Good morning!
New words and terms keep creeping into the sports dialect. In hockey, the boards are the wall; athletic director is athletics director; u-Mass is YOU-mass.

Without warning or explanation, the NCAA changed what had simply been called Division I football to the Football Bowl Subdivision, and I-AA became the Football Conference Subdivision. It took me years to remember which was which.

The two-minute warning is the two-minute timeout because some thin-skinned sociology major thinks “warning” connotes violence.

Which brings us to the Peach Bowl on Wednesday, when Longhorns play-by-play voice Craig Way said: “For those of you put off by the term ‘Line to gain,’ I feel you.” 

Three cheers for Craig.

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Boston Sports Journal’s Greg Bedard studies Patriots game film the way a general scours the battlefield, then gives a weekly postmortem on the team’s performance. After last week’s 40-7 loss to the Chargers at Gillette Stadium, Bedard said on his podcast, “I’m done with this team.”

“What we saw was an absolutely pathetic professional football product. The Patriots are no longer a professional football outfit. They were entitled to get booed off the field. Jerod Mayo was entitled to hear ‘Fire Mayo.’ It was that bad.”

Going into Sunday’s season finale versus the Bills, the Patriots are 30th in points per game and yards per game, last in sacks and 30th in sacks allowed. Indeed, they rank in the bottom half of virtually every category listed on teamrankings.com.

In the first half of last week’s game the TV camera showed Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh on the sideline, stone-faced and intent, then panned over to Mayo, baseball cap slightly askew, the only thing missing a Jiffy Lube shirt.

“The way your team plays is a reflection of you as a head coach, and what I saw was an outfit that basically half-assed this game,” said Bedard. “It was the difference between one coaching staff that doesn’t know what it’s doing against a professional, experienced staff.

“It looked like something out of the Dolphins with Cam Cameron when he went 1-15 and got fired,” said Bedard, who covered the Dolphins for the Palm Beach Post in 2007. “There has been no progress. They are regressing. I don’t see any path forward toward making it better. I think they have to entertain the nuclear option of blowing it all up.”

Patriots fans would love to see Mike Vrabel on the sideline next season. An All American at Ohio State and three-time Super Bowl champion in New England, Vrabel was fired by the Titans last season despite having a 54-45 record in six seasons.

“Who gives you the best chance to be better?” Bedard asked. “Let’s just say I think Mike Vrabel is going to be a great head coach, even better the second time around.”

Vrabel’s next game will be his hundredth. Let’s hope it’s in New England.

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Vision Followup: UMass AD Ryan Bamford insinuates in his “Vision for UMass Football” that UMass didn’t leave the MAC, it was forced out after the 2015 season: “We were removed from the MAC as a football affiliate member.”

That’s debatable. Former AD John McCutcheon got UMass into the MAC because it was the only Division I conference that would take him — provided UMass went all-in by 2015. McCutcheon prioritized basketball over football and had no intention of leaving the A-10. 

McCutcheon subsequently quit and left for Cal-Santa Barbara to have tea with Meghan and Harry. Bamford became the new AD on March 1, 2015, and in retrospect should have told the MAC it had changed its mind and would go all-in.

This would’ve caused holy hell among the UMass-ochists who love seeing their team get beaten by superior A-10 teams every season.

You’ll never see any statues of McCutcheon on the UMass campus. Moving out of I-AA was poorly executed, and his choice of Charley Molnar to coach the Minutemen was a disaster. He was inept, unpopular and gone after winning just two games in two seasons.

UMass sports booster John Kennedy filled us in on the rest of the story: “John hired Charley Molnar who had been the O-coordinator at Notre Dame, but only learned later that head coach Brian Kelly was actually the play caller. OOPS. After Molnar got here he told a gathering of football alums that UMass was finally going to play big boy football, another OOPS.”

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Hot Stove: Teoscar Hernandez was the right handed bat the Red Sox needed, but he re-upped with the Dodgers. How about Pete Alonso? Alonso is 30 years old and wants a big contract, but 135 of his 231 home runs have been to left field. … The NY Post’s Mike Puma reports that 20 teams made presentations to Japanese righthander Roki Sasaki who had a 2.02 ERA for the Chiba Lotte Marines and fanned 11 batters in 7.2 innings in the ’23 World Baseball Classic. … Will Sammon of the Athletic says scouts have compared 16-year-old Elian Pena to a younger Rafael Devers — all bat, no glove, but plenty of power. The Mets are expected to ink the 6-2, 155-pound infielder from the Dominican Republic on Jan. 15 which is International Signing Day. … Baby it’s cold outside, but Opening Day is March 27 and the Yankees host Milwaukee at 3:05 p.m., the Rangers host Boston at 4:05 p.m., and Houston hosts the Mets, time TBA. … Somebody, I’m not sure who, said this on a recent Bastards of Boston Baseball podcast: “The Red Sox are not in the business of winning baseball anymore. They don’t give a s*** if you’re going there to watch the Red Sox because Fenway Park is the attraction. They want a year-round entertainment complex.” Truer words were never spoken.

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SQUIBBERS: “What’re you going to talk about at halftime?” Tampa Bay’s halftime reporter asked coach Todd Bowles during Sunday’s win over the Panthers. “Two busted coverages. DB’s gotta get their heads out of their a**.” … Sirius-XM’s Chris Russo thinks the 17-game schedule has sapped the sport’s late season drama. “This has been one of the worst regular seasons in 60 years. Cincinnati and Dallas was a disaster. I watched Yacht Rock instead of that game.” … Missouri freshman kicker Blake Craig’s 56-yard field goal that beat Iowa in the Music City Bowl on Monday was preceded by a 42-yarder and six PATs against UMass during the Tigers’ 45-3 demolition at McGuirk Alumni Stadium in Oct. …   UMass goalie Michael Hrabal has played lights out for Czechia at the World Juniors in Ottawa. At this writing Hrabal was third in goals against (2.36) and fourth in save percentage (.925), and his UMass teammate Daniel Jencko has two goals and two assists in four games for Slovakia. … Mike Francesa cringes at the showboating side of Giants rookie Malik Nabers, who goes into Sunday’s game with 104 catches and six touchdowns. “He’s probably going to become absolutely insufferable. I hate to see what’s coming.” … After Terry Francona was hired by the Reds, the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jack Schmelzinger unearthed his “popsicles” quote. “I had 17 the other night. I woke up and I was like borderline, like it was coming up. But I was so tired I just laid there and was like, ‘Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up. I should’ve got up and threw up.” ... New Year's predictions: Bills win the Super Bowl, Maple Leafs win the Cup and the Celtics and Dodgers repeat. You read it here first.

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com