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The Back Nine comes at you after a wonderful New Year’s evening in downtown Gainesville and a sedentary New Year’s Day watching college football.
- The biggest story of the weekend was not the CFP playoff games (boring) or the Saturday games (thrilling) as much as it was the debate about players opting out. Kirk Herbstreit kind of started it when he said on GameDay that players don’t love the game anymore and that is why they are opting out. Then, Matt Corral gets hurt and people are screaming, “THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T PLAY WHEN YOU’RE A FIRST-ROUND PICK!!” I’ll get to the problem with the bowls in a minute, but, please, all of the old men in the room need to stop deciding that they should be deciding whether a player plays. Did you watch any of the bowl games? If you did, you saw a bunch of guys playing their tails off. And a bunch of stars sitting it out. That’s life. These young men have the right to decide what they want to do. Corral wanted to play for his team. Some other big-time players did not. Neither one is wrong.
- The problem with the bowl games is that we need to find a way to incentivize them for the best players not playing in the playoffs. There is a lot of money available, and ESPN makes a ton on these games, which is why they will never go away even if we expand the playoffs. Look, if these guys ever get off their territorialism and start looking for what will help the sport (an unlikely scenario), they will realize that the 12-team playoff will help because there will be fewer opt-outs with more teams involved. And then, find a way in all bowl games to use NIL to the advantage of the sport. Maybe its appearance fees for the best players who are on the fence or maybe they just give the winning team more money than the losing team. Find a way to solve the problem is all I’m saying. But it’s difficult when every conference commissioner is only looking at the teams he oversees.
- All that said. Saturday may have been one of my favorite college football Saturdays in a long time. All the SEC haters had to take Twitter time off because the conference finally got its better teams on the field and you saw what a difference that made. Of the six teams who have lost bowl games, the only one with a winning record was Ole Miss, which lost the heart and soul of the team early in the Sugar Bowl. The SEC had a controversial loss by Tennessee, a Florida team that played to its personality and also ran out of defensive players, a Missouri team that lost at the horn and an Auburn team that had the lead late and a Mississippi State team that, well, I can’t find any excuses for the Bulldogs. Also, one of the better teams all year couldn’t play because of COVID (Texas A&M). But when the SEC started 1-5, the haters were hating at remarkable levels. Just sad.
- As usual, the two playoff games were so boring I didn’t watch the fourth quarter of either of them. I think my friend Stewart Mandel put it best in The Athletic when he wrote: “Thanks, everybody, for coming out once again to America’s saddest, most anticlimactic New Year’s Eve party. While we make a point of inviting guests from all over the country, only the ones from the South get to go home happy.” Hey, we can’t help dominating the football landscape. And there is no reason to think it will change. The migration to the South just means more … families moving to SEC states. There was some pushback this week to the 12-team playoff model by people who believe there are only two worthy teams each year. That’s a load of poo. Look, I don’t know if the 12-team model will give us more parity. I just know that this four-team plan does not. Now we understand why Greg Sankey, who was on the committee to expand, would be fine if it stayed at four.
- It feels like it has been a month since Florida played a basketball game. Somebody needs to explain to me why the conference opened SEC play on Wednesday and then took Saturday off. But the Gators finally return to action Wednesday night at home against Alabama in the SEC opener for UF. And then they travel to Auburn Saturday night (contact test willing) before hosting LSU the following Wednesday night. That’s a tough way to start conference play.
- Alabama, by the way, has a 21 NET ranking so if Florida can get the win it would qualify as a Quad 1. Of course, the rankings are fluid (see: FSU). Florida’s actually is better since they have had these two weeks without a game according the NET. They are at 47 and certainly, the opportunities are there as long as they can get the games in.
- Do you think anybody in the stands screamed at Antonio Brown Sunday, “Keep your shirt on!” You play with fire and sometimes you can get burned. The guy needs help and I would think he’s done with football which can sometimes be the worst thing in the world. Then again, if you can’t check your ego when you are playing with Tom Brady, it might be uncheckable.
- It was a great start this week for Dr. Football and then it all came crashing down. Still, a 3-3 record means I have to pay the vigorish and puts The Picks at 56-43-3 for the season. There is only one college game this week and I will wait until we know the playoff teams to get into the NFL games against the spread and save the Alabama-Georgia pick until next time. So, I will take LSU and the 4.5 points against Kansas State in whatever bowl game that is tomorrow.
- For some reason, I also watched a lot of parts of movies this week and that allowed me to come up with a great playlist. I love Shazam. Give these songs a chance and I think you will like them:
* “Come and See” by Young Galaxy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9F4IGmbR1s
* The Adults Are Talking” by The Strokes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewOPQZZn4SY
* “Power Hungry Animals” by The Apache Relay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXbr3yZh3Ec
* And for an old one, “Borstal Boys” by the Faces. No dancing allowed in the car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fopfBHZvAGs
