The Daily Dose/November 29, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
HUT, HUT, HIKE: Now is about the time we start to take a serious look at the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings. The top four teams get an invite to the tournament, which is run by the schools that play major division football and not the NCAA. As usual, it’s our hope the process will be such a fiasco it makes a better argument for an NCAA-sanctioned playoff than the ones we trot out every hour on the hour.
There’s a pretty good chance of that happening this year, too, and the scenario is rather simple: Utah (Pac-12), Georgia (SEC) and Minnesota (Big Ten) winning conference titles will make our point for us:
Crystal Ball Me: If this happens three teams are definitely in: Clemson, Georgia and Minnesota. Clemson is in because you cannot leave out an undefeated defending national champion. Minnesota will let the selection committee hold their Big Ten championship trophy and review their box scores from wins over Penn State, Wisconsin and Ohio State while they are booking their reservations for the Fiesta Bowl. Georgia is in because good luck keeping the SEC champion out.
This leaves Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, the Big 12 champion and Utah battling for the final spot: LSU beat Alabama so goodbye Crimson Tide. The selection committee has not been impressed by the Big 12 lately, so they’re out. Utah, not bad and all that, but your conference is weak and you didn’t beat anybody really good. Enjoy your Rose Bowl experience, a fine way to end a fine season.
This leaves Ohio State and LSU battling for the final spot. Well, since Ohio State leaped LSU for #1 in this week’s CFP poll, the safe money is on the Buckeyes, giving us a foursome of Clemson, Minnesota, Georgia and Ohio State. Four teams picked from a half-dozen or so fine teams, all of whom would be worthy challengers for the national title.
Let’s Open The Manhole Cover, Shall We?: Contrast this with what is going in the FCS and Divisions II and III, all of whom are getting ready to start or have started real, live football playoffs. We are not making that up! Every argument the big schools trot out against a playoff is blown out of the water by the fact the NCAA conducts football championships in three divisions!
Especially noteworthy is the Division III tournament, where non-scholarship kids juggle football around real classes and scamming coeds. The two teams that make the Amos Alonzo-Staff Bowl – the D-III national championship game – end up playing 15 games, a season-and-a-half.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: The 32-team 2019 NCAA Division I football tournament could have begun this weekend and end on New Year’s Day. Don’t even start. We’re being force-fed this tripe because we are putting up with it.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Happy Thanksgiving from the Sparrows. Today’s Diary.
It was one hell of a holiday meal…The Wife was glad she didn’t have to slave too long in the kitchen over a more traditional meal and we’d both rather have a steak than turkey, anyway…The big news is we were so efficient it was all over before noon…I am not making that up…Well before noon, actually because from the time I woke The Wife up to the final dishes being washed, the whole evolution took less than two hours.
Afterward, we cleaned a little bit…I did some vacuuming – which regular readers of this crap know is my only real cleaning talent – and The Wife fussed around clearing space for me and folding towels…The Wife called this our family activity because back in Sin City it was customary to do something active after the meal and my fave activity remains when we played kickball at the school across the street…Some neighborhood kids joined us and The Wife found herself in a good-natured argument with one of them about some rule, tho I forget what the specific argument was about…I told her there was little profit in arguing kickball rules with an eight-yard-old and she eventually saw my point.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1549 – What History refers to as the Papal Conclave of 1549-50 begins in a chapel in the Apostolic Palace in what is now Vatican City. Balloting to replace Pope Paul III began on Dec. 7 and did not conclude until Julius III was elected on the 61st ballot on Feb. 7. Julius had little interest in political or ecclesiastical affairs and is known for spending his time enjoying the trappings of being pope and living a life of leisure. The conclave is remembered for having 51 cardinals, the largest conclave to date, though through death and illness only 44 cardinals ended up casting final ballots.
In 1890 – The first Army/Navy football game is played at The Plain in West Point with Navy winning 24-0. It was the first game in Army football history, though Navy first played in 1879. For the game the entire Army student body had chipped in 52 cents each – about $15 in today’s money – to subsidize Navy’s travel expenses. Since then the teams have met annually except for ten years, including 1928-29, when the schools bickered over player eligibility. Navy leads the series 60-52-7 and the teams will meet for the 120th time on Dec. 14 in Philadelphia.
In 1975 – Silver Convention is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of three consecutive weeks with Fly, Robin, Fly. It was the first of two chart singles for the group and remains their only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Canada, went to #3 in the group’s native Germany and peaked at #28 in Great Britain. Earlier, the song had spent one week at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart and three weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Disco chart. Silver Convention was the first German act to top the Hot 100 and the song won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.
Quotebook
“Why are you doing this?”
“I want to.”
“Is that all?”
“I should think that that was everything.” – Gore Vidal, Empire
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
North to Alaska by Johnny Horton was the song that replaced Wings of a Dove by Ferlin Husky during its ten non-consecutive weeks stay at #1 on Billboard’s country chart in 1961.
Today’s Stumper
Which stadium that is still standing has hosted the Army/Navy game the most times? – Answer next time!
