Lots of games were on TV, but there were only three anybody much cared about. First the cannon fodder.
Texas at Baylor. It meant nothing.
S. Mississippi at W. Kentucky? Please.
Temple at Houston? Yawn.
Alcorn St. vs. Grambling in the whozit bowl? Gimme a break.
San Diego St. vs Air Force and W. Virginia at Kansas St.? Does anybody watch this crap?
The three that mattered were Alabama vs Florida, Clemson vs N. Carolina, and Iowa vs. Mich St.
It was almost a foregone conclusion Bama would whup the Gators -- and they did. The Tide is back in the Final Four, likely as a #2 seed. This game started at roughly 4:30 PM eastern time on CBS.
The truly exciting game turned out to be Clemson/N. Carolina. The #1 Tigers would prevail and will likely remain #1 going into the Final Four. There's absolutely no reason why they should fall back a notch or two after defeating the #10 ranked Tar Heels. These teams were a joy to watch. They played fast and were imaginative in their play calling. This was shown on ABC starting shortly after 8 PM.
At the same time, ESPN was bringing us the Stanford/USC game. Maybe important to the Cardinal and Trojans, but of little consequence or importance to the rest of the fans across the nation.
And that seemed to be somewhat boneheaded. Consider both ABC and ESPN are owned by Disney. Why would the imagineers schedule two games in the same time slot -- both on their own networks -- to compete against each other for ratings and ad dollars? The Stanford/USC game could easily have been moved back to the 10 PM eastern/7 PM pacific time slot as a stand alone game. Few people east of the Rockies cared much about this contest anyway. But at least it would have given football junkies something to watch after the "good" games were over. Beats tuning into the local news where some Groucho Marx wannabe sportscaster keeps laughing at his own pathetic jokes. Can you hear me Bernie?
Predictably, the boring game turned out to be Mich St. and Iowa. In true Big 10 fashion, they put on a yawn-a-thon. The over/under was 51 points. The Spartans and Hawkeyes combined to score 29. The best teams in the Big 10 have graduated from three yards and a cloud of dust to three yards and a puff of shredded tires on turf. The play calling remains decidedly unimaginative and they seem to be in slow motion compared to the show Clemson and N. Carolina put on.
But the Spartans prevailed 16-13 by punching in a touchdown on another boring play as time was about to expire. Mich St. makes it to the Final Four, while Iowa heads off to another bowl game somewhere, possibly the Rose. Not sure how that tie-breaker thing works with the Hawkeyes and Ohio St. Both have one conference loss and they didn't face each other this year.
But if all things shake out like they should, the Final Four rankings are as follows:
#1. Clemson
#2. Alabama
#3. Oklahoma
#4. Mich St.
Given such seedings, #1 would face off against #4, and #2 against #3 in the semis.
In other words, the two brutes named Alabama and Oklahoma will slug it out. Thugs in red in a turf war. Maybe like the Bloods and the Crips. That should be brutal, but very interesting to watch.
On the same day, a very fast Clemson team will take on a methodical Mich St. squad. The Tigers have a QB named Watson that plays a lot like a Cam Newton junior. The Spartans just grind it out for four quarters and hope they're still there at the end with a chance to win. Somehow orange fighting green doesn't come across quite as daunting. Maybe more like Halloween takes on St. Patrick's day,. But those guys are pretty good too.
Who will win these games is anybody's guess.
But after all the hype about the super-duper know-all "wisdom" of the almighty Selection Committee, it turns out they have nothing to discuss whatsoever. The field set itself. So Condi, the general, and the rest of their merry band can continue to collect their hefty paychecks while not having to make any tough decisions. Not that they would get them right if they had to.
But that's sort of how things work these days. When in doubt, appoint a committee. Chances are they'll screw it up anyway if matters are left in their incompetent hands -- so best to have matters decide themselves before the bureaucrats have a chance to weigh in and come up with something stupid. Bless their little hearts and smaller brains -- it's just what they do. They can't help it. It's the nature of the beast. If they weren't clueless in the first place -- they never would have been appointed to the Committee by people that are even dumber than they are.
Nevertheless, come New Year we should have a couple pretty decent games to watch. Even Condi couldn't screw that up, at least so far.....
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