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Curator Sam Burnham Game of the Week Michigan @ Minnesota Last season the Golden Gophers topped off an 11-2 season with a win over Auburn in the Outback Bowl. The Gophers are led by head coach P.J. Fleck who has worked hard to change the culture at Minnesota. He has employed a people-centered approach that has yielded promising results so far. Michigan has continued to underwhelm under the leadership of Jim Harbaugh. Michigan has managed to win five straight over Minnesota but the Wolverines lost 14 starters off last year’s team. Playing for The Little Brown Jug on opening day will give both teams extra incentive for a quick start. The Wolverines need to execute on both sides of the ball and prove to Tim Tebow, and everyone else for that matter, that they are elite...in they in fact are. Harbaugh needs big wins to impress a fan base that is growing more and more impatient with his shortcomings. Minnesota needs to focus on football. The off season has been filled with civil unrest and conversations about social issues and equality. Saturday is a good time to prove the team has been united rather than divided. If Minnesota has further coalesced, they will be a formidable force to be reckoned with. If they are distracted or divided, Michigan will make short work of the Gophers. Coach’s segment will return next week.
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 An Empty Stadium is a Sad Place Sam Burnham, Curator So the Big 10...er...11...14...whatever...has cancelled their fall season. They say they’re looking at a possible spring season, you know, like the USFL or XFL. Shortly afterwards their hippie cousins in the PAC-12 made the same announcement. No one who grew up before the BCS should be surprised. These two conferences used to be locked into the Rose Bowl and therefore could never play a power from another conference for a true national championship. If they could stay away from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Alabama, or Clemson, they could put together a strong season and claim a national championship. That’s the only way Southern Cal, Ohio State, or Michigan ever won one. So the SEC, ACC, and Big 12(10) are saying they are going to play. Notre Dame appears poised to participate in the ACC for a season. Most of the mid-majors have cancelled. Divisions II and III have been all but cancelled by the NCAA. There will be no FCS Playoffs. So there will only be big money ball this fall.  James Franklin's Statement The intriguing turn has been from schools like Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, and Iowa. Players are coming together to say they want to play. Penn State Head Coach James Franklin tweeted out a statement declaring his commitment to “exhaust all options” for his players who want to play. So what options do they have? These are perennial powers. Iowa is seeing a resurgence of their program. It should be noted that Minnesota and Illinois really need to play. The Gophers and Illini had great seasons and a layoff and the transfer portal could destroy that momentum. Do you temporarily join another conference? Do you form a temporary conference of your own? Does Nebraska just wander home to the Big XII for good? There’s a small window of time to answer many questions. Before the zealots come running out screaming about “science,” ACC medical expert Dr. Cameron Wolfe says the season can be played safely. Also consider that active players are constantly under the care of trained medical staff. Team doctors and athletic trainers are always evaluating the overall health of players. There is no medical plan on Earth that can compete with what is provided for NCAA athletes. Players will be safer in season than they could ever be with the season cancelled. if you really care about equality, you want this to succeed. It’s unpopular but just proven reality that football pays all the bills for athletic departments nationwide. Without football, all the other sports, including women’s sports, are broke. The season is closing in. It’s going to look very different than it has in the past. Fit the teams in who want to play and let’s make this happen. The players want it, the coaches want it, the fans want it, the science supports it, and the country needs it. If you’re scared, say you’re scared. If you’re not, play ball. We arrive at the end of the season and present our season finale of the ABG Poll. Our voters have unanimously chosen LSU as National Champions. We also received a consensus at #2 with Clemson reaching that position on all ballots. The voters appear to have been impressed with the bowl performances of Georgia and Oregon. Oklahoma? Not so much. One item of note, we’d like to welcome Appalachian State to the Top 10 for the final poll. Congratulations on a great season, Mountaineers. In closing, thanks to all the poll voters who keep this evil, vindictive, crazy, wild and wonderful poll going each week. 1) LSU 50 (5) 2) Clemson 45 3) Georgia 36 4) Oregon 30 5) Ohio State 29 6) Alabama 17 7) Penn State 16 8) Florida 14 9) Appalachian State 10 10) Oklahoma 9 also receiving votes: Minnesota 6, Notre Dame 6, Cincinnati 3, Oklahoma State 1, UCF 1
Curator Sam Burnham It’s time to have a serious discussion about the CFB Playoff. Through all the uproar and the protestations, and complaints about if the correct four teams were chosen or if the playoff needs expanding there’s one overarching absolutely true fact that everyone needs to come to grips with. That truth is this simple: the awful, rotten, flawed process we have right now is as good as it will ever be. Sure we’ve had Chris Fowler, among others, wondering aloud, on air, what would have gone differently had Oregon been in instead of Oklahoma. The truth is that nothing would have been different. If you can’t beat Arizona State, you have no business playing LSU in the Playoff. I kicked over a hornet’s nest full of butthurt Bama homers who were whining about “Bama fatigue” keeping them out of the Playoff. The truth is, Alabama had 0 quality wins this year and had no business is the playoff. The were eliminated. Period. Had Georgia beaten South Carolina they could possibly have made the playoff but the truth is they didn’t beat South Carolina. While they’re probably the 4th best team in the nation they’re not a playoff team. Period. We have the playoff in place because the old bowl system could always manage to narrow the competitive field to three teams, but rarely just two. LSU having to share a national championship with an inferior Southern Cal team was a low point. An undefeated 2003 Auburn team who didn’t even get a shot at Oklahoma or Southern Cal would have beaten either easily. Southern Cal wound up vacating that championship for cheating. What was needed was a “plus 1” game that would help weed out two of those final three. The regular season and conference championship games have already eliminated the rest of the teams at that point. The biggest truth opposing expansion is that no one should have to sit through a blowout just because more teams might theoretically have a chance to win. Oklahoma didn’t belong there this year (or any of the other years they’ve made the playoff) but the rules say four teams have to go. So we got a miserable bloodbath game that no one honestly enjoyed. It’s silly and unnecessary. Adding more teams to the playoff will water it down, create more blowouts and meaningless games. Expansion might create more pomp, more spectacle, more fireworks, but it will add no substance, no practicality, no real competition. Football is not basketball and it is foolish to think we can recreate March Madness in December. It’s an apples and automobiles comparison. We don’t even need to try. Let’s make the most of the system that is in place, realize that the regular season eliminates teams every week, and be realistic about our fandoms. Yes, you love your team but if they aren’t LSU or Clemson, they’ve been duly eliminated. Period. Better luck next year. For Bowl Week we pick one great bowl game to watch and also break down the semifinals.
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ABG CFBThe Curator and other knowledgeable voices...mostly Southerners... on the subject Archives
November 2021
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