Tim of K-State has hosted an annual Bowl Battle for nearly two decades. It is a fun cashless challenge to pick the most outright winners during the bowl season. No point spreads need to be considered just victory. The Yard sealed victory with 27 winners in BB VIII. The Winner gets the golden toilet seat. It is like a Masters green jacket. I gotta keep it for my victory year, but Tim gets it back at the end. It has gotten much more complex picking these bowl winners. First, opting out by star players became all the rage. Coaches changing jobs before their bowl game and taking people with them has become very popular. And this was before NIL. Arch Manning can make more money staying in Texas for now. They expanded the CFP to 12 teams and Notre Dame still could not get into the thing. It is not your father’s Rose Bowl anymore.
In 2025, Lane Kiffin was on the first bus leaving Ole Miss to take the LSU job. The Yard couldn’t blame Kiffin; he is making $3 million a year more in Baton Rouge. Ole Miss is a nice job with modest expectations. The LSU HC is a bigger job than the governor of Louisiana. Kiffin never gets a dinner and a proper send off when he departs. It is always a shotgun divorce. Raider owner Al Davis got out the 1967 overhead projector to fire him in 2008. Knoxville, TN still serenades Kiffin with boos every time he visits because of his sudden departure to USC in 2010. USC AD Pat Haden met Kiffin’s return flight at LAX to remove Lane from the job at 2:00 AM five games into the 2013 season. Kiffin joined up with Darth Saban in Alabama as his OC. Apparently, Saban’s daughter and Kiffin got along great. Not so much with Nick who sent him packing before the 2017 Championship game. Kiffin’s wife packed up and moved on as well. Ole Miss took a flyer on the Little Kiff in 2019 after his penance at FAU. Kiffin has delivered Ole Miss into the CFP playing in the grueling SEC. This season he was brilliant and he could have coached in Oxford for another 20 years, but he opted for the Bayou. Ole Miss fans are genteel southerners; LSU fans are rabid Tigers. Those Ole Miss genteel fans chased Kiffin’s exodus convoy all the way to the plane. It will not be pleasant if Lane does not meet LSU expectations which are National Championships. If the LSU gig goes south, he won’t be chased to the airport; he will be driven out into Blue’s Bayou.
The Irish were ready to fight when they learned they had no ticket on the CFP Tour Bus. Notre Dame had won ten straight games by double digits leading up to the selection show. The football independent Irish got leapfrogged by the ACC dependent Miami Hurricanes. Neither team played the weekend of the show. Somehow the Hurricanes moved up a spot ahead of ND while everyone was watching at home. Notre Dame is an ACC member in all sports except football and hockey. The Yard is not sure on the hockey holdout. Football ND kept their lucrative TV money but needed a conference for basketball. When football ACC Miami needed to rally votes over ACC lite ND, guess who won that battle. Las Vegas books have ND being a favorite in any CFP game except Ohio State. The Hurricanes will be in College Station playing Texas A&M as 3-point underdogs. The Canes will be underdogs in every game. Notre Dame will be at home in South Bend playing Scrooge this Christmas.
The Raiders are working hard to secure the first pick in the NFL draft. They have a lot of competition with the dreadful NY Giants and the woeful Tennessee Titans. They are all at 2-12 in this dogfest. Arizona, Cleveland and the NY Jets are in hot pursuit at 3-11. The Yard is hoping the Raiders do the right thing and lose the rest of their games. They would end up with the number 1 pick because those 3 losses would include one at home to the NY Giants. The Raiders have not had a franchise QB since Kenny Stabler in the 70’s. Derek Carr holds most of the records thanks to increased games per season in pass happy times. Carr was released and disappeared into the NOLA wasteland. A QB does not solve all the Las Vegas, but it will get them closer than Geno Smith ever would. This biggest obstacle in the Raiders mission to lose is Pete Carroll. Peter is not going to be here next year, so he wants to go out with a few wins. His legacy is scratched but not tarnished. He is not the guy for a rebuild.
OMG Michigan: University of Michigan is a top academic institution and sports powerhouse. Academic light Ohio State has been their football Huckleberry since 1897. Bo vs. Woody was the Civil War. Michigan Alum Jim Harbaugh was hired to bring Michigan back from being a perennial 9-3 team that always seemed to lose to Ohio State when it mattered. It took Jimmy awhile to beat the Buckeyes but once he did, he would never lose to them again. The Wolverines would go 38-3 in Harbaugh’s last three years and win the National Championship in 2023. Michigan was thrilled with the results while gradually removing many compliance guardrails to accommodate Jim. He pushed every boundary to bring greatness. The NCAA investigators were in hot pursuit those last three years. Michigan athletics was losing faith they could keep not taking their calls. Harbaugh finally burned the house down after the National Championship. He resigned at the end of January when all coaching candidates had found their chair and the music stopped. Michigan was left standing. UM was left with few options to save the recruiting class. OC Sherrone Moore became the HC. Moore had already been head coach for four games when Harbaugh was suspended for his NCAA shenanigans. Moore was already in the system, so he was not vetted like a new hire. Well, here is another nice mess you got us into.
Merry Christmas
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