Games worth the name

 Welcome to 2023, boys and girls, and what a parting gift college football gave us with which to kick 2022 out on its treacherous ass. Two College Football Playoff semifinals ...  two insane scorefests ... and a little something for everyone.

For TCU fans, a great big neener-neener-neener to all the folks who'd been trashing the Horned Frogs for the last month, saying they were imposters, fake-ID-wielders, a high school team that was going to get embarrassed on national TV by Big Boy Football, aka the Michigan Wolverines. Final: TCU 51, Michigan 45. Take that, haters!

For Michigan fans, a close enough score and enough horrendous officiating for them to blame it on the zebras and claim their Wolverines were actually the much better team, even though they weren't on this night. Never led, couldn't stop TCU and quarterback Max Duggan when it mattered -- or even when it didn't, frankly.

For fans of the Indianapolis Colts, a moment's pause to consider whether or not they really would want to see Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh come back to coach their sidewalk splatter of a franchise. Two first-and-goal situations that yielded no points, a clutch of head-scratching decisions ... not exactly one of Jimbo's better coaching jobs, to be sure.

For the vilest and most unhinged corners of the interwhatsis, a young man named Noah Ruggles, served up on a platter with all the appropriate  garnish after he duck-hooked a 50-yard field goal attempt that would have saved Ohio State from blowing the Peach Bowl to Georgia. Pile on, kids! Suggest all sorts of sick punishments! Call the kid a choker while you sit on your couch brushing Doritos crumbs off your Billy Buckeye duds! Fun for the whole family!

For those Ohio State fans NOT demanding Ruggles be drawn and quartered and have his severed limbs sent to the four corners of Ohio, another chance to bash head coach Ryan Day. His team blew not one but two two-touchdown leads and, leading 38-14 with a quarter to play, was outscored 18-3 in the fourth quarter. And with 24 seconds to play and the Buckeyes on the Georgia 32, he dialed up a couple of nothing plays that lost a yard, leaving poor Ruggles with a 50-yard attempt instead of, say, a 35 or 40 or 45-yard attempt. 

And for those Ohio State fans NOT demanding Day we drawn and quartered and his limbs sent to the four corners of Ohio, the observation that the Georgia comeback began pretty much the moment Ohio State receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. exited the game with a concussion. Harrison had scored two touchdowns and caught five balls for 106 yards. Do the Buckeyes get outscored 18-3 in the fourth if Harrison is still on the field? Are they a lot closer than the 33 when Ruggle lines up that kick? Reasonable people might think so.

So ... yeah. Something for everyone. And now TCU vs. Georgia for the national title, immediately giving more fuel to the doubters who say Georgia will mash the Horned Frogs into amphibian goulash by 30 or 40 or 50 points.

The Blob doubts it. But if so, we'll always have yesterday.

Two games worth the name, in other words.