Competition fail

 Well, that wasn't fun.

Another year, another turn of the odometer, and what's changed? NOTHING. College football is still just the SEC and them others. 

Friday it was Alabama 27, Cincinnati 6 in the Cotton Bowl, and Georgia 34, Michigan 11 in the Orange Bowl, and what was that you were saying about expanding the College Football Playoff? Why? So 'Bama can nail-gun some undefeated schmo from the Mountainous Terrain Conference 57-3 in the opening round?

I mean, we couldn't even get a competitive semifinal game in a four-team playoff. What would a 12-team playoff look like?

I'll tell you what. It would look like women's college buckets a decade or so ago.

Back in that day there was UConn and Tennessee and Notre Dame, and occasionally a Baylor or South Carolina. Mostly, though, there was UConn, which periodically hauled off and won eleventy-hundred straight games, and who was in the Final Four so every-year the Huskies had their own corner booth by the window.

The first round of the women's March Madness was a joke in those days, with the Huskies beating some poor 16-seed 97-35 and what-not. There were no 12-over-5 upsets on the women's side. Their bracket was so chalky it made you sneeze.

Now, of course, things are little different. UConn is still UConn, sort of, but the women's game is much more competitive now. Occasionally an unranked team will beat a ranked team -- or even a No. 1 team, as unranked Missouri did the other day against No. 1 South Carolina.

College football still has a ways to go to reach that enviable point. 

Oh, there was a lot of talk that Michigan might actually knock off Georgia, which had been the top-ranked team all year until Alabama embarrassed it in the SEC title game. And some folks were gulled into believing Cincinnati might actually be good enough to make 'Bama draw a labored breath.

But, nah. 'Bama rolled over the Bearcats like they were the Muncie Central Bearcats. And all the SEC title game loss did was cheese off the Bulldogs, who beat Michigan like it was Michigan Tech. It was a 34-3 game until Michigan scored a garbage-time touchdown late in the fourth quarter -- by which time Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was already game-planning for the rematch with 'Bama.

So, woo-hoo, we get another SEC tilt in the national title game. Oh, goody.

I might watch a play or two. But that's about it.

Not a big fan of reruns, you see.