Cool Old Dude and Tons of Fun guys like me went to bed at a slick 7:30 p.m. New Year’s Eve. Didn’t mean to stay up that late but had forgotten to start the grill and the dead chicken and sausages were later getting done than I had planned.
Hate it when that happens. Especially on a holiday.
Some of us are old enough to remember when we were crazy enough to actually stay up to watch the ball drop in Times Square — “10, 9, 8… !” — or when we would be out somewhere with other sickos (meaning other “normal young people”) waiting for midnight to ring in the New Year.
Festive and whatnot. Mainly awake.
But I was another kind of sick this New Year’s. Something is “going around” and I hate it when that happens too because it usually gets around to me and you. Stuffy head. Ribs hurt. No energy.
On the bright side, New Year’s night I made it to 8 and to the end of Michigan’s win over Alabama. Old-school game, my opinion. Woke up in the middle of the night for bathroom duty — another elderly issue — and saw that Washington had beaten Texas in another thriller.
“For entertainment purposes only,” the early line has No. 1 Michigan as a 4.5 favorite over No. 2 Washington in Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship game from NRG Stadium in Houston at 6:30 (I might can stay up!) on ESPN. I like Washington to cover.
So take Michigan. Because …
As recently discussed, I can pick winners in games like Germany could pick winners in World Wars. Sleep was easy for me by the time Washington teed it up with Texas New Year’s Night because my hopes of winning the ESPN BowlFest Fantasy competition were as gone as the clouds in yesterday’s sky. An 8-0 start in mid-December was followed by a whirlwind of pitifulness, as predicted, that left me in the 50th percentile of pickers, which included real people but also included turtles, stumps, and some fish. I couldn’t spell ‘win’ if you spotted me the “w” and the “i.”
But this predicted ineptness did not keep me from enjoying, immensely, BowlFest. My favorite bowls, strictly because of names and present company excluded (we’re looking at you, Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, always No. 1 in our hearts), were these:
The Tony the Tiger Bowl in El Paso, because I love Sun Bowl Stadium and because, well, Frosted Flakes. Notre Dame was ggggggreat and beat Oregon State, 40-8, for the record;
The Cheeze-It Citrus Bowl because Cheeze-Its should be its own food group, and more on that another time. Tennessee beat Iowa 100-2 or something like that. The Vols might still be scoring;
The Duke’s Mayo Bowl because this advertises a Carolina staple I grew up with. West Virginia out-condimented North Carolina in this year’s bowl in Charlotte. Of course, I foolishly had the Tarheels;
The Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl in, oddly enough, Orlando, where every other bowl game is now played. For some reason, I felt healthier after watching it;
And my favorite of all the bowls, the Pop-Tarts Bowl (from, guess where?, Orlando!), even though Kansas State beat N.C. State, 28-19, and I had (naturally) the Wolfpack. Didn’t matter because:
One of the mascots was edible. True story. The winners ate a giant Pop-Tart after the game. To the winners go the spoils. In light of this development, would you rather play in the prestigious Cotton Bowl or the Pop-Tarts Bowl? That’s what I thought;
Speaking of giants, the non-edible mascot who ran around the sidelines of picturesque Camping World Stadium most of the game showed up by being popped out of a huge toaster on the field. Yes, this is next-level mascot stuff;
The mascot tried to catch a missed field goal with a net. We’re talking about a fruit scone with a net chasing a ball;
And finally, the winning players dumped a couple of coolers filled with Pop-Tarts onto the winning coach as he made his way to midfield to shake hands with the losing and thus non-Pop-Tarts-eating coach immediately after the game. The only other thing this bowl needed was some milk.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
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