New Year’s and Ole Miss Rebels

First, I want to wish my readers a wonderful 2009. Thanks for reading and commenting. My 18 month old blog sits at 130,000 hits. I’ll keep typing as long as you keep reading.

My wife and I celebrated New Year’s at a party in downtown Dallas last night. Like most revelers we booked a room downtown and took cabs to avoid driving. The priceline hotel gods put us in the Hyatt Regency. Unbeknownst to me was the fact that the Ole Miss Rebel football team was also staying there. Finally, I was sporting my red Texas Tech hoody sweatshirt (red hooded sweeeeaaatshirt).

The Cotton Bowl had made TT/UM into forced rivals for the next few days. So much so, that I was viewed with immediate suspicion by the Rebel fans, boosters, players, and cheerleaders. Even the Mississippi highway patrol looked concerned at my presence. I was being collegiality profiled.

The Rebels I met were incredibly polite and courteous. At the end of conversation we struggled around saying “good luck” to each other. “Have fun at the game” seemed a more appropriate closing statement.

Finally, I’m confident Tech is going to win tomorrow. Teams that don’t play Tech often can have a hard time with the spread offense, and our wide split linemen. I would be more confident if Tech hadn’t laid an egg against OU and then played in a daze against Baylor. With Tech’s bowl/comeback history I’ll feel good if we are within 21 at halftime.

Update: Tech fail. $h&! We lost. What an awful game. The Rebels go down 14-0 and then score 24 unanswered. It looks the Big 12 isn’t quite the defensive juggernaut. The month off also hurt our offensive timing. I would be more upset if the UM fans hadn’t been so nice and this hadn’t been such a good year for Tech. Hotty Toddy indeed.

Let me join the ubiquitous chorus calling for a college football playoff system. It’s bad enough we screw the players by not paying them for what is essentially minor league football. We also screw the fans by not giving them a real national title, or even a decent competition for the national title.

The Utes and Rebels should still be playing for something. I can design a better playoff system in about 2 minutes. Go!

Ok. Let’s have a 12 team playoff, top 4 get a bye, hold the games at current BCS bowl sites for tradition, let in 8 conference champs and 4 wild cards. Teams that don’t make the tournament can still play in bowl games across the country. Problem solved.