A, evidence that this brand of football works.
So why have they been so poor in the Champions League? They were awful against Dinamo Zagreb, dominated but threw away the game against Shakhtar Donetsk, and, away to City, capitulated after taking the lead. You can give them a pass on that last one. Their sort of attacking high-press, based on one-on-ones all over the pitch, is a recipe for disaster against a side like City, where everybody is comfortable on the ball. Coach Gian Piero Gasperini wasn't going to change it up for a one-off game.
Logic suggests that this kind of high-octane, high-risk football will ultimately fizzle out as the season wears on. It's simply too energy-sapping. Of course, many of us felt the same last season and they ended up finishing fourth.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians didn't mince words Monday when he opened his news conference by criticizing officials for an early whistle that cost the Bucs a go-ahead touchdown late in Sunday's 27-23 loss at the Tennessee Titans.
With 3:45 to go in the fourth quarter, the Titans lined up for a field goal and faked it. Bucs linebacker Devin White tackled the holder, Titans punter Brett Kern, stripping him of the ball. Safety Andrew Adams recovered it and ran it in for what would have been a touchdown. But an early whistle blew the play dead, so it was instead ruled a turnover on downs.
"It was more than just one play. Everybody except for one guy saw the ball out. [He] blew a quick whistle," Arians said. "My biggest thing is, referees aren't held accountable. Coaches get fired. General managers get fired. Players get cut. Referees aren't accountable. And it's a shame. It's been that way for 40 years, and now that we've got a new agreement, it'll be that way for 40 more years."
Arians expressed frustration with the lack of consistency across the league.
"Why is it continuing? Since the Rams-Saints game in the second week, when the Saints got a touchdown that they didn't get [a Cameron Jordan fumble recovery returned 87 yards for a touchdown that was called back due to an early whistle], there's been an emphasis on letting the plays go [before blowing them dead]. You can answer why it's not happening. I don't know."
The following week against the Seattle Seahawks, there was no whistle when Vonn Bell recovered a fumble and returned it 33 yards for a score. Then in Week 4, Detroit Lions running back Kerryon Johnson fumbled the ball at the goal line against the Kansas City Chiefs when the score was tied 13-13, with Bashaud Breeland recovering it and running 100 yards for a touchdown -- a ruling that stood in a 34-30 loss for the Lions.
Head referee Adrian Hill told ESPN on Sunday, "Certainly after the whistle, we definitely saw a ball come out afterwards, but the ruling on the field was that the runner was down by contact before the ball came out, and that's why the whistle blew. So the whistle was blown because the ruling was 'runner down by contact.'"
When asked about their ability to review the play, Hill told ESPN, "The reviewable part of that play is -- if it's reviewed and we saw that the ball came out early and that Tampa Bay recovered, we could give Tampa Bay the ball at the spot of recovery but could not award any advance after that."
Alabama coach Nick Saban expects injured quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to return to practice on Wednesday, but he was noncommittal about his status for the Nov. 9 game against LSU.
"We're not making any predictions," Saban said.
Speaking at an event in Birmingham, Saban told reporters that he's been pleased with Tagovailoa's progress since having surgery on Oct. 20 to recover from a high-ankle sprain in his right foot.
Whether that means he'll be available to play when No. 2 Alabama hosts No. 1 LSU on Nov. 9 was something the coach said he wouldn't commit to until he sees him practice and how he feels after that.
"We'll have to see what he can do and evaluate his mobility and performance," he said. "You can't really predict any of those things. You just have to let it happen and see how it goes."
Pressed further, Saban said there's just no way of knowing what will happen with Tagovailoa.
"We can't know," he said. "I can't know. I've got no crystal ball."
Tagovailoa, who has thrown 27 touchdowns and two interceptions, had the same surgery to repair a high-ankle sprain on his left foot a season ago. He had four weeks to recover from that surgery and returned to play in the first round of the College Football Playoff against Oklahoma, leading the Tide past the Sooners.
Saban wouldn't set a percentage on how healthy Tagovailoa would have to be be in order to play against LSU.
"We're not going to put him in a situation where he can't perform," he said.
Before leaving the gathering with reporters, Saban sarcastically asked for more questions.
"No more hypothetical situations?" he said. "I love them."
Redshirt sophomore Mac Jones made his first career start in place of Tagovailoa against Arkansas on Saturday, throwing for 235 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions in the 48-7 win.
Between a major early Saturday upset, endless bad weather from coast to coast, and a set of even funkier plays than we're used to from college football, Week 9 was scatterbrained, to say the least. And instead of attempting to focus on one primary storyline emerging from it, let's bounce from thought to thought. Here's a Week 9 hodgepodge for your enjoyment.
First-year coaches
In the preseason, I wrote a piece about what to expect from each of college football's first-year coaches. After Chris Klieman's Kansas State Wildcats took down Oklahoma on Saturday, I figured this was a good time to check on how they're all doing. From upsets to tanking to hospital beds in press boxes to, of course, a serious national title run (so far), it certainly has been an eventful collective first season.
Let's walk back through where I set the bar for each first-year head coach in the offseason -- and how I categorized each team's expectations -- and where they stand now.
Contend for a national title
Ohio State (8-0)
Head coach: Ryan Day Preseason SP+ projections: seventh overall (projected win total: 10.5) Current: first (11.5)
Judging teams solely on how they've looked in 2019, the Buckeyes have been college football's gold standard.
Drinkwitz inherited the Sun Belt's best program from Scott Satterfield and has kept it rolling in his own way. The offense has been brilliant all season, and the defense has caught fire of late.
Houston (3-5)
Head coach: Dana Holgorsen Preseason SP+ projections: 70th (6.4) Current: 66th (4.2)
With the news that star quarterback D'Eriq King and receiver Keith Corbin would redshirt after four games, Holgorsen more or less introduced tanking to college football. But here's the thing: The Cougars have been pretty decent since the announcement. There probably isn't a bowl bid in the works or anything, but that was the case pre-tank, too.
Broadly, Miami has been about as good/flawed as expected. The weirdness, however, has been off the charts. The Hurricanes have outgained three conference opponents and gone 0-3 in those games, and they have been outgained by two ACC opponents and gone 2-0 in those games. Figure that out.
Northern Illinois (3-5)
Head coach: Thomas Hammock Preseason SP+ projections: 73rd (6.9) Current: 102nd (51st)
NIU has missed out on a bowl bid only once in the past 11 seasons. SP+ gives the Huskies only a 33% chance of avoiding making it two in 12.
Temple (5-3)
Head coach: Rod Carey Preseason SP+ projections: 62nd (7.5) Current: 53rd (7.3)
In terms of expectations vs. reality, this season has gone about as planned. The wins over two ranked-at-the-time teams, Maryland and Memphis, and the loss to Buffalo, however, were a creative combo.
It's a full-on Year Zero for Troy's defense, and while the offense has provided flashes, it hasn't been good enough to make up the difference.
Utah State (4-3)
Head coach: Gary Andersen Preseason SP+ projections: 43rd (7.4) Current: 64th (6.9)
The Aggies were 4-0 against non-Power 5 opponents heading into Week 9, but an outright listless performance at Air Force has the rest of the season looking a little precarious.
Make a run at 6-6
Charlotte (3-5)
Head coach: Will Healy Preseason SP+ projections: 118th overall (projected win total: 4.3) Current: 110th (5.4)
A huge win over North Texas in Week 9 gave the 49ers a shot in the arm after a four-game losing streak. SP+ gives the 49ers a 47% chance of reaching bowl eligibility.
The Chanticleers have fallen from 3-1 to 3-4, and their odds of bowling have shrunk to 34%. The loser of this week's Troy-Coastal game is all but hopeless when it comes to reaching 6-6.
The Buffs nearly beat USC this past weekend after getting blown out twice in a row. The offense is exciting but can't overcome a dreadful D (and most of the reasons for that exciting O will be gone after 2019).
East Carolina (3-5)
Head coach: Mike Houston Preseason SP+ projections: 112th (5.1) Current: 116th (4.2)
The Pirates are about where they were expected to be, though a dreary home loss to USF in Week 9 all but finished off hopes of a bowl run.
Kansas State (5-2)
Head coach: Chris Klieman Preseason SP+ projections: 75th (4.9) Current: 34th (7.7)
Klieman's first Wildcats squad has already beaten an SEC team on the road (Mississippi State, but it still counts) and a top-5 Oklahoma at home. They are holding their own in a Big 12 with an enormous middle class.
Freeze began the season by coaching from a hospital bed in the press box while his team was shut out on the field. But the Flames are 5-1 since an 0-2 start and are all but assured bowl eligibility despite the stink of losing badly to Rutgers.
Maryland (3-5)
Head coach: Mike Locksley Preseason SP+ projections: 68th (4.6) Current: 56th (3.9)
In Maryland's three wins this season, the Terps have outscored opponents by an average of 54.3. In five losses, they've been outscored an average of 41-14. It has been a unique go-round.
North Carolina (4-4)
Head coach: Mack Brown Preseason SP+ projections: 66th (4.5) Current: 50th (6.4)
Brown's first season back on the sideline has featured three seasons' worth of close games. Seven of eight contests have been decided by one score, and they've won enough of them to make bowl eligibility likely.
Last season's team was rock solid on defense and horrid on offense. This year, the defense has regressed to the mean, but the offense has barely improved. Bad combo.
Texas Tech (3-5)
Head coach: Matt Wells Preseason SP+ projections: 54th (6.5) Current: 45th (4.8)
Between another QB injury and a mind-numbingly awful ending at Kansas on Saturday, Tech's season has gone off course, a victim of the Big 12's extreme 2019 depth.
West Virginia (3-4)
Head coach: Neal Brown Preseason SP+ projections: 45th (6.0) Current: 78th (4.1)
Preseason expectations were modest, but they ended up too high for a team with all sorts of QB questions and not enough ready-made talent to overcome QB questions.
Helton's success has been overshadowed by that of others in bigger jobs, but even after the Hilltoppers' heartbreaking loss at Marshall on Saturday, they still have decent division title odds and excellent bowl odds.
Year Zero
Akron (0-8)
Head coach: Tom Arth Preseason SP+ projections: 121st overall (projected win total: 3.6) Current: 128th (0.9)
SP+ gives the Zips a 33% chance of finishing 0-12. The bar for this season wasn't high, and Akron's not going to clear it.
It was very obvious that Tech wasn't going to enjoy much of 2019, and the loss to The Citadel certainly emphasized that. But the Miami win gives the Jackets at least a LITTLE bit of proof-of-concept for the stretch run.
Kansas (3-5)
Head coach: Les Miles Preseason SP+ projections: 108th (2.8) Current: 84th (3.6)
Miles has done just well enough in Lawrence to highlight his biggest misstep to date: hiring Les Koenning as his offensive coordinator (after first choice Chip Lindsey took the Troy head coaching job). He fired Koenning after only six games -- which included a 12-7 loss to Coastal Carolina -- and replaced him with creative young Brent Dearmon. After two games and 85 points, it's pretty clear Dearmon should have had the job all along.
Louisville (5-3)
Head coach: Scott Satterfield Preseason SP+ projections: 82nd (4.2) Current: 61st (6.7)
If there were three finalists for the First Year Coach of the Year award, they would be Day, Klieman and Satterfield. Satterfield is obviously benefiting from the wretched state of the ACC (see below), but the Cardinals are a game from bowl eligibility and, per SP+, have a 21% chance of winning eight or more games. Going from a destitute 2-10 to that is impressive, no matter the conference strength.
UMass (1-7)
Head coach: Walt Bell Preseason SP+ projections: 125th (3.6) Current: 130th (1.2)
UMass almost certainly didn't hire Bell with the thought of winning big immediately. That's ... uh ... good.
The ACC Coastal is just too ACC Coastal this year
For a few weeks now, I've been sharing my friend Justin Moore's (@tfgridiron on Twitter) simulations regarding what we need to make a giant, six- or seven-way ACC Coastal tie (preferably everyone at 4-4) a realistic possibility. In Week 7, we needed Miami to beat Virginia, and we got it. In Week 8, Virginia Tech beat UNC as preferred. Last week, we requested three results -- Miami over Pitt, Louisville over Virginia, and Duke over UNC -- and got two of them.
The result of our wishes being mostly granted: a sweet, beautiful mess. Virginia and UNC "lead" this leaderless division with 3-2 records, Virginia Tech and Pitt are a half-game back at 2-2, Duke and Miami both come in at 2-3, and Georgia Tech, despite general awfulness (98th in SP+), is just 1.5 games back at 1-3.
Virginia visits UNC this week, and the winner will be the outright favorite entering the home stretch. But at 41st and 50th, respectively, in SP+, there's no reason to think either still couldn't be caught.
I asked Justin once more to look at the most four-win-favorable results for this coming week's games. Here's what he produced.
"The overall odds of six finishing 4-4 are 1-in-1055. If Georgia Tech beats Pitt and UNC beats UVA, it moves to 1-in-375. Neither of those? 1-in-2700."
Go Jackets, and go Heels.
A moment to pause and appreciate video game glitches
Consider this a mid-column palate cleanser. When it comes to pure, WWE 2K20-level, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" plays, the college football gods were extremely generous in the bounty they gave us in Week 9. Behold:
Texas Tech literally handed Kansas the game for no reason whatsoever.
There were also a couple of "throw the video game controller and turn the stupid game off forever" plays. For instance, we had Florida State nearly scoring on a play my intramural flag-football team drew up one time.
Bless you, college football, for your ever-living ridiculousness.
How do you field a college football offense when you've solved the college football offense?
More than any other great defensive team, Michigan State appears built to perfectly solve what you might call the generic CFB offense. The Spartans maintain the same 4-3 structure at almost all times, which helps to keep things as simple as offenses want to keep them. They fill their gaps perfectly up front and stop the run without committing extra numbers to the box. They handle the run-pass option and inside/outside zone run plays as well as anyone.
Mark Dantonio's squad stops the things a college football player can typically do. To score on the Spartans, then, you have to figure out how to do things a college football player/team typically can't. You want to live on difficult deep outs or some extreme no-back formation that peels defenders out of the box? Fine, go ahead and try it. But they're going to suffocate the stuff you probably want to do the most.
Think about what this means when you're Dantonio, and you still have to field an offense. You know every flaw in the generic college football offense, which means you probably either can't stand that offense or don't want to offer any solutions for other teams by running offensive plays that can beat your defense in practice.
Take away that stuff, though, and you're not left with many options. Dantonio has forever chosen a regressive system built around running on first down, running on second, and converting short passes on third down. But with each passing year, the run game gets worse and the third downs get longer.
From 2014 to 2018, MSU went from 12th in offensive SP+, to 30th, to 55th, to 72nd, to 112th. This season the Spartans have "improved" to 85th, but in their past three games, against Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State, they scored 17 points total. The defense remains strong, but it eventually gave up at least 28 points in each of these three games as well.
Dantonio underwent a fascinating (and somewhat hilarious) thought experiment this offseason, giving a lot of his assistants new roles and hoping that State could solve its offensive problems in-house. The Spartans now throw a bit more on early downs and work at an average tempo instead of dramatically slow. But it doesn't appear to have made that much of a difference, and that's probably not surprising considering the primary problem is the box he has painted himself into.
What do you do if you're Dantonio, and there's no way you can bring yourself to modernize in the ways that an LSU or USC have recently? It's not as if there aren't still options. If you want to lean into your base instincts a bit (i.e. run the damn ball and defend), you still have options.
• You could choose a system like Boston College's, with breakneck tempo, run-heavy tendencies, and enormous backs (and, granted, no better recent track record of damaging good defenses).
• You could pluck someone from the Scott Satterfield or Willie Fritz trees. Satterfield's Louisville and App State teams have been run-heavy but creative and successful, and Fritz has modern option football throughout his résumé. His current offensive coordinator, Will Hall, is destined for a bigger job soon.
• You could say forget it all and go with the triple option. No, seriously! Hire Navy's Ivin Jasper and make your team the biggest pain to prepare for in the power conferences. Granted, recruiting triple-option personnel might make it harder for your offensive scout team to prepare your defense for other offenses. But if your D takes one step back while your O takes three forward, that's a net gain.
Either way, it's pretty clear that the path forward for Dantonio (if he wants one; he is nearing retirement age, after all) is going to require making more systemic offensive changes.
Are we realizing how big Minnesota-Penn State is going to be?
The Big Ten is narrowly behind the SEC in terms of average SP+ rating. The usual suspects -- Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan -- are ranked pretty highly as always, but another fascinating (and run-heavy!) team has joined the party recently. After stumbling through the first month, barely beating South Dakota State, Fresno State and Georgia Southern and nearly blowing a huge lead against Purdue, Minnesota has caught fire.
P.J. Fleck's Gophers have yet to play anybody better than Nebraska -- go ahead and stock your "AIN'T PLAYED NOBODY" response cannons -- but I always say that how you've played is more important than who you've played, and Minnesota has been brilliant.
In the past four weeks, Minnesota has beaten Illinois, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland by an average score of 42-10. I said in the preseason that the Gophers were the high-upside up-and-comer that we were pretending Nebraska was, and after a sloppy start, they have gone about proving that upside once more.
Now comes the hard part. After a bye, Minnesota plays host to Penn State in the biggest game in the 10-year history of TCF Bank Stadium. It's probably the biggest Minnesota home game in any stadium since ... 2004 (No. 18 Minnesota vs. Penn State)? 1985 (No. 20 Minnesota vs. No. 9 Ohio State)? 1968 (No. 16 Minnesota vs. No. 2 USC)? 1961 (No. 5 Minnesota vs. No. 7 Purdue)? A long time, no matter what.
The Boston Celtics' "city" jerseys were unveiled to the masses Monday -- just not in the way they were expected to be.
Center Enes Kanter posted a picture of the front and back of his version of the jerseys on his Instagram story Monday, before taking them down soon after.
They were up long enough, however, for the internet to get ahold of them, and pass judgment.
Multiple sources confirmed they were the team's jerseys. The Celtics declined to comment on the matter.
Boston, which is 2-1 after wins at home against the Toronto Raptors on Friday and in New York against the Knicks on Saturday, returns to the court Wednesday at home against the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Celtics hope to have both Kanter, out the last two games with a left knee contusion, and Daniel Theis, who sat out Saturday with a sprained ankle, back.
SAN FRANCISCO -- After moving seven times in his first decade in the NBA, Stephen Curry thought he'd found what was going to be his family's forever home. It was in the East Bay, a short commute from Oracle Arena in Oakland. The Golden State Warriors were headed across the San Francisco Bay to the Chase Center for the 2019 season, but plenty of Bay Area commuters take the Bay Bridge every day.
To be sure, Curry started scouting his future drive before each home game last season.
"It was too variable," he said. "Sometimes it was 35 minutes. Sometimes it was two hours."
And so the Currys -- like the Warriors -- had to move on.
"That's how it is in this league," Curry said. "Things are always changing."
Over the summer, everyone's new normal began to come into focus. Curry and his family moved across the bay, to a house in Atherton, California, that he hopes is "the house our kids grow up in." The Warriors overhauled their roster, moved into their new forever home in San Francisco and hit the reset button on the team that has lorded over the NBA.
These were huge changes in and of themselves. But after blowout losses in their first two games of the year -- including Sunday's ghastly 120-92 defeat in Oklahoma City -- it's becoming clear the biggest adjustment of all is in how far and quickly the Warriors have fallen.
"The reality is we f---ing suck," Draymond Green said after Sunday's game, in which the Warriors trailed by as many as 41 points and had to resort to a zone defense because it was the only thing resembling defense they were able to find. "We're just not that good right now. I don't know what better way to frame it. I can try in Spanish, but I ain't really that good at Spanish."
Head coach Steve Kerr, who had been trying to sound alarm bells on the woeful state of his team throughout the preseason, shrugged and said, "I realize I'm making plenty of excuses, but they're real."
Indeed, Kerr has been mentioning in just about every media session that nine of the Warriors' 15 players are age 23 or younger. That Curry and Green are the only players left standing from the core group that went to five straight NBA Finals. That Kevin Durant left in free agency, Andre Iguodala was traded, Shaun Livingston retired. Klay Thompson is out for most -- if not all -- of this season with a knee injury. Kevon Looney is out indefinitely with hamstring and neuropathy issues.
Kerr tried to say all this. And yet his warnings didn't stick until the Warriors got demolished by the Clippers and the Thunder, two teams that have endured countless drubbings at the hands of the Warriors these past five years.
"We've just got to re-create everything," Curry said.
DYNASTIES RISE AND fall. Empires decay and need to be rebuilt. Rosters age out or get too expensive to keep together. But the Chase Center was supposed to be a hedge against that, generating enough new revenue to pay for what would have been a nearly $400 million roster (in salary and luxury taxes) if Durant elected to stay as a free agent.
It was the very embodiment of Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob's infamous "light-years ahead" quip at the apex of the team's run.
Lacob was mocked for the statement at the time, but he wasn't necessarily wrong. The Chase Center had been planned from the moment Lacob, Peter Guber and their ownership group bought the franchise for $450 million in 2010. Over the next nine years, they would spend in excess of $1.5 billion on the project.
It was a massive undertaking, with countless twists and turns politically and architecturally -- an early design looked like a toilet bowl from overhead. But the finished product seems to have successfully held on to the charms of the old place while scaling up as a beautiful, state-of-the-art arena along the San Francisco docks.
It was so much easier to support the building of the Chase Center while the team was winning, though. It felt necessary. Oracle Arena was much too small to house that team for the ages. The Warriors' new locker room would have felt worthy of a team like that. It is big and spacious, each locker the size of three at the old place.
But this year's team feels small in the Chase Center locker room. It has neither the stature nor the accomplishment to fill it. And because of where the Warriors have come from, both in location and organizational direction, all of the aesthetic upgrades only magnify how much things have changed.
In Thursday night's season opener against the LA Clippers, it seemed as though Golden State's understudies had taken the court. Rookie Jordan Poole winged a no-look pass to nobody in particular, then looked for a foul. Rookie Eric Paschall and second-year man Jacob Evans looked lost trying to defend a pick-and-roll by LA's Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell. Shoot, 10 seconds into the game, a fan spilled his drink on the floor.
"Coach Kerr has been saying this building is a metaphor for where we are as a team," said Curry, 31, who is now the oldest player on the roster by a full two years.
In other words, they have to grow into it. Which is, and probably was always going to be, the biggest test of the culture on which the Warriors' dynasty was built.
GOLDEN STATE PRESIDENT Rick Welts has been giving tours of the Chase Center since it was a giant patch of dirt. But even when it was just a construction site, the one thing he always pointed out was the location of the basket where Curry would shoot his pregame "tunnel shot." In Oakland, Curry's warm-ups became a must-see show. Fans would arrive hours before the game to get down to the lower bowl so they could watch his feats of shooting and dribbling prowess. The coup de grâce was the shot he'd take at the end of his workout, when he'd run off the court, catch a pass from assistant coach Bruce Fraser in the tunnel that led to the Warriors' locker room and fire a 50-footer toward the basket. It went in an inordinate amount of times.
Curry has re-created just about everything from his pregame warm-up in Oakland at the Chase Center, on the same basket Welts pointed out on his tours. But the tunnel shot is problematic. The angle is different. The shot clock is in the way. And there are cables for an overhead camera that he has to navigate. After the first few preseason games, Curry wondered if he should just give up the tunnel shot.
But he's just not there yet.
Before the Warriors' first regular-season game at the Chase Center on Thursday night, Curry gave it a go. The ball cleared the backboard and the shot clock, somehow passed between the cables and seemed destined for the hoop. The crowd on both sides of the tunnel held its breath as the ball headed for the basket. It would be perfect if Curry opened the new place by making the tunnel shot.
But alas, the shot flew long. Perfectly in line but a few inches beyond the rim.
"I think he should just go over in the first row of the stands," Fraser said. "Because it's kind of an impossible shot. But he's made impossible ones before too.
"I think this is just who he is. He's stubborn. But he also just likes having fun stuff to do. He likes having a routine and then doing fun stuff too."
Curry is why the Warriors keep the faith. He has always been the cornerstone of the Warriors' culture. When Kerr arrived in 2014, Curry's character and steadiness immediately reminded him of former San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan. If they were going to build something lasting in Golden State, something akin to the Spurs' record of 22 straight playoff appearances (Duncan was a part of 19 of them until he retired in 2016), Curry would be their constant, the player whose character set the organizational tone, in good times and in bad.
Durant doesn't join the Warriors in 2016 if Curry isn't who he is. Remember, there was some very real debate over whether Durant could blend into the Warriors' free-flowing system, which had won an NBA-record 73 games the year before. Sometimes, abundance is just too much.
"More isn't always better," president of basketball operations and general manager Bob Myers said at the time. "But better is always better."
Curry's ego could take the graceful transfer of power to Durant. So that's what happened. And the Warriors won two titles in Durant's three years with the team.
This, at the most basic level, is the foundation of Warriors culture: ownership's unapologetic, sometimes ruthless devotion to progress (adding Durant, leaving Oracle, building Chase) distilled and humanized by men like Curry, Kerr, Myers and Welts.
And it's why Lacob never apologized for the "light-years ahead" comment or the dominance his franchise has achieved over the past five years.
"When we won the championship, I told Bob right afterwards, 'We've got to get better,'" Lacob explained. "I always say that. That's how you keep going. People think I'm being egotistical or arrogant. I'm not. I'm really being honest.
"You have to continue to strive as an organization, both on the basketball side and the business side, to continually improve, because your competition is certainly trying to do the same thing.
"The rest of the league is going to catch us at some point."
ONE OF THE signature pieces of artwork at the Chase Center is a series of portraits of the "Hamptons 5" -- Curry, Thompson, Green, Durant and Iguodala -- by Oakland artist Shomari Smith.
Outside one of the courtside suites, an entire wall is dedicated to a colored mosaic of the Splash Brothers. There are life-size game photos from the Warriors' five NBA Finals runs throughout the building.
The artwork is stunning, celebrating these players and moments in historical significance. But it also kind of makes the place seem like a museum. Those moments feel like a long time ago.
In September, when the building first opened, Myers went to a Metallica concert to check the place out. He was curious, among other things, about how Durant would be commemorated.
When Durant left as a free agent this past summer, Curry's legacy as the founding father of the Warriors dynasty was cemented. Durant's legacy is far more complicated. The Warriors offered him -- not Curry -- the glory spot on the day they officially broke ground on the Chase Center in 2017. He's there in all the pictures, holding a shovel alongside Kerr, owners Lacob and Guber, Welts and Myers.
But the Warriors don't see Durant's defection as a betrayal. They haven't cast him out. If anything, they've gone out of their way to commemorate his three seasons as a Warrior. Lacob publicly stated that the team was retiring Durant's No. 35.
"I think the organization did a great job of saying, 'Yes, you were a part of this,'" Myers said. "He's in all these pictures. The overall feeling is positive from his side, positive from our side. I don't sense any bitterness. It's like, 'You're doing this, we're doing our thing.'"
There were pleasantries exchanged after Durant made his decision to leave, but mostly Myers had to get to work executing the Warriors' contingency plan of a sign-and-trade for D'Angelo Russell. To do that, and stay under the hard cap, they'd also have to trade away Iguodala, the 2015 Finals MVP and one of the best stewards of Warriors culture. It was a painful sacrifice at the altar of renovation.
There is no replacing a talent like Durant. But it's also harder than you think to replace a guy like Iguodala, whose basketball IQ became a teaching tool for coaches and teammates.
"It may have seemed like our system ran itself," Fraser said. "But it was nurtured daily by guys like Andre and Shaun."
Coaches teach a concept. But for something to stick, players have to reinforce it.
"It's teaching the game. But it's also teaching our culture," Fraser said. "How do we instill our culture to these young guys and keep the message to the veteran guys? Part of it is that they become the teachers themselves."
And frankly, there's a lot to learn.
The Clippers destroyed the Warriors' defense on opening night, shooting 62.5% from the field and 54% from behind the 3-point arc.
Afterward, Curry, Green and Kerr all took turns lamenting their poor performance while preaching patience and adjusting expectations for this group.
"We f---ing sucked," Green said that night too. "Our defense was atrocious."
Kerr was a bit more measured. "This is more the reality of the NBA. The last five years, we've been living in a world that isn't supposed to exist. Record-wise, the best stretch anybody has had over five years. This is reality. ... We are starting over in many respects. We've got to be patient. We've got to fight, continue to teach, and the players have to absorb and learn. We'll get better. I know that."
Because they are hard-capped this season, the Warriors have few options to improve the roster, except to just get better. Develop the young players, get healthier, find a defense that works or at least resembles a defense.
It'll get a bit easier in the offseason. They should be able to retain their first-round draft pick in 2020, which is top-20 protected. They'll have a $17 million trade exception from the Iguodala trade. And theoretically, Thompson should be back at full strength.
Getting through this reset year is the real test of the culture they've built over the past five years. How the Warriors approach this historical moment will determine their legacy. They'll become one of the NBA's great dynastic teams, like the Spurs, Lakers or Celtics. Or fall back toward mediocrity in which the past five years are remembered as a nice run, like the 1990s Rockets had.
"I'd compare it to a venture capitalist running different funds," Curry said. "You have your first fund, which you build and hopefully have some success. Then you go back and say, 'We're going to build a second fund, invest in some different things this time.' But it's the same people, the same brain power.
"You're starting from scratch on something but with the same principles that led to success."
CHICAGO -- New Cubs manager David Ross and team president Theo Epstein pushed back on the notion that Ross simply will be an extension of the front office after working as a special assistant in it over the past three years.
Ross is set out to be his own man.
"I will be making my own decisions and continue with feedback from the group," Ross said in his introductory news conference Monday. "I want to stay true to who I am. These guys responded to me when I was here as a player. I don't think that will change as a manager."
Epstein was even more blunt in his assessment, making sure everyone understands Cubs brass won't be pulling the strings with its first-year manager.
"If you're a front office and you want a puppet, you don't hire David Ross," Epstein said. "Anyone that knows Rossy, knows that. He is absolutely his own man."
Ross signed a three-year deal to replace Joe Maddon, who won a World Series with the team while having Ross as his backup catcher and a key team leader. With the Cubs and Maddon agreeing to part ways after the season, it's Ross' turn now to take the helm after the Cubs missed the postseason for the first time in five years.
The organization hopes Ross will exert the same strong personality he showed as a teammate, when sometimes uncomfortable conversations were needed in the dugout and clubhouse.
The team views some of the recent problems it's had as a lack of accountability. That won't be an issue for Ross -- despite being known as the congenial "grandpa Rossy" when he was a player for the Cubs.
"I think maybe there is a misconception of the fun-loving grandpa Rossy, which I love and am very thankful for, but I don't think that's me in the dugout as much as I would love to say I'm that guy," Ross said. "The grandpa Rossy thing is a little bit overblown."
Although the Cubs are hiring a player from their championship season, they are adamant they want to look forward not backward. Epstein called it a "crutch" to fall back on the successes of the past, and Ross agreed.
"It's not about 2016," he said. "It's about the expectation of winning. It's about winning championships. It's about holding yourself accountable to things that you found in winning. Let's emphasize those."
Added Epstein: "When there is too much of looking back to 2016, it can become a crutch that prevents you from moving forward ... I just have all the confidence in the world he's going to establish a new direction, a new voice, that's completely looking forward not back."
As for his managerial style, Ross said he's in wait-and-see mode. One thing is for sure, though: He will let the game tell him what he needs to do.
"I'm going to be a manager that wants to watch the game and see how it plays out," he said. "I think managers that go in with a preset notion can sometimes get in trouble."
And as you might expect out of a longtime backup catcher-turned-first-year manager, he knows his strength will be with his players on Day 1. In fact, he's relying on it until he gets some experience managing a game. The team is hopeful it will all come together for him as together they enter a new era of Cubs baseball.
"The vibe in the dugout, how I carry myself, the communication skills, the relationships," Ross said, reeling off things he thinks will come as second nature to him. "The in-game stuff is going to take me a minute."
The two-time Olympic champion speaks to Matt Long about his training ahead of his three world records in 41 days
By August 15 in 1979 the most remarkable 41 days in the history of middle-distance running were complete. In breaking Filbert Bayi’s five-year-old world 1500m record, Sebastian Coe had not only surpassed the exploits of the great Tanzanian but erased Alberto Juantorena’s 800m and John Walker’s mile marks. For Coe, it was truly a magical summer.
In a former AW feature we trumpeted Coe’s achievements and if the runner’s 1979 legacy left us with three memorable records, four decades on there are at least three corresponding lessons which we can reflect on in performance terms. Lessons which can help you as athlete or coach.
Quality over quantity
Coe explains: “It doesn’t happen overnight. Find yourself a coach and trust in them. Remember coaching is as much an art as it is a science.
“By all means consult scientific tools but as an athlete don’t allow yourself to become a guinea pig at the expense of a sports scientist. There’s a lot to be said for good, intuitive coaching.”
Coe’s coach and father Peter once famously said: “The quality of what you do is much more important than the quantity. Why pound the life out of a young runner when you can develop it with quality? This does not mean that Sebastian neglected his aerobic development, which was achieved as a junior through extensive cross country running in both training and competition.”
Coe senior was ahead of his time in recognising the considerable demands that middle distance events have, not only aerobically in terms of cardiovascular response but critically on the lactate (anaerobic) energy system.
“Long, slow distance running creates long, slow runners. If speed is the name of the game, then never get too far away from it,” is the way Coe senior put it.
When I remind Seb of this philosophy, he concurs that: “Quality and intensity are key.”
The approach engendered into Coe junior would be termed high intensity training in today’s language. The aim of the key sessions would be to allow Coe to become habituated to working around the lactate turn-point, thus training the transporters to utilise lactate as a productive energy source whilst removing lactic acid from the muscles.
A systematic approach to pacing
“Don’t do anything you can’t measure. Make every session that you do count – even your recovery runs. Never do sessions just as ‘fillers’,” Coe explains adamantly.
Both Coe senior and junior were fans of the system advocated by the late BMC founder, Frank Horwill, with sessions over five different paces used over a specified training microcycle.
Peter Coe said the system was underpinned by the desire to engender “raw 400m speed which is repeatable and sustainable”. Seb ran numerous 400m races early in that 1979 season placing second in the AAA Champs, and his summer included a sub-46 sec clocking in a relay.
The multi-tier system which included 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m and 5000m paced sessions was, in the words of Peter, “designed to prevent developing the kind of athlete that is locked into one pace”.
Sometimes Seb would do pyramid sessions which of course utilise a multi-pace ethos within one single session – this was
a legacy of his work as a junior athlete when his training age was much lower. In the competition phase of the macrocyle, he would focus far more on sessions which engendered race pace specificity.
A progressive approach to muscular loading
Seb stresses the need to be “both consistent and resilient in one’s training” but advises: “You need to know when to back off.”
In recognising the considerable tensions and stresses placed on muscles, ligaments and tendons when doing such intense training and competition, Peter ensured Seb’s strength training was underpinned by an awareness that when operating against a given load, a strong muscle will contract faster than a weaker one.
After being coached by Neville Taylor, Los Angeles Olympic 3000m silver medallist Wendy Sly was also guided by Peter Coe in the late 1980s. “Peter was ahead of the curve”, she says. “He worked closely with Dr David Martin who I saw twice a year for physiological and Cybex testing. He would then plan my next phase of training around where I was based on that.
“He introduced new components when he spotted weaknesses. Realising that my plyometric skills weren’t maybe as they should be he made me hurdles to put in my garage to practice bounding. I joined in with Seb’s weight training sessions and started to build a better power base.”
Weight training, including barbell curls and bench pressing, was complemented by both circuit and stage training (circuits require exercises to be performed in rotation, stage training requires the same exercise’s reps and sets to be completed before moving onto a different exercise).
Plyometric work included box jumps which developed the remarkable power, balance and co-ordination which Coe would become famed for as the 1980s progressed.
In terms of focussing more on mobility and flexibility work during the competition phase of the macrocycle, Peter Coe’s approach to periodising these often overlooked components of fitness was pioneering.
Much credit must also go to George Gandy in terms of his guidance while Seb was a student at Loughborough University.
It hasn’t taken long for the Can-Am World Finals to morph into one of short-track racing’s premier events.
The Dirt Track at Charlotte, which is a four-tenths-mile, semi-banked dirt oval in Concord, N.C., hosts the spectacle each fall. The event, which runs Nov. 7-9 this year, features the season finales for the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series, the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series and the Super DIRTcar Series big-block modifieds.
The seating capacity of the main grandstand along the frontstretch is approximately 14,000. However, the number of people on-site each year is usually several thousand more, with nearly every state represented.
It has turned into one of the easiest tickets to sell and hardest to buy — the Saturday finale has sold out grandstand seating each of the last eight years — thanks in part to a group of unsung heroes in charge of track maintenance.
“What makes the World Finals unique is also what makes the track prep unique,” said Tom Deery, president and COO of World Racing Group. “It’s three different types of cars. the good news is Rob (Platfoot) and Larry (Fink), both with their efforts at Eldora and Volusia, are pretty well schooled in dealing with that. They know their way around and what to do and how to manage.”
The event is hosted by both the track and World Racing Group, and a combined crew from both groups as well as other motorsports entities is assembled to provide the best racing surface for three very different divisions of race cars.
From the World Racing Group side, track maintenance expert Larry Fink is joined by Rob Platfoot, who heads the track crew at Ohio’s famed Eldora Speedway. The Dirt Track at Charlotte also has representatives as part of the process in determining the best steps to take in an effort to produce elite racing.
“It’s more collaborative than one person,” Deery noted. “We all work together on what we need to do. That’s such a big event it has to be collaborative.”
In addition to his regular duties at Eldora Speedway, Platfoot helps World Racing Group during the DIRTcar Nationals in Florida each February, the World Finals and the DRIVEN Racing Oil World Short Track Championship — run the weekend prior to the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
“It’s got its challenges, but that’s pretty much any track you go to,” Platfoot said. “You have to get used to that dirt to get familiarized. You have to get it tightened up and moisture in it so you don’t have to do a lot of track prep once the night gets started. That’s a fine line, too, because you can get it too wet and be in trouble, or not wet enough and be in trouble. It’s a very fine line with this line of work to be a hero or a zero.”
Platfoot estimates he spends 85 to 90 hours per week during each of the two weeks at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
“Start off in the morning with some water down,” he said. “You get it tightened up and grade it to get it smoothed over. Then you keep watering and tilling it, fluffing it up to make sure you get enough moisture inside the track. It’s a constant all day of putting water on.”
The amount of water a track takes varies based on several factors, including the water table and the type of dirt.
“The biggest part is your water table,” Platfoot said. “Volusia has that gumbo dirt. It’s a very unique dirt. It doesn’t take as much water. That has to do with your water table. At Eldora for the Kings Royal, I was putting roughly 55,000 gallons of water on and I started about a week before the race got there. I was doing that all the way through to the end. Eldora takes a lot more water than what Charlotte does and it’s way more than Volusia. That dirt doesn’t take as much water as Eldora does. It holds better.
“It could be 80 degrees one day and you’ll put 30,000 gallons on,” he continued. “The next day it’s cool and cloudy and you’ll only put 8,000 gallons on. It’s really hard to predict what weather you’re going to get, so the water is hard to guess how much you’re going to put on. It depends on how much sun you’ve got. Weather is such a big factor of what you do and how you do it.”
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