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The time to make September statements is over, but there is one more month to impress the College Football Playoff selection committee before it releases its first ranking on Nov. 1.At this point, the playoff picture is somewhat premature, as teams are just now entering the heart of conference play, and the committee holds league titles in high regard. Technically, any team with a chance to win its league should still be in the conversation. (Oklahoma: So youre saying theres a chance?)The perception of wins and losses will also change as the season evolves. Will Houstons win over Oklahoma carry as much weight in November as it did in Week 1? Not if the Sooners slip into oblivion. Alabama beat USC ... well, so did almost everyone else. The same can be said for Texas thrilling double-overtime win against Notre Dame in the season opener, as the Irish are now 1-3 after losing at home to Duke.A win over a Power 5 nonconference opponent will continue to resonate with the committee and help separate those teams from other comparable programs with weaker schedules, but as the teams evolve, so does the playoff picture.Heres a look at what we know after four weeks and what questions still linger heading into October:September answers:Alabama is still the team to beat. The defending national champs entered the season with questions about their quarterbacks and running backs, but after a 4-0 start they have reasserted themselves as the premier team in the country. The gritty win over Ole Miss, which had beaten the Crimson Tide the previous two seasons, made the biggest statement and cemented Bamas perch atop the SEC West. The biggest concern right now is staying healthy, as the top two running backs, Damien Harris and Bo Scarbrough, were injured against Kent State.Notre Dame and USC arent top-four -- or top-25.?Both fell far fast and are off to 1-3 starts, major disappointments for programs that entered the season with playoff aspirations. The Irish suffered their worst upset in two decades on Saturday when they lost at home to Duke, which was a three-touchdown underdog, and USC lost a heartbreaker to Utah on Friday night. The Trojans simply havent looked good enough to contend for the Pac-12 title, let alone a spot in the top four.Louisville has legitimate national title hopes. After embarrassing then-No. 2 Florida State 63-20, Louisville flipped a switch from playoff dark horse to contender. It has looked like the best team in the ACCs Atlantic Division and will have played both FSU and Clemson before the first CFP ranking comes out. Quarterback Lamar Jackson is a front-runner for the Heisman Trophy, but Louisvilles defense has made the Cardinals the total package entering October.The Group of 5 has hope. Houstons win over Oklahoma wasnt a fluke. Clearly the Cougars were the better team, but they still need a perfect season plus a bit of help to get into the top four. Its not impossible, but the Thursday night game against Louisville on Nov. 17 has grown in importance. In addition to needing to finish undefeated, Houston needs OU to be relevant in the Big 12 race and for the committee to acknowledge a few of its American Athletic Conference opponents in its top 25.The Big 12 is in a precarious position. Oklahoma is 1-2 but hasnt even started conference play. The excitement around Texas fizzled with its loss at Cal. TCU lost in double overtime to Arkansas, and Oklahoma States controversial loss to Central Michigan (which just lost to Virginia) was a microcosm of the hand-wringing that Big 12 fans have gone through this season. So the league turns to Baylor, a program mired in controversy, as its highest-ranked team. Whoever emerges as the league champ will likely be afforded only?one loss by the committee.Tennessee controls the SEC East. What streak? Butch Jones can exhale after overcoming an 18-point deficit in the second half to beat Florida and snap an 11-game losing streak in the series. Equally as important is that the win propelled the Vols to the top of the East standings as the front-runner to win the division, especially after Georgias dreadful performance in a 45-14 loss to Ole Miss.Lingering questions:Can anyone beat Alabama? Not even Ole Miss could do it this year. LSU certainly doesnt look capable after a loss to Auburn. With its win over Arkansas, Texas A&M became the lead contender to challenge the Tide in the SEC West, but Alabama will have home-field advantage in that game on Oct. 22. Tennessee also has new life in the East and could have two shots at Bama, and in case you didnt notice, rival Auburn still has a pulse. Anything can happen in the Iron Bowl.How will the committee view Baylor? The Bears are now the Big 12s highest-ranked team after their win over Oklahoma State, and West Virginia is the only other undefeated team in the league. For the third straight year, Baylors nonconference schedule is laughable compared to others, but is the Big 12s most polarizing program also its best? Can the Bears remain relevant in the conference race? If so, will the committee members be able to separate what has happened on the field with the transgressions off it?Can Wisconsin keep it up? The Badgers have one of the most impressive September résumés, knocking off two top-10 teams in LSU and Michigan State. Remember, though, that Wisconsin made it to the Big Ten championship game in 2014 and was dismantled by Ohio State and its third-string quarterback. Theres no doubt the Badgers found their quarterback in Alex Hornibrook, but they also face back-to-back top-five opponents in Michigan and Ohio State.Is Utah for real? The Utes are off to a 4-0 start, but they also did that last year and were 3-0 to start 2014. They havent been able to sustain their recent strong starts through conference play. Utah next travels to Cal, and should also be leery of a surging Colorado team in the ever-unpredictable South Division, which has had four different champs in each of the past four seasons.Will the ACC need its third-party tiebreaker? Its a long shot, as several things need to happen: Clemson has to beat Louisville, AND Florida State has to beat Clemson, AND none of them can lose again this season, finishing with 11-1 records. If that happens, the ACC will turn to SportSource Analytics for its No. 7 tiebreaker, using the highest-ranked team, according to their team rating score metric, to determine the Atlantic Division winner.Ohio State or Michigan? It was clear in the home loss to Wisconsin that Michigan State has issues, and Sparty didnt look ready to return to the Big Ten title game. So which one is it? Ohio State or Michigan? The Buckeyes have the better résumé right now thanks to a road win over Oklahoma, and they also have to travel to Wisconsin on Oct. 15, in addition to facing Nebraska, Michigan State and Michigan. The Wolverines host Wisconsin on Saturday. 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Jimmie Foxx Red Sox Jersey . -- Tony Stewart is 20 pounds lighter and has a titanium rod in his surgically repaired right leg. If you were looking southward from downtown Chicago when reports hit that Chris Sale had been traded to the Boston Red Sox, you would have noticed that Guaranteed Rate Field was shrouded in a light fog. That might be a pathetic fallacy, but the vision seems appropriate for the current state of the Chicago White Sox.It has been a rough few months for the White Sox. A torrid start to the 2016 season put Chicago six games up in the American League Central, a lead that disappeared in less than three weeks and never came back. They finished 16? games behind the Cleveland Indians and missed the postseason for the eighth straight season. The only times the White Sox drew any real national attention were both strange controversies in which Sale was involved -- first when veteran Adam LaRoche retired over his sons clubhouse access during spring training, with Sale calling out executive VP Kenny Williams, and then during the season, when Sale lost his mind and cut up a bunch of throwback jerseys.And this all quietly unfolded in a city where the north-side Cubs became the biggest story in sports. The White Sox have long been second-class citizens in their own metropolitan area despite a fan base that is fervently loyal and, even now, largely immune to the happenings in Wrigleyville. But as they say, the proof is in the pudding. According to Forbes, the White Sox were working with $100 million less in revenue than the Cubs in 2015, a chasm that has almost certainly widened since then. The last bit of bragging rights the White Sox owned -- their 2005 championship -- has been erased by the Cubs World Series win.With the Cubbie-blue shadow looming larger than ever over the White Sox, does that make this the best or the worst time to rebuild? In most ways, it probably doesnt matter. While the franchises vie for a certain overlap in local media coverage, their respective fan bases dont seem to intersect as much as youd think, considering the ballparks are only about nine miles from each other. White Sox fans dont tend to judge their team against the Cubs, especially those who have sworn to never set foot inside Wrigley Field.The Sale trade doesnt represent a full-on rebuild by general manager Rick Hahn, but it sends a hard-to-ignore signal that one is underway. At 27, Sale is one of the best and most durable starting pitchers in baseball. His contract, according to the Cots Contracts, will pay him $38 million over the next three seasons. Thats ridiculously team-friendly. Simply put, he was one of the most valuable trade assets in baseball.Hahn could have held onto Sale, allowing the pitcher to continue anchoring Chicagos rotation at a bargain price. But to what end? The White Soxs best players -- such as Sale, Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, Jose Abreu and Melky Cabrera -- are in the middle of or nearing the end of their career primes. The players with the most upside -- shortstop Tim Anderson and starter Carlos Rodon -- are too few in number. The White Soxs minus-29 run differential last season was a four-year high. It just wasnt working.For far too long -- well before Hahn took over as chief decision-maker from Kenny Williams -- the White Sox have focused on patching up their big league roster at the expense of building up their minor league system. The last, big patch-work push came before the 2015 season, when the Sox doled out around $128 million in contracts for Cabrera, Zach Duke, David Robertson and LaRoche. That accomplished nothing, so before last season, the Sox traded three prospects to the Dodgers in a three-way deal with the Reds that brought back veteran third baseman Todd Frazier.The end result? Continuing their string of second-division finishes.Worse, the White Sox have been neither fish nor fowl: The lack of player development has left the organization thin, and the lack of an elite revenue stream leaves the White Sox battling for second-tier free agents with far too much downside risk.This left the White Sox at a crosssroads entering the winter meetings:Door No.dddddddddddd 1: Should they keep throwing money at their problems, hoping to catch lightning in the bottle? It wasnt the longest of shots, after all, because at the very least, they could hope for a good starting rotation.Door No. 2: They could finally bite the bullet and attempt to put together a more sustainable model.With the trade of Sale, the White Sox seem to have finally set off in the right direction. Door No. 2 it is.Keith Laws last full set of organization rankings had the White Sox at No. 22. According to Baseball America, the White Sox havent ranked in the top 10 since 2002. They havent been in the top half of the majors in Baseball Americas rankings in a decade, and the past five years have been brutal: 27th, 30th, 29th, 24th, 30th and 23rd.Prospect rankings arent everything. However, the current economic realities of baseball and the structures in place under the current and recently-agreed-to collective bargaining agreements have put scouting and development at the forefront of most front office strategies. The Yankees are doing it. The Dodgers are doing it. The Royals and the Cubs have converted recent lofty draft rankings into World Series titles. But the White Sox didnt even need to look at those trends or those teams. They only needed to look at their own history.In 2001, the White Sox were Baseball Americas top team in the preseason prospect rankings. While a lot of the players who populated the top rungs of that list (such as?Joe Borchard and Jon Rauch) didnt pan out, that overall commitment to player development was a big part of the Soxs title in 2005, in terms of homegrown products on the roster (Joe Crede, Aaron Rowand, Mark Buehrle) and prospects dealt for veteran pieces.Now the White Sox seem pointed toward replicating that process, beginning with the crucial first step theyve skipped over for years: establishing a solid base of prospects. They seem to be off to a great start with the Sale trade. With the acquisition of Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech and Luis A. Basabe, along with the selections of catcher Zack Collins and pitchers Alec Hansen and Zack Burdi in the draft back in June, there is a lot more upside in the organization than there was before the season. But its only a start.Now that Sale is gone, the other impactful veterans on the roster make even less sense. Eaton, 27, is a solid hitter and excellent defender at a time when several contenders need a center fielder. Quintana, also 27, is kind of Sale-lite on both the production and consistency fronts and has a similarly team-friendly contract. Abreu, Frazier and Cabrera will all be in or past their age-30 seasons in 2017, which means their value is higher right now than its likely going to get. And they are at career stages out of step for a team at the outset of a full-blown rebuild.The White Sox are well positioned to deal. Their primary veterans are good players on reasonable contracts. This isnt a blue-light-special situation -- Hahn should find multiple suitors for each veteran, and he can always stand pat if the right offers dont come in. He can deal this winter, or hold out until the trade deadline. However, if he doesnt pull the trigger on anything, suddenly the Sale trade starts to look like an odd, half-done attempt at going the prospect route. That outcome would be a surprise, especially since the thin free-agent class this winter means its a good time to dive into the sellers trade market.Up until the moment Hahn said yes to the Red Sox, that fog around The G (formerly the Cell) really did seem like a metaphor. With that one phone call, the White Sox are no longer a team running in place. But dealing Sale was just the first step, and for the White Sox to end up where they want to go, the next steps will be the most important theyve taken in years. Camo China NFL Jerseys Jerseys From China Wholesale Nike NFL Jerseys Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys Youth NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys 2019 Cheap Jerseys 2019 Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping Wholesale Jerseys 2019 Cheap NFL T-shirts Disocunt Football Jerseys Jerseys NFL Cheap Cheap Jerseys From China Disocunt Football Jerseys Cheap Stitched Jerseys ' ' '