No, not just that the SEC emerged as champ once again. Although that is fitting. And it does make four in a row. But that’s not what I mean. Instead, this has been a weird college football season, and I guess it’s fitting that it ends with a weird championship game.
Weirdness:
* The Colt McCoy injury was unfortunate, but you know, when you build your entire offense around a running quarterback, you might want to have a Plan B just in case; even a mountainous QB like Tebow suffered a concussion this year. Seemed like his getting injured was a completely unforeseen possibility.
* Mack Brown is a terrific coach, but his timeout at the end of the first half was a blunder of such proportion that it could have ended up being the difference in the game. Wasn’t, but could’ve been.
* Nick Saban emerged as some sort of football coaching genius what with his two BCS championships with two different teams, yet he made several boneheaded calls, mostly clustered at the first of the game (coin flip, fake punt, and the crazy offensive strategy for the first two possessions of the game). Once he figured out to just hand the ball off and play defense, things generally went well. How many times will that strategy win you a BCS Championship anymore?
In the end, all you could hang your hat on were a couple of old, old football truths: (1) defense wins championships; and (2) establish the running game.
But the whole season was weird. I use the word “down” to describe the season, though some would disagree. I guess it depends on your perspective. Consider the facts:
* At the end of the season, there was a real debate about who among Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State had the strongest schedule. Sheesh.
* The Big 12, by default, was the Big 1. Former powerhouses Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska all happened to be down in the same season.
* The SEC was similar: teams formerly inspiring fear such as Tennessee, Georgia, Auburn, and LSU were nowhere to be found. Florida was dominant in the East even though they weren’t nearly as good as last year. And Alabama won the national championship from the West without a passing game.
Oh well. Weird year. Weird championship game. But it’s still my favorite sport.
And I hope Head Hog Coach Petrino was watching closely and noticed what makes the SEC the best conference in America: DEFENSE! Go get us some defensive studs, Coach!!!
Minutes to Memories 