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The game of the week in college football was in Knoxville, Tennessee, where two undefeated teams met in an annual rivalry (that hasn’t felt like one in quite some time) as Alabama made the trip north to face the Volunteers.

The Vols jumped out to an early 21-7 lead as they were simply unstoppable offensively, with Hendon Hooker orchestrating a lethal passing attack that was headlined by Jalin Hyatt, who caught six passes for 207 yards and five touchdowns, as the Tide struggled to cover him all night up the seams.

However, as one would expect from Alabama, they fought back to tie things up on a few occasions, with Bryce Young putting forth a ridiculous performance with 455 yards passing and two touchdowns, while Jahmyr Gibbs had 104 rushing yards and three touchdowns to help the Tide reel the Vols back in.

In a game dominated by the offenses, it was a defensive play that seemed like it might be the difference in the fourth quarter when a bad mesh from Hooker and his running back left the football on the turf for Dallas Turner, who gladly scooped it up for a touchdown to give Alabama their first touchdown lead of the day.

The Vols would strike back with another touchdown from Hooker to Hyatt, and the tension was palpable in Knoxville.

Alabama would march into field goal range, but the monkey’s paw of college kickers curled and the kick stayed wide right, leaving things tied at 49-49 with 21 seconds to play.

After quickly getting to midfield, the Vols were able to connect on one more deep pass to Bru McCoy to get them in range with two seconds to play to avoid overtime.

Vols kicker Chase McGrath was able to get just enough on the ball — that was maybe tipped at the line — to creep over the crossbar from 40 yards out to send Neyland Stadium into pandemonium.

It was a wild game that delivered on everything anyone could’ve hoped for — unless you are an Alabama fan — and any questions about how legit the Vols offense is were answered in a big way as Hooker made his Heisman case on the biggest stage in the sport so far this year.

On the heels of Blink-182‘s reunion tour announcement, Matt Skiba, who briefly replaced Tom DeLonge from 2015 until now, has shared a message yesterday (October 14) upon the release of the band’s new single, “Edging.”

Skiba took to Instagram, saying, “CONGRATULATIONS to the homies @markhoppus @tomdelonge and @travisbarker on their triumphant @blink182 return/reunion and the release of their new single today,” said Skiba. “I’m sure there’s a joke in here about releases and happy endings I’m missing but I am truly grateful for my time with blink and I am truly happy you guys are a band and a family again. THANKS TO THE BAND AND ALL THE BLINK FANS FOR HAVING ME. You were delicious!”

Earlier in the week, Delonge shared a message to Skiba on Instagram, thanking him for holding down Blink-182 in his absence.

“I think you are enormously talented (I still love and listen to your band [Alkaline Trio] to this day),” said Delonge. “You have always been so kind to me, not only in the press, but also to others. I really noticed. Emotions between the three of us in blink have always been complicated, but Mark’s cancer really put things in perspective. But to be honest, the band would not even be here today if it were not for your ability to jump in and save the day. So from my heart to yours, thank you for being a member of our band.”

Blink-182 is set to hit the road early next year, kicking off their much-anticipated tour in March.

The Golden State Warriors were busy on Saturday, hammering out a pair of big contract extensions to lock their core group in long-term.

First, they inked Jordan Poole to a 4-year, $140 million deal that pays him $20 million more than the guarantee number Tyler Herro got in Miami that seemed to set what the market would be for the Warriors scoring guard. That was particularly noteworthy considering Poole is a week removed from getting punched by Draymond Green in practice, with Green reportedly snapping over Poole bragging about his impending extension and Green not getting one.

Green continues to be without an extension and this could be his final season in the Bay, but a different member of the Warriors title team last year inked a new deal shortly after Poole. Andrew Wiggins, who emerged as a key two-way contributor to the Warriors a year ago, earned himself a $109 million extension from the team and joins Poole in being locked in for five more seasons in San Francisco.

Wiggins’ contributions last year were huge for the Warriors returning to title contention and he proved himself to be a 16-game player in the playoffs, where at times he was arguably their second-best player. The Warriors prioritized Poole and Wiggins’ extensions and now have their core locked in for the long haul, with Green notably not part of that currently.

One of the best things about baseball is that every ballpark can be unique, with varying dimensions and strange wall angles that make every deep fly ball its own little adventure.

There’s a homefield advantage element to knowing your park and where the weird bounces come from and how to play them as an outfielder, but also when you hit the ball to one of those weird walls and the opposing player doesn’t have that same experience. On Saturday afternoon, the Phillies were the beneficiaries of just such a moment when JT Realmuto hit a ball to deep left center, where Braves centerfielder Michael Harris came just short of making an incredible running catch.

Instead, the ball bounced off the angled wall and instead of bouncing back into the outfield as it would in most parks, it shot dead right and rolled down the warning track away from Harris, with no one else in sight. Realmuto (who is very fast for a catcher) turned on the jets and touched em all while the Braves tried to get the ball back to home plate.

It’s a microcosm of how this series has gone for the Braves, as they just haven’t been able to get key outs on defense or key hits on offense for most of the series. For the Phillies, it keeps their hot streak going as they woke up the bats after a low-scoring Wild Card and have been absolutely shelling Braves pitching with the exception of Game 2. This inside the park home run put Philadelphia up 3 as they looked to close out Atlanta at home and advance to their first NLCS since 2010.

House of the Dragon has been doing this thing where it introduces child actors as the many kids in Targaryen/Hightower/Velaryon family and then suddenly, just when you finally processed who they are, they’re gone and replaced by a slightly older actor in the next episode. Aging up the actors helps move the show’s accelerated timeline forward, but it also doesn’t help anyone become attached to any of the kids. So when Prince Aemond lost his eye in the gruesome cousin-on-cousin combat in episode seven, no feelings were felt until the adults got involved.

But in episode eight, everything changed with literally one eye. Prince Aemond Targaryen (my spell check insists I change it to Almond Targaryen) is all grown up now, and he wears an eye patch. Over the time that passed between episodes, the character has been recast. Now, and (hopefully?) permanently, Prince Aemond is played by Ewan Mitchell, who is doing some of the greatest eye work any screen has ever seen. Steve Buscemi, you better watch out.

The episode teases Aemond’s big debut as a grown-up, a sign that everyone involved knows how iconic this guy’s eye is. It had to have its moment. Aemond is fighting Criston Cole, and we see nothing but the back of his long white-blonde hair (similar to Daemon Targaryen’s) and the black band of his eyepatch. Then we finally get to see the front of his face. Here it is in all its glory:

Mitchell understands exactly what House of the Dragon is: a high fantasy soap opera. With its royal intrigue, complex family dynamics, hint of camp, and slightly trashy melodrama, it’s like Succession meets the Real Housewives plus incest. Prince Aemond is obsessed with Daemon (aren’t we all thanks to the brilliant Matt Smith), and he communicates all of this with his body language and his eyeball. There is a glimmer in his eye when he is in the presence of his uncle/brother in law Even when he’s out of focus, his eye is working:

Once King Viserys is carried out of the strange family feast, Aemond immediately stirs the pot with his toast to his cousins which includes the intentionally insulting use of the word strong, because that’s the name of their real father. “Let us drain our cups to these three strong boys,” he says even after his mother Queen Alicent tells him to stop. He is a badass.

Aemond thinks he’s giving some dark, mysterious, sneaky Daemon energy here, but immediately silences his uncle/brother-in-law once he steps in. Daemon and Aemond have a little moment where they understand each other, and Daemon lets out a deep, heavy sigh, because he knows he’s accidentally created a problem. I hope we will be seeing more of this eyeball, perhaps even an episode from the perspective of it but maybe not until in season five, when they’re really trying to drag things out. If not, maybe there will be an Emmy category for best eye work by the time House of the Dragon ends its run.

Over a month and half after sexual misconduct accusations were made against Arcade Fire singer Win Butler, tour opener Beck has decided to pull out of the upcoming North American tour dates. Considering that days after the accusations against Butler became public, Feist pulled out of Arcade Fire tour bill six weeks ago herself — issuing an a well-articulated statement as to why she couldn’t be a part of it anymore in the process — it’s surprising that it took Beck this long to follow suit. Not to mention how surprising it was that Arcade Fire even decided to continue on the tour despite Butler being faced with a number of detailed sexual misconduct claims to begin with.

While Beck didn’t issue a statement as to why he chose to leave the tour, Consequence reports that an email was sent to ticket holders indicating that, “Beck is unfortunately no longer able to join Arcade Fire on their upcoming North American Tour. Taking his place will be [Haitian roots band] Boukman Eksperyans.” Following a run of European tour stops, Arcade Fire are set to begin their North American tour on October 28th in Washington D.C. But Beck is no longer a part of those plans.

In August, Pitchfork reported that four people came forward alleging that Butler engaged in unwanted and inappropriate sexual conduct towards them between 2015 and 2020. Butler has since denied any wrongdoing, saying that, “While these relationships were all consensual, I am very sorry to anyone who I have hurt with my behavior.” Meanwhile, Arcade Fire have continued to tour, but some Canadian radio stations have begun pulling the band’s music from the airwaves.

It has been quite the past couple of weeks for Jordan Poole and the Golden State Warriors, as all the good vibes coming off a championship and getting ready for ring night were wiped away with one punch from Draymond Green in practice.

Green has returned to the team after a week away, but there’s still fences to mend internally in the Bay between the veteran star and the team’s future. The reported reason for the practice “fight” — as much as a couple shoves and one punch can be characterized as a fight — was Poole being a bit vocal about his impending contract extension with the Warriors, while Draymond won’t be getting one and is likely to hit the free agent market this coming summer.

Sure enough, on Saturday, word broke that Poole is finalizing a 4-year, $140 million extension to keep him in Golden State — which pays him $20 million more than Tyler Herro’s recent extension in Miami — for the long-term.

With Poole’s deal done, attention now turns to Andrew Wiggins who is likewise extension eligible and proved his value to the Warriors on both ends last year in their run to the championship. As for Poole, he is the heir apparent in Golden State, but also a massive part of their present day alongside Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, making up one of the most lethal backcourts offensively in the NBA.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ preseason finale was supposed to offer up an opportunity to try out Russell Westbrook in a bench role. That experiment did not last long, however, as Westbrook left the game in the first quarter and will not return.

Westbrook left the game with less than three minutes remaining in the first. While there was no obvious moment where he might have gotten hurt, Westbrook had a visible limp as he made his way into the back.

Eventually, the team announced that Westbrook would not return to the game. It is unclear if this is precautionary or if there is concern that the former league MVP could miss an extended period of time.

Westbrook, for the first time since joining the team last summer, came off the bench during Friday night’s game against the Sacramento Kings, with Lakers coach Darvin Ham stressing that the move should not be viewed as a demotion. Westbrook has previously said that he’s not opposed to a role coming off the bench.

The news comes hours after a report indicated that another member of Los Angeles’ backcourt rotation, Dennis Schröder, would not be able to play against the Kings due to a finger injury, with further testing needed to identify the extent of his injury.

Bray Wyatt returned to live television for the first time since his appearance at the conclusion of WWE Extreme Rules over the weekend, debuting new entrance music and walking to the ring holding his customary lamp on his way to the ring.

Once in the ring, the crowd chanted welcome back and gave him a superstar’s return.

Wyatt was emotional in the ring, speaking for the first time as a genuine version of himself. He spoke of struggles in recent years and said over the last year he lost a lot of things: his career, self-confidence, two people very close to him, and he lost his way.

He continued that he thought everything he’d done was meaningless. He talked about speaking with fans who told him he’d saved their lives. Wyatt said to all the fans that they were there for him when he was weak and vulnerable and they saved his life.

In the middle of his promo, a video played on the screen with a masked man saying that “life is done, forget the future and the past, life is over, you’ve got no idea who you’re dealing with, but you will.”

After that Smackdown went off the air, setting up the long game for what incarnation of Wyatt will show up next in WWE.

On Feb. 20, 2019, the No. 1 ranked Duke Blue Devils played host to their heated rivals, the eighth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels. While UNC was able to walk into Cameron Indoor Stadium and pick up an 88-72 win, the big story from that night was Zion Williamson blowing out his shoe while plating his left foot on the ground in the early moments of the game. Williamson ended up suffering an injury, but he eventually returned to the team later in the season.

Fast forward to Friday night and Grant Williams of the Boston Celtics got his own shoe blowing out moment — although best as I can tell, this one does not feature former President of the United States Barack Obama sitting courtside and saying “his shoe broke.” Williams pushed the ball up the floor during the team’s preseason tilt against the Toronto Raptors and got hounded by Scottie Barnes and Fred VanVleet the entire time.

At one point, Williams planted his right foot on the ground, which led to his foot blowing through his shoe.

Fortunately it seems like Williams was ok, which is good, because the Williamson incident showed that this can end poorly. Here’s hoping we do not get another shoe blowout this season.