When I was in college, I met Manti Te’o.

He was one year ahead of me at ND. We were in a class together (one of those 200 seat seminars).

I went to every game that season, where we went 12-0 and earned a trip to the national championship. I rushed the field twice, once after Manti’s 3-interception game that delivered a win over Michigan and once after that 8-play-long goal-line-stand against a pretty good Stanford offense. I partied on North Quad when we beat USC for the first time in more than a decade.

I wept with Manti and two thousand other students at the pep rally where he told us that both his mother and his “girlfriend” died on the same day, but then promised us that he was still going to suit up against Michigan that Saturday because Notre Dame Football was the only family he had left. I felt outrage when he lost the Heisman, shame when his scandal broke, and deeply acute pain when he choked under the pressure of trying to contain Alabama’s unbelievable offensive talent, with AJ McCarron throwing to Amari Cooper while Eddie Lacy, TJ Yeldon, & Kenyan Drake ran behind 4 offensive lineman that were mere months away from playing in the NFL (2 of which were first round picks!!).

I met Manti one time by the bookstore. He was playing basketball with his friends, and his ball rolled over to where I was walking and we talked for a few moments. He was super high. Really nice guy.

It was a tough fall that year. On top of school, there was economic uncertainty with a debt-ceiling crisis and Greece defaulting on its debt, Occupy Wall Street, Amy Winehouse’s death, & Kim Jong Un becoming the leader of North Korea thereby reintroducing the threat of nuclear winter into our everyday lives.

But on Saturdays, I got to set all that aside, put on my Manti Te’o jersey, drink beers in a parking lot, and watch Notre Dame win football games.

Fast forward to yesterday. Let me tell you about my Tuesday.

Yesterday, I made thousands more decisions than my hunter-gatherer brain has evolved to make. I was exposed to an hour of news & commentary about the election. I panic-watched predictions about Hurricane Milton, worried about family and coworkers who have decided not to evacuate from Florida’s West Coast. Work was hard and difficult, and after work I had tons of unpacking-related tasks to complete.

Amidst this sea of pressurized chaos, two graces emerged: I got to hang out with Veronicca, and I got to escape into the world of sports.

In order to beef up my fantasy football game, I read the news from around the NFL. Coaches’ comments, injury reports, trade rumors, GM interviews–that sort of thing. I then caught up on the latest from the ESPN pundits. After that, I looked over the waivers in search of emerging reliable scorers or viable streamers with high floors. Finally, I took stock in my lineup.

In short, I got to set aside the troubles of my Tuesday for a while to lose myself in football.

Almost as good as chilling with Manti Te’o.

RANKINGS ACCORDING TO THE COMMISH

(ESPN’s playoff seed prediction in parenthesis)

(1) Veronicca (1st): 4-1

(2) Chelsea (2nd): 3-2

(3) Blake (3rd): 3-2

(4) Kayla (4th): 3-2

(5) Josh (5th): 2-3

(6) Zac (6th): 2-3

(7) Jean (7th): 2-3

(8) Joe (8th): 1-4

Because Blake, Zac, & Jean all lost last week, the relative strength of the conferences have mostly stabilized. So for the first time, my playoff rankings (which leans on tiebreakers and ignores divisional pathways) match up perfectly with the ESPN playoff prediction (which is leaning more heavily on tiebreakers this week due to the even divisional field).

TIE BREAKING STATS

Points Scored (highest PF, the first tiebreaking measure for playoff eligibility)

(1) Josh: 674.96 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s strongest team. Reliable scorers at QB1, QB2, RB1, WR1, WR2, WR3, TE, DST, & K. At 135 points per weekend, josh’s team is performing 12 points above the League’s average. If he can navigate the BYEs, cultivate an RB2, and hit the right Streamers, then Josh is in a very strong position for a playoff run. Entering W6, his biggest threat is himself. Josh tends to get too antsy, making a bad trade or drop. He often struggles to walk the line between Tinkerer & Over-Tinkerer.

(2) Veronicca: 662.22 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s deepest team. Reliable scorers at QB1, QB2, RB1, RB2, RB3, WR1, WR2, & WR3. Of note, 3 of her starters have missed at least one game for injury. Down the roster, she has several solid backups who are matchup or game-script dependent, but usable. Off some big individual player performances, she is only 12 points away from topping the League in this pivotal tiebreaking statistic.

(3) Zac: 627.90 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s most mercurial. Reliable scorers at QB1, RB1, RB2, RB3, WR1, WR2, WR3, & TE1. Well, I say “reliable,” which isn’t quite true. These players have high average scores, but also have high variability week-to-week. Zac’s team has an equally high ceiling and floor, which has worked out well for him so far.

(4) Chelsea: 598.54 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s distant central orbital. Reliable scorers at QB1, RB1, RB2, & WR1. Chelsea is in a league of her own, smack dab in the middle of a 51 point gap between the 3rd place & 5th place. At 599, she is 76 points below the top of the League and 44 points above the bottom. Her position in the east division has given her a playoff advantage so far, meaning an average season has provided above-average returns.

(5) Jean: 576.04 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s big fish in a little pond. Reliable scorers at QB1, QB2, RB1, WR1, & TE1. Jean has a band of incredible athletes in offensive systems designed for their strengths. Last year, this roster would have been unmatched. But some of Jean’s strongest players are unexpectedly losing position battles to rookies. She’s 21 points ahead of eighth place and 98 points behind first place. It’s a high-floor-low-ceiling season for Jean so far, putting her at the front of the back of the pack.

(6) Joe: 564.60 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s most hampered by injury. Reliable scorers at QB1, QB2, RB1, WR1, & WR2, but injuries causing significant speed bumps in the first 3rd of the season. Luckily, everyone is on the mend—better days are ahead.

(7) Blake: 557.70 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s luckiest player. Reliable scorers at QB1, WR1, & WR2. Tallying 3 wins from an average weekly score of 111 points, Blake has caught multiple opponents at their worst. He needs to score more points, or he will start losing his proximity to the playoff. Christian McCaffrey is a huge piece of Blake’s tough start to the season, along with several other major injuries. His RBs will be healthy soon, his WRs are heating up, and he’s made several strong, prescient waiver adds. Don’t count him out.

(8) Kayla: 555.98 total points scored
Commish Commentary: League’s biggest enigma. Reliable scorers at QB1, RB1, RB2, RB3, WR1, & WR2. Kayla has a really solid team, but here she is at the bottom of the power rankings. One great week, two average weeks, and two very unlucky weeks. The result is the League’s lowest point total, but I expect that she will soon begin to climb.

Points Scored (highest PA, the second tiebreaking measure for playoff eligibility)

(1) Joe: 654.58 total points scored against

(2) Zac: 624.36 total points scored against

(3) Veronicca: 621.32 total points scored against

(4) Kayla: 614.98 total points scored against

(5) Blake: 610.16 total points scored against

(6) Josh: 594.72 total points scored against

(7) Jean: 560.56 total points scored against

(8) Chelsea: 537.26 total points scored against