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College football teams on Upset Alert in Week 6

Which favorites across college football could fall victim to upsets this weekend? With the nation’s Top two teams strengthening potential trouble spots during their open week, most eyes will be on the other unbeaten inside the Top 10 with a chance to suffer their first blemish. But we’re about avoiding the, as ESPN’s Chris Fallica would say, an underdog with fleas and picking games with the highest probability of going the other way. One team inside the Top 15 may go down as a double-digit favorite on Saturday in a potential look-ahead letdown spot prior to their biggest game of the season next weekend. Can you guess who that is? A few contests that garner the attention that didn’t make the column this week are Auburn-Florida and Michigan State-Ohio State. The Gators are a 3-point home underdog while the Spartans travel to Columbus getting three touchdowns. Picking Florida over the Tigers doesn’t scream upset to me, but Michigan State shocking the Buckeyes — arguably the nation’s most impressive team thus far — would be needle-moving. Here are five games worth taking a closer look at with favorites clearly on Upset Alert in Week 6. For…

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College football games to watch: Can Iowa upset Michigan

Week 6 college football games to watch: No. 18 Central Florida (4-1) at Cincinnati (3-1), Friday, ESPN, 5 p.m. PDT After its loss to Pittsburgh on Sept. 21, Central Florida won’t be able to make claim to a national championship as it did following its undefeated 2017 season. But the Knights still have plenty to play for, like being the “Group of Five” representative in the New Year’s Six bowls for the third straight year. Losing another game would put that in real jeopardy with undefeated Boise State already leading UCF in the polls and Memphis also unbeaten. Cincinnati is certainly capable of pulling the upset and inserting itself into the NY6 race. No. 14 Iowa (4-0) at No. 19 Michigan (3-1), Saturday, Fox, 9 a.m. PDT The first of three matchups between top 25 teams kicks off early at the Big House, where Kirk Ferentz’s Iowa group will try to elevate itself into the national conversation by dealing another gut punch to Jim Harbaugh’s underwhelming Year 5 Michigan squad. Harbaugh needs this one way more than Ferentz, who is entrenched as his program’s consistent leader for as long as he wants the job. Despite…

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Gary Lineker tells football parents to ‘shut up’ and let children play

Speaking to the BBC’s Don’t Tell Me The Score podcast, the Match of the Day presenter urged parents to “shut up and let them play”. “I’m standing on the sidelines listening to parents shouting,” said Lineker. “And 99.9% of what they say is wrong, damaging their children.” In November last year, the Football Association began a campaign to improve grassroots football by influencing the behaviour of new parents, volunteers, coaches and players aged between seven and 18. England manager Gareth Southgate gave his support on how football can “develop young children into people”. Lineker, who scored 48 goals in 80 games for England from 1984 to 1992, said the attitude of some parents is damaging to their children because the football is “too important to them”. “I’ve seen parents wander on to the pitch,” he said. “One picked up his child by the scruff of the neck and shouted ‘if you play like that you’ll never make the grade’. “I’m thinking ‘mate, he’ll never make the grade anyway, so just chill, let him enjoy his football’. “The truth is they’ll reach the level they’ll reach anyway. If you play football or any sport with fear,…

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Maidstone United: The demise and rise of an expelled Football League club

This is the story of Maidstone United, the last club before Bury to be expelled from the English Football League. For the past 27 years they have been trying to return to the pinnacle of their football existence. But this is not a club that sees itself as a football tragedy – not with more than 20 trophies and eight promotions won since 1992 and an England international among its alumni. “It is a tragic episode in our story. That is what it is, because the story is still going,” said John Still, Maidstone’s head of football who returned to the club last season after 30 years away. Still says there was no “romanticism” in the reunion, despite them being back in the fifth tier last term, the level he left the club at in 1989 having been the boss that took them to the old Fourth Division. He simply felt his former club had run out of “momentum” – the sort that gets a team from Kent County League Fourth Division to the top tier of the non-league system. The 69-year-old, however, was not able to guide them to safety last season as they…

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Football transfer rumours: Mandzukic and Dembélé to Manchester United

Having retained the Revenue Cup on Tuesday after announcing record income of £627m, Ole Gunnar Solskjær knows that if he could get his Manchester United team to match the performances of the club’s world-beating marketing bods, things would be just hunky-dory at Old Trafford. To do this he needs cold, hard goals, though. United have scored only eight in the Premier League this season and with a threadbare strike force that has an average age of about 12, he wants a wily old head up front. The Class of 99’s Teddy Sheringham is not currently available so instead United will “swoop” for rugged Juventus forward Mario Mandzukic, who has won medals wherever he has gone by sticking his rock-hard head in where it hurts and joining the dots with some neat hold-up play. With Juventus understood to be only too happy to let him go, the 33-year-old – who United were close to signing last summer – should be available for a packet of fags and some spare change. But one cheap-as-chips forward just won’t do – Ed Woodward has a point to prove and United have cash to burn, so they might break their…

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Women’s football: Which top European clubs still don’t have a team

After Manchester United launched a women’s side in 2018-19, every major English club has one and teams in Europe are following suit. Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt have announced intentions to take over local women’s teams CD Tacon and FFC Frankfurt respectively – but who is yet to catch up? Scotland Livingston is the only Scottish Premiership side to not have a women’s team, though there are no professional sides established yet. Celtic had planned to form a professional women’s team by the end of 2019 and the Hoops also submitted plans for a women’s training center. In June, Scotland FA chief executive Ian Maxwell said: “A number of clubs are looking at pretty much full-time women’s teams. The more opportunities there will be for girls, the more clubs will follow suit.” Germany Borussia Dortmund is arguably the biggest side in Europe without a women’s team. When approached by BBC Sport, the club replied: “Borussia Dortmund focuses on the women’s handball team, which has a long and successful history.” From 2009, Hertha BSC had cooperation with FC Lubars, but because of financial issues, they lost their licences for the second tier of the women’s Bundesliga…

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College Football Week 5 Lines And Top 25 Betting Report

A little shakeup in this week’s AP Top 25 Poll, but nothing of significance at the top. Wisconsin moved into the top 10 following a Badger’s beatdown of Michigan, 35-14. The Wolverines suffered the biggest drop in the poll down nine spots to No. 20. The top four teams remained the same with three of them, blowout winners, last Saturday – Clemson, Alabama, LSU – and each covered the huge point spreads. The other winner was No. 3 Georgia, who held off Notre Dame 23-17, dropping the Irish from No. 7 to No. 10. Georgia received 1 first-place vote in this week’s AP Poll. Alabama had 6 and Clemson 55 first-place votes. Here are this week’s betting lines and match-ups for the Top 25 college football teams. Washington State, Arizona State, and TCU all lost and dropped out of the Associated Press (AP) Poll. They were replaced by No. 21 USC, No. 24 Kansas State, and No. 25 Michigan State. Kansas State is an underdog this week at Oklahoma State, and the Cowboys are knocking on the door and will crack the Top 25 with a victory over the Wildcats. When Circa Sports in Las…

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Football transfer rumors: Donyell Malen to Arsenal or Liverpool

Anyone who has watched Arsenal this season would know exactly what it is they need to take that next vital step towards becoming a fixture of the Premier League’s top four again. Unfortunately “anyone” is not in charge of recruitment at north London’s premier entertainment business, so instead of making a defender who can actually defend a priority, the Gunners will join the queue of clubs looking to sign PSV Eindhoven’s £50m-rated striker Donyell Malen, who has scored 10 goals in 13 games this season. That’s the same Donyell Malen who Arsenal sold to the unbeaten Eredivisie side for just £500,000 two years ago. Even if they really did need a forward, to save face and look vaguely competent, they really shouldn’t let it be known they’re interested in that one. It says here the Gunners will have to duke it out with 45 other unimaginative clubs who have a member of staff who knows how to type “in-form Dutch striker” into Google. Liverpool is on that lengthy list too. While we’re on the subject of young strikers who have made lazy scouts sit up and take notice, Erling Braut Haaland’s hat-trick for RB Salzburg…

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Has football gone too VAR

(CNN)The English Premier League season is only six games old and already the constant debate surrounding VAR has become almost as customary as a pre-match pint and halftime pie. After a weekend in which Manchester City hit eight, Liverpool won its sixth consecutive game to maintain its perfect record and Manchester United fell even further behind its rivals, it is instead VAR — or video assistant referee — that is occupying center stage. Social media was in meltdown following a number of controversial decisions, dispelling the notion that VAR would consign post-match arguments to history. It could take fans up to 10 years to understand how VAR works, according to Lukas Brud, secretary of IFAB, the International Football Association Body, which is responsible for the laws of the game. But should Brud’s prediction be proved correct then the next decade could prove rather painful for football fans? Take Saturday’s game between Leicester and Tottenham where Spurs star Son Heung-min was adjudged to have been offside in the lead up to his side’s second goal. The ruling, which came after a lengthy two-minute review, showed Son to be millimeters offside. While sports such as cricket and…

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College Football Gave Us a Monumental Betting Day on Saturday

Scott Van Pelt will do this in a much more entertaining way on his weekly “Bad Beats” segment, but Saturday was so wild that I had to weigh in and show you four truly spectacular backdoor covers. First up we have Alabama -25 against South Carolina. The Crimson Tide were leading 47-16 for a nice cover with just 15 seconds remaining. Then this happened. Final score 47-23 as the Gamecocks storm through the backdoor. On the 1-10 pain scale for Crimson Tide backers, this gets a 7 since it was just an 11-yard touchdown. Next up: Syracuse +28 vs. Clemson. The Tigers led 34-6 with 58 seconds left when they had a 2nd-and-7 from their own 43-yard line. You figure two runs and everyone goes home with a push. As the great Lee Corso says, “not so fast.” The Clemson running back busts one up the middle and takes it 57 yards for the touchdown to hand Orangemen backers a loss. Final score 41-6. On the 1-10 pain scale, this is a solid 8.5 for anyone who bet ‘Cuse. Next up: Kentucky +8 vs. Florida, over/under 48.5. The Gators held just a one-point lead when…

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