Weekly sports update

Following the slow summer months, the national sports world is starting to heat up with college football, NFL and MLB playoffs all right around the corner. 

MLB

Playoffs for the MLB are just over a month away, and teams are starting to get hot at the right time while others not so much. The New York Yankees are playing their best baseball by far since the all-star break. The Yankees are currently on an 11-game win streak and have gone 28-11 since play resumed after the break. This performance is good enough to have sole possession of the first wild card spot in the American League after trailing 10 games just a month ago. The Cincinnati Reds, with help from first baseman Joey Votto, have gotten red hot in the past month finding themselves in a wild card spot for the first time this season. 

Other clubs have not been so fortunate. The Boston Red Sox have had little success, and this once-first place team is now third in their division and at risk of missing the playoffs. The New York Mets have also gotten cold and slipped in the standings. 

NCAA Football

Big news in collegiate sports came down this week as the Big 10, Atlantic Coast and Pacific 12 conferences officially announced a so-called alliance. The nonmonetary deal is being described as a “collaborative approach surrounding the future evolution of college athletics and scheduling.” In short, the alliance between the three powerhouse conferences is to ensure they sustain success with the recent shuffle and uncertainty among conferences. The Big 12 and Southeastern conferences were indeed left out of the alliance, leaving them to fend for themselves.The days of the Big 12 are officially numbered considering their loss of the University of Texas and Oklahoma University to the Southeastern conference.

A lot is going on behind doors within NCAA athletics, yet the 2021-2022 college football season is set to begin this weekend with a full slate of games.

NFL

The fourth and final week of NFL preseason games are set to kick off this weekend as organizations begin to fine tune their teams for the upcoming regular season. The season begins in three weeks on Sept. 9 as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the Dallas Cowboys in the opening game.