Ring in the New Year with more Football

[dlgood]

First post in almost a month. Yikes! I guess I don't have much to say. Congrats to jennem who got married yesterday...

A thanks to all the well wishers. Spent yesterday in the company of friends watching football - where both home dogs managed to rise up and win their games. Will be going out to dinner with the family tonight...

It's been a pretty decent bowl season this year. I actually kind of like the reminders of the silliness of the BCS, where it's almost like it was in my earlier years. All the games are good, and none of them prove anything. Hence my desire to just return to traditional tie-ins. How anyone watching the Rose and Sugar Bowls can be sure that USC and Utah are any less "Championship" material than Oklahoma and Florida is beyond me. Particularly given the beatings Big XII South powers Oklahoma State and Texas Tech took in their respective bowls.

Watched a bunch. Maryland beating Nevada on the smurf turf. Mardy Gilyard making acrobatic catch after another in a losing Orange Bowl effort for Cincinatti. TCUs great defense in the Poinsettia. Donald Brown's sheer dominance in the International. The tremendous hitting by the Men of Troy's defenders in the Rose. (And their stupendously pretty song girls...) And the brilliant game plan by Utah in the Sugar.

Yeah, the bowls are overdone, silly, and meaningless, but I do still find fun in them.

Comments

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's odd. The Big XII North couldn't buy a decent win during the season and yet they are 3-0 in the bowls. The Big XII South will be very lucky to break even now. I'm more surprised at Oklahoma State losing than Texas Tech. I'm sort of fond of Texas. I'd like to see them win against 'my' Buckeyes, though I wouldn't mind if Florida won the championship rather than Oklahoma.

I think Alabama could have won the Sugar bowl, if they hadn't been so determined to pass. Utah was swarming all over their quarterback. But it looked like Alabama's O-line outweighed Utah's D-line by 10-15 pounds per man. If they'd just run straight at them, I don't think Utah would have had a chance even after they were up 21-0.

The Big Ten has been really bad this bowl season. Northwestern came about as close as any of them to winning. But their offense just ran out of gas before the forth quarter.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

1. The Big Ten is not very good this year. They aren't ACC bad, but they didn't match up with anyone at all.

2. Nick Saban got thoroughly outcoached. I know he was missing his stud Left Tackle, and shuffling things around, but the strength of their game was Power Football and Alabama never committed to it. And someone might want to give the Alabama DBs a remedial on tackling. Utah beat them more convincingly than Florida.

3. I don't watch a ton of Big XII games, but I'm beginning to suspect those crazy offensive numbers are only partly talent but also a function of shaky defense. Texas probably needs to pound OSU pretty hard to prove itself on par with USC, Utah, and the BCS Winner.