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.

College Football Playoff Selection Day: Crybaby Edition

With a blog titled Political Clown Parade you’d think I would post something relating to the scuzzy world of politics.  Not today. Nope. Not happening.

I spent my Saturday slopped up on the couch with tasty beverages and the customary snackeries required to watch the final weekend of college football before Selection Day.

As I said in my post yesterday, I was summoning the favor of the football gods for some help getting my beloved Alabama Crimson Tide into the College Football Playoffs.  I didn’t get any help from the Sooners and the outcome of the Clemson/Miami game would have made no difference.

Glimmers of hope began to overtake the crowd I had over for my slightly famous football couch-gating party.  The Jawja Bulldawgs beat the tiger crap out of Auburn.  War Eagle was plucked clean.  Nary a feather remains on the hapless foul.  I feel sorry for the wretched beast.  The weather is turning colder.  It must be embarrassing to be naked in public.

Whatever juju I had working carried into the Buckeyes/Badgers battle in the Big 10 Championship Game.  Urb’s boys had a “struggle win” against Bucky Badger.  Perfect.  I was rooting for them despite my loathing for Meyer and those Buckeyes.

I spent the morning cleaning up the tornado left from the couch-gate party and settled down to watch ESPN’s coverage of the Selection Committee’s final rankings.  The program began at noon, but the so-called “sports experts” babbled endlessly killing time until the Committee released the rankings.

Finally, 30 minutes later the rankings were tediously revealed one by one.  Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia and…Ala-by-God-bama!

That last one sent crybaby Kirk Herbstreit into a bit of a tizzy and he walked off the ESPN set.  The crew laughed their fannies off and viewers saw an empty chair where Herbstreit had been sitting.  He couldn’t believe his alma mater had been snubbed.  It was like watching a Saturday Night Live skit, only funnier. 

Kirk Herbstreit was so shocked by the committee putting Alabama in he actually walked off set pic.twitter.com/U8cJTRobo6

— The Spun (@TheSpun) December 3, 2017

The cavalcade of sports pundits repeatedly insisted Bama’s resumé was "deeply, deeply flawed..."  Oh really? It’s not as flawed as Clemson who lost to Syracuse or Ohio State who lost 55-24 to a 7-5 Iowa State.

"The losses matter," Herbstreit said. “But when you lose the way they did, it sent a message to the committee that they just couldn't forgive. It was like an anchor tied around that program that brought them down. It's incredible to think, with Wisconsin at No. 6, that we're going to have two teams in the top 10 that Ohio State beat. Probably better than anything Alabama had, and Ohio State is a conference champ. Yet still, the people in that room just liked Alabama better as a football team. That, with the loss to Iowa kind of balanced out Ohio State's resumé."

"This is the unfortunate era of college football that we're in, where we're splitting hairs," Herbstreit said. "Winning the Big Ten is a hell of an accomplishment, but they didn't jump off the screen like they did in 2014, when they just blew Wisconsin out in the Big Ten title game and you were like, 'How are you going to leave them out?' And Saturday's game didn't feel like that and I think that's what hurt them."

No shit Sherlock.

Every Ohio State fan right now, including me #BuckeyeNation pic.twitter.com/JgUuJLuIuc

— Luke Shetler (@lukeshetler) December 3, 2017

UPDATE:  I’m including this Funny Maine video of “How Bama Fans Watched The 2017 Conference Championships” because, well it’s FUNNY.  I love how he says, “We coming to New Orleans, Louisi-BAMA."

2017 SEC Championship Game

Conference Championship weekend is finally here.  This year I’m sitting on pins and needles fretting over whether my beloved Crimson Tide will make it into the CFB Playoffs.

Oddsmakers, sports pundits, pollsters and navel gazers be damned.  After today the Selection Committee has the steering wheel.  One thing’s for certain:  The Top Four will consist of the SEC Championship game winner and the winner of the ACC Championship game along with either the Buckeyes or Bama.

I have loathed Ohio State ever since Head Coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson’s Charlie Bauman in the 1978 Gator Bowl after he intercepted a pass from Art Schlichter.  I want Bama to go to the playoffs so bad I can taste it and am more than willing to root for them against the Badgers.  I feel dirty, like a politician.  If Wisconsin wins, its curtains for both Bama and the Buckeyes.  Please, oh, please don’t let that happen.

They say I must summon the football gods’ favor for the game between TCU and the Sooners.  I can’t stand the hot-headed, crotch-grabbing, bird-flipping Baker Mayfield.  I have no problem pulling for the Horned Frogs to knock Oklahoma out of the Top Four.

The game between the Clemson Tigers and the Canes of Miami won’t budge the standings, but a win by the Tigers assures there won’t be two ACC teams getting in.

Finally, the game between the Bulldawgs of Jawja and the (expletive) godforsaken (expletive) flea-bitten Auburn (expletive) Tigers for the SEC Championship.  I’ve been doing the Vulcan Mind Meld with Coach Smart.  I want Kirby to pluck War Eagle bald.  Auburn is the first two-loss team to be ranked in the Top Four.  What a (expletive) travesty!

Auburn, according to ESPN’s Matchup Predictor, has a 50.5% chance of victory against the Dawgs.

The experts who, by the way, hate Alabama claim if Auburn wins Nick Saban’s boys from Tuscaloosa could brag its only loss was to the SEC Champs.  Aw, hell no.  That ain’t good enough bubba.  Kirby was Saban’s defensive coach for ten years.  He knows defense I tell ya and the Dawgs will be out to maul Jarret Stidham and avenge their 40-17 loss to the Tigers at Jordan-Haire stadium.

Alabama Vs Auburn

This post was queued to publish today because I am still enjoying my time with friends over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Today, however, is a biggie for fans of the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers.  The “The Iron Bowl” kicks off at 7:45 PM ET from Bryant-Denny Stadium in T-town and airs on ESPN.  The Iron Bowl game dates back to 1893.  Alabama leads the series 42-35-1.

Last week, Alabama celebrated its Homecoming.  Part of the festivities included a pep rally featuring legendary defensive great Marty Lyons.  Lyons was the 1978 Consensus First-Team All-American and SEC Defensive Player of the Year.  Lyons is also a College Football Hall of Famer. 

Alabama was playing the Western Carolina Catamounts last Saturday, but Lyons stirred the Homecoming crowd with this, "A week from now, when our good friends Auburn come in, we are going to open up a can of whip-ass!  And we're going to show them exactly what 'Roll Tide Roll' means!"

The rivalry between The Tide and The War Eagle of Auburn is one of the fiercest in college football.  Alabama suffered an inordinate number of injuries in their 48-14 win over WCU.  Star receiver Amari Cooper, nose tackle A’Shawn Robinson, left tackle Cam Robinson, fullback Jalston Fowler, receiver ArDarius Stewart and tight end Brian Vogler were all taken off the field.  Alabama also held out T.J. Yeldon, DeAndrew White and Adam Griffith.

It scares me to think that even one of these players would not be able to take the field against the Tigers.

Today’s game is a chance for revenge pay back after last year’s 34-28 loss to the Tigers and a chance to keep their national title hopes alive.

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

For any of you who may be an Auburn fan reading this post, enjoy this amusing video entitled, “Don’t Give Auburn A ‘Second’ Chance.”