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After a wild 2021 college football regular season, Sunday’s College Football Playoff selection show arrived with little in the way of drama after the way conference championship weekend shook out. With Alabama thumping Georgia in the SEC title game, they locked themselves into a spot and the Dawgs, the lone undefeated Power 5 team entering the weekend, were a lock win or lose, meaning there would be a pair of SEC squads making the field.

From there, Cincinnati took care of business in the AAC title game against Houston to polish off a 13-0 season, the only undefeated season in FBS football this year, and punch their ticket — helped by No. 5 Oklahoma State getting beaten by Baylor in the Big 12 title game. The last chance for chaos was in the Big Ten, but Michigan mowed down Iowa in a 42-3 win in Indianapolis to lock themselves in and make a strong case for the No. 1 overall seed.

The only question for the Committee on Sunday was what order they would put those four teams in, and whether they’ll set up the SEC Championship rematch for the semifinals or split them up.

1. Alabama
2. Michigan
3. Georgia
4. Cincinnati

That means the two semifinal matchups will be Alabama-Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl and Michigan-Georgia in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Eve, as the committee chose not to set up the rematch of the SEC title game immediately and instead leave it as a possible national title game matchup.

The University of Miami doesn’t have an official coaching vacancy at the moment, as Manny Diaz remains at the helm of the Hurricanes for now, but for the last week there has been considerable buzz growing that they were hot in pursuit of Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal to take over the program.

This all was happening as Cristobal’s Ducks were getting ready for a Pac-12 title game in which they got destroyed for a second time by the Utah Utes, and it was hard to see how Cristobal’s shaky future in Oregon wasn’t at least a bit of a factor in a lackluster effort from Oregon. After the Pac-12 title game, Cristobal was still on the recruiting trail for the Ducks, but as we learned with Brian Kelly, that means little in terms of assuring fans of a coach staying.

On Sunday morning, Mike Ryan of The Dan LeBatard Show reported a deal was indeed done to bring Cristobal back home to Miami — he played for the Hurricanes from 1989-92 and got his first head coaching job down the road at FIU. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald confirmed the report, bringing word that the deal would be for $8 million a year and north of five years, with Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich taking over the athletic department.

However, Dennis Dodd of CBS reports a deal isn’t done yet, as Cristobal has a large extension offer from Oregon on the table he is mulling as well.

If Cristobal does indeed go to Miami, this would be the third huge poaching move in college football this season, and a rather fascinating one. Cristobal has gone 35-13 in his four seasons with the Ducks, peaking with a 12-2 season and a Rose Bowl win in 2019, but hasn’t been able to get over the hump in terms of bringing the Ducks back into the Playoff discussion. To leave Oregon, a program with nearly unlimited resources, for Miami, one that has not always been willing or able to spend like the top programs, is quite interesting, and Jackson reports Cristobal has been given assurances that will change with a new regime.

There is no doubt that Cristobal will be a better recruiter than what Miami has had in recent years, as that has long been his best quality, both as a head coach and an assistant. That’s critical for a program that has not been able to lock up the top players in the area, but getting the most out of that talent is the question for a Cristobal team and will determine just how successful he can be with the Hurricanes.

As for Oregon, the word seems to be that they’ll start their search by trying to pull an old friend and current rival back to Eugene in the form of UCLA head coach Chip Kelly.

If they can’t nab Kelly, their search becomes rather fascinating because, as mentioned, the Ducks have as unique an athletics budget as any program in the country thanks to their connection to Nike and Phil Knight, and it wouldn’t be hard for a lot of coaches to see themselves as the guy who could bring the Ducks back into the Playoff picture.

It’s been a rough week for Chris Cuomo. It started with documents being made public that revealed he was a lot more involved in his brother Andrew’s defense against sexual misconduct allegations, which led to him resigning in disgrace. The CNN anchor was first suspended and then, on Saturday, fired “effective immediately.” While he was diplomatic after his job was put on hold, he’s reportedly less so now that he’s out of work.

As per The Daily Beast, sources say Cuomo is “livid” about the termination. He was a bit more reined-in after the news of his firing first broke. “This is not how I want my time at CNN to end,” he said in a statement. “But I have already told you why and how I helped my brother.”

CNN has not revealed exactly what caused the termination, but The New York Times reports that on Wednesday, the day after Cuomo was suspended, a lawyer informed the network that he had been accused of sexual harassment by a junior colleague at another network. Cuomo has denied the allegation.

When asked if the new claim had an impact on their decision to let Cuomo go, CNN played coy. “Based on the report we received regarding Chris’s conduct with his brother’s defense, we had cause to terminate,” they told NYT. “When new allegations came to us this week, we took them seriously, and saw no reason to delay taking immediate action.”

After multiple women came forward accusing Andrew Cuomo, the now-former governor of New York, of sexual misconduct, Chris publicly admitted he had played a small role in his defense. He claimed he’d been a mere sounding board. Last week, newly unveiled documents showed that he’d gone as far as to phone into meetings about his brother’s defense, even used his connections to try and dig up dirt about his accusers.

(Via The Daily Beast and NYT)

Here’s to copy editors! They clean up sloppy copy, make writers sound smarter than they perhaps are, and catch grammatical errors so egregious they can sometimes invert what you actually mean to say. That’s what happened to Donald Trump Saturday. The president-turned-failed blogger released another of his glorified press releases, and clearly no one bothered to give it a once-over because he perhaps inadvertently called BS on himself.

Apropos of nothing much at all, the guy who’s having trouble launching his own social media platform decided to tweet once again about how he lost re-election by millions of votes. “Anybody that doesn’t think there wasn’t massive Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election is either very stupid, or very corrupt!” Trump wrote.

One problem: that double negative has him saying unflattering things about both himself and all his 2020 dead-enders, such as the guy who sells pillows. Presumably Trump didn’t mean to call people who believe in baseless voter fraud nonsense “very stupid,” much less “very corrupt.” He probably just doesn’t know what words mean.

Whatever the case, calling people who believe in 2020 election balderdash “very stupid” is perhaps the most truthful thing he’s ever said.

Meanwhile, it’s been over a year since Trump’s re-election hopes were dashed after more people voted for his successor than for him. Since then he’s continued to spread lies, although at least one of his former close allies, Michael Cohen, has a theory about that: He’s not doing it so he can win back his old job in 2024. He’s doing it so he can grift his cash-strapped supporters out of money.

(Via The Daily Beast)

There’s a lot of Spider-Men these days! As of this writing, we’re less than two weeks from Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third in the Tom Holland iteration, which finds our Queens hero running afoul of the multi-verse. Speaking of, one of the other Spider-Men, Miles Morales, is gearing up for another animated hoe-down, as witness the first look at the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

It’s called Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One), and the ad is not so much a trailer as a long scene followed by some web-slinging action. Morales (Shameik Moore) is awoken in his Brooklyn home by Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), who wants him to come out and play. He’s grounded, he says, but surely parental rules can’t keep a bona fide superhero indoors.

Released three winters ago to acclaim and even an Oscar, Into the Spider-Verse expanded the franchise’s scope, introducing a number of very different Spider-folks, among them a 1930s-style version voiced by Nicolas Cage and even a pig. (And it was originally supposed to have even more.) It was very much a movie by producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie), clever and witty and dynamic.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) will hit theaters on October 7, 2022. You can watch the first look above.

Every year Variety compiles a list of the teams behind songs they think were the most impactful of the year, dubbing those honored as “Hitmakers.” During the magazine’s annual brunch, musicians involved with songs that were honored come together to give speeches and receive awards for their work. But what might’ve just been another boring industry brunch was ramped up to eleven by 2021’s class of young artists, who know how to use TikTok to turn pretty much anything into content. And with a powerhouse cast of stars like Olivia Rodrigo, Chloe Bailey, Jack Harlow and Normani in the house, what choice did Lil Nas X have, really, but to turn in a hilarious parody video that quickly started going viral on multiple platforms.

Hopping on the rather infamous one minute TikTok interviews that @SidetalkNYC has been doing with colorful New Yorkers, each musician took a different viral snippet to lip sync, and spliced all together the parody clip was a brand new bit of content that anyone who has enjoyed the “bing bong” videos would obviously enjoy. And this video just goes to prove, once again, that nobody — nobody — understands TikTok like Lil Nas X. Take a look at the celebrity-filled parody clip below, along with a few of the original SidetalkNYC videos for context if you haven’t seen them.

The ACC Championship Game has a pair of teams that don’t normally make it going head-to-head on Saturday night, as 15th ranked Pitt and 16th ranked Wake Forest will play with a spot in the Fiesta or Peach Bowl on the line. The Panthers got the ball first on the evening, and their Heisman Trophy contender of a quarterback started things off with a bang.

Kenny Pickett, who has been in college for what seems like 30 years, took a snap on a third-and-5 from Pitt’s 42. He dropped back, looked to throw, then tucked it and ran. Fifty-eight yards later, he found himself in the end zone, and let’s see if you can spot the little bit of cheekiness that we got out of Pickett on this one:

That’s right, Pickett faked a slide at Wake’s 40 or so, froze a defender, and was able to take off down the sideline for six.

It turns out this is not legal — once a QB starts sliding, defenders have to let them go down or else they’re going to get hit with a flag, so a fake slide puts the defense at a major, major disadvantage.

But hey, the refs didn’t call it, so you might as well take advantage of it. Pickett did, and as a result, Pitt got on the scoreboard early.

The year began well for the Cuomo brothers. Andrew was very pleased with himself, even writing a book about how he handled the pandemic as governor of New York. Chris had his own weeknight show on CNN. But it appears 2021 will end badly for both. First Andrew resigned in the wake of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Now Chris has been fired from his network gig.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Chris Cuomo is out of a job “effective immediately” following an internal investigation into how he comported himself in relation to his brother’s harassment scandal. Last week, a New York Times piece revealed that Chris was a lot more involved in Andrew’s defense than he had let on. He even used his position in an attempt to dig up dirt on his brother’s accusers. After the report surfaced, CNN let him do what amounted to his final show. The next day they took him off the air indefinitely.

“Chris Cuomo was suspended earlier this week pending further evaluation of new information that came to light about his involvement with his brother’s defense,” CNN said in a statement. “We retained a respected law firm to conduct the review, and have terminated him, effective immediately.”

They added that during the investigation, “additional information has come to light.” They didn’t specify what they meant, adding, cryptically, “Despite the termination, we will investigate as appropriate.”

Chris’ downfall at CNN came after the New York State Attorney General’s office released transcripts and other documents that wound up shedding more light on his involvement with his brother’s defense team, which included phoning into meetings. After his suspension, Chris said, on his podcast, that he was embarrassed by his actions and that “can understand” why they did what they did.

(Via THR)

Houston rapper Monaleo is among the freshman rappers to keep an eye on for 2022. The 20-year-old independent musician has caught the eye of many thanks to the success of her debut single “Beating Down Yo Block,” which boasts a sample of Yungstar’s “Knocking Pictures Off Da Wall” plus her sharp confidence as she relays her anger about a past lover who did her wrong. Monaleo concludes her strong year with the new single “We Not Humping.”

The track features Monaelo’s trademark energy and hard-hitting bars, which she uses to shut down a man’s request to get intimate. She gets straight to the point with lines like “Put a bag on your head ’cause it’s in my budget / All I gotta do is push a button” and “He don’t like my ways but I’m not changing / I don’t text him back ’cause that sh*t draining.”

The new song comes after Monaleo teamed up with fellow Houston native Maxo Kream for “Cece” off his latest album, Weight Of The World. Prior to that, she dropped a strong follow-up to “Beating Down Yo Block” with “Suck It Up,” which took aim at the women who have an issue with her confidence, success, and ability to attract the attention of men.

You can listen to “We Not Humping” above.

For months, the highly transmissible virus that has thrown the world into disarray over the last two years has overwhelmingly targeted conservatives. And there’s a good reason for that: The GOP has been downplaying its danger, attacked masks and vaccines, and all but ensured that a large portion of its base won’t ever take precautions that good save their own lives. (Then again, there’s this nonsensical attempt to blame it all on the libs.) As winter looms and a new variant tears across the planet, cases and deaths are bound to go up. And yet people like Marjorie Taylor Greene are still out there, spreading patently moronic misinformation.

The Georgia lawmaker (who hasn’t made many laws since she’s been booted from most of her committee duties) took to Twitter on a cold, lazy December Saturday, unleashing what she thought was a damning “gotcha” on the scientific community and the politicians who listen to their expertise.

“Every single year more than 600,000 people in the US die from cancer. The country has never once shut down,” Green wrote. “Not a single school has closed. And every year, over 600,000 people, of all ages and all races will continue to die from cancer.”

She went on, praising the horse drug, claiming that COVID deaths mostly target the obese and elderly (and not those who are unvaxxed), and that people should be free to “choose natural immunity or vaccines, w/o discrimination.”

There’s just one thing. Actually, there’s a few things, but one is more obviously false than the others: Cancer, unlike COVID, isn’t contagious. Whoopsidaisies! And when people caught wind of Greene’s tweet, they not-so-gently reminded her of that pesky factoid.

Then again, there is one way cancer is contagious: Non-smokers can contract lung cancer through secondhand smoke. But then, we do have rules about public smoking.

Other people didn’t feel like pointing out Greene’s illogic. They just called her dumb.

In the meantime, please remember to listen to scientists when it comes to matters of immunology, and not people who were in their late 40s when they learned about the Holocaust.