The quarterfinals were fun and by now everyone recognizes teams having a “bye-week” was not an advantage. Like thinking not eating cake for a week makes one healthy….
Hats off to North Dakota State Bisons for winning the FCS Championship this week! Love their fight yell “On You Bison, Fight You Bison, Stampede and win this game!”…… And they did win over a very good Montana State team!
Pigskin Prognostication Accountability Padre 91-50 ZT 88 – 48
Progress was made but time is running out for ZT. ZT noted the Padre is 64.539% while ZT is 64.706%…maybe something for the “committee” to decide noting what a fine job they have done on the CFP??? ( Really ZT? You are worse than a political pundit trying to “make up a win”….go back to the Waffle House man! )
Padre leads on Wins so he kicks it off and he is in a great mental state after watching his Gators destroy the #1 Vols in hoops on Tuesday night ( for those that don’t know, the SEC is now a Basketball Conference ).
The Playoffs have been….well, how do I put this? – A massive disappointment. I ranted about this last week, so I will leave it at that this week. Ironically, the game that nobody thought was going to be a good game was a great game! I started watching Texas vs. Arizona State thinking that the Arizona State RB was an absurd braggart. However, I ended that game tipping my cap to the dude’s amazing heart. My gosh. He broke tackles like his life depended on it. My caveman side came out during the game – as I found myself giving him air fist-bumps or hand signal props like he was right beside me in my basement. Also, while I do not think that should be called targeting, I also think that it is called targeting in almost every single game. So, I hate that it is usually called targeting (looks like clean tackle to me), and I hate that suddenly the rules change in the quarterfinals. But this is college football, so we must come have controversy – right?
The Bowls have been okay, but to show you how much energy I have put into them, I thought Ole Miss was in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl….and last week I wrote that Kiffin needed to take the Mayo shower. I would apologize for my seemingly inexcusable oversight, but let’s be honest – it’s not that inexcusable. Nobody cares about the bowl games anymore. Unless it is your team playing (and some fanbases don’t even care about that), the bowl games are in peril. So, Lane – the mayo bath is still an option! Duke’s is a more “natural mayo”, so you can call it “organic”. 😊
Now to the games….
Notre Dame vs. Penn State: Notre Dame beat Georgia. Texas is the only SEC team left – and they are “new SEC”, so most people are not counting it. Therefore, the online trolls are having a field day about the “overrated SEC”. And honestly? Yeah, my conference is overrated. The bully has been hit in the face. And like Drago in Rocky IV, we see that we bleed – we are not a machine. And here is the thing – so what? While many SEC fans pull for the conference to do well, I can assure the Ohio State, Michigan, Penn St, Notre Dame, Clemson, etc., etc., fanbases that every SEC fan cares about their own team before anything else! It’s not like we are a McDonald’s franchise that goes around wearing the SEC logo on all our clothes. Some of my SEC friends pulled for Georgia – but I didn’t! I couldn’t care less about their membership in my conference. I was a full-blown leprechaun last week. And guess what? I’ll be a leprechaun on Thursday night as well! Why? Because their coach is awesome, and Penn State’s uniforms are too boring to be featured in a national championship game (and I don’t like busy unis – but their unis are like eating a salad without any dressing or croutons). With that said, I think Penn St is a little better. These two historic programs give their all on Thursday night, but Franklin’s boys pull out the victory. The Nittany Lions win 23-20.
Ohio St. vs Texas: It’s Lamborghinis vs. Lamborghinis with horns on the hood. These two teams are the best teams that money can buy! Whenever NIL became a thing, I think most of us fans thought, “Ohio St. and Texas”. This is about as much of a surprise as Donald Trump wanting to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Sometimes when things happen, we just shrug our shoulders and go, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Welp, this game is one of those things. Ohio State and Texas in the semifinals. Who could have predicted that? – Answer? Everybody. Even the 1990s 1-900 Psychic saw this coming. Anyway, Ohio State evidently paid more for their roster, and I think that is going to show up on Friday night. Texas will hang tough for a while, but Ohio State will eventually pull away in the mid to late 4th. I say the Buckeyes make it to the championship by a score of 30-20.
Some will say I am being a hater with my comments about buying a roster. And my response to that accusation? – Yep! Spot-on! I am all drunk on Haterade. And if I am correct on my championship game prediction, we will all have to hear about the mighty Big Ten. I know I am a pastor, but I may need to spike my Haterade to get through all of this.
Mighty Gasparilla Bowl Champion out.
ZT, in his normal #2 position, has been eating some candy from a neighbor who thoughtfully brought it to him for letting them borrow a drill and bits ( truth be known, ZT tries to give away tools like this, including his lawnmower, so he is not requested to use them in football season! ). Love the name of this company, Chocoboom and the Tortufel Halva are awesome! ZT feels this is more classy than eating than eating a Payday bar on a Friday with a PBR chaser.
ZT is ready to prognosticate and has the Padre in his sights!!!
Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs Penn State Nittany Lions 1/9 630pm
Fun Stat…..these 2 have played 19 times and the record? 9-9-1 ( if you are wondering who is leading the series, this blog is a perfect fit for you !) A team in the semifinals is good, period. ZT does note the “competition’ for Notre Dame was stronger, even with Dawg QB Carson Beck out, than Penn State. Again, get over it as they are in Miami because they are 2 of the best 4.
If you read this blog ( understand if you don’t want to admit that in public ), you know by now that ZT loves ND HC Marcus Freeman and what he has done to get the Fighting Irish to this game. ND took care of Georgia with a defense full of talent and disguised formations enough to keep Dawg QB Stockton off balance. PSU under HC James Franklin has a 4-19 record against Top 10 teams but did take care of Boise State last week in impressive fashion. Irish are banged up but this team is tougher than Tarzan’s feet. Challenge will be can the Irish offense get some traction against a very good Nittany Lion defense. There is just something about this N.D. Team and they keep finding a way to win. ZT also watched Rudy one more time, not to confirm that he was offsides on that last play because he was, but to be reminded that Notre Dame is back. Fighting Irish 23 Knitting Lions 21
Ohio State Buckeyes vs Texas Longhorns 1/10. 630pm
Longhorns have talent second to none. One issue with Coach Sark is Texas seems to find a way to make a game closer than it should be. ZT notes he has yelled “what are you doing?” at a TV more than once ( we don’t count cooking shows ZT! ) when the Longhorns are playing. They do have solid lines in the trenches on both sides of the ball and the Buckeyes are thin on the offensive line side so that battle will be a key factor. ZT notes since OSU lost to Michigan, they are hotter than a grease fire at a fish fry. Texas will be streaky and QB Ewers will have some success but Buckeyes and QB Howard will overcome a slower start and HC Day gets them to Atlanta for the Natty! Buckeyes 31 Shorthorns 24
ZT out to go order some more Chocoboom for the Natty on Monday Jan 20!
Pigskin Prognostications by the Piedmont Padre and Zimmern's Twin 