The first full weekend of college football should be very special. California and Hawaii started the season last weekend, and there are eight marquee match-ups on tap for Labor Day weekend.

Think about the importance of some of these games. A loss could really hurt, though with so many teams playing competitive openers, you could see a team in the final four with a couple of losses.

USC takes on Alabama down in Arlington, Texas Heisman winner Derrick Henry is gone, but Nick Saban has lots of talent. Oklahoma and QB Baker Mayfield take on Houston. The Cougars would love to score a big win for the AAC.

UCLA meets Texas A&M, LSU battles Wisconsin, Clemson meets Auburn, Georgia faces North Carolina, Notre Dame battles Texas and Mississippi meets Florida State.

Wow, what a weekend.

I know there has been a lot of talk about San Francisco QB Colin Kaepernick and his decision to protest during the national anthem.

He has a right to his opinion, but please respect the Flag as many of color have lost their lives protecting our freedoms. There are plenty of forums to express his opinion, but disrespecting the red, white and blue is not the answer.

The Olympics in Rio are over and it was very exciting. The US dominated the medal count, and there were so many dramatic stories told.

The USA men's and women's basketball teams got the job done and left with gold. The men played one of their best games in dispatching Serbia in the finals. The women dominated against Spain.

This Olympics will be remembered for names like Katie Ledecky, Michiael Phelps, Simone Biles and Usain Bolt. There was a number of other surprises too.

All in all, it was a dramatic Olympics. Now we can concentrate on baseball pennant races, baby!

The first week of the Olympics is in the books and we have seen a lot of drama, great performances and excitement.

The second week will produce even more action.

We have seen a number of expected stars come through. Michael Phelps was dominant again, finishing his Olympic career (at least for now) with 23 gold medals. Katie Ledecky was also incredible in the pool. Usain Bolt was the world's fastest man, beating Justin Gatlin in the 100 meters. Andy Murray was his second straight gold medal in men's singles.

There was new faces making noise too. Simone Manuel, Maya Dirado and Lilly King shined in swimming. Monica Puig was the surprise gold medal winner in women's tennis.

The biggest early surprise was the US women's soccer team losing to Sweden in the quarterfinals.

It has been fun to see the athletes performing well in Rio.

Friday will be the final day that Alex Rodriguez wears a Yankee uniform.

Will it be the last time A. Rod. wears a major league uniform?

Despite last week's press conference, Alex could decide to come back with another team to make a run at that special milestone of 700 home runs.

Friday night in the Bronx will be sad in a way. Rodriguez and the Yankees should be celebrating his success. Instead, the team is ending the relationship.

It will be dramatic, that is for sure.