If it wasn’t for a fistfight, would anyone be talking about this game?

Sadly, it took several punches to be thrown for a women’s college soccer game (an SEC Tournament matchup, no less,)to get more media coverage than normal.

Things escalated quickly as Ramsey Davis of Ole Miss and LSU’s Maya Gordon went from fighting for possession to actually fighting one another.

Davis grabbed Gordon by the waist and pulled her away from the ball to prevent her from gaining possession. She let go, Gordon swung, and the two exchanged blows.

That wasn’t all, though. As the referee, players and coaches tried to intervene, Gordon’s teammate Rammie Noel went sprinting over to Davis and appeared to grab the junior forward by the hair and pull her to the ground.

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“There’s no place for that in the game,” the SEC Network announce team noted as a replay of the scuffle aired.

All three players received red cards, ejections, and reportedly a one-game suspension.

Ole Miss won 3-0 on penalties and the fight was not addressed by the schools or conference — only appearing. as a minor footnote in a recap on LSUsports.net:

The match was stopped in the 104^th minute as tension between LSU and Ole Miss players came to a boiling point.

You know you’ve gotten things unfathomably wrong for an unfathomably long time when you are held up as an example of why teams in any sport shouldn’t rebuild. That was always the call when a GM was threatening to tear it down from paranoid fans and media alike. “Look at the Buffalo Sabres! They’ve been rebuilding for a decade!” They were that lot near your house where simply nothing ever went in and if anything did it lasted a few months before closing while you were sure it was a front for something.

The Buffalo Sabres weren’t a front for anything, other than maybe ennui. It is now 11 years and counting since they appeared in the playoffs, which is like going back to the Mesozoic era in NHL years. A playoff spot should just land on you one year in 10, especially with the smattering of shortened seasons the league has seen in that time. Unless you’re the Coyotes, of course. But if you’re matching the Coyotes’ record of success over a 10-year stretch, you need directions on how to get the hell away from there as quickly as possible.

The playoff drought may not be coming to an end this spring quite yet, but it does feel like there’s something finally bubbling on Lake Erie that isn’t Josh Allen-related.

The Sabres fustigated fellow up-and-comer (or wannabe up-and-comer) Detroit last night 8-3. Top center Tage Thompson had five points. Rasmus Dahlin piled in his sixth goal of the year. Dead-eyed sniper Dylan Cozens nearly took Alex Nedeljkovic’s ear off for his goal. New hotness Jack Quinn scored his first of the year. The Sabres…have weapons everywhere? What is this?

It was the Sabres’ fifth win in seven games. They aced a western swing, including beating the Flames and Oilers back-to-back to the tune of a 10-5 combined score. They’re the second-highest-scoring team in the league. They play fast and lively. They’re big as well. They can score from three different lines. They have dynamic passers like J.J. Peterka. They are very spicy indeed. Hell, Jeff Skinner might actually score goals that matter for the first time ever.

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The metrics back up what the Sabres have been doing for the most part, being above 50 percent in both attempts-share and expected goals share. Yeah, they’re shooting nearly 10 percent, which is probably a little high for where they’ll eventually settle, but they also have a plethora of talented if unestablished scorers, which might keep their shooting percentage up. They’ve even gotten plus goaltending from old man Craig Anderson. He’s only the backup, but has steadied the ship while starter Eric Comrie figures it out.

It’s obviously been a long time in the wilderness for the Sabres, which they now look to be coming out of. The first dive to the bottom netted Jack Eichel, but that all fell apart with other mismanagement, and the fact that Eichel just might not be that guy, meant that the whole project never got off the ground. The Sabres now appear to be trying to reemerge through a collective effort instead of hitching themselves to the back of one hoped-to-be generational star.

The big unveiling so far this year has been Thompson, who was the centerpiece of the Ryan O’Reilly trade. Thompson is a house at 6-foot-6 but with great hands, and it’s always a slightly longer arc for players like that to find the balance between their size and skill and how to balance it. They come up being able to dangle through everyone in juniors or college, while easily overpowering opponents not all that far removed from puberty without much effort. But then they play against pros, and they can’t always dance with the puck out of whatever jam they have and players can physically hang with them. Some never find it. Thompson showed what could be last year with 68 points in 78 games, and so far this season he’s been unplayable with 12 points in nine. His defensive game could still use some work, but he’s outrunning it so far with his scoring.

But he’s hardly alone on the list. Victor Olofsson has six goals already. Cozens has combined with Peterka and Alex Tuch (part of the return for Eichel) to form a nifty two-way line. Tuch especially always seems to make the exact right pass at the exact right time, while doing it all with a pretty annoying snarl (it’s not a bad thing if he’s on your team). While it took a month for Quinn to net, he flashes a predisposition to find the soft spots in the offensive zone and his vicious release is going to net a haul of goals quite soon.

The real root of the Sabres excitement though is on the blue line, with Dahlin and Owen Power. Dahlin is playing at a Norris Trophy level so far this season, with 12 points. But his metrics are off the charts, with 54+ percent marks in Corsi and xG percentage while starting only 40 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone. Power anchors the second pairing, and he’s also a monster at 6-foot-6 but skates like a ballet dancer. The points haven’t quite come yet, but they will given his aggressiveness and his vision. He’s just 19 and only 17 games removed from playing at the University of Michigan. He has all the runway left. Both allow the Sabres to play up the ice, not afraid to stop opposing rushes at the red line, confident in their recovery speed, or to keep plays alive at the offensive blue line while being skilled enough to carry the puck out of their zone or laser a breakout pass that starts an odd-man rush.

Is it enough to make the playoffs? That’s still some tall timber. In the Atlantic, the automatic spots are a closed club where even all of Tampa, Boston, Toronto, and Florida can’t be guaranteed entry. Which leaves only one wildcard spot in the East open, and that’s a scramble. Comrie isn’t enough to survive that, likely, as he only has one season of success as a backup in Winnipeg. And Anderson isn’t going to carry a team shortly before getting his AARP card.

Still, Sabres fans will be more than satisfied by being entertained every night, and the Sabres are going to pile up the goals. They’ll also be more satisfied, after all this time, to feel like it’s all headed somewhere with much better light. Buffalo and excitement, it still doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but that’s the deal now.

The No. 1 overall pick in the ‘21 draft has yet to live up to the hype that surrounded him coming out of Clemson. Lawrence still has plenty of time to turn things around, but it’s been tough sledding in the early stages. You wouldn’t know it by the Jaguars’ record (2-6), but there has been some progress for Trevor Lawrence in his first year under new head coach Doug Pederson.

Lawrence’s passer rating, QBR, completion percentage, yards per attempt, and yards per game are all up from his rookie campaign. Most of Lawrence’s individual stats are already better than last year, but it has yet to translate into many wins. Lawrence still has the potential to be a top-10 QB in this league, it’s just going to take him a little longer than some others to get there. Keep this in mind: Josh Allen didn’t break out until year three, and everyone was ready to slap the bust label on him. Now he’s a top-two QB in the league — at worst.

It’s been a rough start for Lawrence, but when you go to a lousy franchise, that’s typically how the story begins.

He was so ass and everyone knew it. Auburn’s head football coach Bryan Harsin was fired about nine months too late on Monday morning, the finale to a terrible second season coaching the jewel of The Plains. The Tigers’ biggest accomplishment in 2022 was surviving an average Missouri team that should’ve beaten them, if their All-American kicker didn’t have an extremely rare 26-yard miss and a sure-handed running back didn’t cough up the football crossing the goal line in overtime. Quite the confidence builder, which turned out to be Harsin’s final win at Auburn.

Being the other Power Five Conference team in Alabama alongside the Crimson Tide is the most consistently-exposed spot in college football. You’re a great program by any stretch of the imagination in a football-crazy part of America. The Tigers won a national championship more recently than 124 other FBS teams. Standards are higher because no one will hesitate to kick you out if you can’t fit in. AU paid Gus Malzahn $21.5 million to go away at the end of 2020, bringing in Harsin. And 22 months later, it owes Malzahn’s replacement, who wasn’t even mentioned by name in the press release announcing his firing, $15.3 million. Let’s not pretend like that’s a small amount of money, but let’s also not believe Auburn’s boosters can’t willingly pay that with ease. Because football conquers all, and how dare the Earth allow the Tigers to be anything less than great?

Coincidentally, Auburn hired John Cohen to be its new athletic director within hours of dismissing Harsin. His tenure at AU will be tied with whoever the new head coach is for eternity. If the next football coach fails as horribly as Harsin, Cohen should be kicked to the curb too. The most important decision an athletic director makes is Cohen’s first decision — a rare occurrence, but one that will provide Auburn with immediate feedback on the type of department Cohen wants to run. And he’s got one choice: Make a big splash. Poaching a great coach from the Group of Five is out of the question. What exactly has that done to heighten spirits at other Southeastern Conference schools? Florida is average with Billy Napier. Missouri hasn’t done anything special with Eli Drinkwitz. Hiring a coordinator from another big school is a huge no-no. Vanderbilt sucks again with Clark Lea. South Carolina is close but hasn’t broken through with Shane Beamer. Still, Auburn has more leverage to make a Brian Kelly-esque hire than most give it credit for.

There are not many available coaches that fit the mold here. Hot boards with more than seven candidates are ridiculous. To me, I’ll take one of the following three coaches being hired at Auburn against the rest of the field: Deion Sanders, Lane Kiffin, or Mike Gundy. One complete outsider with the most unique potential in the sport, the easy-to-spot candidate that can quickly lead to the most success, and Mike Gundy.

In all seriousness, Gundy is the longest-tenured coach in the Big 12 by a mile. He took the helm at Oklahoma State in 2005. Every other conference school has hired at least one new football coach since 2016. He’s 155-71 in Stillwater, won 11 bowl games and he’s an alumnus making $7.5 million annually. Gundy has also been the center of controversy, like in 2020 when he was pictured wearing a One America News (OAN) shirt. The network’s election denialism and conspiracy baiting are disgustingly false. Being tone-deaf isn’t a fireable offense, and winning football cures all in PowerFiveLand. Gundy would be an idiot not to listen to an aggressive offer from Auburn. With Texas and Oklahoma jumping to the SEC, the Big 12’s path to a national championship becomes so narrow, Simone Biles would have trouble with that balancing act.

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Cohen comes to Auburn after holding the same position at Mississippi State. Mike Leach won’t be considered when he’s not even the best FBS coach in his state. Kiffin is and he’s halfway done his third season at Ole Miss. He’s never stayed at any gig for more than four seasons, meaning he’s likely bolting from Oxford this offseason or next. Kiffin’s stay with the Rebels proves he can win in the SEC with less than he’ll have at Auburn. He’s got recruiting relationships in familiar avenues and makes a tiny bit less than Gundy at $7.25 million in 2022. Kiffin signed a contract extension in the offseason until 2025, but course-correcting happens all the time. The biggest stumbling block for Auburn will be his buyout, which is oddly unclear. It’s got to be north of $20 million. But how much is winning worth on The Plains?

Now we get to the main event and talk about Prime Time. He’s incredibly inexperienced in coaching college football compared to the other two, only starting at FCS-level Jackson State in 2020. Sanders has punched above his weight for all of his tenure in Mississippi. Remember how I said Kiffin is the best FBS coach in the state? It’s because I’m not sure the overall best college coach isn’t Deion. Remember how he flipped No. 1 overall recruit, Travis Hunter, away from his alma mater to play in the FCS? Blame NIL all you want. Sanders still convinced the young man to trade away the ACC for an FCS school. That was inconceivable two years ago. Someone’s going to bite and hire him to the Power-Five level in the next few years. He’s too enticing to not hire and he’s not an HBCU loyalist like Dawson Odums. Might as well coerce Coach Prime, as he likes to be called, while he could coerce Hunter and his son Shedeur Sanders, last year’s Jerry Rice Award winner, to come with him to the SEC.

This is a can’t-miss hire for Cohen. Starting at Auburn with a shrug would be worse than outrage. He needs to awaken the Tigers’ fan base with excitement. It’s there, ready to burst like Mount Vesuvius. It won’t be hard to do better than Harsin, who was out of his league coaching at Auburn as morale and recruiting went in the trash. The Plains is a treasure unmatched by most locales in college football, and it’s recognized as such by its residents. Hire Sanders, Kiffin, or Gundy and I think the chances of restoring the glory days of Auburn football skyrocket.

Your move, Mr. Cohen.

After losing Rookie of the Year candidate Breece Hall for the year, the Jets acquired Robinson from the Jags for a sixth-round selection.

The pick could become a fifth-rounder, according to Adam Schefter. The 24-year-old running back has rushed for 357 yards — 17 of those in his Gang Green debut — and three scores.

“Freeeeeedom!”

That was the shriek you could hear echoing from the bowels of downtown Brooklyn at approximately 1:03 pm EST after the Nets ousted head coach Steve Nash seven games into the regular season. Nash spent two years putting his head down, remaining above the fray, and massaging Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant’s chaotic ids only for the Nets to kick him to the curb on a chilly Tuesday afternoon in October. It’s a tough business. Adrian Wojnarowski’s report described Nash’s departure as a mutual agreement, but that’s a load of manure. At 2-5, Brooklyn is beginning to decompose at the bottom of the East. The Nets need to take chances and if reports are accurate, they may have that in disgraced Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka.

Hiring Nash in the summer of 2020 to be the ringleader of Brooklyn’s KD-Kyrie circus, was a risky move considering the mercurial nature of their stars, along with the former point guard’s coaching inexperience. A Ken doll could have done Nash’s job leading the PR response anytime one of the Terrible Twos, Kyrie or KD, stuck a finger in an electric socket. It would be disingenuous to say that Nash’s message grew stale because his superstars never actually took to his coaching. Nash was simply the caretaker who rode the fluctuations in Irving and Durant’s moods. He rarely spoke up and challenging his superstars was out of the question. If Durant and Irving had their way, they’d be player-coach and player-GM.

Nash’s system had whittled down to letting his two stars dribble the air out of the ball while they created shots, while any teammates sharing the floor looked on as observers. To his credit, Nash was the stabilizing force culture-wise in the Nets’ melodramatic locker room.

However, Udoka’s imminent hiring gave the Nets’ sideshow another plot twist. Reportedly, front office brass is closing in on an agreement with the Boston Celtics to name Udoka as their next head coach while he serves a one-year suspension from Boston for his part in an affair with an employee of the Celtics. Udoka hopping between Eastern Conference contender to pretender is a fascinating turn of events for several reasons. Udoka’s scandal appeared to poison the market for his services. Fortunately for Udoka, his suspension was issued internally by the Celtics, not the NBA’s league office — and Brooklyn is desperate.

Interestingly, he may be just the coach Brooklyn needed — two years ago. Before Udoka disgraced himself in Boston and fumbled his relationship with Nia Long, he was praised as a sideline leader who brought accountability to the Celtics. In leading Boston to the NBA Finals, Udoka’s coaching acumen was defined by the discipline and accountability he instilled in the C’s stars.

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Throughout the season, Udoka emphasized that superstars could catch hot grease from him just as easily as reserves. We’ll see how that tough love coaching philosophy mixes with two knuckleheads who have been allergic to coaching throughout their careers.

Udoka will have his work cut out for himself getting Durant and Irving to buy in offensively and defensively where they rank last in defensive efficiency through the first two weeks of the season. He’ll have to do all while also rebuilding Ben Simmons’ confidence. During his first and only season in Boston, Udoka also convinced Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown through a more critical brand of coaching than his predecessor’s softer touch.

“The point I wanted to get across was I am not one of those coaches who won’t say anything to the superstars, but will get on the young guys and role players,” Udoka said in a profile by The Athletic’s Jason Quick back in April. “That’s how you lose credibility. We’ve all been there, where coaches have done that and the whole team is looking at the coach like, ‘OK, but the main guy is doing it and you aren’t saying anything?’ So my approach is equal opportunity as far as holding them accountable, if not more for Jayson and Jaylen, because they have more required of them.”

Udoka’s thoughts on accountability hit differently now than they did back in June. However, unlike Nash, Udoka was a reserve who spent his career grinding for jobs overseas and as the 12th man on NBA rosters. His stance on coaching superstars likely hasn’t changed. How he meshes with Brooklyn’s temperamental trio will be fascinating to witness.

Conversely, Durant was especially critical of the motion offense that Warriors head coach Steve Kerr employed in Golden State — where he won four titles, including two with Durant — and believed coaches should get out of the way and let him get buckets. In the postseason, Udoka’s Celtics defense exposed the fallacy in Durant’s iso-heavy approach by harassing him throughout their four-game sweep.

Durant got his wish with Nash’s ouster. It’s clear, however, that the Nets have decided they‘re no longer in the business of placating their two knuckleheads. This isn’t the first exchange program the Nets and Celtics have discussed. Earlier this offseason, the Nets demanded Tatum in a trade for Durant. Ultimately, it may be too little too late. James Harden is long gone, replaced by a version of Ben Simmons who plays like he’s tired of professional basketball. Udoka will face uncomfortable questions all season, Durant is 34 and Irving is a locker room arsonist entering free agency this offseason. The Udoka-KD-Kyrie-Simmons Nets are four damaged commodities that’ll need to rely on each other to rebuild their brands.

The Celtics will face the Nets in Brooklyn on Dec. 4 and Jan. 12 before hosting the Nets in Boston for the first time on Feb. 1, meaning Udoka will in fact coach on the sidelines of TD Gardens this season. Welcome to the new-and-improved Brooklyn circus, now with a new attraction.

It had to happen at some point during last night’s game.

There is no way that the Cleveland Browns can play in a nationally-televised game without Deshaun Watson’s sexual assault allegations being discussed. Even though Monday Night Football is not a news program, it would have been irresponsible for ESPN to air the Browns, their fans, and even Brownie the Elf, without addressing the team’s — at best — morally questionable decision to trade for Watson.

The Browns were comfortably ahead 25-6, with just under 10 and half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, when the production team decided this was the perfect time for Joe Buck to toss it to Lisa Salters to discuss Watson’s return to the Browns.

A graphic showed an extremely condensed timeline of the results of what has happened with Watson’s playing status since he did not take the field last season. Salters explained that Watson is allowed back in the Browns’ facility but not allowed to join his teammates on the practice field. Also he is on track to play Week 13.

Buck then jumped back in and said that Watson has been accused of sexual misconduct during massage sessions, and 23 out of the 26 lawsuits against him have been settled out of court before posing the question to Troy Aikman, “What is [Watson] gonna look like coming back from basically two years out of the game?”

Aikman talked for about six seconds before a 53-yard bomb from Jacoby Brissett to Amari Cooper ended all talk about Watson for the evening.

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Hopefully, that moment is not a harbinger of what the media coverage around Watson will look like once he likely returns to the field on Dec. 4, against his former team — the Houston Texans — in the town where much of his alleged misconduct took place. Watson continues to deny any wrongdoing. A big play, maybe a few, had better not end the conversation about Watson’s conduct.

Watson is not incarcerated, so once he serves the punishment that the league levied on him, there is no further reason to keep him off of the field. That being said, what has been alleged, as well as the cases in which the NFL’s investigation concluded that Watson was in the wrong, should not merely be addressed for one minute or two when he lines up behind center for the Browns.

Watson still has three sexual misconduct lawsuits pending against him, and those certainly need to be mentioned any time that someone talks about him. Just because he’s not facing criminal charges does not mean that he has been exonerated. He most certainly has not been.

Also, the media can’t let Watson’s situation fade come time for the playoff chase, because the Browns must not be allowed to go back to business as usual after condoning and encouraging his behavior.

They did so by giving him an unprecedented contract, that allowed for him lose as little money as possible during a potential suspension, shaking the quarterback market guaranteeing him $230 million, and eventually lauding him for his “dedication to working on himself both on and off of the field,” in a statement following the 11-game suspension that was finalized in the weeks following the NFL’s investigation. That investigation concluded that Watson had violated the league’s personal conduct policy in a grotesque way.

That fact can’t be allowed to run away with a Browns’ pass catcher when Watson drops a pass in one of their arms for a big play.