Jumbo Package: Gump Day!

Battle played in all 13 games as a true freshman and earned four starts in the secondary, filling in at safety in dime looks when Xavier McKinney moved down to Money. Battle registered 30 tackles last season both on defense and special teams, where he played on all four kickoff and punt teams. He also posted a sack, an interception and a fumble recovery. With McKinney and Jared Mayden moving on, Battle is expected to take over as a full-time starter.

Jordan Battle is absolutely a name to remember for the future. I fully expect him to not only be a starter this year, but a very, very good player. And by his junior season? Elite.

Bookmark my words. I’m making the claim now

On Tuesday, ESPN’s Chris “Bear” Fallica tweeted out a stat that is simply incredible. Per the Bear, 12.8% of the players picked in Rounds 1-3 in the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 drafts have come from Alabama and Ohio State — 26 from each school.

An even more shocking stat is that LSU is No. 3 on the list, but only have half of the players drafted in Rounds 1-3 as the Tide and the Buckeyes.

That domination by Alabama and Ohio State is projected to continue this year, too, as the Tide, in particular, could have around 7 first-round picks alone.

Is there any better recruiting material than this? In college football, it’s Alabama, Ohio State, and everyone else. LSU in 3rd place is 50% behind the two leaders, and little ole clemson* is still little ole clemson.

*intentionally not capitalized

That said, seven first-round picks this year is a bit optimistic, I think.

Cornerback Trevon Diggs

Dane Brugler, The Athletic — First round, No. 17 pick (Dallas Cowboys)

Mel Kiper, ESPN — Second round, No. 61 pick (Tennessee Titans)

Safety Xavier McKinney

Dane Brugler, The Athletic — Second round, No. 39 pick (Miami Dolphins)

Mel Kiper, ESPN — First round, No. 17 pick (Dallas Cowboys)

Tua Tagovailoa, Jedrick Wills, Jr., Henry Ruggs III, and Jerry Jeudy are about as solid of 1st round locks as you can get. I also think Xavier McKinney should be a first round pick, but the NFL tends to collectively drop a lot of safeties to the second round.

Trevon Diggs has talent, but I think has too many inconsistencies in his game to be a first round pick.

So I think 4-5 first round picks is most likely, with a very slim chance it could be 6. But 7? I can’t see any world where Terrell Lewis, Raekwon Davis, or Anfernee Jennings make the first round.

There’s been some complaints lately about the lack of a Wednesday science lesson, so here’s a new one this week. Feel free to skip the rest of the article if you’re only here for the sports.

How did the modern world figure out how to keep their food and houses cold? By taking a chemical and changing it from gas to liquid and gas to liquid and gas to liquid and gas to liquid. Both refrigerators and central AC systems use this system to keep an environment cold.

Laws of thermodynamics constrain us so that energy (heat) can’t be destroyed, so we had to get creative. Just take the heat, and put it somewhere else.

In a refrigerator, you’re taking all of the heat out of the air in a small space and giving it to the open air outside the fridge. The refrigerant, a fluorocarbon, is pumped into a maze of pipes in the back of the freezer called the evaporator, while a fan blows the inside air around the pipes. The refrigerant takes all of the energy it can from the air in the process of evaporating and then moves on as a gas to outside of the fridge.

This time, it goes through another maze of pipes with outside air blowing around it, and, in the process of condensing back to a liquid, gives all that heat up. It keeps going in circles and continues that process over and over.

The key part of all of this is the phase change of the refrigerant. Theoretically, you could use a moving liquid or gas to exchange all that heat out of one place and into another at a steady rate to hold a temperature, but the problem is that a fridge door does not totally prevent heat from leaking back in, and it would slowly overwhelm the overall capacity for heat transfer in the refrigerant.

That’s where evaporation and condensation comes in. When you boil water, it takes a certain amount of energy to bring it from room temperature to about 211.9 degrees. After that, any energy you put in goes towards making it change state, rather than increase temperature... And it takes a lot of energy to make that last bit happen. Conversely, the condensing of water vapor back to a liquid gives off a whole bunch of energy without actually changing temperature.

So, in your fridge, electrical energy is used to change the pressure inside the pipes so that the refrigerant is in the right environment to change state and pull all the heat out of its surroundings, and again to condense and give all that heat back off.

Energy always balances... It’s just all about making it move to where it’s useful.

Sidenote, both my AC and refrigerator went out in back to back days this weekend, so this is a subject currently near to my heart.