Most pressing questions facing Power 5 conferences at conclusion of spring practices. May 3, 2. 01. 7Mark Schlabach. ESPN Senior Writer Close. Senior college football writer. Author of seven books on college football. Graduate of the University of Georgia. With the completion of spring football, we updated our 2. Offers the Word Up quiz-style board game. Free sample questions. Perhaps the most confusable pair of all! Trade and Mark Smith. Anyone got a cough drop? Used with permission of F&F Foods. The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday voted untraditionally to award bids for both the 2024 and the 2028 Olympics, with one going to Paris and another going. 23 interview questions you're likely to be asked, and how I have learned to answer them. Green Harbor Publications is the sponsor of The Free Fall Research Page. Intuitive controls. Halide puts the finer controls usually hidden away by multiple button taps at the forefront of the interface. To control exposure, slide up or. ![]() No. 1: Ohio State. As we get closer to the start of the season, here are the most pressing questions in each Power 5 conference. Three burning questions for the ACCMelina Vastola/USA TODAY Sports. Will it be Florida State's turn on the ACC championship seesaw? Defending national champion Clemson and Florida State have combined to win each of the past six ACC championships. After the Seminoles won three in a row from 2. Tigers won each of the past two. But FSU seems poised to return to the top, especially with quarterback Deondre Francois coming back for his second season as a starter and the Tigers still searching for Deshaun Watson's replacement. Of course, FSU might have to survive a Nov. Clemson to win the ACC Atlantic. Is reigning Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson the favorite again? There has been only one two- time Heisman Trophy winner (Ohio State running back Archie Griffin in 1. Jackson was sacked a whopping 4. Cardinals' inability to protect him during a three- game losing streak really dampened what might have been a special season in 2. Along with making changes along the offensive line, Louisville coach Bobby Petrino wants Jackson to play under center more and develop as a downfield passer. Is there a true challenger in the ACC Coastal? It would probably have to be Miami, which will need departed quarterback Brad Kaaya's replacement to play very well this coming season. Hurricanes coach Mark Richt still hasn't picked between Malik Rosier and Evan Shirreffs, but whoever wins the job will have some nice weapons around him. Defending Coastal champion Virginia Tech has to replace a boatload of skill players, including quarterback Jerod Evans and top receivers Isaiah Ford and Bucky Hodges. North Carolina is basically starting from scratch on offense after losing quarterback Mitch Trubisky and six other starters. When it's all said and done, Georgia Tech might end up being the pick. Team to beat. Florida State. Offensive player to watch. Deondre Francois, QB, Florida State. Defensive player to watch. Dexter Lawrence, DT, Clemson. Newcomer to watch. Cam Akers, RB, Florida State. Coach with the most work to do. Larry Fedora, North Carolina. Team most likely to rise. Miami. Team most likely to fall. North Carolina. Player most likely to rebound. Derwin James, S, Florida State. Three burning questions for the Big 1. Baker Mayfield will be handing off to new running backs in 2. Marcelias Sutton. Richard Rowe/Icon Sportswire. Is it Oklahoma State's turn in the Bedlam Series? On paper, at least, the Pokes might actually be the Big 1. They're going to be every bit as explosive on offense as they were a year ago, especially because quarterback Mason Rudolph and receiver James Washington decided to return to school. LSU transfer Tyron Johnson gives Rudolph another weapon on the perimeter, and then Mike Gundy addressed two of his team's biggest areas of concern by adding Clemson cornerback Adrian Baker and Cal offensive tackle Aaron Cochran as graduate transfers. Oklahoma is still going to be very, very good, but the Sooners have to replace top rushers Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon and star receiver Dede Westbrook. The Pokes host OU in Stillwater on Nov. What should the expectations be at Texas in Tom Herman's first year? Former Texas coach Charlie Strong was criticized for a lot of things during his tenure in Austin, but he can't be accused of leaving Herman a bare cupboard. The Longhorns are expected to bring back 1. FBS, and quarterback Shane Buechele and linebacker Malik Jefferson are two of them. UT still has to find departed running back D'Onta Foreman's replacement and shore up its offensive line, but most of the pieces are in place for Herman to have success in Year 1, though title contention alongside the Cowboys and Sooners is asking too much. What should we expect from Baylor under Matt Rhule? Rhule inherits an unenviable situation, but he's tackled challenges before and turned Temple into a winner. He's committed to transforming Baylor's offense from a fast- paced, spread attack to a more physical pro- style system. The good news: Baylor has a great one- two punch at tailback in Terence Williams and Ja. Mycal Hasty. The bad news: The Bears had only seven scholarship offensive linemen available during spring practice, and seven freshmen linemen are coming this summer. Baylor fans will have to be patient as he rebuilds a depleted roster. Team to beat. Oklahoma State. Offensive player to watch. Baker Mayfield, QB, Oklahoma. Defensive player to watch. Malik Jefferson, LB, Texas. Newcomer to watch. Will Grier, QB, West Virginia. Coach with the most work to do. Matt Rhule, Baylor. Team most likely to rise. Texas. Team most likely to fall. Texas Tech. Player most likely to rebound. Rodney Anderson, RB, Oklahoma. Three burning questions for the Big Ten. Penn State returns two of the Big Ten's best offensive players in quarterback Trace Mc. Sorley and running back Saquon Barkley. Rich Barnes- USA TODAY Sports. Can Michigan beat Ohio State? It might take a monumental upset by the Wolverines at the Big House on Nov. The Buckeyes are bringing back quarterback J. T. Barrett and 1. NFL draft. Conversely, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh faces a monumental rebuilding job, with only five starters returning, which is fewest among 1. FBS teams. If Michigan falls to Ohio State for the sixth consecutive time, Harbaugh would become only the second Wolverines coach (with at least three seasons on the sideline) to start his tenure 0- 3 against the Buckeyes. Rich Rodriguez, whose teams went 0- 3 from 2. Will Penn State live up to the preseason hype? After a 2- 2 start in 2. Nittany Lions came out of nowhere to win the Big Ten and play in the Rose Bowl. They'll have the best backfield in the Big Ten this coming season with Heisman Trophy candidates Saquon Barkley and Trace Mc. Sorley returning. They might not have as much depth on defense as Michigan and Ohio State, but coach James Franklin has slowly been building the talent on that side of the ball. The Big Ten East schedule flips, so Penn State will play at Ohio State and host Michigan, along with tricky non- division road contests at Iowa and Northwestern. Michigan State can't be that bad again, right? From 2. 01. 3- 1. Spartans won 3. 6 games, reached the College Football Playoff semifinals and played in two other New Year's Six bowl games. That's what made last season's 3- 9 collapse so stunning. Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong, and the past offseason hasn't been much better because of serious off- field allegations. But the Spartans should be more competitive on the field, especially with quarterback Brian Lewerke coming back from a broken leg. He completed 2. 5 of 4. Team to beat. Ohio State. Offensive player to watch. Saquon Barkley, RB, Penn State. Defensive player to watch. Sam Hubbard, DE, Ohio State. Newcomer to watch. Tanner Lee, QB, Nebraska. Coach with the most work to do. Jim Harbaugh, Michigan. Team most likely to rise. Michigan State. Team most likely to fall. Minnesota. Player most likely to rebound. Chris Orr, LB, Wisconsin. Three burning questions for the Pac- 1. Sam Darnold went from unknown backup at the start of the 2. Heisman Trophy favorite to start 2. Photo by Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire. Does any other conference have better quarterbacks than the Pac- 1. No, and it's not even close. As many as three Pac- 1. USC's. Sam Darnold, UCLA's. Josh Rosen and Washington State's. Luke Falk - - might be picked in the first round of the 2. NFL draft, and Washington's. Jake Browning threw for 3,4. Huskies to the College Football Playoff last season. Darnold might end up being the No. Rosen is projected to be a top three pick if he bounces back from a shoulder injury that caused him to miss the final six games last season. Whether UCLA can finally capitalize on his enormous talent remains to be seen. Bruins coach Jim Mora blew up his offensive coaching staff after last season's 4- 8 disaster. Former Michigan assistant Jedd Fisch was hired as offensive coordinator, and former Wolverines analyst Jimmie Dougherty is the new passing game coordinator. Can Oregon return to contention under Willie Taggart? After last season's 4- 8 meltdown, the more appropriate question might be whether or not the Ducks can return to being competitive against the Pac- 1. Oregon's defense needs a lot of work, which is why Taggart brought former USF coach and Colorado defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt to Eugene. The Ducks allowed 4. The best news from spring practice: quarterback Justin Herbert completed 1. Can anyone unseat Washington in the Pac- 1. North? The Huskies probably have more returning talent than anyone outside of USC in the Pac- 1. John Ross, cornerbacks Kevin King and Sidney Jones and safety Budda Baker turned pro and were selected in the first two rounds of the NFL draft. Stanford lost its two best players, running back Christian Mc. Caffrey and defensive end Solomon Thomas, and quarterback Keller Chryst still isn't back from a torn ACL he suffered during the Sun Bowl. With Falk coming back, Washington State might be a sleeper in the division, if the Cougars can avoid early pitfalls. Team to beat. USCOffensive player to watch. Sam Darnold, QB, USCDefensive player to watch. Vita Vea, DT, Washington. Newcomer to watch. Marlon Tuipulotu, DT, USCCoach with the most work to do. Justin Wilcox, Cal. Team most likely to rise. UCLATeam most likely to fall. Colorado. Player most likely to rebound. Josh Rosen, QB, UCLAThree burning questions for the SECDerrius Guice proved he was more than capable of being LSU's featured back during Leonard Fournette's absence in 2. Chris Graythen/Getty Images. Can anyone in the SEC end Alabama's reign? Club. ABC’s new Match Game, hosted by Alec Baldwin, is only the latest attempt to revive and update the boozy, glitter- festooned party atmosphere that made Match Game a hit on ’7. TV. Like most efforts to recapture the ’7. Match Game remakes have been unsatisfying and vaguely shameful. They’re best left forgotten, but their failure is a prologue to the giddy, captivating success of Baldwin’s version—which is, for this devoted fan of the genre, the best primetime game show since Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? For ABC’s purposes, the “original” Match Game (which was itself a remake of a successful ’6. CBS in 1. 97. 3. Two contestants competed to match a celebrity panel’s answers to fill- in- the- blank questions, with affable yet sharp- tongued host Gene Rayburn presiding. On screen, Match Game was a vision in orange. The fuzzy picture tubes of the era would have seemed to smolder with midday celebrity. That loud disregard for decorum extended beyond set design. It was most evident in the questions—cornball gags that sometimes teased the limits of propriety by hiding lowbrow punchlines in plain sight behind the “blanks.” Rayburn might offer an anecdote about “Susie, the senator’s new secretary,” who reportedly said, “I’m not sure what the senator expects me to do, but when I walked in his office, he was wearing . Match Game ’7. 3 (. It seems to be a straightforward formula. Yet subsequent U. S. There was The Match Game- Hollywood Squares Hour in 1. Franken- show that split hosting duties between the peerless Rayburn and grating Sha Na Na comedy- rocker Jon “Bowzer” Bauman. The decent but forgettable 1. Match Game on ABC, seen above, mucked up the flow with rapid- fire “Match- Up!” mini- games. Speed rounds leave no room for silliness, so Match Game does not require speed rounds—counterintuitively, they brought the show to a halt. Match Game ’9. 0 also felt a bit tame—references to “boobs” no longer made Americans’ face flush with the heat of minor scandal—which may be why a syndicated Match Game in 1. Match Game ’9. 8 is the black sheep, defined by cheapness and boorish, sometimes mean- spirited questions. This version was so bad. How bad was it? It was so bad that after its brief run ended, Match Game left the U. S. The producers made a number of savvy choices to rejuvenate the delight of this format, many of which I will explore in this overlong appraisal. Their most important choice is this: Match Game ’1. It doesn’t cobble together an overloaded format to lengthen the show like Match- Squares Hour. It doesn’t waste time with new rules like Match Game ’9. Match Game ’9. 8. Instead, Baldwin hosts the simple format that served Rayburn so well, and the writing walks a contemporary line between tawdry and outright trashy—favoring the former, but with a soup. The recipe still works. The host. This year’s revival has aired two episodes so far, and it only took that long for Alec Baldwin to make Match Game his own. From the start, Baldwin brought a natural panache to his task of running the game and making everyone else seem funnier while he’s at it. He riffs on the celebrities’ most provocative answers and makes hay of the contestants’ worst. He uses the whole stage, prowling his plushly carpeted domain with a stream of chatter while the panel mulls a question and then perching in anticipation as the answers arrive. This is the dance of a good Match Game host, the one Rayburn choreographed for himself through years of experience. Baldwin has done his homework. But Alec Baldwin isn’t Gene Rayburn, and he doesn’t try to be. While Rayburn had his own moments of lunacy, he usually served as a buffer of wit and relative dignity that counterbalanced the unruly stars. Baldwin plays this moderating role, too, but as he settles into Match Game, he’s also embracing a role as an instigator. With one remark, he disdained the gutter mentality of Shepherd’s previous responses while daring her to keep it up—which she did, and Baldwin got another laugh by shaming her for it. In the series premiere, Baldwin’s grace faltered only when he had to perform pre- written jokes during icebreaker chit- chats with the panel and contestants. These canned moments felt foreign to a show whose essence is spontaneity. In fairness, so would you. By week two, though, Baldwin had figured out an approach that made the one- liners click. He realized that “Alec Baldwin, game show host” was a character he could exaggerate to suit his needs. Now he delivers the zingers with a knowing gusto, reveling in our shared awareness that these morsels of wit are manufactured. Are there traces of 3. Rock’s Jack Donaghy in Baldwin’s host persona? Sure, but only to the extent that Jack Donaghy was also, in part, an exaggerated version of Alec Baldwin. Like David Letterman, and like Gene Rayburn for that matter, Baldwin has a passion for the artifice of broadcasting. During a 2. 01. 2 appearance by Letterman on Baldwin’s podcast, for instance, the two performers reminisced with wonder about the days when local TV stations employed “booth announcers” to maintain patter during technical difficulties. Baldwin exults in such contrivances, and he likes to expose or discard them for comedic effect. We’re almost out of music!” Baldwin barked at one stalling panelist as the show’s funky “think music” continued to play in the background. He knows how to get a reaction by speaking to the truth in the room. That instinct serves Baldwin well on Match Game, which has a tradition of breaking the fourth wall, as much as a fourth wall exists on a goofy game show. After reading a Playboy- themed question—“Did you hear Hugh Hefner sold the Playboy Mansion to the guy who owns Hostess snack cakes? It won’t be the first time you’ll see a . Of course you don’t know what a grotto is,” Baldwin growled. Then he sweetly told them that “grotto” is “a fancy name for a pool with a lot of rocks around it.”It was a classic Rayburn move: Antagonize the rubes in the crowd and then revert to unthreatening kindness. Baldwin could have explained that the Playboy “grotto” is a glorified sex lagoon, and that might have gotten a rise out of the audience. But the discreet choice he made was better, as Baldwin intuitively grasps a core principle of Match Game: Some things are funnier when left unsaid. The panel“You may not know this about me, but I always keep a panel of six celebrities just off to my left,” Baldwin said as he introduced himself in this week’s episode. That panel may seem like a mere handful of boldface names, but there is an unspoken structure to the Match Game panel. Here’s how it usually shook out in the ’7. Seat 1 belonged to a male guest star, typically a relatable type who doesn’t need to be great at the game. Seats 2 & 3 were the Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly slots, respectively. They were two of the “regulars” on the ’7. More importantly, the cantankerous Somers and the showy, sardonic Reilly enlivened the show with playful bouts of bickering—an entire segment could be derailed by Brett making fun of Charles’ hat, or by Charles presenting Brett with a makeshift award for writing down the most terrible answer of the year. Other panelists would inevitably be drawn in, creating the contagious mayhem that Match Game thrives on. Seat 4was the female equivalent to Seat 1: A likable, easygoing woman who could bring the energy back down to earth after Brett and Charles’ hijinks. Seat 5 was the Richard Dawson slot, at least until Dawson found success with Family Feud and left Match Game in an ugly divorce. Dawson practically ensured a smart answer if the other stars whiffed on a question. He was the best all- around player, both in the main game and in the bonus round, where he was contestants’ favorite choice for the climactic “Super Match.”Seat 6 was the “weirdo” slot, occupied by a woman with an offbeat wit. This is the hardest position on a Match Game panel. By the time the host reaches this seat, the question has been read multiple times and the obvious answers have likely been given—the charge of the joke is almost exhausted. So it behooves the final panelist to come up with an idiosyncratic twist on the gag, one that finishes off a round with a valedictory burst of laughter. This seat was the stomping ground of Match Game semi- regulars like naive Joyce Bulifant, unapologetically daffy Fannie Flagg, and of course Betty White, the innocent- looking provocateur. It’s not necessarily the only way to build a good Match Game lineup, but over time this structure tended to foster a lively rhythm. That’s crucial, as reading six answers to the same question can easily turn into a dull proceeding. The new Match Game mostly adheres to the traditional formula, and the celebrity lineups in the first two weeks have been strong. This Sunday’s panel—Horatio Sanz, Rosie O’Donnell, Tituss Burgess, Sherri Shepherd, Adam Goldberg, and Ana Gasteyer—was as good as it gets. Sanz and Shepherd were suitably sunny in the “just happy to be here!” positions, but those are the easy spots. More impressive was the affectionate, combative rapport that O’Donnell and Burgess have developed. While Michael Ian Black did a nice job in the Reilly chair last week, the Rosie- Tituss combination is ideal here. Their sparring evokes the days when Brett and Charles ruled the top tier, yet that echo doesn’t feel forced. Rather, the mannerisms of the brassy ex- talk show host and the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star naturally conjure a milieu of mischief for the other panelists to play in. Ana Gasteyer’s literate and idiosyncratic comic sensibility likewise makes her a perfect choice for the sixth slot. A question from Sunday’s episode provided her with a plum setup by referencing Baldwin’s famous “Schweddy Balls” Saturday Night Live sketch—which, as he pointed out, was written by Gasteyer. The new “Schweddy Log” is the “best thing you’ll ever put in your .
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