Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. Sammy the Shark and Karl the Kraken assure me they are hard at work on the now 79 post-long series detailing every facet of the WNBA playoffs starting September 22 …

Oh, who am I kidding? The NHL preseason has started. Those two lunks won’t get their dorsal fin and tentacles off the couch until next June. Nevertheless, we carry on.

We start with college football. USC’s debut in the Big 10 was a dud thud, as the Trojans fell to the Michigan Wolverines 27-24. While Michigan didn’t dominate the game, first going up 14-0 in the first half only to find itself on the wrong end of a 24-20 score with 7:01 left in the game, it did what it had to do to win at the end. The common thought after the 31-12 drubbing of the Wolverines by Texas earlier this year was that this would not be Michigan’s year. While no one is putting them in the same sentence as Texas, Georgia, and Alabama just yet, there may well be a surprise or two up the Wolverines' sleeve. Well, if wolverines had sleeves.

Elsewhere in college football, USC can take solace in knowing it’s not the only major program whose debut in a new conference made everyone involved with said program wonder if this was such a great idea. Oklahoma’s SEC inaugural home game was nothing to write home about, as it fell at home to the Tennessee Volunteers 25-15. The Sooners never led and were overmatched throughout. What must be especially concerning to Oklahoma is that Tennessee is arguably, at best, the fourth-best team in the SEC behind — you guessed it — Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. Good luck making the playoffs, Sooners.

Football, despite what the collegiate ranks and the NFL think, is not the only sport in town. This is especially true in Oakland, where courtesy of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and A’s team owner John Fisher’s pernicious mendacity, the Oakland Athletics are playing their last games before embarrassing themselves and Major League Baseball by spending the next however many years toiling at a minor league park in Sacramento while waiting for construction of a promised stadium in Las Vegas that exactly no one there wants. Thus, come next spring, the only game in town in Oakland will be the Oakland Roots minor league soccer team. (Who, me bitter?)

Anyway, baseball’s postseason picture is beginning to form. The Milwaukee Brewers have clinched the NL Central, and the Cleveland Indians Guardians have clinched the AL Central. The New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, and Los Angeles Dodgers have secured postseason spots. The wild card in both leagues is indeed wild. In the National League, as of this morning (September 22), the three teams in are the San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, and New York Mets, with the Atlanta Braves in hot pursuit. The American League is even juicier. While the Baltimore Orioles have a relatively safe lock on the top spot, it’s a free-for-all below them. A two-game spread separates the Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, and Seattle Mariners. The picture-in-picture feature on baseball fans’ televisions is getting a serious workout.

And yes, the WNBA playoffs start today (September 22). Any and all interest will last as long as Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever last, which, alas, probably won’t be for long.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone.