Only one man could stop Kirby Smart the past three seasons. The GOAT, they called him. Now that Nick Saban works for ESPN, who’s going to stand in Smart’s way?

Maybe no one.

After Saban’s retirement, Smart became the SEC’s only active coach to have won a national championship. He’s the SEC’s unquestioned overlord, while a power struggle unfolds down ballot. The SEC brims with talented coaches, buoyed by the addition of Texas’ Steve Sarkisian.

Here’s how I rank the SEC’s football coaches entering the 2024 season.

1. Kirby Smart (Georgia)

Last year: No. 1

Smart went 1-5 against Saban. That’s the lone knock on his performance. If not for Saban and Alabama, Smart might have become the only modern-era coach to produce a three-peat. With Saban out of the way, Smart grips the baton as college football’s most dominant force. He’s a recruiting monster who’s equally good at developing the talent he assembles.

2. Brian Kelly (LSU)

Last year: No. 3

Kelly’s 20 victories in two LSU seasons aren’t his ceiling. He’s recruiting as well as ever. He’s made LSU a destination for offense. Defensive liabilities separate LSU from national championship contention, but Kelly smartly rebuilt his coaching staff. His third season will redefine perception of the direction of his tenure. So far, the trajectory looks promising.

3. Steve Sarkisian (Texas)

Last year: Not ranked. Not in the SEC.

Texas being “back” no longer is a punch line. It’s reality, thanks to Sarkisian. He instilled toughness that Texas had sorely lacked. Sarkisian remains one of the sport’s brightest offensive minds. He’s a capable recruiter, too. Texas was one completed pass away from reaching the national championship last season. That’s no fluke. Sarkisian built a program with staying power.

4. Kalen DeBoer (Alabama)

Last year: Not ranked. Not in the SEC.

5. Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss)

Last year: No. 4

No one navigates the transfer terrain better than Kiffin. He assembled his best roster yet in no small part because of portal plunders. He builds his roster like an NFL general manager, carefully evaluating every NIL dollar spent as if he’s working within a salary cap. He transformed Ole Miss into a playoff contender. All that’s left is proving he can hang with the top dogs.

6. Josh Heupel (Tennessee)

Last year: No. 6

Heupel boasts an impressive quarterback development track record. His up-tempo offense works wonders. His composed approach is exactly what Tennessee needed after the disastrous Jeremy Pruitt era. Tennessee’s 2025 recruiting class is shaping up as Heupel’s best yet. Now, can he elevate Tennessee’s defense to a championship level? His offensive chops aren’t in question.

7. Eliah Drinkwitz (Missouri)

Last year: No. 14

Drinkwitz’s bravado filled a craving for Missouri, which desperately pines for respect. Drinkwitz backed up his bluster last season by delivering 11 victories for one of the best seasons in program history. He’s galvanized fans and donors, and he’s taking advantage of Missouri’s favorable NIL laws to help the Tigers punch above their recruiting weight. His task this season? Prove last year was no flash in the pan.

8. Mark Stoops (Kentucky)

Last year: No. 9

Stoops is a force of consistency at a program where that doesn’t come easily. He’s elevated Kentucky’s ceiling and its floor. A stiffening Kentucky schedule means Stoops’ best seasons are behind him, but he’ll keep football relevant at a basketball school. Stoops specializes in defense and in meeting or exceeding modest expectations. His inability to develop a standout quarterback limits UK’s ability to reach a higher tier.

9. Hugh Freeze (Auburn)

Last year: No. 6

No one should question Freeze’s X’s and O’s or ability to call an offense, but it’s unclear whether he’s built for this era of NIL and transfers. Freeze’s career peak occurred a decade ago. That doesn’t mean, though, he can’t reinvigorate Auburn. This season will be telling. So will this recruiting class. What Freeze needs most is a star quarterback, which he’s so far failed to secure.

10. Mike Elko (Texas A&M)

Last year: Not ranked. Not in SEC.

Elko’s defenses highlighted the Jimbo Fisher era. He returned to College Station after consecutive winning seasons at Duke. He’ll enjoy more resources at Texas A&M, and Aggies power brokers have embraced this New Jersey native. He’s off to a fine start working transfers and recruits. Making the Aggies’ offense more explosive becomes his next challenge.

11. Brent Venables (Oklahoma)

Last year: Not ranked. Not in SEC.

The jury remains in deliberations as to whether Venables will be a hit at OU. He misfired in Year 1 before rebounding last season, but the Sooners limped to the finish. His expertise comes on defense, a unit that remains under construction but is improving. His star quarterback (Dillon Gabriel) and offensive coordinator (Jeff Lebby) departed in the offseason. The fork in the road of his tenure arrives this year.

12. Shane Beamer (South Carolina)

Last year: No. 7

Beamer’s inability to make South Carolina more fearsome at the line of scrimmage continues to be a warning flag, and regression became the theme of his third season. Also, he’s repeatedly been damaged by transfer exoduses. He’s also not recruiting as well as he was earlier in his tenure. He still enjoys widespread approval in South Carolina, but this will be a critical season.

13. Sam Pittman (Arkansas)

Last year: No. 10

Once Arkansas’ “Jukebox hero,” the tune soured last season for Pittman, and the Head Hog is roasting on a scalding-hot seat. Transfer departures continue to plague Pittman, and he sorely missed offensive coordinator Kendal Briles last season after Briles left for TCU. You know the situation is getting desperate because Arkansas brought in renegade Bobby Petrino to revive the offense.

14. Billy Napier (Florida)

Last year: No. 11

Napier finally dropped his lukewarm approach to the transfer portal this offseason, and he assembled his best roster to date. Too little, too late? Even Steve Spurrier questioned the program’s direction. That’s tough to live down. If Napier had the benefit of a longer runway, he might eventually generate momentum, but Florida isn’t known for patience, and the schedule is brutal.

15. Jeff Lebby (Mississippi State)

Last year: Not ranked. First-year coach.

Mississippi State replaced one coach with no head coaching experience with another. At least Lebby’s teams ought to produce more points. Lebby’s offensive system traces to Art Briles, and Lebby helped steward exciting offenses as an assistant or coordinator at Baylor, UCF, Ole Miss and Oklahoma. His system resembles the offense of Tennessee and Ole Miss, but he won’t have the talent base of those schools.

16. Clark Lea (Vanderbilt)

Last year: No. 13

If exceeding your predecessor’s performance marks success, then Lea has failed. Nothing indicates he’s up to this tough job. The Commodores are as much of an afterthought as ever, and they’re prone to losing their top players to the portal. In a last-ditch effort to engineer a spark, Lea brought in a bevy of transfers, but the Commodores remain an SEC anchor.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

Jourdan Delacruz bombed at the Tokyo Olympics.

That’s not an editorialization, mind you. In Delacruz’s sport of weightlifting, ‘bombed’ or ‘bombing out’ is a technical term, used to describe a competition in which an athlete is unable to complete a lift in the allotted number of attempts.

In 2021, it doomed Delacruz to a last-place finish in her first trip to the Summer Games.

‘At the time, it felt like a failure,’ Delacruz, now 26, told a small group of reporters at a media roundtable this spring. ‘It felt like I got to the top of this mountain and completely fell down, and would have to restart.’

In some ways, Delacruz is still processing the emotions of that moment. But in time, and with the help of her sports psychologist, she said she has come to view it not as a failure but as one competition in the broader tapestry of a largely successful career.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Since leaving Tokyo, the cheerleader-turned-weightlifter won gold at last year’s Pan American Championships, placed third at the most recent world championships and broke the American record for clean and jerk in her weight class. She is one of the five weightlifting athletes who will represent Team USA at the Paris Games.

‘I wouldn’t call it a comeback, because it’s just a part of my journey, part of my experience,’ Delacruz said. ‘(Though) obviously I want to do better this time.’

Delacruz first got into weightlifting through CrossFit, viewing it as a way to build strength and improve in her first sporting love, cheerleading. At 5 feet and 108 pounds, she doesn’t have the type of hulking physique that one would commonly associate with Olympic weightlifting. But as the daughter of two former bodybuilders, strength training came naturally to her. ‘(It’s) always been a foundation in my household,’ she said.

At the Olympic level, weightlifting is both incredibly straightforward − see weight, lift weight − and deceptively strategic, because athletes are allowed to pick the weight they try to hoist over three attempts in two types of lifts (snatch and clean and jerk). Some choose to start lighter, get on the board and add weight from there. Others go heavy from the beginning and give themselves extra chances to lift it, though they also risk scoring a zero.

In Tokyo, Delacruz opted for the latter. After successfully snatching 189 pounds, she chose a starting weight of roughly 238 pounds for the clean and jerk − which she had successfully lifted in competition just months earlier, and would have put her in bronze medal position. But after three attempts, she was unable to complete the lift.

Delacruz described the immediate aftermath of that moment as ‘isolating,’ in part because she shared a coach with two other Team USA athletes, who had performed well. She said she flew home alone, left to process her feelings − and all of the social media chatter and news articles about her performance − by herself.

‘If you look up my name, it was ‘Jourdan fails at Olympics.’ And that was really hard,’ she said. ‘Because I knew I wasn’t a failure. I knew that my journey wasn’t a failure. I knew that I had so much to do. But that’s what I thought people saw. Obviously my close support system doesn’t see that, but I would say just kind of sorting through the media was really challenging.’

As her Olympic return neared, Delacruz acknowledged that some of the memories and negative feelings of Tokyo have started to creep back in. But she has come to understand that it’s all just part of the process.

‘I think at this level, we’re constantly put in positions of doubt,’ Delacruz said. ‘We’re trying to improve our total by one kilo. We’re trying to get just one percent stronger. So I think we’ve become accustomed to doubt. We’ve become − I wouldn’t say friends with it, but we’re used to it.’

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.

Nevin Harrison, like so many other Olympic athletes, spent years of her life working to win a gold medal and dreaming of the perks that would follow. She thought being a gold medalist would give her a certain degree of celebrity. A steady stream of high-dollar sponsorship deals. A sense of balance and fulfillment in her life and work.

Instead, after winning gold in the women’s canoe 200-meter sprint at the 2021 Tokyo Games, Harrison only found snippets of all of those things. And after grappling with what she called ‘a coaching nightmare,’ she even considered punting on the 2024 Paris Olympics altogether.

‘I had this battle of, do I really want to keep going? Is it worth it?’ Harrison told a small group of reporters at a media roundtable in New York earlier this year. ‘Because it’s clearly not for the money. And do I love it enough to stay for another however many years?’

Harrison, who was just 19 when she won gold in Tokyo, ultimately decided to stick it out and will try to repeat in the women’s 200-meter canoe sprint in Paris from Aug. 8-10.

Now 22, she credited her new coach, Joe Harper, for coming into the picture ‘just in time, before I almost gave up.’ And she said she’s worked hard to strike a balance between Harrison the gold-medal-winning paddler and Harrison the college student who enjoys living a normal life.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

‘Besides the tattoos and the muscles, you would never have any idea that I actually have gone to the Olympics and brought home a medal,’ Harrison said. ‘But I like it that way. I like to not have that be my entire personality.’

Harrison, who finished fourth at the most recent world championships, said winning gold in Tokyo definitely changed her life, but not in the ways that she expected.

After the initial wave of post-Games hooplah ended, she moved to San Diego, enrolled at San Diego State University and came to relish normal life. The big-money sponsorship and endorsement deals that she had envisioned didn’t materialize, nor did her preconceived idea of fame. But she was OK with that. Although she said she is recognizable in some European cities where canoeing is more popular, she’s been grateful to maintain her anonymity in the U.S.

The lack of a financial windfall following the Olympics, coupled with her life as a college student, made her start to question whether she had the drive to continue competing.

‘I fell in love with external life. It made it really hard to stay in love with what I was doing,’ the Seattle native said. ‘Slowly but surely, I worked my way back in and tried to find out ways to balance the two.’

Coaching challenges also played a role in Harrison’s thought process. She indicated that her longtime coach, former Hungarian paddler Zsolt Szadovszki, planned to move to San Diego to continue coaching her then reversed course and asked to coach her remotely − ‘which is something that most athletes know isn’t going to work,’ she said.

When asked to elaborate on her self-described ‘coaching nightmare,’ she said only that there were several pieces of the arrangement ‘that just kind of fell apart.’

‘I think ultimately, there’s so much that goes into coach-athlete relationships that people don’t understand,’ Harrison explained. ‘I think once that trust is broken or if there’s something that goes wrong, it’s really hard to repair that.’

Szadovszki, for his part, said he had made personal and financial sacrifices to continue coaching Harrison, including leaving jobs in Georgia and his native Hungary. But he felt her motivation and commitment to their agreed-upon training plan had waned, prompting him to leave California weeks after arriving.

‘For me, it’s not trust,’ Szadovszki said. ‘For me, it’s just not doing the work that’s required.’

After they ended their relationship, Harrison turned to Harper. Though she’s known the veteran paddling coach since she was 12 or 13, Harrison admitted it’s a bit nervewracking to entrust her training to a new coach after winning Olympic gold with someone else. In fact, she is the only Olympic gold medalist in the history of her event, which debuted in Tokyo.

After struggling with an unspecified back injury for much of 2023, Harrison said her fourth-place finish at the world championships in Duisburg, Germany, last fall was motivating.

With a new coach and a renewed passion for the sport, she said she has something to prove in Paris.

‘People think I lost it,’ Harrison said. ‘So it’s time to show them.’

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.

On Tuesday night, the 19th season of the preseason edition of HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ kicks off as NFL Films’ sports reality documentary series follows the exploits of the Chicago Bears as they prepare for the 2024 season.

This will be the first time that the Bears — one of the NFL’s flagship franchises — will be featured on the show.

If viewers are lucky, the Bears — who now boast the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft, quarterback Caleb Williams — will provide a moment or two that could be considered among the best the show has ever produced.

So cue up David Robidoux’s iconic theme music, and enjoy 19 of the most memorable moments from the training camp/preseason edition of ‘Hard Knocks’:

(Warning: Many of the videos below contain NSFW language.)

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

19. 2021 Cowboys — Team HQ drone tour

In what was a largely forgettable season of ‘Hard Knocks,’ it’s probably telling that the highlight was a three-minute drone ride through the Cowboys’ extravagant headquarters (a.k.a. The Star) in Frisco, Texas.

The video’s cool, but also emblematic of a season that lacked substance.

18. 2018 Browns — Carl Nassib, financial advisor

Carl Nassib was one of a healthy number of breakout stars when the ‘Hard Knocks’ crew followed the Cleveland Browns in 2018 — he revealed that he believes aliens are real and didn’t appreciate offensive coordinator Todd Haley making fun of his first name.

But the moment that was most memorable was Nassib giving financial advice to his teammates.

‘Who knows what compound interest is? This is real (expletive),’ Nassib says. ‘Financial advisors are everywhere. They’ll (expletive) take your money and they’ll take one percent of everything you got, and you’ll be like ‘Oh it’s one percent it doesn’t (expletive) matter.’ It matters. It matters a (expletive) lot.’

17. 2023 Jets — Tanzel Smart, ‘car-coochie board’ enthusiast

The second time the New York Jets were featured on ‘Hard Knocks’ wasn’t quite as memorable as the first back in 2010, but it did feature an additional snack-related moment from the team.

Thirteen years after Rex Ryan’s famous rant, fringe roster player Tanzel Smart added ‘charcuterie boards’ to the ‘Hard Knocks’ bingo card.

It all started when defensive end/theater aficionado Solomon Thomas said he’d like to take his teammates to a Broadway show. Smart responded, ‘I want to go to a Broadway show. I want to eat a car-coochie board.’ Thomas is quick to correct his teammate, ‘charcuterie.’

Three weeks later, Smart was sporting a ‘I want to eat a car-coochie board’ T-shirt on the show.

16. 2022 Lions – Dan Campbell’s ‘grit’ speech

Dan Campbell’s introductory press conference as Detroit Lions head coach in January 2021 was a preview of what was to come when cameras got up close and personal with the colorful coach for ‘Hard Knocks.’

The man who promised that the Lions were going to kick teams in the teeth and bite kneecaps in his first press conference with the team did not disappoint from the jump.

After breaking down the team’s simple rules — don’t be late, don’t be overweight, don’t disrespect teammates or the game — Campbell trumpeted what his Lions would need to do go from laughing stock to contenders. Campbell used the ocean as a metaphor and quoted a Metallica song, but it was when he espoused the virtues of his team mantra, grit, that things went a bit sideways.

‘To me, it means we’ll play anywhere. We’ll play you on grass. We’ll play you on turf. We’ll go to a (expletive) landfill. It doesn’t matter,’ Campbell said. ‘Doesn’t matter if you have one ass cheek and three toes, I will beat your ass.’

15. 2019 Raiders — ‘I’m into (expletive) nightmares’

Oakland Raiders head coach Jon Gruden provided a number of zingers for the ‘Hard Knocks’ cameras. From his familiar ‘knock on wood if you’re with me’ slogan to telling receiver Keelan Doss that he’s ‘more excited to see you play than I am to see my wife, and I haven’t seen her in two weeks.’

‘Everybody right now has dreams, don’t they guys?’ Gruden says. ‘I got a dream of winning the Super Bowl. I got a dream of being in the Pro Bowl. I’m not really into dreams, anymore. I’m into (expletive) nightmares. Guys with me on that? 

‘You gotta end somebody’s dream. You gotta take their job. You gotta take their heart. You guys clear about this NFL (expletive) now? We’re not trying to go to the Peach Bowl. We’re not trying to go to the Gator Bowl or the Bluebonnet Bowl. We’re trying to go to the Super Bowl.’

14. 2012 Dolphins — Vontae Davis gets traded

‘Hard Knocks’ viewers had grown accustomed to players getting dealt the devastating news that they’d been released and — for many — that their pro football dreams were over. 

During the 2012 series with the Miami Dolphins, people saw a player learn he was being traded. It was awkward. Immediately after Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland delivers the news to Davis, the new Indianapolis Colts cornerback wants to call his grandmother. Ireland levels with him. 

‘You know Vontae, you’re kind of up and down,’ Ireland tells him.

It worked out well for Davis, who went on to become a two-time Pro Bowl selection with the Colts.

13. 2010 Jets — Darrelle Revis’ return caps season

By the season finale, a deal was struck and ‘Revis Island’ appeared at practice to the applause of his teammates. It was an appropriate capper to one of the best seasons of ‘Hard Knocks.’

12. 2019 Raiders — Antonio Brown’s eventful camp 

Antonio Brown never played a down for the Oakland Raiders, but he sure did take up a lot of air time during the 2019 edition of ‘Hard Knocks.’

From showing up to training camp in a hot-air balloon — ‘float like a butterfly, sting like AB’ — to his refusal to wear a league-mandated helmet — ‘This lid? This lid ugly as (expletive) yo.’ But, Brown showing viewer’s his cryotherapy-damaged feet that prevented him from practicing was quite something.

‘Yeah, I (expletive) got circumcised on my feet, you know,’ Brown said.

11. 2016 Rams — Jeff Fisher’s 7-9 rant

When ‘Hard Knocks’ followed the Los Angeles Rams, version 2.0, in 2016, the team was coming off its second 7-9 finish in three seasons. Fisher had seen enough nonsense during a morning practice session and laid into his team.

‘You follow me?” Fisher said. “I am not (expletive) going 7-9 or 8-8 or 9-7, OK? Or 10-6 for that matter. This team is too talented. I am not going to settle for that, OK? I know what I am doing. We had some 7-9 (expletive) this morning. Now, Deon’s gone. That is 7-9 (expletive). We don’t need it.’

The ‘Deon’ who Fisher references is wide receiver Deon Long, who was released for violating a team rule (bringing a female visitor to his dorm room).

After a 4-9 start to the 2016 season, Fisher was fired by the Rams.

10. 2012 Dolphins — Chad Johnson gets cut after arrest

A day after an arrest on a domestic violence charge, Johnson was called into the office of head coach Joe Philbin and subsequently released.

Just three years earlier, Johnson — then known as Chad Ochocinco — was one of the stars of ‘Hard Knocks’ featuring the Cincinnati Bengals, talking about his catchphrases such as ‘child please’ and ‘kiss da baby.’

When Johnson’s brief tenure with the Dolphins came to an end, so did his NFL career.

9. 2018 Browns — Coaches meeting 

It was quite apparent during the 2018 edition of ‘Hard Knocks’ that Hue Jackson wasn’t long for the head coach’s chair, and it all started in the first episode.

Jackson, coming off an 0-16 season, was questioned by then-running backs coach Freddie Kitchens over his decision to not dress injured players at practice, specifically running back Duke Johnson. Todd Haley, then the offensive coordinator, came to Kitchens’ defense. Jackson wasn’t having any of it.

‘The chair I sit in, it’s a little different than the chair you guys sit in. I get to watch from a different lens. I think you guys can all respect that,’ Jackson said. ‘At the end of the day, I get to drive this bus. And I’m going to get it the way I want it.’

Jackson was fired that season after the Browns started 2-5-1. 

8. 2016 Rams — Player denies dinosaurs existed

Defensive end William Hayes provided much-needed levity in what was a rather dull season featuring the newly relocated Rams in their first season in Los Angeles. Hayes had some thoughts, most notably that dinosaurs are a hoax and that mermaids exist. A ‘mermaid’ showed up to Rams practice, too, much to the delight of Hayes.

Less than a year later, Hayes was traded to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for ‘a stapler and a coffee machine.’ 

7. 2015 Texans — Vince Wilfork shows up in overalls

Entering his first season with the Houston Texans, Vince Wilfork opted to embrace his new home by showing up to training camp shirtless and wearing overalls and cowboy boots. Wilfork had a starring role in the show, as he also took on U.S. World Cup winner Carli Lloyd in a field goal contest.

6. 2018 Browns — Jarvis Landry delivers epic speech

Landry, entering his first season with the Browns, unleashed a 1,080-word, expletive-laced speech in the receivers room.

‘I don’t know what the (expletive) has been going on here, and I don’t know why it’s been going on here, but this — if you’re not hurt, if your hamstring ain’t falling off the (expletive) bone, if your leg ain’t broke, I don’t know, you should be (expletive) practicing. Straight up. That (expletive) is weakness. That (expletive) is contagious as (expletive), and that (expletive) ain’t going to be in this room,” Landry said.

Browns rookie receiver Blake Jackson later staged a spoof of Landry’s speech, and the results were hilarious.

5. 2007 Chiefs — Dance off 

Bernard Pollard has moves. 

‘This is how we do it in Fort Wayne. We got dancers. We got dancers in Fort Wayne. I’m gonna show y’all.’

You were warned.

4. 2015 Texans — J.J. Watt puts in work

A year earlier, during the Falcons’ ‘Hard Knocks’ series, Watt — then embarking on the second of what would be three NFL defensive player of the year seasons — made a dramatic entrance and proceeded to dominate Falcons rookie lineman Jake Matthews (in front of his Hall of Fame father, too) during a scrimmage. So, when the Texans were announced to be the ‘Hard Knocks’ team the following year, you just knew Watt would be one of the attractions. He didn’t let viewers down.

3. 2001 Ravens — Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis impressions 

The defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens were the so-called guinea pig in this experiment by NFL Films and HBO back in 2001. The highlight of the first season of ‘Hard Knocks’ was the rookie talent show, which featured spectacular impersonations of future Pro Football Hall of Famers Shannon Sharpe and Ray Lewis.

2. 2018 Browns — Bob Wylie on stretching and the Normandy invasion

Cleveland Browns offensive line coach Bob Wylie went viral for a couple things during 2018’s excellent ‘Hard Knocks’ season. There’s Wylie’s stomach every time he says, ‘set hut!’ 

Then, of course, there was the epic rant about stretching and D-Day.

‘Did you know, World War I and World War II, all those guys that fought in that war … they did pushups, jumping jacks, situps, climb the rope and ran. None of this fancy (expletive). And they won two World Wars,’ Wylie said. ‘Do you think they were worried when they were running across Normandy about (expletive) stretching?’

No, they weren’t. And there are no reports of pulled hamstrings in the history books, either.

1. 2010 Jets — Let’s go eat a snack!

This is the transcendent ‘Hard Knocks’ moment.

Coach Rex Ryan wasn’t pleased with his New York Jets, and gave them a verbal dressing-down that ended with what is the most famous line ever uttered on ‘Hard Knocks.’

‘Let’s make sure we play like the (expletive) New York Jets and not some (expletive) slap (expletive) team. That’s what I want to see tomorrow. Do we understand what the (expletive) I want to see tomorrow? Let’s go eat a (expletive) snack.’

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American Caroline Marks won a gold medal in shortboard surfing at the Paris Games on Monday and continued to alter the arc of her career.

Her future was unclear in 2022 when she abruptly left the World Surf League (WSL) for what she later explained stemmed from recurring medical and mental health issues.

She came back better than ever, winning the 2023 WSL Finals, and her ascent continues.

Marks’ gold medal in the women’s shortboard competition in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, came after she capitalized early in the 35-minute final. She edged Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb, who won silver. France’s Johanne Defay claimed bronze.

With the surf in Teahupo’o slumbering, Marks still caught a barrel ride for 7.50 points that proved to be the difference. But Weston-Webb found a serviceable wave in the final two minutes of the heat and rode it out to the reef and the wait on the judges began.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

It ended in celebration for Marks, who posted a two-wave score of 10.50 while Webb finished with a combined score of 10.33.

‘I’m just really happy and just trying to soak everything in because it’s probably the best day in my life,’ Marks said. ‘Once they announced (Weston-Webb) didn’t get enough, I just burst into tears. Just super emotional — your whole life goes into a moment like this, so it’s just really special.’

It’s the second straight surfing gold for the American women, with U.S. surfer Carissa Moore having won at the 2021 Tokyo Games during the sport’s Olympic debut.

Marks advanced to the gold medal match with a semifinal win over Defay on a tiebreak.

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The conditions in Teahupo’o, one of the world’s best surf sites, created delays that stretched the competition to the final day of the 10-day window allotted to finish the event.

The timing of Marks’ triumph is ideal for U.S. surfing.

But Moore failed to make it to the medal rounds at the competition in Teahupo’o and said afterward she was going to take a break before deciding whether she would continue surfing competitively.

Enter Marks, 22, positioned to take the mantle from Moore with 18-year-old Caitlin Simmers also emerging as a star on the U.S. surfing scene.

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