4 Hard Downs: Styles Make Fights, Holidays Over, Duke's Clips & A New Committee
3 Close Calls, Normalcy Is Dope, Plus Duke's & 4 Teams To Rule Them All Differently
The playoff field is set and there is only one SEC team in the mix, not the 2 or 3 that a lot of folks, myself included, expected. Certainly not what Greg Sankey was expecting as he worked on this new playoff format.
Hey, that’s on Alabama going 9-3, Georgia and Tennessee getting stomped out and your newest member being who you have to hang your hat on, Texas, barely. Sparky had them on the ropes after a valiant effort, but not enough bodies to finish the drill leading Texas to a virtual home game against Ohio State.
Speaking of being on the ropes but finishing the drill, that’s where I have lived for the last two weeks. Christmas break almost broke me but I made it, barely. So let’s go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!
1st Down: 3 Close Calls But Got There
1st up: *Nothing negative to my wife or kid or my family, just pure Michael Felder self-hate*
Just so we’re clear.
My brain was breaking on round one, knowing I had to go into the house and figure out a lot of stuff. Have you ever hooked up a Nintendo to a new smart TV? Not great Bob. But we got there:
2nd up: I slept in on Christmas
I wasn’t planning on getting up early because we were supposed to go to brunch at my dad’s, so what’s the rush?! They did stockings and started opening presents before I came out and I don’t think anyone was thrilled with that.
3rd up: Knowing I was not wearing pajamas
I’m not wearing that. Dressing the same is not a Michael Felder thing and after my wife got my Happy Meal ass on Christmas for the card, there was no shot:
Won’t and can’t happen again.
During any day if my wife has a shirt that’s the same or similar, I will change. Why should Christmas, a holiday I don’t even like, be different?
Notice the trash bag ready to eliminate everything. That’s Christmas…to me!
However, something that was really great? Taking my kid to see her first college swim meet at Queens against Virginia Tech. It reminds me of my dad taking me to the Sun Bowl to see UTEP or my folks taking me to ECU games. Good football begat good football.
I’m a product of Jeff Blake, David Garrard and Jeff Kerr (one of my college strength coaches).
She’s shown interest in swim so getting her to see her sport at a higher level was very cool. I want her to see what good swimmers and swimming looks like and Queens has a good program and is less than 20 minutes away and is free. Why would we not go?!
2nd Down: Another Committee!!
For those who have been following me and my parenting journey with a six, almost seven (as she says) year old, you know I’m deeply involved. Near the top of 4 committees and now add on another one.
I get to go through the ordering of books for the school.
Not a joke.
I’ve got a spread sheet of all the books to be ordered for the school this new year and am going through them as someone who approves. As part of my duty I also will be battling people if they take umbridge with the books. Showed the list to my wife, a teacher, and she said all good, which made my job a little easier. However, if I get push back from another person on this committee, I have already looked at the books and I’d love to tangle.
“You got a problem with books about penguins and Patrick Mahomes, that’s crazy!!”
That’s like 5 of the books on the list.
3rd Down: Styles Make Fights
This is something my guy George Whitfield says to me constantly; and he’s right. So let’s put this into practice with respect to the semifinals that we’re staring at this week between Penn State-Notre Dame and Texas-Ohio State.
Four teams but two styles.
Penn State and Notre Dame are gonna fight it out.
Ohio State and Texas are gonna air it out.
I will get more into it later this week when I mentally wrap my mind around is it better to play a similar team versus having divergent styles in a contest. We’ve seen Ohio State (regular season version) against Penn State but playoff version Ohio State is a different beast. Maybe they’d like to play a team that wants to score just 24 points in a game.
Penn State and Notre Dame are sitting there staring first to 24 in the face as a solution to winning. Ohio State and Texas are looking at each other like, “Shit, how can we get to 40 before them?”
Styles make fights and I’ve got a feeling Thursday and Friday are going to look very different. More later.
4th Down: Duke’s Mayo Bowl As A CLT Promo
Check the vid released from premium just for y’all. Even got lower thirds for all the guys in the video (your boy is learning).
So happy to have guys speak so glowingly of my city. Love it here. Glad they loved it too. Minnesota got the win over Virginia Tech but overall everyone wins when you get the Belk shopping spree, NASCAR ride along and some Bojangles!
I don’t know if I want you to come to my city, or not? However, it is nice to know that guys not from here enjoyed themselves.
BONUS 5th DOWN: FSC Championship Game
Watched this with my wife and shout out to North Dakota State finishing the drill after Montana State stormed back.
If you think I don’t love ball, catch your boy on a Monday night watching the title game too few folks discussed.
Great play calls all around. Guys being dudes. I’d have taken the chance at the safety to end because if they block that punt or return it you can still not be in charge of things. It worked, shout out to North Dakota state.
Also lead to a great conversation with my wife about names on back of jerseys, washing your own jersey in high school and fighting (none of which had to do with the game).
Cheers!!!
Your wife got you on the Christmas Card. I'm sorry but it's a single elimination mindset here and now you have to dress in matching or complementing outfits for 20 minutes, every year, to get this picture.