Miami’s Biggest Test Just Got Tougher | The Story with Rachel Nichols

The timing could not be worse for the top ranked Hurricanes.

They lose star receiver Malachi Tony just days before their biggest game of the year against #4, Notre Dame.

Can Miami even survive without its biggest offensive weapon?

We'll discuss.

But before we get started, some exciting news.

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Hey, I'm Rachel Nichols, and welcome to the story.

I want to start today's show with some college football because tomorrow night's Miami Notre Dame game is going to be electric, guys.

If you're of a certain age, like, you know, certain older age, that particular matchup brings memories of Catholics versus.

Convicts, those t-shirts, and in one game, a brawl in the tunnel before kickoff even happened.

If you're a younger fan, when you hear the fight between Miami and Notre Dame, you probably don't think of a tunnel, but instead a committee room, which is honestly the battleground that this game is being played on.

Because Saturday isn't really a verdict on either team.

It's a verdict on how this sport decides who's actually good.

I mean, look at Notre Dame.

The Irish are 7 and 1 and number 4 in the AP poll, but the playoff committee has them at number 11, 7 spots lower, and the very last team in the bracket.

So the AP voters think Notre Dame looks like a top five team, but the committee thinks Notre Dame hasn't proven anything yet.

In fact, its chair said they don't have that signature win right now.

Miami meanwhile is sitting at number one with an 8-0 record, but the Hurricanes will now be going forward without their best player.

This is a bummer.

Star wide receiver Malachi Tony suffered a high ankle sprain in practice on Wednesday, and he had surgery yesterday.

And if you need some perspective on how big a deal that is, consider this.

Tony all by himself has caught nearly half of Miami's receiving touchdowns.

Or you can put it this way, Tony has 73 catches this season.

The next guy on the roster has 28.

The hope in Miami is that Tony can get back in 4 to 6 weeks.

That would land him back on the active roster in time for the playoffs.

But there's a question over whether the playoffs will still be there for Miami when Tony gets back.

The Hurricanes defense has already been leaking 93 points allowed in its last 3 games.

Now the Canes have to win without the guy who's been bailing that defense out.

Now if Miami does lose to Notre Dame tomorrow, you got to wonder how will the playoff committee judge that.

Last year, the Hurricanes beat the fighting.

Irish and guess who got into the playoffs and guess who didn't.

Oh, and this reaches well past South Bend.

The first two teams out of the field right now are Ohio State at number 12 and Tennessee at 13, which means Saturday night, I guess a whole lot of Buckeyes fans are going to be rooting for Miami.

So sure, keep an eye on the tunnel tomorrow night.

Keep an eye on the scoreboard, but the real final score comes out on Tuesday night when the committee releases its next rankings, and I guess tells us what this game actually meant.

OK, we all know since the morning Shado Sanders woke up on his ill-fated draft day, his story has been a lot more about the noise around him than about what he actually does with the football.

On Sunday in New Orleans though, he's going to get another chance to change that balance.

Browns starter Deshaun Watson, he's in concussion protocol.

So it's been Sanders who spent this past week taking first team reps, and he's the one in line for his first start of the season.

And the stakes are.

Medium Coach Todd Monken has already said he expects Watson to get his starting job back as soon as he gets healthy.

So if you're expecting some big dramatic Dak Prescott, Tony Romo sort of situation.

Probably not going to get it.

Then again, what Shador does on Sunday is definitely important for the Browns as a team, because look, Cleveland is 5-3 right now.

At one point earlier in the season, the Browns actually sat atop the AFC North.

Now they've slipped down to 3, and if the season ended today, they wouldn't even make the playoffs.

In theory, facing the 2 and 5 Saints should be a good opportunity for Cleveland to get its stride back, but Las Vegas actually has the Saints as the 3 point favorite.

New Orleans has been outscored by a total of 32 points this season.

The Browns have been outscored by a total of 34.

But more key, they've been absolutely horrible in first quarters.

They're getting outscored 65 to 13 across 8 games, and during last Sunday's disaster against Pittsburgh, they gave up 8 sacks.

And there's also some weirdness going on in the Browns' locker room.

Jared Burse came out the other day and said he was disappointed in his teammates for not backing him up after a Steelers player went at him during a kick attempt on Sunday.

Now whether that's a sign of something bigger or an isolated incident, we don't really know yet.

We got to get back to the main question though, which is whether Shador is up to this challenge.

This week, his first press conference as the de facto starter didn't go great.

There was a bizarre moment when he made it clear he didn't like a reporter's question about the Saints' defense, and then this exchange didn't go terrific either.

How does this offensive system fit you?

We're in like week 7 and we're talking about the offensive system fitting me.

We could have figured that out, you know, in, uh, in training camp, you know.

Sure.

Look, what's way more important than Sanders' interactions with reporters is how he talks with his teammates and coaches, right?

And they've all given him good reviews this week.

Cleveland's offensive coordinator has even particularly praised how Sanders has kept working all these weeks to keep learning, even after losing the quarterback competition the Browns held during training camp.

Now we will all get to see the result of that effort and whether Shador can start to tip the scales on how people see him.

So, you know how every so often in sports, somebody with a lot of money decides to take on the establishment and start their own league.

It normally ends one of two ways.

Like in 1966 , the upstart AFL got the NFL to agree to a merger.

And we've had the AFC and NFC ever since.

In 1986, the USFL took the NFL to court.

They were awarded $1 and never played another game.

So yesterday, we found out which.

Way the Livs golf story ends with Liv's own lawyer telling a bankruptcy judge that the league is quote toggling to a value maximizing wind down .

Apparently that his lawyer for closing time, last one out, hit the lights.

Now for a while, Liv sure looked like the AFL.

It launched in 2022 as Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, and a year later, the PGA Tour stunned everybody by announcing a framework.

Agreement with that same Saudi fund, so that would have paved the way for an AFC NFC type of arrangement, but that deal never got done.

Instead, the Saudis spent more than $5 billion trying to make fetch happen and before announcing in April they were out.

Then investment firm BC Partners stepped in with a $300 million rescue package, but that also collapsed after so few golfers signed up for the new.

that there was no way to even have a tour.

So now, as we sift through the rubble, did any good come out of any of this?

Rory McIlroy, Liv's fiercest critic, said this week that at least Liv turned professional golf into an arms race that made just about every top golfer a lot richer, whether they went with Liv or not, because within months of Liv's launch, the PGA Tour started raising purses at its biggest events to $20 million.

And today, PGA Tour players even get equity, and actual ownership stake in the tour itself.

So you know, there are definitely some folks that this whole escapade worked out for.

Still, if I'm the next billionaire with a rival league in mind, I am taking notes because most of all, what Liv proved is money can buy you players, but what it can't buy is what they care about most the chance to play in certain marquee events.

In fact, the reason LV 2.0 got so few signups was because of an announcement that anyone participating there would lose their shot at being on Europe's Ryder Cup team.

Now some big names like former Masters champion John Graham saw enough of this coming.

He'd already walked away from Liv.

But Bryson Deschambeau, well, he's a different story.

Just last weekend, Liv's biggest star said on a podcast that this was quote, going to be a league that exists forever.

And yet he also declined to sign up for it.

Bryson still has the majors thanks to his 2024 US Open title, but at least for now, he doesn't have a full-time home, and the roughly 30 players who had also committed to live 2.0 are looking for one as well.

At least they have, what did that lawyer say?

Ah, a value maximizing wind down.

Y.

All right, before we go, I want to shout out Cristiano Ronaldo, who is retiring from international soccer after 23 years with Portugal.

Obviously, one of the greatest to ever play the game and a career that speaks for itself.

So, congratulations, Cristiano.

And that is what makes sports special because at Sports Illustrated, the games may end, but the stories don't.

I'm Rachel Nichols.

Thanks for watching the story.

See you next time.