Molinaro: Thanksgiving Day game draws huge TV ratings, but how many people are really watching?
The Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day rout of the Commanders is being called the second-most-watched regular-season game on record behind last year’s Turkey Day game between Dallas and the Giants. Counted among the 41.8 million who “watched” are the overstuffed who fell into a food coma in front of the flat screen and the pushy relatives back in the kitchen fighting over the last piece of pumpkin pie. What I’m trying to say is, does anybody believe in the accuracy of TV ratings?
Reality check: Under three different names, the Washington football team is 2-9 against the Cowboys in Thanksgiving games. Yet they call it a rivalry.
Razor-thin: Last-second lightning happens in college football — see Alabama last Saturday — but we’d be hard-pressed to find a team that reached bowl eligibility in its final two games — with a field goal and a TD run, both as the clock clicked to 0:00 — the way Old Dominion did.
All’s well: Now that James Madison is bowl-bound after all, was the hue and cry over the potential injustice to its football team a waste of time? Not really. It helped enliven the state’s football landscape.
On the horizon: Next year’s 12-team College Football Playoff will limit, if not eliminate, controversies. But for teams reaching the title game, the season will be extended to 16 or 17 games. That’ll fill the coffers of schools and participating TV networks. But do the rapacious bean counters take into account that it’s too many games for college kids? Silly question.
Channeling Cosell: Pardon the weirdness, but fir what it’s worth, when I passed a Christmas tree lot the other day, I muttered to myself, “Down goes Fraser!”
On fire: Brothers Travis and Jason Kelce are football stars and podcasters. And now, thanks to support from Swifties, their novelty holiday song is atop the Billboard charts. All that’s missing from their repertoire is “A Merry Kelce Christmas” TV special.
Sacks: With two already fired, the over-under on how many NFL head coaches will lose their jobs should be set at about nine.
Eyesore: Last week, the No. 1-ranked South Carolina women’s basketball team defeated Mississippi Valley State 101-19. The game, which didn’t need to be scheduled, helped neither team, but should have embarrassed both.
FWIW: The 2023 college football season, it’s reported, has been the most watched ever
across all networks. Which means there’s a lot of leaves that still need raking.
Shocking: Apparently, college football fans are not turned off after all by the transfer portal and NIL deals. As if anyone thought they would be.
Bottom line: The NIL apparatus isn’t playing out as originally advertised. Instead of players earning money through endorsements, appearances, et al., the best recruits are being enticed and paid directly by deep-pocketed boosters. Straight cash, homie.
Add cash: “A good quarterback in the portal costs a million to $2 million,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said this week. Which is why Southern Cal’s Caleb Williams can say that it will be a “game-time decision” whether he enters the 2024 NFL draft.
On the move: Can’t blame quarterback Riley Leonard for following new Texas A&M coach Mike Elko out the door at Duke. But with Leonard expected to succeed Wake Forest transfer Sam Hartman at Notre Dame, it’s like the Irish are calling up talent from their minor-league system.
Get real: If Ohio State football fans are looking to replace Ryan Day after his third consecutive loss to Michigan, they might put their efforts into finding another coach with a 56-7 record who’s taken his team to the playoff three of the past four seasons, with no finishes outside the AP top six. Day’s worst detractors are silly people.
Go figure: Sports Illustrated’s 2023 Sportsperson of the Year is a college football coach with a 4-8 record. That would be Deion Sanders.
