Tuesday Skull Session

By Nicholas Jervey on January 7, 2014 at 6:00 am
55 Comments

Greetings to all of you struggling through the bitter cold. Here's hoping you fare better through the polar vortex than the water mains of Columbus.

You thought the SEC championship streak was destined to go on forever, didn’t you? All things must pass; the streak is over, thanks to Florida State winning the national championship over Auburn in a thrilling 34-31 game.

Florida State may become college football's next tyrant, but at least it's not the oligarchy that has reigned since 2006. Finally, the proles have overcome Big Brother.

The Seminoles were a heavy favorite against Auburn, but that wasn't apparent in the first half. Auburn piled up a 21-3 lead on some novel playcalling and great passing by Nick Marshall. Florida State's defense started to shut down Auburn in the second half and the offense finally came to life, as Florida State closed within a point with ten minutes to play.

Following an Auburn field goal, Levonte Whitfield returned the kickoff 100 yards to give Florida State a 27-24 lead with only four minutes in the game, breaking Ted Ginn's record for longest return in a championship game and exorcizing that game's demons. Auburn marched right back down the field in time for Heisman finalist Tre Mason to run 37 yards to put Auburn back on top with 1:19 to go and set up Florida State's final possession.

With everything on the line, Heisman winner Jameis Winston was brilliant. Winston connected on 6 of 7 passes for 77 yards to drive Florida State into Auburn's red zone. Following a pass interference penalty in the end zone that conjured comparisons to the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, the Seminoles had a first and goal at the Auburn 2. Winston connected with Kelvin Benjamin for the winning score with only 13 seconds to go, forcing Auburn to pray for one more miracle that never happened.

This snaps a seven game national championship streak for the SEC going into 2014, and it comes just in time for the four team playoff era. Florida State will probably ride this to a top 10 recruiting class and another three million dollars for the payroll, because to beat the SEC you must be a bunch of cheating cheaters who cheat better than the rest of the cheaters in college football.

Now comes the College Football Playoff, which ESPN has begun to hype in understated fashion. For those who prefer the regular season to function as a playoff, that can also be arranged.

 FINAL POLLING. After the final game of the college football came the final AP Poll and USA Today Poll of the season, both of which made Florida State a unanimous No. 1. Auburn, Michigan State, South Carolina and Missouri round out the top five.

Ohio State finished the season No. 12 in the AP Poll and No. 10 in the Coaches, which can be seen as a disappointment after being the preseason No. 2. Clemson was one of the biggest risers, finishing No. 8/7, while Baylor fell the most after its Fiesta Bowl loss to No. 13. Wisconsin was the Big Ten's third and final ranked team at No. 22/21.

The punishment for desecrating a Block O is exile to Kirk Herbstreit's Nashville gulag.Never, ever make a hybrid logo for another team. Ever.

 MATTA THE HUMBLE. In the midst of the college football season coming to an end, tonight's top-5 tilt between Ohio State and Michigan State in East Lansing has been overlooked. This kind of marquee, underappreciated game has become common in Matta's tenure, yet it doesn't bother him.

Dana O’Neil is a fantastic writer at ESPN.com who excels at profiles. She accomplished a Herculean feat this weekend by setting up a one-on-one interview with Thad Matta, and came away with a story that reflects on Matta's modesty and humility.

The piece treads some familiar ground – Matta eschews Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – and covers his background, grinding from his first job at Indiana State to his time at Ohio State. Where a number of basketball coaches would have a chip on their shoulder over Ohio State being a football school, Matta is fine with it:

Matta could not care less about what others think about Ohio State. He knows the reality. The hoops Buckeyes might be second fiddle during football season, but they are not second-class.

Matta flies on a private plane, just like Meyer does. The team charters. The assistants are compensated well. There is a freshly renovated practice facility for the basketball team and, per Matta's request, the Schottenstein Center has been reconfigured. The deep-pocketed season-ticket holders were relocated three years ago from their courtside seats to make way for the students and give an otherwise bland entertainment center a basketball arena feel.

"We treat our players well," Matta said. "The environment we create, they're taken care of. That's what I care about. I care about our guys. It's not about me."

Matta also prefers not to go through the ESPN "car wash" that so many other coaches do to gain publicity for themselves and their program. He is widely seen as the most accomplished coach in the country without a title, meaning that until he wins a title like Bill Self or Jim Boeheim it will follow him for the rest of his career. Anyway, O'Neil's profile is an interesting read.

 STRONG'S BAD START. Though he was announced as Texas’s head coach on Sunday, Charlie Strong made his first press conference as Texas’s coach yesterday. He then showed his excitement by throwing some of the least enthusiastic hook ‘em horns ever seen:

Go. Longhorns. Woo. Hoo.

Some prominent boosters were disgruntled, with one saying Strong "would be a good position coach, maybe a coordinator." That makes the booster look horrible and maybe-kinda-racist, the second such incident associated with Strong's hiring. 

Aside from some gruff comments regarding media access, Strong praised Mack Brown for his stewardship and hit all the other right notes. Media interaction was awkward, with such gems as “How do you want us to address you?” and collar-tugging comments like this:

Strong is notably media averse, meaning that duties he found tiresome at Louisville could be aggravating at Texas. Mack Brown had to give up hours of his time a week to the Longhorn Network, and Strong has no desire to do the same. Either this signals a shift in the program's media presence or, as Pat Forde argues, Strong and Texas are not a compatible coach-school match.

 STATE COLLEGE EXODUS. The Bill O'Brien move was handled gracefully by Penn State at first, but it appears to be getting uglier with eight staff members submitting their resignations on Monday.

Several of the resigning coaches appear to be locks to continue to assist O'Brien with the Houston Texans, but the timing is unusual. Most coaches resign immediately to follow with the old coach or wait until the new coach comes in and fires them for his own guys. In this case, the coaches left in between two common departure points.

Right now, Penn State has only three coaches on staff: interim head coach Larry Johnson, tight ends coach John Strollo and offensive line coach Mac McWhorter. They'll have a devil of a time keeping Christian Hackenberg and Penn State's actually-pretty-solid recruiting class together. As for the new coach, all we know is that it won't be Al Golden.

 RIDE THE LIGHTNING. Of all the fun things about the national championship game, the most unexpected was the emergence of a star known only as Red Lightning:

America fell in love with the bearded hero, whose televised hustle paid off in the afterparties.

 LINKS AHOY. Joey Bosa named to the FWAA Freshman All-America Team... The Wall Street Journal measures the most valuable college football programs... Southern Illinois's basketball team was stranded in a church from the extreme cold... Iowa's Fran McCaffery apologizes for his outburst during Sunday's Wisconsin game... Unpaid internships in athletic departments come under scrutiny... Illinois basketball sneaks into the Top 25... Do you have what it takes to be a Indiana football fan?... The Green Bay Packers during a 1950 cold snap... The story of Taro Tsujimoto, nonexistent Buffalo Sabre... An 11,000 pound truck made of ice... Is Wisconsin still using cheese brine on the roads?... And just for the heck of it, “Be a Man” by “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

55 Comments
View 55 Comments