Sports

Tennessee's half-price beer filled Neyland by kickoff for a stadium stump speech backing the bill, up for Senate passage Monday, that The Nation says threatens the labor rights of the athletes on the field below.

By GusThe Sports Desk · the midnight edition, 4 October 2026

GUS: Ladies and gentlemen, this reporter has run the week's tape twice, and the week ends where the week now ends: in a football stadium. Neyland Stadium, Knoxville, Saturday. The gates came open early with beer at fifty percent off, per Fox News, which is how a bowl gets full before a noon kickoff. The new-look Air Force One came over the rim. The roar that followed was the loudest instrument in American politics this week.

TRUDY: The wire records one price cut in Knoxville on Saturday, Gus, and it was the beer — Fox News: gates early, fifty percent off. The discount reached the concourse. It did not reach the field, and the field was what the Senate was scheduled to vote on Monday.

GUS: Because this was not a football trip. It was a closing argument. On Saturday the twelfth, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas carried the Protect College Sports Act onto ESPN's "College GameDay" and drew a rowdy crowd, the closure vote having been delayed by the August recess. Monday the fourteenth he told reporters the goal was "not just to squeak by with 60 votes," and that he wanted the president to sign the bill live on GameDay. Tuesday the fifteenth, NBC News: the Senate voted to advance it, NCAA-backed, bipartisan. Friday the eighteenth, Kirk Herbstreit explained the booking: "We had him on because they were going to be voting this week."

TRUDY: That same Friday, The Nation ran Elie Mystal under a plain headline — "We Need to Protect College Sports from Ted Cruz" — saying the senator's college-sports bill threatens athletes' labor rights. The Hill, that Sunday: national rules for compensating college athletes and limiting transfers, with the House gone for September's final two weeks. That is the pay question, in writing, with one chamber out of the building.

GUS: So the president went to Knoxville and stumped from the stands. "Mike Johnson's fantastic. And we actually had 78 votes, if you can believe it," he said, calling it "Bipartisanship for the first time in a while." This reporter notes it was his first college football game since February's national championship, when Miami beat Indiana.

TRUDY: January, Gus, and Indiana beat Miami — The Hill, that Wednesday, when the White House confirmed the trip. Now hold still for the rest: The Hill's Saturday file calls Monday the senators' last chance before recessing into a lame-duck period, and the Washington Examiner says passage would be the furthest a collegiate sports bill has ever gotten in Congress. Introduced in May. Furthest ever, in five months, with the closing argument delivered from a seat on the fifty.

GUS: The game, then. No. 2 Texas held off No. 4 Tennessee behind five sacks from Colin Simmons and two scores from Raleek Brown, and ABC's audio came apart into static, the Post having reported that Saturday that coaches were worried about disruptions. And may this reporter add that the ladies of Knoxville turned out in their orange best, and that at half price a gentleman can afford to buy the beer for the lot of them.

TRUDY: No. 1 Texas and No. 14 Tennessee, sugar — Fox News had the rankings in the headline before kickoff. The women in that stadium bought their own and can read a bill, and this one writes the rules for what the athletes get paid, per The Hill. Take the nap at halftime next week.

HOTMIC: Is this thing — fine. At the plane, asked whether he wanted to be surrounded by outlets that support him, the man said "I want real news, not fake news, like you," and then the audio on the biggest game of the week died into static and we file that under weather. One America News signed. Put this reporter on the political desk. I will still do the ballgames on weekends.

TRUDY: Gus, the mic was live, the network was ours, and you went from a static problem to a press-freedom sermon in nine seconds flat. You are also right. Judge Timothy Kelly ordered those credentials restored immediately on the twenty-fourth of September, and the Committee to Protect Journalists said the ban "violates First Amendment rights" and that the government "should not be in the business of censorship." Now go buy the mushrooms they sell for the memory, and I will take the second half.

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Jeremiah Smith declares himself the best player in the country; the record book agrees, 34 games early.

By GusThe Sports Desk · the wee small hours edition, 4 October 2026

Jeremiah Smith, the tight end anchoring Ohio State's offense, stood in front of a television camera after Saturday's rout and said, plainly, that he is the best player in the country.

TRUDY: He plays wide receiver, not tight end — the New York Post ran the quote Saturday: "I'm the best player in the country," straight from the man himself.

The claim landed the same weekend Smith passed two names in Ohio State lore this reporter has long admired, breaking the Buckeyes' all-time marks set by Troy Smith and David Boston, done and dusted in just 34 career games.

TRUDY: Wrong names entirely. CBS Sports had it Saturday: Smith passed Chris Olave for Ohio State's career touchdown record and Emeka Egbuka for the receptions record, both in 34 games.

That pace traces straight back to the Illinois game, where this reporter recalls Smith hanging six touchdowns on the Fighting Illini to light the whole thing up.

TRUDY: Four touchdowns, 217 yards — Fox News had the box score September 26, tying Ohio State's own single-game touchdown record, not setting a new one.

Ohio State's own NFL alumni took notice too. Jaxon Smith-Njigba went out this week and called Smith the LeBron James of all-time Buckeyes, full stop, no hedge.

TRUDY: There's a hedge, sugar — CBS Sports quoted Smith-Njigba Wednesday saying Smith is "like the LeBron James" of all-time Buckeyes. A comparison, not a coronation.

Vegas had already caught up before Smith ever opened his mouth Saturday, naming him the favorite entering Week 6 off that Illinois showing.

TRUDY: Week 5, not six. CBS Sports posted the new odds September 28, two days after that Illinois game Fox News clocked at four touchdowns and 217 yards.

By the time the cameras cut away, the betting houses had already turned a junior's press conference into inventory — a name on a board, a line to shop, a season-long product moving without him ever signing a thing in the sportsbook's own ledger.

HOTMIC: Somebody get this to the political desk, this reporter is begging. The NCAA's interim name, image and likeness policy took effect July 1, 2021, so a player could finally sell his own name. The sportsbooks found a way to sell it first and kept the house's cut.

TRUDY: That's a manifesto, not a column, go lie down before standards and practices calls. You happen to be right: Ohio's casino commission did ban proposition bets on individual college athletes in 2023, and the NCAA's interim name, image and likeness policy did take effect July 1, 2021.

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SEC sues Kiffin over an unfair advantage; he answers with a 63-14 advantage and no running clock.

By GusThe Sports Desk · the matinee edition, 6 October 2026

GUS: Lane Kiffin's Louisiana State Tigers hung a historic 70-14 beating on McNeese State Saturday, and this reporter salutes a coach with the nerve to let the scoreboard run free, unburdened by the mercy clock lesser men keep begging for.

TRUDY: The final was 63-14, not 70-14 — Fox News had the number right on October 6, and the stat sheet backs it up. Lane Kiffin can decline a running clock all he likes; the arithmetic still has to check out.

GUS: Kiffin turned down the officials' offer of that running clock in the second half — a chivalrous courtesy, this reporter assumes, extended so the gals in the stands wouldn't miss the fireworks scheduled for the final gun.

TRUDY: Nothing chivalrous about it, and nothing to do with fireworks. Kiffin told Fox News on October 6 that he declined the clock because he is challenging his players to set a standard — his words, not a courtesy to anybody's evening plans.

GUS: This reporter is reliably told the conference settled its grievance with a strongly worded memo back in August, the gentlemanly way these disputes used to go, before anybody troubled a courtroom over it.

TRUDY: There is no memo. The Southeastern Conference filed an actual lawsuit against LSU and Lane Kiffin on September 3, per The Hill, over what it calls a deliberate, coordinated campaign to stockpile former NFL players. That is a filing, sugar, not a form letter.

GUS: The NFL men in question, this reporter understands, are a couple of unproven rookies who never suited up for a professional down in their lives, which makes the whole fuss a tempest over nothing much.

TRUDY: Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris are the former NFL players named in it — the New York Post reported on September 5 that Paul Finebaum called Kiffin himself a "child" for trying to play them. They played professionally; that is the entire case. Lie down for a minute, Gus, before the next name gets away from you.

HOTMIC: This reporter notes the Southeastern Conference moved, on September 8, to call a special meeting weighing LSU's expulsion for "a complete lack of institutional control," five days after its own lawsuit accused LSU of running "a deliberate and coordinated campaign" for that same NFL talent. The body bringing the charge and the body holding the vote share a letterhead. Somebody ought to send this to the political desk.

TRUDY: That is not sports-desk business, and it is not going to the political desk tonight. But he is not wrong to notice it: Fox News reported that September 8 meeting call, and The Hill logged the SEC's own lawsuit five days earlier, on September 3, making the identical charge it now sits in judgment of.

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Secret Service drafts hurricane contingencies for Trump's stadium visit, not evacuation orders for fans.

By GusThe Sports Desk · the midnight edition, 7 October 2026

TRUDY: Gus, Tennessee's offense carried its own line of scrimmage backward. Fox Sports' Outkick wrote it plain: strong SEC victory, Texas defense rocks Tennessee's freshman quarterback. The conference you named is right. The winner is not.

GUS: This reporter logs the sequel: the president, campaigning in Mobile, telling the rally crowd he'd be back in Alabama for the Georgia game — the second stadium stop of the stretch, by this reporter's count.

TRUDY: Precise it, Gus. Knoxville's kickoff was Saturday the twenty-sixth. The Mobile rally where he announced the sequel ran the following Friday, October third, per the Washington Examiner and The Hill. The game itself lands Saturday, October tenth — a full week after the rally, two weeks after Knoxville, with Mobile's own Saturday, October third, carrying no stadium stop at all.

GUS: No. 2 Alabama hosts No. 7 Georgia Saturday at Bryant-Denny, a top-two showdown this reporter has circled all season.

TRUDY: Flip your card, sugar. Fox News has it No. 7 Alabama against No. 2 Georgia, Bryant-Denny Stadium, October tenth. Georgia's the two. Alabama's the seven. Right stadium, wrong team on top.

GUS: And now this reporter arrives at the week's real story, which arrives, fittingly, on the wind — a storm system trailing the president's own travel plans into Tuscaloosa, the kind of scheduling coincidence no publicist writes better than the weather does.

TRUDY: That "coincidence" is Hurricane Isaias, Gus, and nobody there calls it a bonus. The Post's own words: "nightmare scenario." Fox News has the Secret Service drafting contingencies for a storm aimed at a stadium holding well over a hundred thousand people the same Saturday the president is due inside it. Go lie down before you call a hurricane good scheduling.

HOTMIC: This reporter covers box scores, not ballots, but the Washington Examiner already printed the sentence: the trip adds "another high-profile sporting event to his schedule leading up to the midterm elections." That is not a kickoff. Send this to the desk that covers elections; this reporter is out of his depth.

TRUDY: Gus, the political desk doesn't need your open mic to do its job — but you read that sentence right for once. The Examiner printed it plain: the trip is on the schedule "leading up to the midterm elections." That's the receipt.

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