Day Off

I would have written today’s blog post yesterday and published it just after midnight, as I have been doing of late. But I didn’t, and I have an excuse — three of them, actually.

First, there was the Big 12 Championship game.

Second, there was the SEC Championship game.

Third, there was the ACC Championship game.

The Big 12 game didn’t interest me a lot. The day outside was cold and gray. There wasn’t much on TV other than college football. I should say, “on my TV”, because I’m sure cable and satellite TV were airing about a zillion programs, but I have good old-fashioned antenna TV — TV the way God intended it to be. So I watched Oklahoma beat TCU 41-17.

Then the SEC Championship came on, and that was a game that I expected to be good. The matchup was Georgia versus Auburn. Last month, Auburn hammered Georgia 40-17, so things didn’t exactly look promising for Georgia’s prospects. On the other hand, Georgia was looking for payback, and they found it. Georgia beat Auburn 28-7 to move into the #2 spot in college football.

The ACC Championship game was the game I was most interested in seeing. My alma mater is an ACC team, so I’m a bit more familiar with what is happening in that conference. The game pitted Clemson against Miami. Miami is the Coastal division champ, while Clemson is the Atlantic division champ, as well as being the #1 team in the country. I wanted to see Clemson win, mainly to put Miami in its place. I felt those Miami players were getting big heads, what with the ridiculous, giant, gold-plated turnover chains the coach has been handing out. Plus, Miami earned its top rank in the Coastal division without having played any really good teams. Prior to the championship game, Miami had played only two top-25 teams: Virginia Tech, which ended its season ranked #22, and Notre Dame, which ended ranked #15. I knew Miami was outmatched, but in college football anything can happen on any given day. Case in point: Miami’s only loss (until the Clemson game) was to unranked Pittsburg, and it was a home game for Miami.

Clemson rolled over Miami — final score: Clemson 38, Miami 3. Miami’s 3 points came at the end of the game when they were playing Clemson’s backups. I wasn’t surprised to see Clemson win, but I was surprised at how easily they won. I’m sure Clemson players wouldn’t call it easy, but they made it look that way. The next stop for Clemson is the CFP (playoff), where teams are selected according to an arcane formula that no one understands. It’s a system that makes the NFL playoffs look positively simple.