Let my start by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. If you are not a Christian and are not interested in celebrating the birth of Christ, I hope you understand my desire and right to invite others who are interested to celebrate it with me. I certainly respect your right to believe differently. Thank you.
Of course Christmas means it’s nearly the end of the year. Which in turn means that football season is nearly over. While we are all eager to find out who will win the championships, we are also a bit sad because we know how long the offseason will seem.
In the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons finally ended their losing streak by beating the Jacksonville Jaguars. As hard as it is to imagine, the Falcons are actually mathematically alive in the playoff race. Don’t get me wrong, they are not going to the playoffs but technically they are still in the hunt. All it would take is for the Falcons to win their last two games and for both Seattle and Minnesota to lose their final two games. And Mars to be in line with Venus. Then, according to what I have read, the Falcons and Seahawks would win the three way tie for the two wildcard spots. Doesn’t matter, that won’t all happen. Atlanta should have taken care of business against the likes of Tampa Bay and Indianapolis.
The bowl season has started. I know, you probably haven’t watched one of them yet but they are actually playing bowl games already. It will crank up for real after Christmas. If you are playing your bowl game before Christmas the only people watching are the parents of the players themselves and a handful of really sad people who would probably own a bunch of cats if they were women. Or, like me, you have picked all of the games in some sort of bowl challenge and are mildly interested in seeing how you are faring.
Beginning December 26Th we start getting bowls with names we actually recognize. Not the bowl name, the team name. Listed below are my picks for some of the meaningful bowl games.
Dec. 26th: Miami over Washington State
Nebraska over UCLA
Dec. 28th: Navy over Pittsburgh
Dec. 29th: North Carolina over Baylor
LSU over Texas Tech
Dec. 30th: Auburn over Memphis
Mississippi State over NC State
Louisville over Texas A&M
USC over Wisconsin
Dec. 31st FSU over Houston
Oklahoma over Clemson
Alabama over Michigan State
Jan. 1st Tennessee over Northwestern
Ohio State over Notre Dame
Florida over Michigan
Stanford over Iowa
Oklahoma State over Ole Miss
Jan. 2nd Georgia over Penn State
Arkansas over Kansas State
Oregon over TCU
