Previewing the College Football Playoffs

That big to do in college football thing is happening today:

"I'm tellin' you Dabo, it looked like a corn dog on a skillet!" "Yep, I bet it did."

Capital One Orange Bowl @ 4 PM

This game should be a high-scoring affair. After all, almost all of Oklahoma’s final results resemble basketball scores, and Clemson has been quite talented offensively for a while now. What’s surprising coming into the game, or maybe it’s not surprising, is how little respect the Tigers seem to garner as a number one team. Not only are fans and experts picking the Sooners but so are all the cyborg simulations that one day we might opt to use for colonizing other planets and venturing in and out of wormholes.

Alas, until that day arrives, we will debate the flash and skill of Deshaun Watson versus the Big 12 Petrie dish success of Baker Mayfield, whose name sounds like he has a future on the professional golf circuit if this football endeavor doesn’t pan out. Both quarterbacks have thrown for at least 3,300 yards and thirty touchdowns this season. So why should all that end now? Winter on the east coast has been warm. It was above freezing in the North Pole yesterday. Expect fireworks in Miami. Heat and haze and a sign of things to come.

Oh, and this just in, some of Clemson’s players misbehaved and got themselves sent home from a business trip they mistook for an early Spring Break. Blame it on the weather. Blame it on Dabo Swinney being a sideline jerk. Clemson gonna Clemson. Start writing and reading those Bob Stoops redemption stories; he and Baker are about to go Interstellar.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl @ 8 PM

Doesn’t Goodyear Cotton Bowl sound like a racist musical? Oh well, I digress. Isn’t this exciting? Isn’t this David versus Goliath? Little ole Michigan State from the shoulda coulda woulda Big Ten versus the almighty Crimson Tide from Alabama. Enough on that, some story lines should be retired. Let me digress further.

In the SEC, over the past decade or so, it has become popular to root and cheer for the conference over all other comers. I am a Georgia fan, so this means that I have spent the last decade or so rooting for Saban and Les Miles and even Gators who shall not be named to win BCS bowl games and national titles. To all that camaraderie and bull shit, I now say no more. No more will I root for a conference for the sake of not feeling so down and out about my own team coming up short. It’s nonsense.

While Saban and others have stuffed the pockets of the entire SEC, the on the field results have been somewhat depleted. What do you have to show for Saban’s success, Volunteers? What trophies do you possess, Ole Miss and Mississippi State? Tigers of Missouri, are you as feared as the Tigers of LSU? How do you feel Gamecocks, Commodores, Razorbacks, and Wildcats? How warm is your seat, Les Miles? Oh where, oh where have you gone, Mark Richt?

Go Spartans! Go Connor Cook! Saban winning hasn’t won for anyone else, so his losing can’t be that bad. Yet, how does one out Saban Saban? Look for his ‘Bama to bruise poor Sparty, and, when it happens, do not pretend this excellence belongs to anyone other than Saban and his followers.

Bryan Harvey tweets @LawnChairBoys.