The Sports Thinker

         (Deming Community College's famous Jose Snedeker Memorial Stadium, home of the Desert Southwest Arid Bowl) For reasons unknown to me at this time, I did not create a Fictional Bowl Week last year, so this will be the first one since 2021.  The good news, looking back, is that being in this poll is not a permanent death sentence to your program. Twelve of the 2021 B25 "bowl" teams are playing in a real bowl just two seasons later, which is nearly half of the group. Let us take a moment to congratulate Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern, Northwestern, Kansas, Duke, Tulane, Ohio, New Mexico State (Jerry Kill can flat coach!!!), Arizona, the University of South (really West!) Florida, UNLV and Arkansas State on their success this year! And especially Arizona , who went from football nowhere-ism 2 years ago to being ranked #14 in all three major polls at the end of this season. The Capital None Fictional Bowl Week This year’s Lower Alabama Pest Control A...

Like almost everyone on earth (or at least in the United States), I had a somewhat instantaneously negative reaction to Florida State being left out of the 4 team College Football FBS level Playoff. The reasoning behind Alabama being in and FSU out was that the committee believed that an undefeated 'Noles team with an injured starting QB would be a lesser opponent for Michigan than an Alabama team that just beat undefeated Georgia and has won 11 games straight.  My knee-jerk reaction to that was that the problem resided in the fact that Michigan was ranked #1 and simply couldn't be left out because of that ranking even though of the four teams in, they were likely the weakest team. And I do believe that FSU would have been as much of a test as Alabama and could likely have beaten Michigan, as well. The other problem was that Alabama beat Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Had Georgia won, it would have been a simple sweep of the four undefeated Power 5 teams in the playoff. ...