SI:AM | The Week Zero Games Actually Worth Paying Attention To

Plus, tennis’s most difficult superstar.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m going to watch an embarrassing amount of college football tomorrow.

In today’s SI:AM:

🏈 SI’s preseason All-Americans

🦷 The 1956 Little Leaguer who wanted to become a dentist

🎾 The difficulty of tennis’s most dynamic player

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A college football amuse bouche

Believe it or not, college football season is upon us. This is the point in the calendar known as Week Zero, which probably got its name because there are virtually zero games of any import. But just because the matchups are lousy doesn’t mean you’re not going to watch them. Competitive football games will be on your television for the first time since February. The pickings are slim, but here are the five games that most worth paying attention to:

Nebraska vs. Northwestern (Saturday, 12:30 p.m. ET on Fox)

This is the only game on the schedule featuring two Power 5 teams. So what if they both went 3–9 last season? The game is being played in Dublin, Ireland, which is a fun little wrinkle. It’s also a pretty significant game for Nebraska and coach Scott Frost. He was hired in 2018 with big expectations after leading UCF to a 13–0 season but, since arriving in Lincoln, has failed to win more than five games in a season. The Huskers’ lone conference win last season came against Northwestern, a 56–7 blowout in Lincoln on Oct. 2. If Frost is going to save his job, he’s going to have to have a winning season, and a victory over the only Power 5 opponent the Huskers beat last year seems like a must.

Wyoming at Illinois (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network)

Speaking of bad Big Ten teams: Illinois. The Illini haven’t finished with a winning record since 2011, but Bret Bielema will look to change that in Year 2. He named Tommy DeVito, a transfer from Syracuse, the starting quarterback for the opener. DeVito had a good sophomore season for the Orange in 2019, completing 63.2% of his passes while throwing for 2,360 yards with 19 touchdowns and five interceptions, but transferred after losing the starting job. Wyoming won a bowl game last year but both of its quarterbacks transferred out, so the Cowboys are a bit of a mystery. Can they provide Illinois with just enough of a challenge in the opener?

UConn at Utah State (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET on FS1)

Maybe I’m paying too much attention to UConn because it’s my home state’s team, but I think it’s worth at least taking note of how the season opener goes. UConn was probably the worst team in FBS last season, going 1–11. The Huskies lost to FCS Holy Cross and a god-awful Vanderbilt team, and were the only team UMass beat during its equally terrible 1–11 season. But a new day dawns in Storrs with Jim Mora in charge. Will UConn be completely inept again this season or improve enough to be considered merely “bad”?

Jacksonville State vs. Stephen F. Austin (Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)

This is an FCS game, but it’s an interesting one. Stephen F. Austin was ranked No. 10 in the preseason FCS coaches poll, and Jacksonville State is beginning its first season under former West Virginia and Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez. Plus, there has been bad blood brewing this week between the two teams. Rodriguez accused SFA of sending spies to film his team’s practices.

Vanderbilt at Hawai‘i (Saturday, 10:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network)

I don’t have much to say about a game featuring a Vanderbilt team that went 2–10 last year. But college football season officially starts when you’re watching two lousy teams well after midnight.

The best of Sports Illustrated

In today’s Daily Cover, Jon Wertheim tries to understand the complicated position Nick Kyrgios occupies in the tennis world:

For going on a decade now, Kyrgios has cleaved the Republic of Tennis, creating two sides, roughly equal in proportion, that may as well be divided by a net. He is either the box-office shotmaker, the candid and charismatic and compellingly volatile McEnroe-meets-Draymond bundle of unpredictability that will bring freshness and electricity, bring in the kids and bring change to a tradition-choked sport.

Or he is an unhinged narcissistic brat (or something still darker), who competes like a coward and respects nothing—not his opponents, not his sport, not his predecessors, and not least his own talents.

Or both.

It’s complicated.

Here is our list of college football’s preseason All-Americans. … Michael Rosenberg weighs whether the PGA Tour’s looming changes will be enough to fend off a challenge from LIV Golf. … Ben Pickman has five takeaways from the first round of the WNBA playoffs. … Emma Baccellieri saw a quote from a Little League World Series player in a 1956 issue of SI who said he wanted to be a dentist, so she called him up to see whether his dream came true.

Around the sports world

Bills punter Matt Araiza is said in a civil suit to have gang-raped a 17-year-old with two San Diego State teammates. … As expected, Novak Djokovic won’t be able to travel to the United States for the U.S. Open, because he isn’t vaccinated. … The UEFA Champions League draw features one especially brutal group. … Yankees prospect Matt Sauer struck out 17 batters in eight innings for Double A Somerset. … Aaron Donald swung a helmet during a fight at the Rams’ joint practice with the Bengals but is reportedly not expected to be punished by the NFL.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Orioles rookie Kyle Stowers’s first MLB home run, on an 0–2 count with two outs in the ninth to tie the game.

4. This filthy fake by a youth hockey player.

3. This graphic that aired during the Orioles game.

2. Angels outfielder Taylor Ward’s home run while his grandma was being interviewed on the broadcast.

1. Cavan Biggio’s hustle to score the go-ahead run in the 10th as the Blue Jays finished off a sweep of the Red Sox in Boston.

SIQ

On this day in 1987, Paul Molitor went 0-for-4, snapping the seventh-longest hitting streak in MLB history. How many games did it last?

• 38 games
• 39 games
• 40 games
• 41 games

Yesterday’s SIQ: Roughly how long did it take Matthew Webb to complete the first observed, unassisted swim across the English Channel on Aug. 25, 1875?

• 14 hours
• 18 hours
• 22 hours
• 26 hours

Answer: 22 hours. He began the swim on the English side of the Channel on the afternoon of Aug. 24 and reached the beach on the French side just before 11 a.m. on the 25th after an estimated 21 hours and 45 minutes in the water. (The current record is 6 hours and 55 minutes.)

Webb, a merchant seaman, had risen to prominence in 1872 when, while working on a passenger ship, he dove into the Atlantic to try to save a man who had fallen overboard. While the man drowned, Webb was hailed for his heroic effort of spending a half hour in the water during the rescue attempt.

Back in England, Webb began trying to make a name for himself as a distance swimmer. He engaged in various swimming stunts before embarking on his most ambitious attempt yet: a swim across the Channel to France.

Webb had been inspired to attempt the feat after hearing of a failed attempt by another Englishman in 1873, according to The History Channel. Webb’s first attempt was on Aug. 12, 1875, but it was thwarted by poor conditions. On Aug. 24, Webb tried again. He covered himself in porpoise oil to shield his skin from the cold water and was trailed by three escort boats. When he was stung by a jellyfish eight hours into the swim, he drank some brandy to dull the pain. He also drank coffee and beef tea (yum!) during the crossing for sustenance.

Webb swam the breaststroke, the stroke favored by the English at the time over the “grotesque” freestyle method. He encountered difficult conditions as he neared France and the tide turned against him. As he fought the current, Webb ended up swimming a circuitous route of nearly 40 miles, almost double the 21-mile distance from Point A to Point B. He became the first person to swim the entire length of the Channel without assistance. (American Paul Boyton crossed the Channel earlier in the same year wearing a flotation device and propelling himself with a paddle.)

The crossing made Webb famous, but the good fortune didn’t last long. A 1955 Sports Illustrated article by John Durant describes how Webb, the fame of the Channel swim a distant memory and his physical fitness waning, struggled to profit from swimming exhibitions less than a decade after the Channel crossing. His manager, Fred Kyle, had gotten him booked to do daily swimming exhibitions at a beach south of Boston in the summer of 1883. When Webb failed to wow the crowds in the same way he once did, Kyle suggested attempting a truly spectacular feat, on the order of the Channel crossing: Webb would attempt to swim across the Whirlpool Rapids of the Niagara River, below the famous falls.

John McCloy, a veteran Niagara River ferryman who piloted the boat that took Webb out into the river, knew the waters better than anyone. He tried to convince him to abandon the dangerous stunt but Webb went forward with it. Here’s how Duncan described what happened next:

Far below on the suspension bridge, where the first wild water began, the crowd saw [Webb] stand up in the boat and plunge into the middle of the river. He came to the surface and with slow sweeping strokes went straight ahead toward the bridge. For several minutes he swam through smooth green water, gathering speed as he went, then hurtled like a startled salmon under the bridge and, a moment later, came to the first huge wave of the rapids. Instantly he vanished, but in another second he was thrust to the surface. For a hundred yards or more the crowd caught glimpses of him as he was tossed wildly from crest to crest. Again he was engulfed and for more than 200 yards no one saw him, until suddenly he shot upward and spun crazily about, nearly erect above the water. Dead or alive, none could say. Then a rushing mountain of water closed over him, and he was seen no more. Less than four minutes had elapsed from the time he hit the first wave until his final disappearance.

Webb’s body was found four days later five miles downriver. Duncan wrote that an autopsy determined Webb didn’t drown. A panel of doctors concluded that “​​life had been pressed out of him by the force of the water” because “no living body can, or ever will, pass through the rapids alive.”

From the Vault: Aug. 26, 1985

Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated

Browns fans haven’t had much cause for optimism during the team’s history, but 1985 was different. Bernie Kosar, the hottest quarterback prospect around, had maneuvered his way to Cleveland via the supplemental draft, and Browns fans were ready for him to lead the team to glory, Douglas S. Looney wrote.

Kosar had won a national championship at Miami as a redshirt freshman in 1983 and had an even better statistical season in ’84. In March ’85, six weeks before the NFL draft, Kosar announced that he was turning pro. Furthermore, he said he’d like to play for the Browns in his native Ohio. But there was a problem. NFL rules didn’t permit Kosar, who was wrapping up his junior year at Miami, to enter the draft. He’d have to earn his degree first. (SI also covered Kosar’s decision to turn pro and how his family’s dentist ended up becoming his agent.)

This threw a major wrench in the draft. The Bills had the No. 1 pick but had already decided to take Virginia Tech defensive end Bruce Smith, a future Hall of Famer. In fact, they had agreed to terms on a contract with Smith all the way back in February. So the draft started for real at No. 2. Teams lined up to try to land Kosar. The Oilers owned the No. 2 pick and already had Warren Moon at quarterback, so Houston listened to trade offers for the pick. Meanwhile, commissioner Pete Rozelle had to rule on whether Kosar would actually be included in the April draft. Kosar did not file the necessary paperwork with the league by the April 15 deadline. Instead, he was aiming to be included in the June supplemental draft. On April 9, the Oilers traded the No. 2 pick in the April draft to the Vikings. But on the very same day, the Browns traded their No. 7 pick in the April draft to the Bills in exchange for the No. 1 pick in the June draft.

So which draft would Kosar be included in? In the end, Rozelle left it up to Kosar to decide and Kosar, who grew up 60 miles from Cleveland in Boardman, Ohio, picked the supplemental draft and the Browns. He completed his degree from Miami early, was declared eligible for the supplemental draft and went to Cleveland.

It was a rare instance when things went right for the Browns. Kosar started the season as the backup to Gary Danielson (the current CBS college football analyst) but took over when Danielson was injured midway through the season and helped lead the Browns to the first of five straight playoff appearances.

Since Kosar left town, the Browns have made only three postseason appearances. But still, the team fared better than the other time the Browns landed on the cover of SI on Aug. 26. That was in 2019, when the cover boldly declared “The Browns Are Back.” They went 6–10. 

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

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