A Jersey Guy: CFB Bowling for Dollars and More
DALLAS--Let's cut to the chase.
Christmas is over.
It's bowl week in the sense that the nitty gritty of college football-a national championship--will be decided with a pair of CFP semifinals on Jan. 1 and a title game in Houston a week later.
Crunch time. big money games for the CFP title, the last of a 10 year run with a four team playoff.
Next year, the CFP expands to 12 teams in a more National Football League like format, which college football has become at the upper tier.
Who's going to win?
Haven't a clue.
It is a true blue-blood Final Four.
No. 2 Washington vs. No. 3 Texas in the Sugar Bowl ad No 1 Michigan vs. No. 4 Alabama in the Rose Bowl.
Now that's the way to start the New Year
After a riff-raff dominated early bowl season, there were only 4 teams with 6-6 records-Virginia Tech, Boston College, Rutgers and Auburn--participating in the final 22 bowl games.
Aside from the Final Four, the other New Year's Six Bowl games have intriguing story lines.
The Cotton Bowl will conduct its game in Jerry's World at AT &T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Friday night in a SEC-Big Ten showdown between Missouri and Ohio State.
Missouri, having come up just short against LSU and Georgia is on the cusp of being an SEC elite program.
Ohio State may have motivation problems following another regular season ending loss to Michigan and spot in the warm-up act for the Final Four.
Coach Ryan Day will also unveil a new QB in Devon Brown, which was prompted by the decision of starter Kyle McCord to insert himself in the transfer portal.
There is also the ongoing debate on whether future first round National Football League draft pick WR Marvin Harris will actually play in Friday night's game.
The Peach Bowl in Atlanta will be a New Year's Eve afternoon treat between Penn State and Ole Miss in another Big Ten-SEC challenge.
Offense vs. defense showdown as the Nittany Lions try to thwart Ole Miss and coach Lane Kiffin's almost always offensive manipulations.
The Orange Bowl on New Year's Eve night looks like a motivation issue.
Georgia, still fuming after seeing its 2-time defending national championship run come to an end after its loss to Alabama in the SEC title game needs some motivation for playing a game which means almost nothing in terms of relevance..
FSU, of course, is still steaming after becoming the first unbeaten Power 5 champion to be shut out of the CFP final Four.
But the Seminoles are missing many of the players who produced that perfection.
The Fiesta Bowl on New Year's morning (in Arizona) is an appetizer between Oregon and surprise Group of 5 rep Liberty.
Looks like an Oregon overmatch.
And then there is the main event.
Michigan is unbeaten and ranked No.1 for a variety of reasons, but mainly for beating Ohio State. Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh has been the epi-center of a storm surrounding Michigan stealing signs and assorted other violations.
Alabama,. which started slowly with a loss to Texas and sluggish effort vs. South Florida looks like well, Alabama again after beating Georgia.
Finally, the Sugar Bowl gives us Washington, unbeaten, but untested outside of the Pac-12, vs. Texas, which is looking to step back into the national spotlight dance for the first time in 14 years.
Bowl season has officially arrived.