1. I don't know about the rest of you, but I needed a few days that coincided with the Christmas holidays. After battling a back injury, a 24-hour cold (which seemed to include non-stop vomiting) and the pressure of those final days before Santa makes his visit, including all of the travel and tap-dancing for family that takes place ... I just needed a day (or three) to simply re-charge.
Well, I'm back to feeling normal and it couldn't happen at a better time because the college football bowl slate resumes today with an actual Big 12 team playing in one of them. Oh, and in six days there's a little matter to resolve in the Big Easy.
Texas vs. Georgia. It is getting closer and closer and I cannot wait.
So, let's do this damn thing.
2. "I'm not sure Georgia cares."
That was the response from a buddy of mine working in television in the Atlanta-market me this weekend when I quizzed him about the vibe around the UGA program heading into the game.
"Maybe they'll show up and take out a bunch of frustration on Texas, but this game is a massive letdown for everyone around here. (The coaches and players are) saying the right things with the cameras on, but there's a sense that this isn't what they played all season for. No offense to Texas, but these guys were 15 from minutes achieving a goal that they've had their minds set on for almost a full season, and it wasn't playing Texas."
(For the record, that last sentence was said with quite a bit of sarcasm.)
My friend then asked me how the game was playing down in Austin.
"Well, everyone I know was calling me for ticket hook-ups," I told him. "My mother-in-law not only wanted tickets, she wanted good tickets. This is a pretty big game for the Longhorns."
After a brief pause in the conversation, my friend joked, "Well, if enthusiasm can tackle and block, Texas will win the game. If it's about the Jimmys and the Joes, I still like Georgia by 10."
"Fair enough," I replied.
3. As a follow up to the conversation from this weekend, contrary to what my media friend might believe, I think "want-to" in a bowl game matters a lot and I feel like I've seen too many examples of really good teams not giving a **** and paying the price for it in the actual game.
I'm reminded of these words from the great Texas poet George Harvey Strait Jr:
"You can't make a heart love somebody,
You can tell it what to do
But it won't listen at all
You can't make a heart love somebody
You can lead a heart to love
But you can't make it fall."
You can't make a college football team want to give it all in a bowl game and if one of the advantages that Texas has in this game is "want-to," I'd suggest it's not a bad advantage to have.
4. This might officially be an SEC/Big 12 match-up, but I'm fully expecting an exciting Big 12-style match to take place. I'm expecting both teams to score in the 30s and it if you're asking me for a point total that it will take to win the game, I might go with 38.
Basically, I love the over.
5. If the Longhorns find a way to win this game in six days and Sam Ehlinger outplays Jake Fromm in the process, the pre-season hype for Ehlinger and the 2019 Longhorns will be significant for the next nine months. I'm talking a pre-season top-five ranking and headliner status for Ehlinger everywhere he goes moving forward. Outside of Alabama/Oklahoma, there's just not a juicier quarterback match-up in any of the bowl games this season. It's a marker moment in the career for Ehlinger.
6. With all of the talk recently of the "transfer portal," which was created to help student-athletes in a search to find better answers in the event of a transfer, I couldn't help but to think about the loser in all of this ... the kid who doesn't transfer.
My guess is that almost every major college football program in the country has roughly 20-25 percent of its players thinking about possible transfers at all times. It's just part of the deal that comes with the sport. However, most kids that kick the idea around can do so without a lot of pressure being forced upon them because the public never really hears about it. Well, all of the privacy goes out the window the moment a name goes into the transfer portal because we're teaching ourselves that it's something that we need to be watching at all times now.
I can't help but wonder if this is going to create more unintentional problems than it intended when it was created. How many kids will actually pull back once they put their names in? It'll be fascinating to see it all unfold in year one and it'll be even more interesting to see if the NCAA tries to make it a more private matter for the players moving forward. Can you even keep something like that private?
You guys know me, I'm all for players having more rights and options, but this transfer portal sounds like the kind of thing that is simply going to take its pound of flesh, one way or the other.
7. For those wondering, here's how the NCAA says the process is supposed to work:
"The Division I Council adopted a proposal this week that creates a new “notification-of-transfer” model. This new system allows a student to inform his or her current school of a desire to transfer, then requires that school to enter the student’s name into a national transfer database within two business days. Once the student-athlete’s name is in the database, other coaches are free to contact that individual."
8. Biggest Christmas party foul of the year I experienced? Someone at a family event yesterday asked if I would turn the TV from The Christmas Story to the second quarter of the Thunder/Rockets game.
Well, I'm back to feeling normal and it couldn't happen at a better time because the college football bowl slate resumes today with an actual Big 12 team playing in one of them. Oh, and in six days there's a little matter to resolve in the Big Easy.
Texas vs. Georgia. It is getting closer and closer and I cannot wait.
So, let's do this damn thing.
2. "I'm not sure Georgia cares."
That was the response from a buddy of mine working in television in the Atlanta-market me this weekend when I quizzed him about the vibe around the UGA program heading into the game.
"Maybe they'll show up and take out a bunch of frustration on Texas, but this game is a massive letdown for everyone around here. (The coaches and players are) saying the right things with the cameras on, but there's a sense that this isn't what they played all season for. No offense to Texas, but these guys were 15 from minutes achieving a goal that they've had their minds set on for almost a full season, and it wasn't playing Texas."
(For the record, that last sentence was said with quite a bit of sarcasm.)
My friend then asked me how the game was playing down in Austin.
"Well, everyone I know was calling me for ticket hook-ups," I told him. "My mother-in-law not only wanted tickets, she wanted good tickets. This is a pretty big game for the Longhorns."
After a brief pause in the conversation, my friend joked, "Well, if enthusiasm can tackle and block, Texas will win the game. If it's about the Jimmys and the Joes, I still like Georgia by 10."
"Fair enough," I replied.
3. As a follow up to the conversation from this weekend, contrary to what my media friend might believe, I think "want-to" in a bowl game matters a lot and I feel like I've seen too many examples of really good teams not giving a **** and paying the price for it in the actual game.
I'm reminded of these words from the great Texas poet George Harvey Strait Jr:
"You can't make a heart love somebody,
You can tell it what to do
But it won't listen at all
You can't make a heart love somebody
You can lead a heart to love
But you can't make it fall."
You can't make a college football team want to give it all in a bowl game and if one of the advantages that Texas has in this game is "want-to," I'd suggest it's not a bad advantage to have.
4. This might officially be an SEC/Big 12 match-up, but I'm fully expecting an exciting Big 12-style match to take place. I'm expecting both teams to score in the 30s and it if you're asking me for a point total that it will take to win the game, I might go with 38.
Basically, I love the over.
5. If the Longhorns find a way to win this game in six days and Sam Ehlinger outplays Jake Fromm in the process, the pre-season hype for Ehlinger and the 2019 Longhorns will be significant for the next nine months. I'm talking a pre-season top-five ranking and headliner status for Ehlinger everywhere he goes moving forward. Outside of Alabama/Oklahoma, there's just not a juicier quarterback match-up in any of the bowl games this season. It's a marker moment in the career for Ehlinger.
6. With all of the talk recently of the "transfer portal," which was created to help student-athletes in a search to find better answers in the event of a transfer, I couldn't help but to think about the loser in all of this ... the kid who doesn't transfer.
My guess is that almost every major college football program in the country has roughly 20-25 percent of its players thinking about possible transfers at all times. It's just part of the deal that comes with the sport. However, most kids that kick the idea around can do so without a lot of pressure being forced upon them because the public never really hears about it. Well, all of the privacy goes out the window the moment a name goes into the transfer portal because we're teaching ourselves that it's something that we need to be watching at all times now.
I can't help but wonder if this is going to create more unintentional problems than it intended when it was created. How many kids will actually pull back once they put their names in? It'll be fascinating to see it all unfold in year one and it'll be even more interesting to see if the NCAA tries to make it a more private matter for the players moving forward. Can you even keep something like that private?
You guys know me, I'm all for players having more rights and options, but this transfer portal sounds like the kind of thing that is simply going to take its pound of flesh, one way or the other.
7. For those wondering, here's how the NCAA says the process is supposed to work:
"The Division I Council adopted a proposal this week that creates a new “notification-of-transfer” model. This new system allows a student to inform his or her current school of a desire to transfer, then requires that school to enter the student’s name into a national transfer database within two business days. Once the student-athlete’s name is in the database, other coaches are free to contact that individual."
8. Biggest Christmas party foul of the year I experienced? Someone at a family event yesterday asked if I would turn the TV from The Christmas Story to the second quarter of the Thunder/Rockets game.
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