Jones Week without football
The necessary choke between
I need to document my feelings about this new phenominon we are undergoing in college football. First of all, I dub this week Jones Week after the habit of being hooked on something and then can’t have it for one reason or another.
I mean what are we looking at this week in college football? The Army/Navy game. It’s like the heavens opened and cleared away all other games so this day, this one Saturday in mid-December there would be no football, except this one. So let the sun shine down on the playground where Midshipmen meet Golden Knights and we who’ve been fed college football games from Tuesday through Saturday all this season have all this want to see and all this so little to look at. Jones Week, when I jones for more football on TV.
That said, I’ll bet there’s more than one game this weekend on my Fubo feed. Pause…I was wrong. There is a multitude of four with two at noon, the Army/Navy game at 3 and for the late night football junkie it’s Idaho at Montana State.
Looking at the schedule, am I not justified in feeling contracted and in need of some overly promoted college football entertainment?
This week was planned. This withholding of product is intended to draw a line between the season and the bowl games. I see that. And if it wasn’t for still living in the unexpected glow of victory over Ohio State, I’d be bummed out.. As I recall, I came to the game with a feeling of already having lost. Then by half time I had all the victory I needed. Michigan could have been shredded in the second half and I would have still felt good about the first half.
Then the real second half came around and it was like somebody had rendered the Ohio State receivers armless. They certainly made them useless. Joel Klatt pointed out examples of it throughout the game and regularly afterwards. They weren’t using their greatest weapon and it was looking obvious. The OSU air attack is what I’m talking about.
The implication, someone on the coaching staff screwed up, big time. I put two and two together and came up with Chip Kelly, Ohio State’s offensive coordinator. I wonder with all this public attention whether Chip might be shipped somewhere across the Olentangy.
On the strength of that and with just a dash of audience draw, the powers that be have determined Michigan is to play Alabama. Alabama was the last one out of the 12 who will compete for the title whose name I cannot recall. Michigan did not finish in the top 25. And yet there’s an optimism in me that come December 31st the Wolverines will put up a good fight. And if their quarterback Davis Warren has anything of star quality about him, now would be the time to show it.
I don’t know how it will be to root, root, root for my own team in these playoffs. My team won’t be in. But being a Hoosier by the fact of longevity, I am rooting for Indiana in the intrastate battle with Notre Dame next week. Actually one week from today, Friday, Dec. 20 at 8 pm aka Prime Time! Hoosiers over Our Lady as football capital, who’d a thunk it?
Notre Dame is ranked #5 which seems suspect, but until Notre Dame is made to join an extant football conference, all their actions are suspect. I personally suspect them of being Michiganders. If you don’t believe me, check out the cars in the parking lots of the cannabis purveyors (several) in nearby Niles about 20 miles north of campus.
Indiana is ranked #8 and will have the dynamo personality of their head coach Curt Cignetti reminding them of who they are and what they can do.. It will be all business on the bus ride from Bloomington to South Bend, but should they win it will be Santa’s sleigh ride home for the Hoosiers.