Seeping Matter

And thus we bid farewell to another excellent season of college football.  True, Auburn didn’t have quite the season they had last year, but USU was much better despite choking in literally the final seconds of several key games (Auburn, BYU, Ohio).  Teams come and go, but the essence of college football remains:  Great passion, energetic players, trick plays, fake punts, blocked kicks, great defenses, long runs from scrimmage, and more.  The players are not quite so skilled as they are in the pros, so they make more mistakes, and I think that is what makes the games more interesting.  Yes, they can wn the game by making this 30-yard field goal with only 2 seconds left in the game, but this is college!  There really is a reasonable chance they will miss it!

My bowl picks started off slow but I ended up doing pretty well:

• Famous Idaho Potato Bowl - I picked USU to win this one.  At the end I wondered, will we see early-season USU who choked in the close games, or late-season USU that pulled out victory after close victory to qualify for a bowl berth?  Sadly, it was early-season USU.  0-1
• Maaco Las Vegas Bowl – I said Boise State would walk all over ASU but it wasn’t nearly that close.  1-1
• Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl – I picked Cal over Texas but this one shanked to the right.  1-2
• Champs Sports Bowl – I said Florida State would win, and I must admit they had me pretty concerned most of the game.  But in the end they managed to overcome a 14 point deficit to win.  2-2
• Valero Alamo Bowl – This game was one that you should not have missed, and if you did, you need to find it someday on ESPN Classics and watch it again.  Heck, watch it again even if you did see it.  It was a load of fun.  As the announcer said, the first team to 67 points wins, and I correctly picked that Baylor would be that team.  3-2
• Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl – Life goes much easier for you in Utah County if you pick BYU, especially when they pull it off.  4-2
• Insight Bowl – I picked Iowa because every time I pick against them, they win.  I guess Iowa just is trying to spite me with a loss to Oklahoma, or something.  4-3
• Hyundai Sun Bowl – Utah had me pretty nervous when they were down 14 in the 4th quarter, but watching them come back to beat a really good Georgia Tech team was quite gratifying, and also felt a little bit like vindication for their selection to join the PAC-12.  5-3
• Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl – I said Illinois would win because UCLA reeks.  Well, UCLA still reeks.  6-3
• Chick-fil-A Bowl – Of course Auburn won this one.  I think their comeback win over USU proved that they are a pretty strong team, and they are in the SEC, after all.  7-3
• Ticketcity Bowl – Apparently Houston is as good as we all thought they might be.  Or Penn State is still being punished for their grievous sins.  Or both.  8-3
• Outback Bowl – Honestly, Georgia is not the best team in the SEC East this year, but they did better than I thought.  Still, it wasn’t enough to hold off Michigan State, although it took three overtimes to finally decide this one.  9-3
• Capital One Bowl – South Carolina is just too athletic for Nebraska pretty-boys like Taylor Martinez.  And I must say to Bo Pellini, your furious tirade on the sidelines and the disdain with which you treat the reports does not win you fans.  I was happy to see South Carolina win.  10-3
• Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl – One of my favorite holiday traditions is when Ohio State goes south and gets trounced by Florida, which of course happened again this year.  Next year might be tough.  Can I continue to hate Ohio State once Urban Meyer is the coach there?  Hmm.  11-3
• Rose Bowl – This was another excellent game, and I have to say that Oregon’s helmets were freaking awesome.  I picked Oregon because of their helmets, subconsciously.  12-3
• Tostitos Fiesta Bowl – Yet again, the Fiesta Bowl left me kicking myself for not just driving down to Tempe to attend it.  One of these years I will do just that.  Anyway, Oklahoma State kept me wondering all game long, but they finally pulled this one out in overtime, the only time they had the lead in the entire game.  13-3
• Allstate Sugar Bowl – Up to this point I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and thinking maybe I should apply for a job with ESPN as an analyst.  I missed this pick though, having thought that Michigan’s comeback season wasn’t sufficient to beat Virginia Tech.  A strong Michigan is good for college football all around, so I’ll take it.  13-4
• Discover Orange Bowl – I was right that Clemson has superior athletes, but they are also excellent at collapsing into a shivering blob of mistake after costly mistake.  By the time they’d weathered the storm, West Virginia had scored 35 unanswered points and the game was over with 25 minutes left to play.  13-5
• AT&T Cotton Bowl – As I implied, it seems people dismiss Arkansas because they finished third in their division.  But they finished third to the #1 and #2 teams in the country.  Arkansas proved they are for real.  14-5
• Allstate BCS Championship – I threatened rebellion if LSU won.  Apparently someone wants me to be a good boy.  Alabama won in convincing, dominating fashion in one of the best-played, most complete total team effort victories I’ve ever seen.  More on this later.  15-5
• Knudsen-B-Gon Toilet Bowl – North Dakota Culinary & Drama College completely dominated this game in every way, although to be fair, Akron forgot which direction they were supposed to go to score on about half of the plays.  16-5

So, if you discount the gimme, fake-bowl, I still ended up with a record of 15-5, or an accuracy record of 75%.  That’s a little better than random, wouldn’t you say?

Okay, it was lucky.  I’m still gonna gloat.