Just win baby!

This past week in college football has definitely been one of high drama and theatrics. There were both tears and cheers. After suffering thru the last two years of rigged elections, rigged officiating, rigged games and rigged markets, we were hit square in the face with a College Football Playoff selection that many are accusing of being, you guessed it, rigged. Despite all the anger and foot stomping, the letters from Senators and Governors, the outrage and heartbreak of literally millions of college football fans, the four teams have been selected for The FBS and unbeaten Florida State is not one of them. Go figure. Frankly I wasn’t a bit surprised. Florida State was not playing its best football. The four best teams are definetly in regardless of records. Theres only four spots and not everyone is going to get in. Take heart however Seminole fans, there’s still redemption available for you but first you have to beat Georgia in The Orange Bowl. Best of luck with that!

We could go on and on about scheduling, strengths, weaknesses and about a dozen other analytics however the bottom line is that not everyone who deserves to be there in going to make it into a four team playoff. Michigan, Alabama, Texas and Washington are playing lights out football right now and right now is what counts to a committee that is making a real time selection. No one cares what you might do, or what you could do, or what you did four weeks ago. It’s all about the here and the now. Although it certainly hurts that Florida State won’t be there’d in the end it doesn’t take anything away from a great season that the team had. It’s like the song says, you can’t always get what you want. Deal with it. Next year they’ll be 12 teams in! Won’t that be interesting!

The NFL season continues to roll right along with the usual upsets and unfortunate injuries signaling that the season may or may not turn out as everyone expected. There’s still a lot of football to play and the current roster of injured quarterbacks gets longer and longer. So far, The Jets, The Bengals, The Vikings, The Steelers, The Browns, The Colts, and maybe the Jaguars all have starting quarterbacks on the injury list. I may have left out one or two teams as well but it doesn’t look good for several of these teams. Additionally, The NFL loosing a star player doesn’t bod well for TV ratings. No one wants to see a game with unknowns right?

Injuries aside, it doesn’t look as though there are many teams out there that can give The San Francisco 49ers much of a game. The boys from The Bay Area, lead by currrent MVP hopefull Brock Purdy put a thrashing on The Philadelphia Eagles on Phillie’s home field that many will remember for a while. It looked as if The Eagles were the dominant team leading into this game but The 49ers changed all that. A well balanced, strong and efficient offense coupled with a stout defense may well put San Francisco into the Super Bowl as long as everyone stays healthy. Let’s pray that they do. It’s still a long way till to go. 

At this point in the season it’s hard to say who looks like a contender other than the 49ers. There’s a glut of teams playing well with several losses holding them back. The Dolphins, The Chiefs, The Eagles,The Ravens and The Cowboys all long strong, on paper but none have yet to get that signature win, that mark of dominance that the 49ers have. We’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out but I haven’t made a Super Bowl pick yet folks!!

With so much football going on it’s hard to remember that there are are other sports to enjoy on a day to day basis and they all of course have the drama and the excitement that we get from the play on the grid iron. The NBA has been in full swing now for several weeks. College basketball, in all it’s wonderful glory, has been lighting up the air waves nightly. Although it’s early in the season for both it’s important to remember that in a few short months we’ll have to put football on the back burner and concentrate on what’s happening on the hard wood floors. Im already researching my Final Four teams!

As we enter into the month of December and look forward to The Christmas and New Years celebrations we can also look forward to spending quality time with family and friends. Each week between now and mid January will bring a host of college football bowl games sponsored by potato chip companies, mayonnaise manufacturers, real estate moguls and data storage services. There used to be a time when the only bowl games that we looked forward to were The Rose Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, and The Orange Bowl.  Now if Alabama beats Michigan and Texas defeats Washington that means that they’ll be only one power 5 college football team undefeated in the nation. What happens then? The times have changed but as always I say Play On!!

Kev

Kev's Corner Our Staffs Weekly Sports perspective

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