The Daily Dose/January 9, 2024
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
HUT, HUT, HIKE: College football ended Monday night, with Michigan handily defeating Washington 34-13 to win the College Football Playoff (CFP). The system came under deserved criticism, but it’s hard to argue the two best teams made the title game.
By The By: Next year the CFP evolves into a 12-team tournament, when it’s expected the screwing of the 13th-ranked team won’t be as loud. Those keeping score at home will note this means eight fewer teams for the already diluted and increasingly meaningless bowl games. How meaningless? Several dozen players, including 25 Florida State Seminoles, deemed their bowl game to be so important they chose not to play in it. This made meaningless exhibition games even more meaningless exhibition games featuring no small number of second-string players.
Dry Technical Matter: While doing its duty and making everyone money, the bowl season could use some help and we have some ideas.
Leading Off: First, play the national championship game on New Year’s Day because there is no reason for college football season to last later than either January 1 or Monday, January 2. This would go a long way to making their constant money grabs – like UCLA and Rutgers now being a conference game – more palatable.
Listen Up: And please, cut the number of bowls to 25. To start, get rid of cold-weather bowls and all bowls played in baseball stadiums. Then any bowl this season that featured two 6-6 teams can muster out. And while we can’t make players play, we can pay them for suiting up and the NCAA can forbid transfers until after the season is over.
The Bottom Line: College football is in a box because everyone concerned – players, coaches, conferences, schools, networks – are in this solely to make as much money as possible. There is no common purpose, except to strafe the marketplace for as much money as they can. Ending the season on New Year’s Day and revamping the remaining bowls will go a long way to changing bowl season from interminable to somewhat tolerable.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow’s back in the lottery racket. Today’s Diary.
Our two-week run playing the lucky numbers yielded us $13 in winnings and we combined that with some loose cash to play today…
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1909 – Edward Shackelton, leading an expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (about 111 statute miles) away from the pole, the farthest south yet attained by humans. The expedition was not well-financed and was obliged to turn around, with man not reaching the South Pole until 1911 when an expedition led by Norwegian Roald Amundsen reached it.
In 1977 – Roscoe Tanner of the US wins the Australian Open, defeating Guillermo Vilas of Argentina 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. It remains the only Grand Slam title for Tanner, who also reached the finals of Wimbledon in 1979, where he lost to Bjorn Borg. It remains the only loss in a Grand Slam final for Vilas, who would win the next two Australian Opens, as well as French and US open tiles later in the year. It was the first Australian Open men’s singles final since 1912 not to feature an Australian player.
In 1993 – Whitney Houston is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for seventh of a Hot 100 record 14 consecutive weeks with I Will Always Love You. The song went to #1 in 20 other countries, including Panama, Norway, and Great Britain, was in its sixth of eleven consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart, and was Billboard’s #1 song of the year and its 7th-biggest of the decade. It was the tenth of 13 #1 songs for Houston. The song broke the record of 13 consecutive weeks established by End of the Road by Bouz II Men in 1992 and the record is now 19 weeks by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus with Old Town Road in 2019.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
Clarity and stillness set everything right.
Lao Tzu
The Tao Te Ching, #45
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Knowledge is power.
Jimmy Carter was the last president to provide a written State of the Union message to Congress, doing so in 1981. At 33,667 words, it remains the longest in history.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
Who coined the term Antarctica? – Answer next time!
