Alabama over Miami in penultimate CFP rankings, plus a new NFL mock draft

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Good morning! Good morning! The Nuggets’ NBA Cup court is so bright, it made Steve Kerr look painted by highlighter.

Fresh Off the Presses: Two Colorado players in the top 3?

A funny thing can happen as sports seasons ramp up: Overall interest dips in the actual games, because fewer games matter to all fans of the sport. A New York Giants fan might check out of regular-season action and instead shift focus to the future. There’s always next year, right?

That’s where The Athletic’s Dane Brugler comes in, as our in-house NFL Draft expert and unintentional purveyor of hope. He has a new 2025 mock draft out today. The top five picks:

Jaguars — Travis Hunter, Colorado WR/CB
Raiders — Cam Ward, Miami QB
Giants — Shedeur Sanders, Colorado QB
Patriots — Will Campbell, LSU OL
Panthers — Abdul Carter, Penn State edge

We should note that this is all quite early, and Dane himself says this class is highly polarizing. See every pick here.

Have some hope today.

Snubs? Time to get mad about 3-loss teams

If you read the proverbial tea leaves closely enough, the race for College Football Playoff spots is largely settled after last night’s penultimate rankings reveal, with the final bracket coming on Sunday.

Just take it from selection committee chairman Warde Manuel, who said on ESPN’s selection show that the committee will not re-order teams who aren’t playing during this weekend’s conference title games, which means more than half of the top 25 is locked in:

“There’s nothing that’s going to change for us to evaluate them any differently than we do now.”

The big winner in all this: No. 11 Alabama (9-3), which now is in line for the final at-large nod over No. 12 Miami (10-2), No. 13 Ole Miss (9-3) and No. 14 South Carolina (9-3).

The reasoning was simple: The Crimson Tide are 3-1 against Top 25 competition, while the Hurricanes are just 0-1. Miami is nevertheless angry, of course. Alabama also has a head-to-head win over those Gamecocks and a slightly better list of wins than the Rebels, though Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin is mad too.

Here’s the Playoff bracket as it stands now:

Here is how the 12-team College Football Playoff field would look based on the latest rankings 👀 pic.twitter.com/QL781Y64wG

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) December 4, 2024

There could be significant shakeups in the order of that top 12 this weekend (and a Clemson win over SMU would presumably knock Alabama out entirely). I’m just happy we’re fighting about extremely flawed football teams instead of leaving some 11-1 school out of a four-team playoff.

Carry on:

News to Know

Soto’s bids reach $600 million
Superstar free agent Juan Soto has received offers of over $600 million, sources told The Athletic. Scott Boras, Soto’s agent, said yesterday that his client has started eliminating some suitors as well. Some around the industry expect Soto to sign before the end of next week’s Winter Meetings. I think we should expect whatever he accepts to exceed Tim Britton’s earlier prediction of 13 years and $611 million. Whew.

Smith close to new ESPN deal
Stephen A. Smith and ESPN are discussing a contract extension in the neighborhood of six years and $120 million, The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reports, though Smith told Andrew reports of a deal being close are “false.” The possible $20 million annual salary would be a record for an ESPN on-air personality. Plenty more in Andrew’s full report here.

Naeher ends USWNT career in style
The USWNT outlasted the Netherlands 2-1 in a friendly yesterday, which marked the final cap for longtime goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher — who was predictably awesome in the match. After allowing an early goal, she clamped down airspace around the net, including huge saves in the first and second halves. Lily Yohannes, who opted to play for the USWNT over the Netherlands, entered the game in the 67th minute. See our full recap here.

More news

Feedback Loop: We are canceling the Golden At-Bat

The numbers do not lie: A rather large majority of you do not want to see the proposed Golden At-Bat rule anywhere near an MLB diamond. I thought it might swing this way, but not this much. I’m of two minds here:

The concept does feel like a gimmick. The batting order is the batting order. Why have a bench full of possible pinch hitters if you can just sub in your best hitter once a game? I never want to take sports too seriously, but this feels like a step too far.
… but it sounds cool. A wild-card move in every sense of the phrase. Imagine a manager’s potential glory — or infamy — in deploying this move in a playoff game.

I just don’t know if I can get over the cheap feeling around it. Maybe that changes, because I can only assume this might actually happen. Eno Sarris had some fun with the concept today and chose five unlikely candidates for Golden At-Bat appearances. Fun read.

Thank you, as always, for voting.

Watch, Listen and Play

📺 Soccer: Nottingham Forest at Manchester City
2:30 p.m. ET on Peacock
I am here to see the anxiety of a titan teetering from his perch atop the soccer world. As we discussed yesterday, City has not won a match since October, and Forest sits one point behind the reigning champs in the Premier League table.

📺 NHL: Stars at Kings
10 p.m. ET on TNT/Max
Both of these teams are playoff units right now, and Dallas is always a safe bet to be excellent. This one’s on national TV. Turn it on.

Get tickets to games like these here.

🎧 “NBA Daily”: How Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets beat Steph Curry and the Warriors last night.

Try today’s Connections: Sports Edition beta.

Pulse Picks

Samoa and Detroit are 6,700 miles apart. They have near-opposite climates. But for Lions stalwart Penei Sewell — raised in Samoa — there is a commonality between the two places he calls home. Make time for this story today from Dan Pompei on the NFL’s best offensive lineman and his incredible journey.

Sewell’s coach, Dan Campbell, is leading the race for NFL Coach of the Year, according to oddsmakers. Should he be?

Kate Scott wanted to be a teacher. Instead, she’s become the first woman to call play-by-play in multiple sports and now lends her voice to the Madden 25 video game. It’s another first for the woman full of them.

The Timberwolves are desperate for optimism right now. Donte DiVincenzo might be the one to deliver it.

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Our story on the Lions taking no action after running back Jahmyr Gibbs accidentally leaked their offensive protection schemes.

Most-read on the website yesterday: Week 14’s NFL Power Rankings, which feature some top-10 shakeups.

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(Top photo: Jason Clark / Getty Images)