2018 College Football National Championship Game: Fire And Thunder

The Southeastern Conference is the first in the nation since the inception of the College Football Playoff to have two teams play for a National Championship after the Crimson Tide’s 24-6 victory over Clemson and the Jawja Bulldawg’s 54-48 double-overtime thriller against the Sooners.

I remember back on August 18, 2017 when some jackleg over at CBS Sports claimed the SEC was no longer the top conference.  Chip Patterson noted: 

“There is always a lot of crowing about conference supremacy during media days. Whichever league finished the previous season with the most trophies puts them on display and has the chance to use its time at the microphone to fill the empty July news cycle with flattering stories and headlines.”

“The final years of the pre-College Football Playoff era were owned by the SEC. Not only did the SEC run off seven straight national titles, but it also recruited Missouri and Texas A&M from the Big 12 and inked a 20-year deal for a cable network. When Florida State bested Auburn in the final BCS Championship Game and Ohio State bounced Alabama from the first CFP, the perception of conference power shifted ever so slightly to entertain, for the first time since the early 2000s, that maybe another league could claim to be the best in college football.”

“With the top spot up for grabs, the ACC's coaches were more than happy to claim it for themselves after Clemson's national championship, Florida State's Orange Bowl win and Lamar Jackson's Heisman Trophy run headlined the most successful college football season in league history.”

CBS ranked the ACC No. 1 with the SEC behind it at No. 2. The Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 followed to round out the Top 5.

And yet, here we are.  All the other conferences have been vanquished.  The SEC West meets the SEC East to decide who will be crowned king at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

The series history between these two schools is 38-4-25.  Alabama leads the series.  Bama defeated the Bulldogs 32-28 in the 2012 SEC Championship Game.  The next time the Tide would battle the Dawgs was during the regular season in 2015.  They came away with a 38-10 victory followed one month later by the school firing Head Coach Mark Richt.

The SEC celebrates itself like no other which thoroughly infuriates fans in other conferences.  SEC teams have played for the college football national championship in 12 of the last 15 years. 

Many have pointed to Coach Saban’s amazing 11-0 record against his former assistants in their new head coaching positions.  Many have called attention to his chances of tying the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant’s record of national championships.  All of that is interesting chit-chat.  But that’s all it is.  Vegas has the Dawgs as a 3-point underdog.  ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives Bama a 57.5% chance of victory.

The game tonight features a pair of one-loss teams that arrived at the title game following two distinctly different paths. Their paths have converged and all that remains is for the young men who have fought tooth and nail all season to dig deep into their psyches and muster the pride and courage to win.

I was born and raised a Southerner.  I’m damned proud of that.  I’m damned proud of Georgia and Alabama.  The BCS was created to keep the SEC out of contention for a national championship and when that didn’t pan out the BCS was ditched for the CFB.  Like it or not the strategy didn’t work.  Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are both good men leading equally excellent football programs.

I believe my beloved Crimson Tide will win tonight.  That is something I fervently pray for, however if Georgia wins I will congratulate their fans and thank them for elevating the SEC to undeniable dominance.

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

2017-2018 Bowl Game Predictions

The final CFB Selection Committee rankings of 2017 were released yesterday along with the bowl game assignments.  That’s 76 different schools in thirty-nine bowl games; 37 non-CFB bowl games and 2 semifinal playoff games.

I’ve said it before.  Thirty-nine bowl games is just a smidgen too damn many.  That many bowl games have nothing to do with demand.

Disney makes money off them. ABC and ESPN broadcast almost all of them, including the whole New Year’s SIx, and ESPN even owns about a third of them outright.

I mean, would you want your company to pay money to sponsor the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl formerly known as the St. Petersburg Bowl between a 6-6 team and an 8-4 team on a December weekday?  Many of these games will be played in half-empty stadiums.

Of the 39 games, 38 will be broadcast by ESPN or one of their sister networks, ABC and ESPN2. The only bowl game that is not on a Disney-owned network is the Arizona Bowl which will air on CBS.  The real reason ESPN is willing to fork out big bucks to broadcast these games is because live programming fills in empty time slots.  In 2010, ESPN was available in nearly 100 million homes but is now only seen in 87 million with more and more homes deciding to “cut the cord”.

The 24-hour sports network is laying off 150 employees in the face of financial pressures and that action follows a round of layoffs in April of 100 employees and the departure of 300 people in late 2015.  Disney/ESPN has had a brutal fourth quarter.  Their operating income declined 12% from a year earlier making it the sixth quarter in a row they’ve shown a loss in their ledgers.

So, do people like me complain about there being too many bowl games that reward mediocrity?  Yes, they do.

I’ve decided to appropriate steal an idea from my SEC sister and blogger friend Diogenes and make some predictions about the News Years Six and CFB Semifinal Playoff games.  For the record, I am biased.  My predictions are based not on stats or series histories or even what the sports “experts” think.  They are my own feelings on which teams will emerge as victors in the important games that will bring this hard-fought season to a close.

I want to congratulate each team for their play on the gridiron, their courage and their heart.  These teams are the best of the best.  You may not agree with my picks and that’s to be expected.

NOTE:  Not all games have been included; only the ones that will establish the AP Top 25 rankings for Week One of the 2018 season.

Alabama Crimson Tide: One Win Away From National Championship No. 17

As I have shared with my blogging friend and SEC sister Diogenes, I wanted Ohio State to beat the Clemson Tigers in the CFB Playoff Semifinal Fiesta Bowl.  I wanted to settle the score from 2015 with the Buckeyes.  Turns out the Buckeyes were a bunch of weak sisters in a shutout beatdown.  It was cringe-inducing for all those sports “experts” who lay laurels at the feet of Urban Meyer.  Hope you enjoy your cold, protracted, humiliating winter.

Lane Kiffin is gone by “mutual agreement” and in his place is Steve Sarkisian.  This, I will admit, gives me some angst.  This guy has a documented problem with alcohol and a reputation for being a party guy.  He was even filmed having a booger snack during the Peach Bowl.  Sarkisian had better toe the line at Bama.  Saban is a maniac disciplinarian.  The Bama faithful will not accept a loss in tonight’s game. 

Alabama is not the number one team in the nation for nothin’.  Saban has given this man a chance to redeem himself.  If he’s wise he won’t squander the opportunity.  There will be hell to pay otherwise.

Alabama is favored for tonight’s game, but that doesn’t mean everyone is picking the Tide. Only four out of 15 of SB Nation’s staff writers picked Clemson to upset the Tide. But in CBS Sports’ staff picks, five out of seven writers picked Clemson, and five of seven at Sports Illustrated also picked Clemson.

To those “staff writers” I say Clemson couldn’t find a magic bullet last year and they haven’t found one for tonight either.  Bama’s secondary is brutal, bruising and ginormous.  This game is going to be one helluva slobberknocker.  There will be blood and mouthpieces strewn all over the gridiron.

Dabo Sweeney wants revenge.  Nick Saban wants history and to win his sixth national championship to tie him with the legendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.  The Tigers can rub on that stupid Howard’s Rock all they want but Bama is stronger, quicker and more determined than some orange-clad upstarts from a cow college.

Just like movie sequels are disappointing, so too, will be Clemson’s stab at history.  The Boys from Tuscaloosa will suffocate the kittehs.  The Crimson and Houndstooth Dynasty will not be dethroned and Clemson will be sucked into the same unforgiving abyss as every other team that clashed with the Tide this season.

ARKANSAS.
TENNESSEE.
TEXAS A&M.
LSU
MISS STATE.
AUBURN.
FLORIDA.

Teams that also wanted "revenge" against Bama this yr. #TakeANumber

— FunnyMaine.Com (@FunnyMaine) January 9, 2017

ROLL TIDE!