COUNTING DOWN
Del Olaleye: The weekly look at college football includes Ed Oliver on a LOT of watch lists
Del Olaleye
Jul 18, 2018, 6:20 am
Ed Oliver will be on a lot of watch lists. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Ed Oliver on all the watch lists
If preseason watch lists are to be believed then Ed Oliver has a shot to be the most decorated defensive player to ever play at the University of Houston. Major college awards won’t be voted on until the end of the season but what Oliver has done in his first two years at Houston put him in a prime to position to have a very successful award season. The Outland, Nagurski, Bednarik, and the Maxwell awards have all listed Oliver as a person to look out for. Houston doesn’t have a game on the schedule this season that will garner the star defensive tackle the type of attention that his first ever game did. There is no Oklahoma for Oliver to dominate in 2018. No top 5 opponent on a national stage to help stake his claim. A great Houston season would certainly help but overwhelming numbers and dominance will be Oliver’s path to a fruitful postseason awards circuit. That path starts Sept. 1 against Rice.
Conference media days are upon us
I don’t particularly care that this week is devoted to conference commissioners and coaches waxing poetic about their conferences and programs. I do care that it is one more landmark in our long trek back to the the start of the college football season. By the end of the week we’ll be about two weeks away from the start of fall practice. I will credit Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby with the line of the week so far. When asked about some Big 12 schools selling alcohol in their stadiums during games, Bowlsby said it might be preferable to having people “power drinking” in the parking lots at halftime. You win, Mr. Bowlsby. You win. That isn’t the only great thing to come out of the Big 12 media days. The SEC has the standard bearer for the our conference is better than your conference slogans with “It just means more.” The Big 12 jumps into the conversation with “Hardest path to the CFP.” Pretty straightforward and somewhat boring. The SEC remains the king when it comes to pretentious conference slogans.
Gary Patterson is against the new transfer rules
The TCU head coach called the recent change that removes the ability of institutions of restrict the movement of college football players stupid. The NCAA now allows players to choose a new institution to transfer to without the player’s current coach or school having much of a say. Schools now have to place a player’s name in a national database within two days of being informed of an intent to transfer. In an interview with Star-Telegram, Patterson cites the ability of players on other teams to recruit a potential transfer as a problem. The Horned Frogs head coach also believes the rule is indicative of modern society, “What we’re teaching our kids to do is quit. I’m not starting. I’m not getting my playing time. Every freshman I’ve ever known wants to transfer because it’s harder than anything else he did in high school.”
I don’t buy a word of what Patterson is saying. The rule makes his job harder and that is his real problem. He winds up snitching on himself when he says this, “As I tell people all the time, at your house you’re going to allow your 17-year-old, 18-year-old to run your household? Let them pay your bills, that’s what you do? No. You don’t do that. So why are we putting our jobs in jeopardy because of an 18-year-old? That’s stupid.” You didn’t birth these players, coach. You’re their football coach. You don’t have custody.
For all the talk about the fall of modern society, Patterson’s outrage comes from a place we all know something about, CYA. As you read more and more of the article it is pretty clear that Patterson’s biggest objection is he’ll have to work harder. He now has less control over the future of the kids who decide to play for him and I’m all for it.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.