After you reflect, turn on the game!

This is always the time of year to look at your personal scoreboard and see if it was a winning year. Whether it is wins or losses, dollars or sense, inches or pounds it is time to reflect and tally your personal over or under. Did the goals in January 2007 match the results that you wanted this year? After you get done with that ethereal exercise, there are a ton of great games in the next nine days that need your immediate attention.

Here are the four games I like in no particular order: USC scorches Illinois by double digits. The Big 10 is not that good this year and USC is the team no one wants to play right now. John David Booty had an epic game against Michigan in last year’s Rose Bowl and this will be his final game at USC. Joe McKnight is ready to do something special. Pete Carroll has had a month to prepare and Illinois QB Juice Williams is not Vince Young. Illini, win the Beef Bowl, enjoy Disneyland and keep the watch. The game is not going to be fun.

Florida spanks Michigan. Florida Head Coach Urban Meyer knows this is recruiting season and he is going to put his best work out there. Michigan is a mess with head coaching changes and that freaking winter that comes every year to those knuckleheads who should be part of Canada. Orlando will only remind them how much it sucks in Ann Arbor. Gator QB Tim Tebow probably has a big game and then he can thank the Lord Jesus Christ another 27 times in the post game interview like he did in his Heisman acceptance speech. It is nice that he is a God-faring hillbilly but that speech was like watching a train wreck. It was uncomfortable but you just could not stop watching. There are better things to do in Orlando than getting your ass whupped by the Gators. Michigan had better figure out what they are because the ass whupping is coming.

Oklahoma will beat West Virginia. WVA is a sparkling story and I love this team. But it has all ended so ugly. It started with a huge loss at the end of the season to a 28 point underdog Pittsburgh team that knocked WVA out of the BCS Championship game. And then head coach Rich Rodriguez leaves to take the Michigan job. Coach Rodriguez had spurned Alabama’s advances last year and negotiated a fat contract extension. People were none too happy in Morgantown when he opted out this year. When the Governor of the West Virginia voices his outrage, the board of directors for the University votes to sue you for the $4 million buyout, it is time to put the family in protective custody and get out under the cover of darkness. Sooner fans travel huge to every Bowl game, every year. They take over the town, party hard, eat hard, talk Sooner shite all night long, and their team is not going to disappoint them for the second year in a row. "Crispy Crème, stock the shelves in Scottsdale the bus from Norman is 120 miles outside Albuquerque. "

Tennessee easily handles Wisconsin. The Volunteers are playing very well, Wisconsin is not. Tennessee played ten teams that are in bowl games this year and went 7-3 beating Georgia and Kentucky. Wisconsin played six and went 3-3. They did not upset anyone and lost badly to Ohio State and Penn State. Volunteer QB Erik Ainge is a senior who is having an outstanding season. If the Badgers can not get to Ainge, it could get ugly. Ainge was sacked only three times all year so Cheese Heads, bring an extra flask. Wisconsin has been to the Outback Steak Bowl three years in a row and I think they are just sick thinking about grinding through another 112 Blooming Onions.

LSU vs. Ohio State is a “pick them” in my book. I have always been a Buckeye Fan since they won the National Championship beating OJ and the Trojans in the 1968 Rose Bowl game. That was the SC team that knocked this young sports degenerate’s beloved Bruins out of the title game with O.J,’s epic 64 yard touch down run in the 1967 SC-UCLA game. I hated O.J. then, and Trojan nation, I was right on that one but it was not for killing people...allegedly or stealing sports memorabilia from dead beats in Las Vegas. It was for that run. A few years ago, I played in a foursome with Toby Page, the QB who called the audible and handed the ball to O.J. on that historic play. I did not tell him how I felt about that call or the run or share the countless hours in therapy that have plagued my adult life since that fall afternoon of my youth. He seemed a bit ornery with bum knees and several ex-wives. He was the best golfer on our sorry scramble team so I let it go.

Last year, Ohio State Coach Jim Tressle got out-coached by Urban Meyer who already had better talent and better cheer leaders. The Buckeyes got embarrassed. I do not see that happening this year except for the cheerleaders. Those southern girls rock! Les Miles has a better, faster team but the Tigers have let teams hang around all season, especially of late. The game is in New Orleans, LSU is very talented and it should be a great game. Go Buckeyes!

Follow up note: Apparently, UCLA Defensive Coordinator DeWayne Walker is leveraging an offer from University of Washington to be the defensive coordinator in an effort to get UCLA to give him the head coaching job. He is a strong recruiter and UCLA has a top 20 recruiting class. Several recruits have expressed the desire for UCLA to hire Coach Walker. UCLA hire Neuheisel and hope Walker stays but the University needs someone with experience running the football program. DeWayne, it rains 185 days a year in Seattle and it is a lateral move at best. Washington Coach Ty Willingham is coming off two straight losing seasons and has Oklahoma, BYU and a better Notre Dame team on the 2008 non-conference schedule! Put together another solid season or two in Westwood and you will be a hot candidate for a head coaching job somewhere. Do not go work for another head coach on a short plank with bleak upside. You will not be a serious candidate for that job if Willingham gets fired after the season. Dan Guerrero, show DeWayne the love and it is in the greenbacks not the back slaps.

Thanks to all for your comments and encouragement. It has been fun and I hope 2008 is a rich and rewarding year for all. Happy New Year from the Yard.