Sports Brief: Top Teams Meet in Crucial Big Ten Showdown; The Red River Rivalry Returns; NFL Brawl Features Battle of the Beltway

Texas tight end Gunnar Helm (85) leaps over UTSA safety Elliott Davison (6) during the first half of an NCAA college football game in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 14, 2024. Eric Gay/AP Photo

Greetings sports fans, and welcome to The Epoch Times Sports Brief for Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we’ve got some amazing stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s happening in the world of sports.

A pair of the best teams in college football lock horns in a Big Ten wild west showdown, a bitter rivalry kicks off tomorrow with enormous stakes, and a couple of the NFL’s top quarterbacks get ready to square off in the Battle of the Beltway.

Also, it’s do or die tonight in major league baseball, and a legendary champion has just decided that it’s time to hang up his racket.

We’ll tackle each one of these very exciting stories, but we begin with college football and tomorrow’s unbelievable slobberknocker with huge consequences for two of the very best teams in the country.

Top Teams Meet in Crucial Big Ten Showdown

Tomorrow night, the Ohio State Buckeyes will head to the West Coast to take on the Oregon Ducks, and regular season free-for-alls don’t get much bigger than this.

The stakes are absolutely huge: The winner of this game has the inside track all the way to the Big Ten championship and a very high spot in the college football playoff rankings.

Both teams are undefeated at 5–0, each squad is ranked in the top three, and this game is the very first time these two traditional powerhouses will meet as full-fledged members of the Big Ten Conference, with conference supremacy on the line.

Going in, you should know that Oregon has only beaten the Buckeyes once in their 10 previous attempts—and that these teams also met a decade ago in the national championship game, which was won by Ohio State in a 42–20 laugher.

This season, the Ducks have rebounded from a slow start, the offensive line has settled down, and veteran quarterback Dillon Gabriel is lighting up the Pacific coastline with his solid all-around performance.

By the way, former Ducks head coach Chip Kelly is now the offensive coordinator for Ohio State, and his Buckeyes score a whole bunch of points. They can run, they can pass, and they produce some of the very best wide receivers in the entire country.

Oh, and if that’s not enough, the Buckeyes also line up the top-rated defense in the entire nation, and this team has more chips on its shoulder than a Las Vegas casino.

Ohio State quarterback Will Howard is coming off a great game against Iowa, and the massive Oregon defensive line will have to knock him off his spot and generate some turnovers if they have any hope of punching the visiting bully Buckeyes in the schnoz.

You should know that the great equalizer in this matchup is Autzen Stadium, where 54,000 screaming fans make it one of the very best home-field advantages in all of college football. Kickoff is set for 7:30 eastern and all eyes will definitely be on this one.

We stick with the college gridiron, and tomorrow, two neighbors who don’t like each other so much square off in a very heated skirmish.

The Red River Rivalry Returns

The Red River Rivalry game between Texas and Oklahoma is gonna be played at the world-famous legendary Cotton Bowl in Dallas, and this long-standing feud will be the 120th meeting between these two fierce competitors.

However, tomorrow, these longtime conference foes will meet for the very first time as members of the ultra-competitive SEC, and the stakes are gigantic—especially for Texas, the top-ranked team in the country.

The undefeated Longhorns have been blowing teams out like they’re in a hurry to get to the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Golden Corral, while the 4–1 Sooners have been barely squeaking by their opponents.

You should know that Oklahoma dual-threat Michael Hawkins Jr. will become the very first true freshman quarterback to start for the Sooners against their rivals. The all-purpose talent is missing a whole bunch of receivers, and he’ll need lots of help from Oklahoma’s huge offensive line if he wants to end the game standing on his feet.

On the other side of the river, the Longhorns look to get a big boost from the return of their injured starting quarterback Quinn Ewers, who hasn’t played in nearly a month. If Ewers goes down, however, all’s well, deep in the heart of Texas, because his backup is Arch Manning, who, in case you’re not aware, is the nephew of both Payton and Eli.

You should know that the Sooners have won five out of the last six matchups between these two programs, that this is the fifth time Texas strolls into the game as the top-ranked team in the country, and that the Longhorns have never lost one of those previous contests.

The winner takes home a trophy known as the “Golden Hat,” which is a large gold cowboy hat with a wood base—and the prize isn’t an Academy Award, but it ain’t half bad.

We move along now to the big dogs in the NFL, and this weekend’s royal rumble between the league’s top rookie, last year’s MVP, and a pair of division-leading neighbors in a backyard battle for Beltway supremacy.

NFL Brawl Features Battle of the Beltway

On Sunday, the Washington Commanders head an hour up the highway to take on the Baltimore Ravens, in a regional tussle between a pair of first-place teams.

In case you haven’t heard, the Commanders are led by their phenomenal rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, who’s taking the league by storm. The 23-year-old dual threat with a rocket arm has launched his pro career by winning four of his first five games, and is already in the conversation for both rookie of the year and league MVP.

Commanders coach Dan Quinn has turned around the long-suffering Washington football team faster than a Mike Tyson knockout, and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury has stitched together the highest scoring team in the entire league.

On the other sideline, the high-flying Ravens have also turned things around in a jiffy after dropping their first couple of games. Since then, the birds have rattled off three huge wins in a row, including last weekend’s overtime comeback against the disappointing Bengals.

Last year’s league MVP Lamar Jackson has regained some of that missing mojo, and it doesn’t hurt when you’re handing the ball off to the very best running back in the league, Derrick Henry.

Over the last few weeks, King Henry has been barreling over opponents like shoppers at Walmart on Black Friday, and good luck trying to stop both him and Baltimore’s top-ranked rushing squad.

This extraordinary matchup features a pair of high-octane offenses, some very questionable defenses, and a couple of exciting quarterbacks that can shake and shimmy with the best running QBs of all time.

If you like lots of scoring, a backyard brawl, and a whole bunch of salty Maryland crabcakes, this is the game of the week for you.

We’re going to change things up just a bit now and dig deeper into baseball and tonight’s deciding game five, and it doesn’t get any bigger than this. The season is on the brink, the pressure is sky high, the losing team packs its bags for the winter, and here’s what we know.

It’s Winner-Take-All for Dodgers and Padres

The hot-hitting San Diego Padres will fight their way through the rush-hour gridlock of the 5 Freeway tonight before they face their arch-enemies, the L.A. Dodgers, in a winner-take-all bare knuckle brawl for a chance to play the Mets for the pennant.

For the record, right-hander Yu Darvish takes the mound for the Padres once again, following his masterful game two performance. Just last weekend, Darvish completely baffled the Dodgers with a mix of pitches that spun more than the Tasmanian devil on a Red Bull bender.

You need to know that Fernando Tatis still has the hot hand for the Padres, Mookie Betts is starting to break out of his slump for the Dodgers, and L.A.’s crucial first baseman, Freddie Freeman, is a gametime decision due to a lingering ankle injury.

Hey Freeman—shake it off, buddy. It’s Game 5.

You also need to know that there’s only one Shohei Ohtani, and that he alone gives the hometown team a significant “batter up” against their arch-rivals.

In case you missed it, the last time these two teams played in L.A., the game was delayed when some fans in the outfield tossed debris onto the field, and one Padres player was accused of intentionally hurling a ball toward the Dodgers dugout.

It’s sure to be salty again in tonight’s pressure cooker. These two teams make the Hatfields and the McCoys seem like best friends, and this time, it’s win or go home.

The winner gets the privilege of hosting the feisty New York Mets in their home ballpark on Sunday night, in game one of the NL Championship series.

Over in the American League, the Tigers and the Guardians will play tomorrow night in a do-or-die game five in Cleveland, and Tarik Skubal takes the mound for Detroit. The hard-throwing lefty just won the AL pitching triple crown, and he has not given up a single run this postseason.

Skubal will be very hard to beat, and the Guardians will have to do just that if the team from Cleveland wants to win the chance to take on the waiting Yankees on Monday night in the Bronx.

We have just enough time for one more story, and we’d like to say farewell to one of the greatest tennis players of all time, who’s decided to hang up his racket after nearly a quarter century in the sport.

Tennis Great Nadal Calls It Quits

Yesterday, Rafael Nadal announced that he’s calling it quits at the end of this year, after winning a legendary 22 Grand Slams.

Nadal’s incredible list of accomplishments includes 14 French Open titles, a pair of Wimbledon crowns, and four U.S. Open championships.

The 38-year-old’s retirement comes after a couple of injury-prone years for the clay court specialist, and Nadal says that his last match will take place next month at an international team event, the Davis Cup, which is being held in his home country of Spain.

Nadal released a video statement on social media announcing the decision. In the heartfelt message, he thanked his rivals, his teammates, and his fans, while calling his career a “dream come true.”

There’s already a statue of this incredible tennis legend outside of Roland Garros stadium in Paris, and there are likely to be a tremendous number of accolades coming his way before he takes one last volley next month.

Thanks, Rafa, and keep on swinging.

Before we go, we’d like to tip our caps to the only professional athlete who ever tried to play in both the NFL and the major league baseball playoffs on the same day—and that’s the incomparable Deion Sanders, who tried to pull off this amazing feat on this day back in 1992.

At the time, Sanders played for both the Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Braves, and on the afternoon of Oct. 11, he played nearly every defensive snap for the Falcons before jetting to Pittsburgh to suit up for the Braves in their playoff matchup that night against the Pirates.

Unfortunately, the Braves lost that night, and Sanders didn’t even play in the game. However, Neon Deion did go on to play phenomenally for the Braves in the World Series later that month, and eventually, he high-stepped his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Looks like we’re out of time, so we’re going to call it a wrap for this edition of the Epoch Times Sports Brief.

If you have any thoughts about the Sports Brief program, we’d love to hear from you, and you can find us at [email protected].

For all of us here at The Epoch Times Sports Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.

The Epoch Times Sports Brief program is written by David Ross.

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Enjoy another great weekend of sports, stay safe, and please join us again next time for another edition of The Epoch Times Sports Brief.