meritxell

blogablogablogaOH LOOK I'M BACK
actually, that's a bit of a fallacy, since i never went away
i was merely attending to more important thing, such as
–my goddamn sanity
–my thesis [revisions and I SHOULD PUT IN A MAP OR FIFTY HARGHLBLARGH]
–re–moving into my house
–watching goddamn football
–doing productive things

and for those of you who have had to suffer through listening to me yammer about it,
yes, my thesis is done and turned in and graded and all that jazz
for those of you who give a shit, or those of you with my kind of crazy,
[namely those who find this shit interesting as well]
my next post will be all about it
so we'll just leave that particular topic be for now


what we will get back to is football,
because the college football season is officially over now
after that riveting national championship game [SARCASM],
my precious bowl season is over and i must again bid adieu to that truest of sports,
young men beating the piss out of each other, fully funded by institutes of higher learning
life is good, no?
since i continued my ever–foolish trend of making predictions,
let's look back over them shall we?

first off all, i'm proud to say i finished the bowl season with a winning record
8–5, a .615 percentage, which isn't too bad
especially considering my great showing last year and my dismal picks from two years ago
and since i didn't embarrass myself in the futuresight department,
let's take a gander at some of my finer and more idiotic predictions:

• boise state 56, arizona state 24 [picked boise]. this one was out of reach in 14 seconds [very literally], and arizona state never even came close. it was [at that point] the highest scoring bowl game and the most lopsided, but that was to be expected. boise was a powerhouse, asu was a cripple, and sometimes things just go the way they're supposed to.
• southern miss 24, nevada 17 [picked southern miss]. this game was just odd. not that there was anything particularly wrong with it, it was just felt weird. maybe because it was two teams that should have been better this season and inexplicably weren't, i dunno. at any rate, even though it didn't look it initially, i did pick the winner. so there's that.
• nc state 31, louisville 24 [picked nc state]. this game nearly had me for the fool. i knew nc state was gonna bring it, because i watched them take down clemson in a brutally efficient way, but i had no idea louisville was gonna play as well or as spirited as they did. this was one of the more evenly matched bowl games this season, and definitely one of the more exciting to watch. if louisville hadn't been intercepted with 52 seconds to go, they very easily could've finished their comeback and tied the game. thankfully for my record's sake, they didn't, and i started out 3–0.
• florida state 18, notre dame 14 [picked fsu]. i felt like a goddamn fool just after halftime of this bowl. notre dame was up 14–0 and the 'noles looked like group of bumbling invalids. thankfully, in true florida state fashion, they rattled off a pair of touchdowns in the first two minutes of the 4th quarter, gave themselves a 4 point lead with a field goal, and finally showed tommy rees that no one pulls that comeback shit on jimbo fisher. nobody. except mike london, tom o'brien, and butch davis. NOBODY.
• baylor 67, washington 56 [picked baylor]. christ on a crutch in january, i've never seen a game so perfectly epitomize the term 'basketball on grass'.washington's qb threw for 438 yards, baylor had three different 100+ yard rushers, they set an alamo bowl record for the most points scored in a half [59], broke the all–time bowl record for points scored in regulation [123], shattered the record total combined offense [1397], and featured the 2011 heisman winner [baylor's qb]. i was utterly blown away watching it. just after halftime, it looked like washington very literally would run away with the game [they were up 42–24], but like i prophecied, washington's defense was a goddamn train wreck. this was by far my most entertaining bowl pick, though not my favorite.
• oklahoma 31, iowa 14 [picked iowa]. after flying high at 5–0 to start the bowl season, my first loss was a resounding thud of a pick. i was expecting iowa to play like they did against michigan and northwestern, not like they did against nebraska and msu. christ. i understand that they were missing a key offensive component in marcus coker [who just today left the program], but they still had their qb and their stud of a wideout. apparently that just wasn't enough, though. at any rate, iowa sucked, oklahoma played like they weren't overrated, and a skycam tried to behead marvin mcnutt. overall, just a boring game. [SARCASM]
• texas a&m 33, northwestern 22 [picked a&m]. this pick was purely and simply a guess. i'd seen some of a&m's implosions over the course of the season [namely against arkansas and ok state], i'd watched northwestern slice their own achilles against army, michigan, and msu [see what i did there?] it was really a crapshoot, but every good series of picks needs a meaningless, could–go–either–way game, yeah? so this was mine. for the record, i took a&m because it was in texas, and i figured they'd want to do mike sherman proud.
• auburn 43, virginia 24 [picked virginia]. my second 'GODDAMN IT' moment of the bowl season came after auburn scored three straight touchdowns in the 2nd quarter. how am i supposed to keep lambasting teams for being overrated and under–talented when they keep winning impressively? cocksucking bastards. at any rate, auburn came to play with a couple really nice trick plays and real motivation, while virginia came to do some other kind of... fuck, i dunno. insert something scathing and witty in there for me, would ya? i have nothing left to give.
• houston 30, penn state 14 [picked houston]. this was my 'padding the stats' pick. as dearly as i love penn state football, i was well aware of their lackluster offense throughout the season. their defense really lived up to their name, but mcgloin/bolden couldn't do shit with any kind of consistency, even after mcgloin won himself the starter spot. so, with him sidelined due to a lockerroom–fight concussion, and the blonde bomber from houston prepping himself for another flawless performance, this one was a foregone conclusion. houston was gonna win this as easy as you please because they were plainly better.
• msu 33, georgia 30 [picked msu]. even today, a full week after it was played, it delights me to no end to say that my msu pick was right. they proved that they were worthy of accolades and notoriety after coming back from a 16–0 deficit to take the lead, tie the game, and finally win it in overtime. georgia gave them a run for their money [three overtimes' worth], but they pulled it out and gave the B1G its sole win on january 2nd. but enough with that, watch this blocked kick one more time, and tell me it doesn't bring a smile to your face bigger than dantonio's
• south carolina 30, nebraska 13 [picked nebraska]. after my elation at watching my team finally win in the postseason, after sitting at a glorious 8–2, the wheels came off my prediction bus. i knew what to expect out of south carolina [the team that beat both georgia and clemson this year], but i also knew what nebraska was capable of, or so i thought. apparently they just couldn't pull off another solid victory [like the ones they put up against msu, iowa, and ohio state]. so instead of becoming the B1G's twelth man to add parity, power, and respect, big red ends up giving them an extra bowl loss. what fun.
• arkansas 29, k state 16 [picked k state]. the 2 of the 1–2 punch was this game. the whole thing made no sense: k state didn't play at all like they did during the season, and arkansas played exactly like they did during the season. the wildcats stout defense was porous, their qb was mediocre at best at passing and completely mitigated out of the pocket, and the rest of their offense was simply unproductive. GAH FOOTBALL Y U NO MAKE SENSE SOMETIMES?!
• smu 28, pitt 6 [picked pitt]. the grand finale of my predictions was as bad a choice as i could make. pitt gave exactly zero reasons to be picked to win a bowl this season [see their back–to–back home losses to iowa and notre dame], and after having their coach bail on them in a positively randy edsall–esque showing, they were probly unhappy to not be done with their season. so basically i picked them because they're pitt and i love pittsburgh and i root for those teams whether i should or not.

what a rollercoaster of picks this year turned out to be
5 straight correct picks, 5 split picks, 3 straight losing picks
though i'm certainly glad to have not sucked at predictions,
i can only imagine what my numbers would look like had i not boycotted the bcs
i was pulling for both michigan and ok state in their respective games
i would very likely have picked west virginia over clemson
[more because i wanted clemson to lose more than i wanted them to win
and boy did they ever]
so that's three more wins right there
i honestly don't know who i would've picked in the rose bowl,
but i would likely have leaned towards wisconsin,
[more out of the need for the big ten to win a goddamn bowl game than anything else]
and i wouldn't have bothered with the ncg, because that was the farce of all farces
i may have boycotted the games,
but i did keep up with the gamecasts and see the highlight reels
man that game was a piece of shit
so shitty, in fact, it was the worst–rated bcs championship ever
game, set, and match bcs


since my beloved college football,
it's time to give most of my attention to pro football
though it'll be getting less of my attention from here on out,
thanks to a team that shall remain nameless [FUCK YOU, STILLERS]
i retain my overwhelming addiction to the sport,
but it's a little less fun when your team isn't in the playoffs anymore
on the plus side, i kinda know how falcons fans feel now
all those one–and–dones must get really tiring

once that's done,
my full attention will yet again return to the beauty that is college basketball
i've enjoyed watching msu and uconn's play this year [men's and women's]
and i'm getting all hot and bothered for conference tourneys to begin
they're still a long way off, but there's nothing wrong with looking forward
especially since on the other side of them is the championship tourney,
and past THAT is the sports winter known as 'baseball season',
during which i whimper and moan about there being no sports to watch,
and generally am somewhat unpleasant because of it
good thing that's not till mid–april, yes?
in other words, BRING IT, SUPERBOWL/MARCH MADNESS
i survived yet another bowl season, and now i'm coming for you