Happy New Year everybody…today is Jan 3 and Ima following up a comment that suggested keeping up with just life. Neil has a couple of blog buddies…one a former and one a still RVer…that post daily and even the still RVer only travels a little and is typically stable at a single place working for months at a time so posts are really more life and what’s going on as opposed to traveling and talking about experiences doing so. With that decision made for me…let’s dive in (as another of his YouTube buddies says at the beginning of his videos).
You probably saw Alabama lose to Michigan in the Reliaquest (ne Outback) bowl up in Tampa on New Year’s Eve…they were pretty much doomed after the first quarter…two fumbles by the QB and an interception he threw along with a turnover on downs after a long drive let Michigan put up 16 points and only a pretty effective defensive performance prevented the damage from being a whole lot worse than it was. The defense played extremely effectively the rest of the game but the offense was to put it mildly ineffective when it counted. They made more first downs and out gained Michigan by 70 total yards but demonstrated a mostly complete inability to actually score points after drives. Neither team could make many first downs with both being in the 25% conversion range and neither made a 4th down conversion either with all 3 of Alabama’s coming with a chance to score including at the end of the game. At that point they were only down by 6 and after a punt by Michigan they had first down on their own 10 or 12 with about a minute and a half remaining. They very quickly Marche down the field to a first down at the Michigan 14…but were unable to score what would have been the winning TD from there.
This morning their QB Jalen Milroe announced he’s going to the NFL…but the trouble is that as of today he’s not really NFL material. He’s an outstanding runner but NFL QBs need to be able to read defenses, go through their progressions and find the open receiver. He gave up sacks on 5 or 6 plays with open receivers for big gains (and at least 2 of them would have been scores) but he was unable to work fast enough to throw the ball to the open receiver. He’s a long shot for an NFL career…lots of upside but he will need a great deal of coaching to turn him into a decent passer.
Neil’s not really sure about the new coach there either…he seems unable to make halftime adjustments and quit doing what isn’t working while shifting to something else either offensively or defensively…and in the SEC those talents are required as there are too many really good coaches who can adjust.
All in all…their 4 losses this year were away games and the team simply wasn’t ready to play. Yeah…he brought in new offense and defense schemes and had to work with players he didn’t recruit…but really good coaches learn to adapt their schemes to what their players do well (see some guys named Saban, Belichick, and Smart for some examples). We’ll see how he does next year…but he has the problem of being the “guy that follows the legend” and a lot of the time that’s some tough shoes to fill and being the “guy that replaces the guy that replaces the legend” is really where you want to be. However…he’s won every place has been and a 9 win season isn’t anything to sneeze at despite the lofty expectations of the fan base.
On to the college playoffs…this was the first year of the 12 team bracket and the top 4 got a by to the quarterfinals over the holiday…and all 4 of those team lost. The problem is not the 12 team playoff vice 4…it’s how they are seeded. The SEC and Big 10 dominated the rules and established that highest rated conference champs got the highest seedings…but the seeding should really take into account a lot of other factors besides conference championships and records…strength of schedule, turnover margin, key injuries that will keep people out of the playoffs and a lot of other factors need to be added to the rules…but in this case money is doing the talking rather than how good individual teams are. Neil personally thinks they need to expand to 16 and get rid of the by games for the top seeds…play the first round on campus as they did this year with the normal 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 and so on matchups…and then reseed the remaining 8 after the first round. This year the top seed Oregon had the hardest route to the finals and if you’re the top seed that seems unfair. That way…the top two seeds won’t meet unless it’s the finals. This is the way every other sport in the NCAA including every other football division runs their tournament. All of the talk about taking away class time from the student athletes is just hogwash. He’s also convinced that the Name Image Likeness (NIL) rules and transfer anytime rules are ruining the game in college football. Good players transfer for more money or for better stats if they’re not the starter…and it’s really turning the college game into a minor league for the NFL like Triple A is in baseball. There’s no loyalty to your school and team…heck, Miami’s QB played in their bowl game because he wanted to break the TD pass record which he did in the first quarter then he told the coach at half time that he would not play in the 2nd half…he should have been tossed off of the team and out of the locker room immediately once he said that…the boy has no class at all. Neil’s not really opposed to players getting paid…after all they’ve been getting paid under the table for years now…but team with a lot of money can essentially buy all the players they want. Ohio State did that this year…they’ve got the best team money can buy…and based on the games over New Year’s Day they’re the odds on favorites to win the championship.
Wrong…just wrong..
Let’s see…what else?
They skipped date night last week and this week due to Christmas and New Year’s Eve but might head out tonight depending on how Connie’s feeling, she’s been having stomach issues the past couple of days.
Christmas they had duck breast and New Year’s Eve they had lobster with stuffed shells with Neil’s Bolognese sauce with Italian sausage.
Gift wise…they both pretty much got stuff they needed…mostly when they want something they just get it. Connie got a new diamond tennis bracelet to replace one she broke a year ago and they both got a color inkjet printer…Neil picked one that will do 13×19 inch paper so he can print some of this photos to hang and being color Connie can do her Ladies of Elks stuff in color when needed. Beyond that…it was some clothes and bike shorts/jerseys, nothing really exciting.
You probably saw the news reports about the Azerbaijani airliner that was (most likely) shot down by the Russians…and the one that belly landed in South Korea killing everybody on board but 2. The latter reported a bird strike but never anything else and requested and was approved to wave off a landing attempt, make a U turn, and land the other way on the same runway (with the wind instead of into the wind as is normal). Then the pilot landed halfway down the runway with no gear down, never attempted to slow down via air brakes and overshot the end of the runway. The kicker was that there is a concrete wall at the end of the runway…and when you run a sliding airliner at 100 mph or so based on the video into a concrete wall the fuel in the wings results in a fireball and kills everybody on the plane. Now Ima just a bear and not any sort of engineer…but building a concrete wall across the end of the runway just seems…like a poor choice to me.
I keep reading how the President elect will be the downfall of democracy…but really folks…especially on the D side…just need to take a deep breath and calm down. Yeah…the man says a lot of things…and some of them are deliberately edited in news reports to say that he’s gonna do things that he actually didn’t say he was going to do. He says a lot of things to both rile up his base…and to troll the other side as well. He’s not going to be allowed to deport 11 million illegal aliens by the courts…and even if he was allowed to do so the government has neither the facilities or the competence to round up and deport that many people. He’s also said that birthright citizenship is illegal and he will executive order it out of business…but it’s right there in the 14th amendment and again he’s not going to be allowed to do that. He says he’s gonna lock up his political opponents…but again…courts aren’t going to allow that and there’s no evidence that can convict them of anything.
And what’s with the whacko that ran people down in New Orleans the other day and the one that blew up the Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Vegas? Both were US citizens and military people…the New Orleans one was clearly radicalized into being a terrorist by something but the guy in Vegas apparently wasn’t…he was an apparently upstanding Army enlisted man who was on leave with a wife and a newborn child…so he drove up to the front of the hotel, engaged a timer for his bombs in the truck, and shot himself in the head?
Anyways…enough rambling.
All I got for ya is this interesting take on the number 2025…so more math nerdery I reckon.
Well…except for this which Neil found on one of the blogs he follows…it’s a bit risqué…maybe…but Ima gonna put it here anyway. Don’t look if you’re easily offended.
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He had to laugh when he saw that one.
Cyas.
Travels with Gunther and Kara 
Yep, get rid of the bye. And yes, college football has clearly become the training ground for the NFL. Therefor, skip the college part, let the NFL fund their own junior training schools, pay commensurate with ability after first ‘semester’. Although with the additional carrot of possible NFL placement, I’d bet they could charge fees. That should remove the “Miami quarterbacks” and big money inducements from the colleges and just have plain old college football. Probably never happen, but it’s a passing thought.
The picture cracked me up.
All the Best for the New Year and Beyond,
Cat
I think the bye will go in the next iteration in 2026 and it will expand to 16 teams. But the NIL and transfer portal are ruining college football which is a completely different sport than the NFL and other pro leagues. But it’s a lot of money the colleges are making…and while I think that the players should be able to get paid…the courts have said that the NCAA can’t regulate the size of their cut or prevent them from transferring.
While he hasn’t admitted it…most Alabama fans think Nick Saban retired solely because of the NIL and transfer portal. Sure…he likes to win but what he really likes is the ability to influence his players into being better adults. He historically did not go after super big name prospects unless they believed in team and not individual stats…and too many of the young players today are only going for money and stats. I saw the other day that the QB at Texas…who actually isn’t that good IMO…got offered a million bucks to forego the NFL for a year and transfer someplace to play his final year of eligibility. I think Saban just got fed up with recruiting people and trying to teach them to follow the process, do their job and good things will happen only to have other colleges (Ohio State for instance a year ago) offer most of a million bucks for their starting safety to transfer…so sure, he jumped at that payday.
Maybe the answer is for the players to unionize and negotiate a contract with the NCAA so that starting players get a set amount based on position or years as a starter or whatever…but it’s just becoming a free for annual talent auction…and the college game is worse off for it. We haven’t watched an NFL game in years ourselves…because there’s no team first attitude in the vast majority of the players.
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