LAS VEGAS — Attempting to turn $5 into $100,000 via UNLV winning the college football national championship this season, qualifies as the epitome of a fool’s errand.

The Westgate SuperBook dangles those 20,000-to-1 odds on the hometown Rebels catching a Strip-full of neon in a bottle. They’re 5,000-1 at Station

Casinos, 2,000-1 at William Hill, 1,000-1 at the South Point.

It’s the type of novelty ticket a local might gift, maybe as a bookmark, to a UNLV alum. Why not $50 for $1 million? SuperBook executive vice president Jay Kornegay reports that nobody has taken the bait since odds opened Jan. 12.

You could be the first! he wrote. I’ll pass, I responded.

To illuminate its senselessness, second-generation oddsmaker Kenny White, in his College Football Power Ratings magazine, predicts the Rebels will not win a single game in 2021. He makes them underdogs in all 12 of their tilts.

It’s a moribund program, whose 38.5 rating places it 123rd on White’s chart of 130 Division-I teams. UNLV has had two winning campaigns in the last 26 years. It did go winless (0-11) in 1998.

And as a 45-point favorite, UNLV lost 43-40 at home to Howard to open the 2017 season. Some call that the worst D-I defeat in history.

The sorry cycle continued when Rebels boss Marcus Arroyo went 0-6 in his debut as a head coach in 2020.

Howard belongs to the same Football Championship Subdivision as Eastern Washington, featuring fantastic quarterback Eric Barriere, which White installs as a 4-point favorite at UNLV on Sept. 2.

We present select investments to bolster the college pigskin bankroll, tapping White’s wealth of information and Phil Steele’s annual.

UNLV to win it all is absurd, but we do tap the Rebels in a value angle based on White’s clarion winless call. Around town, UNLV’s victory total is 1 1/2 . I nabbed +105 on Under — if it gets lucky once, I’m still good.

At the SuperBook, the Rebels’ win total has drawn attention. Kornegay hears patrons say, “They’re terrible. They won’t win one game. Seen that schedule?” Others say, “They should be able to win two games. That’s not asking much.”

Unfair fights

White and his father, Pete, have been cooking numbers for 95 combined years. Kenny rates every player on every team, reinforcing his figures with his pop’s to ensure accuracy.

Those overall team ratings establish pointspreads and totals. Two-deep rosters reveal Alabama’s stark superiority over, say, a UNLV.

White’s average player is 0. He has 16 projected UNLV starters (not including quarterback) rated between 0 and 1. Alabama has two in that range; eight in the 1s, 10 in the 2s.

Twelve Tide reserves are rated between 1.1 and 1.9. Backup linebacker Henry To’o To’o is a 2.1, better than every Rebels starter.

An unfair fight.

Clemson (134), Alabama (133.5) and Oklahoma (132.5) rule for a reason, why the four-team playoff is such a cabal, why Group of Five bottom-feeder UNLV’s championship chances are less than zero.

None of the elite, however, figure into our key wagers, where the variance between White’s expectations and listed season-win totals is greatest.

At the top is Washington State. I swiped Under 6 1/2 wins at -155. White has the Cougars finishing 2-10, a projected mean of 3.6. The average of those two produces a difference, to that 6 1/2 total, of nearly four victories.

Value.

I’m on San Diego State Over 6 1/2 at -120, since White has the Aztecs favored in every game and going 12-0. For a second year, SDSU plays on a glorified soccer pitch in L.A. while its new home is being completed.

White, though, raves about an experienced offensive line, unrelated Bell running backs Chance and Greg, and a stingy defense. He says dual-threat quarterback Lucas Johnson is more than serviceable.

Northwestern (White has going 3-9) Under 6 1/2 at -120 and BYU (11-1, says White) Over 6 1/2 at -140 complete our seasonlong action.

Victory totals at the SuperBook are based on 12 games being played, 13 for Hawaii. Cancellations result in refunds. Rules can vary, so confirm them with your shop before betting.

Here’s some tips

Regarding game plays, the Steele manual shows fading Bowling Green to have produced a juicy 38-15 record, delivering 21.5 units, against the spread over the last five seasons.

At a $100 unit (actually $110), that’s $2,150 in profit over five years from a single action. Few believe any improvement awaits coach Scott Loeffler’s third season.

Those who also faded Connecticut over that stretch were 41-20 ATS, with 19 units of profit. White has UConn (81.5) and Bowling Green (80) among the worst programs in the nation — at 79, New Mexico State occupies the D-I basement.

In addition, taking Under in Miami and Toledo first halves, and Over in Maryland opening halves completes our top-five priorities. They have yielded 91.8 total units, earning the $100 bettor $9,180, over five years.

Those fortunes aren’t guaranteed to continue, but to start the season they form a proven template. We’ll provide periodic updates.

I know several professional bettors, too, who are lying in wait to pounce on the opening line of that Eastern Washington-UNLV game, believing bookies will make the Rebels 1- to 2-point favorites.

They will savor the five to six points of exceptional value with the Falcons.

But they will giggle at those farcical UNLV national-title odds.

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Well, the word got around

They said, this kid is insane, man

Get your education

Don’t forget from

Whence you came, and

The world is gonna know your name.

— “Hamilton: An American Musical”

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Kyle Hamilton smiles at the reference.

He’s just a football player, after all, not a patriot or a shaper of democracy. Yet, Notre Dame’s junior safety, a preseason All-American and freshly minted team captain, has grand designs for this season and beyond.

So, with apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda, a little talk here about the seventh-highest grossing Broadway musical since they started keeping track of such things in 1984.

“I know a few of the songs,” this modern-day Hamilton recently said. “I was supposed to go up to New York with my mom and my brother to see it on Broadway, but COVID happened.”

Hamilton made it through the mind-bending challenge of the 2020 season, leading the team in tackles and generally shutting down his deep half of the field as Notre Dame reached the College Football Playoff for the second time in three seasons.

Now the hype around Hamilton, projected as a potential top-five pick in next spring’s NFL Draft, is roaring again. He and his family discussed how to handle all of it — including name, image and likeness opportunities — and the decision was made to frontload the bulk of such activities.

In-season, he said, he’ll craft a schedule for Instagram posts and the like.

“Little stuff like that won’t take much effort,” he said.

Still, his face could launch a thousand memes, some of which may include his No. 14 superimposed on a stock photo from a certain hit musical.

“I’ve definitely seen some people tag me in some social-media stuff,” Hamilton said. “That’s all fun and everything, but nobody’s really attached me to it on the team. I’m not sure how popular a musical is throughout the team.”

Maybe if Hamilton’s gold-helmeted teammates knew Miranda’s creation had grossed an estimated $613 million on Broadway alone since its 2015 debut, they might commit a few of those rap lyrics to memory.

“I probably do need to watch it,” Hamilton said. “I’ve seen clips. I’ll get to it at some point in my life. Maybe I’m related to him or something like that.”

Got a lot farther by working a lot harder

By being a lot smarter

By being a self starter

Irish coach Brian Kelly has a favorite one-word description of his star safety.

“He’s an eraser,” Kelly said. “Kyle Hamilton is an eraser.”

The long-limbed chess piece at the back of Notre Dame’s defense can wipe out the most talented individual opponent, not to mention otherwise costly mistakes by his teammates.

“It’s very difficult to get Michael Mayer the football when we go against him,” Kelly said, referencing his equally freakish tight end. “When you have that kind of player that can take Michael Mayer away, imagine what he can do with others?”

And here’s the scary part: Fully recovered from offseason ankle surgery, Hamilton, who turned 20 in March, is seemingly getting better by the day.

“You don’t get many players of that caliber,” Kelly said. “He’s so much more aware of where he is in the big picture now than he was last year. This is a big year for him, and he knows that.”

Will they know what you overcame?

Will they know you rewrote the game?

The world will never be the same

Just imagine Notre Dame using Hamilton’s 6-4 frame on offense. It’s been a running theme between him and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.

“I definitely miss it,” Hamilton said. “Scoring is a cool feeling.”

He scored seemingly at will in high school at Marist School in suburban Atlanta, so it’s no wonder Irish fans light up the comment sections anytime the possibility is raised.

“It’s a funny thing to joke around about,” Hamilton said. “Me and coach Rees always have a little back and forth about it. My plate is pretty full on defense already as is. . . . I won’t rule it out completely, [but] I’m not sure it’s going to happen.”

Oh, there’s a million things this Hamilton still hasn’t done, but just you wait.

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The Red Stars’ NWSL schedule has been unforgiving.

At different points this year, the Red Stars played three more games than other teams in the league. Sure, three games doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s 270 more minutes, which is a significant difference.

This week, the Red Stars added to their workload by playing in the first Women’s Cup tournament in Louisville, Kentucky. The event, which runs through Saturday, features four teams: the Red Stars, Racing Louisville, FC Bayern Munich and Paris-Saint Germain.

On one hand, the Women’s Cup is a great way to grow the game in America. Pitting international powerhouses against one of the most successful NWSL teams in the Red Stars and a new franchise in Racing Louisville makes for great soccer.

But at what cost?

“I definitely didn’t feel good going into the game,” Red Stars defender Arin Wright said. “Out of all the games in the season, this game meant the most to me. There was no way I was not going to be on the field in front of my home state, all my friends and family for the first time as a pro.”

Wright’s sentiments are not unique for women in the NWSL. They sacrifice their bodies for the growth of the game and the hope they’ll leave the league a little better than they found it.

The Red Stars were coming off a match Saturday against the North Carolina Courage in Raleigh before they flew back to Chicago on Monday for one day of rest. They boarded a bus Tuesday and drove 300 miles to Lynn Family Stadium.

The team’s exhaustion was apparent in the first half of the match Wednesday against Louisville. The Red Stars trailed 1-0 early, but there was a shift in their mentality in the second half.

“We came back and fought like hell and got a tie,” forward Kealia Watt said.

It was the third match in a row in which the team trailed 1-0. Watt evened the score in the 57th minute, but Louisville advanced to the Women’s Cup championship on penalty kicks (5-4).

Officiating once again was an issue. There was an obvious handball on Louisville in the box late in the match that wasn’t called.

“If I went through all the points we’ve lost because of referees,” coach Rory Dames said. “We certainly don’t seem to be on the right side of a lot of calls this year.”

Tierna Davidson and Casey Krueger returned to the lineup and played the full 90 minutes. Alyssa Naeher and Julie Ertz remained out. Naeher still is recovering from a hyperextended knee and bone bruise she suffered in the Olympic semifinals. Dames doesn’t have a timetable for when Ertz will return, adding he doesn’t think she was able to rehab her knee properly before playing in the Olympics.

The third-place game between the Red Stars and Paris-Saint Germain is scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, followed by the championship match between Louisville and Bayern Munich at 6.

Dames said there will be significant turnover for Saturday’s game.

“There are players on our team that have been busting their ass for six months and haven’t really had chances,” Dames said. “We expect those players to come out and represent the club, and we’ll try to win the game.”

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A pair of three-star prospects committed to Power Five schools highlight the list of the area’s top running backs.

1. Jordan Anderson, Joliet Catholic

Illinois coach Bret Bielema has made big, powerful backs a centerpiece of his offense over the years. So it’s no surprise that Anderson has committed to the Fighting Illini. The 6-3, 215-pounder is 19th in the state’s senior class and 82nd nationally among running backs according to the 247Sports composite rankings.

2. Maurice Edwards, Warren

Southeastern Conference schools don’t recruit the Chicago area heavily, but Vanderbilt was impressed enough with Edwards to make him a priority. The effort paid off with a commitment from the 6-foot, 198-pounder, who is 16th among the state’s seniors and No. 66 nationally among running backs in 247Sports.com’s composite rankings.

3. Aaron Vaughn, Brother Rice

The 5-10, 185-pounder broke onto the scene as a freshman for Providence in 2018 and remains one of the area’s most productive runners. After transferring to Rice for his senior season, Vaughn is looking to be all-conference in the tough CCL/ESCC for the third straight year.

4. Trevor Burnett, Glenbard South

Air Force is among the schools that have offered Burnett a scholarship. The 5-10, 190-pounder is a top-40 player in the state according to 247Sports.

5. Nick Hissong, Cary-Grove

At 6-1 and 230 pounds, Hissong is the prototypical fullback for the Trojans’ option attack. His power running is especially well-suited for the playoffs, when bad weather can cause problems for pass-oriented teams.

6. Ben Clawson, Hersey

Army and Air Force have offered Clawson, who had as good of a spring season as anyone in the area. The 6-foot, 190-pounder averaged 11.7 per touch, finishing with 1,395 yards and 19 touchdowns in six games. Twice he scored five TDs in a game.

Loyola running back Marco Maldonado tries to avoid the defense at practice in Wilmette, Friday, August 20, 2021. Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

7. Marco Maldonado, Loyola

It’s Maldonado’s time now that Sun-Times Player of the Year Vaughn Pemberton has headed off to college at Ball State. The 5-11, 183-pounder split time with Pemberton in the spring against the state’s toughest schedule, averaging 6.0 yards per carry, so he’s ready to carry the load this fall.

8. Tony Phillips, Bishop McNamara

A 5-6, 170-pound sophomore from a small school may not be on a lot of fans’ radar. But Phillips has exceptional speed and offers from Tennessee, Syracuse and Florida Atlantic, so his profile will only rise.

9. Jalen Buckley, Batavia

The 6-foot, 205-pounder does a little bit of everything for the Bulldogs as a running back and strong safety. He averaged 9.0 yards per touch in the spring with four TDs and also was a state-qualifying long and triple jumper.

10. Kendrick Washington, Shepard

The South Suburban Red Player of the Year in the spring was productive on both sides of the ball: 556 yards (10.2 per carry), nine TDs on offense, four interceptions and one touchdown on defense. A 6-foot, 185-pounder, he has interest from several Division I programs.

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When Przemyslaw Frankowski got back from his productive stint with Poland in the European Championships, the speedy winger looked like a different player with a more clinical final touch. Asked why, Frankowski had a reasonable explanation for his uptick in performance despite not getting much of a break.

”It’s a huge boost [to play with the national team],” Frankowski told the Sun-Times through a translator. ”You gain experience. You play in new situations. You really grow.”

Frankowski, of course, now is plying his trade in France after a transfer to RC Lens that netted the Fire around $3 million, a transaction that likely was helped along by his showing in the Euros. But Frankowski wasn’t the only Fire player to show growth in his play after returning from a major international competition.

Midfielder Gaston Gimenez, a designated player and the Fire’s second-highest-paid performer, played for Paraguay in the recent Copa America. Before he left for the South American championship, Gimenez was struggling through a quiet second season in Chicago that raised questions about his fit and future with the Fire, who hold an option on his contract for 2022.

Since coming back, however, Gimenez has looked more like the player who had a strong 2020 season next to Alvaro Medran, helping to solidify the Fire’s three-man midfield. But Gimenez’s explanation for his resurgence after appearing in a major tournament was different from Frankowski’s.

Actually, he didn’t really have one.

”Honestly, I really don’t know,” Gimenez said through a translator. ”I don’t have a response for that question. I just know that when we’re with our national teams, we try to do the best we can, and then we come back and we have to go in right away to be with our club team.”

What Gimenez said highlights one of the unique challenges of soccer. Unlike most other sports, the top players must jet between their clubs and national-team commitments during the season, often flying thousands of miles and getting little time to rest between competitions.

Like Frankowski, however, Gimenez hasn’t seemed the worse for wear. If anything, the challenge seems to have ignited something in him.

”We want to get in there because our national teams need us when we get there with them and our clubs need us when we come back,” Gimenez said. ”It’s really just a matter of adapting quickly and being where we are to help our team out.”

Captain Francisco Calvo played in an international tournament, too, suiting up for Costa Rica in the Gold Cup. And Calvo, whose performances had been uneven to start the season, has turned in some of his better outings with the Fire since returning to the team.

Calvo’s play, the steadiness of Mauricio Pineda and the rapid improvement of young center back Carlos Teran were reasons why the Fire had given up only two goals in the four games before their 3-2 loss Wednesday at Inter Miami.

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Any opera singer worth a grain of salt has belted out a version of “O Mio Babbino Caro.”

Should they be criticized for a lack of originality?

Almost anyone dabbling in oil painting has tried a Bob Ross landscape.

Should it be set on fire — “happy little trees” and all — for the crime of monotony?

Art is art.

And you best believe that Year 34 of the Madden video-game franchise also falls under that same set of rules.

Is Madden 22 filled with mind-blowingly new concepts? No. The changes are more subtle than that. But again, art is art, and for the series that revolutionized sports gaming as we know it, that’s the best way to approach the latest version.

The first game you play won’t feel much different. Yes, the demands of what gamers want might have outgrown the Frostbite engine that was the toast of the franchise years ago. But swim out of the shallow end and give the gameplay some time.

The control and graphics of the receivers are better, the blocking feels much more realistic and the collisions have an even more violent feel than before. If hammer hits nail the right way in Madden 22, nail loses.

Sure, there still is going to be the graphical glitch where a cornerback’s arm appears to go through the body of a receiver and knock the ball away. But that’s the life most gamers have to experience no matter the game.

EA Sports did a solid job making the home screen easier to navigate, which was a big complaint last season. The way it uses cover boys Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady also is well done and not overboard.

But why does Madden 22 get a higher grade this season?

The long-awaited, much-begged-for improvements to the Franchise Mode.

For many diehards of the series, Franchise Mode always was the reason to come back year after year. Maybe that’s why EA Sports became so complacent with it. It’s like the company left it on the trophy case as the shining beacon for the game and didn’t touch it as dust and filth grew on it.

The complaints with that mode were loud last season, and to EA’s credit, it listened. Franchise Mode always should be about control over an entire organization. The players, the personnel, the coaching staff and the scouts.

Now that’s more of a reality than ever.

First, there’s a staff page for the coaches that allows gamers to fill out RPG-like (role-playing game) skill trees that turn the team’s play style into what they want it to be.

There’s control over practice intensity, which goes hand-in-hand with injuries,. There are goals for individual players to meet for upgrades. There’s game-planning for the upcoming opponent for the analytics junkies.

What really hit home, though, was the scouting map for college prospects and the ability to assign scouts to certain regions.

When EA shut down the NCAA College Football franchise in 2014, it was a gut-punch to sports gamers. Running a dynasty mode for a college football program with the ability to recruit the country, as well as hone in on certain states to steal a top prospect from a buddy, was the muscle of why NCAA was so good.

While Madden’s version isn’t the same, it still captures the idea of identifying a prospect, keeping an eye on him and then changing a draft board based on that intel.

That was the hidden gem in Madden 22, and it carries a lot of weight in the final grade, especially with an online franchise team.

Does the game still have a few warts? Absolutely.

Whether it’s because I’m a purist or that guy now yelling “Get off my lawn” to the neighborhood kids, The Yard remains unplayable. It’s not football. It’s some weird version of “Kill the Carrier” that brings no interest to the table.

The Face of the Franchise does a good job taking a college standout through the draft process — yes, there are some preachy, cheesy moments — and remains a nice alternative to play as a single-player campaign. But it’s just that, an alternative that doesn’t grab anyone.

What’s nice, though, is the game improved over last year’s semi-disaster. That’s why it gets a solid B+.

Appreciate the art.

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One person was killed and twelve others wounded, including a 9-year-old in shootings across Chicago Friday.

A man was shot and killed Friday morning in Lawndale on the West Side.

The man, 26, was shot in his chest as he stood at the rear of a vehicle with its open trunk around 10:40 a.m. in the 2400 block of West Polk Street, Chicago police said.

Paramedics took him to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. His name hasn’t been released.

A 9-year-old boy was hit in the arm by crossfire on the Far South Side, just around the corner from where his father was killed in a mass shooting four years ago.

Derwin Moore Jr. – called DJ by his family — was leaving a corner store with his mother and two siblings in the 400 block of East 111th Street when gunfire erupted around 12:10 p.m., hitting him and a 22-year-old man, according to police.

DJ was in good condition at Comer Children’s Hospital, police said. The man was shot in the ankle and taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in fair condition, officials said.

A man was shot walking to his house in Gresham on the South Side.

About 8:25 p.m., the 27-year-old was walking from his vehicle to his home in the 8300 block of South Aberdeen Street when he was shot by someone in a silver Buick sedan, police said.

He was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the armpit and his condition was stabilized, police said.

A woman was shot during an argument in Avalon Park on the Far South Side.

The woman, 22, was in a car arguing with a man about 12:55 a.m. in the 8100 block of South Stoney Island Avenue when he shot her in the foot and forced her out of the car, police said.

She was taken to Trinity Hospital where her condition was stabilized, police said.

Nine others were wounded in citywide shootings Friday.

Two people were killed and ten others wounded in shootings in Chicago Thursday.

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Two people were shot outside a gas station Saturday morning in Austin on the West Side.

About 2:55 a.m., an unidentified male and female were outside a gas station with about 20 other people in the 5100 block of West Madison Street when witnesses said someone in a black Dodge Charger opened fire, Chicago Police said.

The male suffered gunshot wounds to his head and leg, and the female to her head, abdomen and lower backside, police said. They both appear to be adults, police said.

Both were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where they were listed in critical condition, police said.

No one was in custody.

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