My Heisman Pick

It’s been a good season but I think I finally reached my limit of football. Good time for the short break before the good bowls are played after Christmas. Haven’t taken a good look at the bowl matchups but will have to research that before they start up.

 

UGA fans are complaining but even if they hadn’t had eleven players go down with injuries it would’ve been hard to compete with LSU. Hope Clemson can beat Ohio State. During the Big Ten championship game the Badger defense kept Justin Fields bottled up in the first half. Sacks, poor passes, fumble etc. Buckeyes must’ve made an adjustment at halftime.

 

Interesting that the Playoff Committee had a hard time choosing the #4 team, before picking Oklahoma over UGA. With LSU the clear #1 they didn’t want a rematch of a December 7 game on December 28. Like last year the Dawgs will have a tough time winning the Sugar Bowl. UGA is banged up and deflated from not making the playoff, but so is Baylor. UGA defense needs to shut down their freshman QB, who like Tua had only played in the last two games, but came up big when it counted.

 

Speaking of Tua, good interview by Kirk Herbstreit on College GameDay with the injured QB.

 

Burrow wins the Heisman. Jalen Hurts is runner-up. Tua is the sentimental choice for third place. Looking forward to Thursday night’s College Football Awards Show, broadcast from the college football hall of fame in downtown Atlanta.

 

Highlight of the Falcons game: kicker Younhoe Koo racing downfield to recover a fumble in midair, then running with the ball before being tackled. Set up his own field goal, then on the next kickoff the Panthers fumbled again. Koo was in the area but another Falcon recovered it first. Koo is a former Lou Groza Award finalist from his days at Georgia Southern.

 

The two MLB players who went to Malaysia were Orioles starting catcher Pedro Severino and a Mariners pitcher (Matt Festa or Matt Magill?). They told Preston there are more devoted Christians in MLB than NFL or NBA.

 

Several years ago fans complained when the Braves traded away speedy outfielder Mallex Smith. Last year for the Mariners: 134 games, 6 homers, 37 RBI, 42 walks, 141 strikeouts, .227 average, .300 on base, .335 slugging, .635 OPS. Not exactly Ronald Acuna numbers. Mallex did steal a lot of bases, but so did Acuna.

 

Looks tough for the Braves. 3B Donaldson is asking for 4 years. Cubs asking too much for 3B Kris Bryant. Or Nats free agent (Rendon?) also will get big bucks. Bidding against Dodgers, Nats, and Rangers – all have big bucks to spend. Braves may have to settle for the Dodgers old 3B, who is good but old. The guy with the long orange hair and beard. I’m confident the Braves GM will come up with something. Everyone gave up on Austin Riley after half a rookie season. Kid needs more time than that. Idiot fans want a big signing right now. Otherwise they complain. Stuff takes time.

 

Two bad Dale Murphy didn’t make the HOF. Had better stats than Harold Baines. I think the voters realized their mistake and decided to get extra tough about voting in another borderline candidate. The only argument for inducting Murphy because he is a good guy (Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year one year) is that if they keep players like Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens out for bad behavior, they ought to favor in Murphy’s peerless good behavior when casting their vote. But I agree, you can’t put someone in the HOF just because he’s a good guy. If so you’d have to put journeyman utilityman Charlie Culbertson into the HOF. Gotta wonder if some voters leave Murphy off the ballot because he is religious.

 

For sure Murphy belongs in the Braves HOF, the Georgia HOF, the Mormon HOF - but I wouldn’t know about the Mormon HOF qualifications. Not so much the Christian HOF. I guess the Christian HOF is heaven, huh?

 

Georgia Tech needs to sign one of the many QB’s who are entering the transfer portal. Anyone. Florida’s Feleipe Franks would be good.   

 

Players today aren’t practitioners of the craft, aren’t true professionals. They don’t work at their game. Former GT receiver Demerius Thomas had all the tools but repeatedly dropped passes. Fortunately for him Peyton Manning joined the team and forced Thomas to work to become a better receiver. Manning helped Thomas earn millions. Perhaps Thomas needs to give a little to GT to make up for putting them on probation.