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CFP National Championship 2021 Post Mortem: Great, Good, Decent

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Introduction

Only a week late on this CFP National Championship 2021 post mortem article. You might say that means we’re getting back on track. While I won’t argue with you, I urge caution. I still need to start the gaming content for the new year. I took those weeks off to do comics and then college football and the NFL. I still have to write this article. Then, I will do the divisional round post mortem tomorrow. After that, I need to figure out my schedule for the rest of the month.

I bought some horror adventures to play D&D with the family. Also, I have been playing a ton of Minecraft. Both are games.

As mentioned in the caption above, I have a couple of games to get me through January. So, after this CFP National Championship post mortem and tomorrow’s divisional round post mortem, I will prepare some content for Minecraft, Dungeons and Dragons, and Mortal Kombat 11. In addition to the Aftermath story, I want to show off my new PC Minecraft world. The family actually gave me a chance to play D&D the other day. We played Clue two days in a row. Not really in the mood to play the second night, they asked me what I’d rather play. For a second, I considered mentioning D&D. Instead, I caved and we played Clue. Oh well, there will be other opportunities. Okay, apologies to those of you who are here for the college football. Let’s get on to the CFP National Championship 2021 post mortem.

Note: I will go through the preview article point by point and give my response to each of them.

The Great

Evil Empire is Back: Though I found myself actually rooting for Alabama (which, coincidentally, I think I mentioned might happen), they are absolutely the Evil Empire of college football again. Craig, who hasn’t responded to my apology for blowing off his invitation to join him for the game, texted me something about college football resembling women’s college basketball where only two teams can win. I think he’s right. The committee proved that the year that Alabama lost 2 games and still made it into the playoffs over other teams. Oh, they did lose Sarkisian. What? They’re replacing him with Bill O’Brien? Man, eff Bama.

Justin Fields: Fate chose him as the Bama slayer this year. He looked to be super human against Clemson when he took an absolute shot that left me horrified and wondering again why I watch this brutal display, especially with kids who aren’t even getting paid. Then, he kept the Buckeyes in the game for the first quarter before the Evil Empire unleashed the Death Star in the form of DeVonta Smith. Valiant effort, young man. I hope you heal so we can see what you do in the NFL.

The Good

Covid Bowl: At the beginning of the game, I kept my promise to root for chaos. I hoped for a national champion with less than 10 wins. As mentioned above, DeVonta Smith ensured that wouldn’t happen. Faced with the futility of this particular wish, I accepted our reality and ended up cheering for the Evil Empire to just end it all and blow us all up.

No Fans: Reading the preview article, it surprised me how much I said about this topic. I guess I said it all, though, because I have no follow up for this article. I barely even noticed the lack of fans at the game.

The Decent

No Halftime Show: I thought I might miss the halftime show. I actually enjoyed a few of the CFP halftime shows. Maybe not more than the NFL as they have finally figured out their demographic for the halftime show and lean into it. As you probably figured out, I actually did not miss the halftime show. I barely even noticed the lack of a show. Instead, I enjoyed my extra time with Herbstreit, Fowler, and Des.

More of the same: I just want it known that I nailed this one. OSU played good ball for a quarter (I think I said they might be competitive for the first half) before Alabama’s talent took over and they blew the Buckeyes off the field.

The Verdict

Thanks for reading my CFP National Championship 2021 post mortem. Especially those of you who come here for gaming content. I promise it is coming soon. Just give me one more sports article tomorrow. Then, after that we will resume gaming content for the month until the weekend and the conference championship games. As far as this game, it went exactly as I expected. Even so, I enjoyed watching and I look forward to the draft and next year’s college season. Maybe Covid will be more under control by then.

Snap *censored* Pop Culture

CFP National Championship 2021: Great, Good, Decent

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Introduction

Okay, let’s do this. Bama/Clemson for the CFP National Championship 2021 for the third (fourth? fifth? I’ve lost count) time in a row. Wait, what’s that you say? It’s not? Color me truly surprised. I honestly thought part of living in this hell was the torture of the same CFP final game for the rest of eternity.

I don’t know how the Buckeyes broke the curse, but I’m thankful they did.

As a casual fan of college football, I willingly accepted the Alabama/Nick Saban “evil empire” story. I hated the team. That was all BT (Before Tua). I legitimately jumped out of my seat on the couch and cheered Tua’s debut in the National Championship game that year. I bought his story hook, line, and sinker. Before he left for the NFL, he was my college football man crush. Unfortunately, he has a lot of competition in the pros, so while I still like him, he needs to get in line. And, get a lot better to even come close to Mahomes.

I cheered for Alabama last year mostly to spite my friend Craig. We’re both kind of a-holes and we do that kind of stuff on a regular basis. In fact, I planned on going over to his house at some point during bowl season (and then again tonight) to watch some college football. He is a much more devoted fan than me and it can be fun to watch games with him in spite of the fact that we do things out of spite towards one another. I decided against going over. I could have just watched the first half, but it’s a late night for a school night. What, then, will I be watching in the CFP National Championship 2021 by myself?

The Great

That’s the same red as the royal troopers in Star Wars, isn’t it?

Evil Empire is back – With Tua gone to the NFL and his brother taking his talents to the Terrapins, I have no reason left to root for this team. I could take the counter culture route and cheer for Nick Saban and his douche bag act. Unlike Belichick, I actually find Saban to be somewhat charming. But, that means that I’d have to cast my lot with a team that had 3 out of the 5 finalists for the Heismann trophy. That goes against my very being as a sports fan.

Justin Fields – I heard the kid’s name through the season, but never saw him play until the semi finals against Clemson. He took a brutal hit and I thought for a minute that he might be dead. Nope, he only came back out to throw 6 TDs against one of the best teams in the history of college football. I’ll be interested to see what he can do against Alabama.

The Good

Covid Bowl – Regular readers of the page may know that I’m a fan of chaos, especially when that chaos is confined to the ultimately pointless arena of sports. Thanks to COVID, chaos has ruled this college football season. Several teams with losing records played and won bowl games. The two potential “spoilers” this year both put an end to any talk of them as actual contenders by taking a dump in their bowl games. Some of that chaos is present in this game. If Ohio State wins, they will have won a National Championship playing only 8 games, the fewest since the 40s. I think that’s what I heard. Bring that on.

No fans – I mean, there will be fans. But, it will be the COVID version of fans in the stands. In a stadium that holds over 65,000, there will be maybe a quarter of that actually in attendance. Some have lamented the fact that there are no fans in the stands. Honestly, other than the weird Zoom fans that the NBA had in the bubble, I haven’t noticed the crowd in any of these events. When they show the stands, it looks weird. Other than that, though, the fans are superfluous to the process.

The Decent

No Halftime Show? – This is how you know I’m an old guy. I mean, forget that most of my references are from Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and 80s and 90s SNL. Or, that my top ten games are all from the Super Nintendo or before. Maybe, also forget that I groan when I sit down, need to take an extra 10-15 minutes to get out of bed in the morning, and that my doctor mistakenly gave me a prostate exam before remarking, “Oh, you’re not 50 yet.” So, yeah, I guess I was pretty unhealthy a few years ago. No, the way that I know I’m an old guy is that I actually felt sad when I just searched an found out there would be no halftime show.

More of the same – I hope for a good game out of Ohio State. Who knows? Maybe Justin Fields can take them on his shoulders again for the win. It will be tough with his injury. So, I fear that eventually Alabama’s talent will take over and they’ll roll.

The Verdict

The CFP National Championship 2021 comes with quite a bit less fanfare than previous years. COVID has just made everything not as fun this year. I will still watch the game. And, I will try to enjoy it. But, I just have a feeling that I will tune out in disgust or boredom at halftime. Hopefully, by next year, things will be approaching pre-COVID normal.

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Completely Ignorant CFP Championship Preview

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Introduction

I am not as adverse to college football as to the NFL. While the NFL has become a predictable mess of “follow the leader” college is almost 40 worthless bowl games between teams that have almost nothing in common. College football is wearing blue and gold because you spent half a semester skipping classes at Pitt 25 years ago. College football is selling out a 100,000+ seat stadium for a game between two barely .500 teams in the middle of a December snow storm simply because it is rivalry week.

Sure, there are just as many concussions as in the NFL, the players aren’t compensated, and 90+% of them won’t see the money that the NFL promises, but let’s not talk too much about that. Instead, let’s revel for one last game, the national championship which features two schools that Google Maps tells me are less than 300 miles apart. That’s a bit like the World Series between two teams in the USA. Okay, enough snark.

As of that was even possible.

Alabama

Alabama is in the unfamiliar position of coming into this game as the lower ranked team. I doubt that necessarily makes them the underdog though. Sure, their road to this game was not as Alabama like as previous seasons. They only lost one game, their last one against Auburn. that was enough to keep them out of the SEC Championship and my friend wrongly hoped, the CFP. I played along with his silly delusion. Ultimately, I knew the voters would never keep Alabama out if they could help it.

And, sure enough, there they were at #4. This time it was my turn to suffer silly delusions. I thought that the injuries and inconsistencies might finally catch up to them and Clemson would roll the Tide. I forgot about the fact that Nick Saban had a month to prepare for this game. I wrote that the NFL is boring and college offers some entertainment. That’s only during the regular and toilet bowl seasons. Once you get to the playoffs, Bama is New England and every one else is fighting for runner up.

Eff the Pats.

What Does Alabama Bring to the Game?

So, of course, the Tide were the ones who rolled. They dominated Clemson in a way that only a Nick Saban led team can. Their defense smothered Clemson’s potentially dangerous offense and they did just enough themselves on offense not to sabotage the clear victory. Alabama is in the title game for the 3rd straight time and 6th overall. The BCS championship game has only been in existence for 11 years. Ugh.

While last year’s team offered 8 All Americans, only 3 Crimson Tide players were named this year. Even so, they found a way to scrape together a season in which they only lost one game, put together one of the most unpredictable blowouts of the semifinal round in recent history, and they’ve only lost 2 out of their last 40 games or something like that. Alabama is a machine. It’s just that this year they needed a bit more from the oil can.

Eff the Tide? Nah, just eff this guy.

Georgia

Alabama and Clemson have become such staples in the National Championship picture that I wrote Clemson up there and had to delete it to write Georgia. I have a Facebook friend that I met in World of Warcraft many years ago who is a Georgia alum. Unlike me, who barely remembers my time at UMass, that seems like a big deal to him. He’s always posting about the games, including pictures of his family attending and this year was no different. Since my childhood team of Pitt seems content to be an academic school with a mid-major mindset regarding athletics, it has been fun to live vicariously through him.

Georgia’s path to the big game seems to have gone more smoothly than Alabama’s. Admittedly, I hate watch Alabama weekly and only get my UGA news from that friend. Sure, I could do research, but I’ll leave that to the “experts”. Instead, I will stick with my gut feeling. Ah, hell, now I feel guilty. I looked up their schedule. It definitely looked like an easier road for Georgia.

What Does Georgia Bring to the Game?

Like Alabama, Georgia only lost one game against Auburn. Unlike Alabama, they got a chance for revenge in the SEC Championship. Like Alabama, I thought that Georgia would get beaten handily by Oklahoma. I got to look like a genius for about a half. Then, some crazy stuff happened, followed by some crazier stuff, and culminating in an insane comeback win for the Dawgs.

Georgia had two players named to the AP All American team. I only know the names of the running backs and that’s just because I learned them while glancing at the ESPN GameCenter every few minutes in their game against Oklahoma. In my “research” of glancing at their schedule for a minute or two, I saw a lot of high point spreads for many of the games. They might be playing the scrappy underdog to Alabama’s juggernaut. But, they are no slouch of a team.

Is that Jake from State Farm?

The Pick

I lamented last year that it seemed like a year for evil to win. After heartwarming stories in the NHL, NBA, and MLB, there was the election and later the Patriots (they were still a month away, but virtually inevitable). I figured that Alabama would just ride that wave to a repeat win. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Clemson gave us a new hope.

Continuing with the obvious metaphor, that makes this the year that The Empire Strikes Back and an Alabama win. Honestly, though, independent of last week’s results, I might have been persuaded to pick Georgia and prolong the Alabama miser one more year. However, after “watching” last week’s games, I just think that even in this down year, Alabama is still the team to beat. Georgia doesn’t look like the team to be able to do it. In addition, similar to Bill Belichick, no former Nick Saban assistant has returned to beat “the man”.

And, to be the man…