5-at-10: Who won the weekend, college football gets messy, Rushmore of delusional fan bases

Morning gang, happy December. We love December because we love Christmas.

From the “Talks too much” studios, you know the drill.

Weekend winners

Football fans. Wow, that was a lot of fun, right? There were great and entertaining games everywhere. From Thursday night through Sunday night, it was awesome in its awesomeness. As for particular teams, well…

Seattle and Green Bay. The Seahawks and the Packers won monster match-ups, topping the 49ers and the Patriots, and emerged as the two clear favorites

Coaches agents. OK, there are three big-boy jobs open or about to be open – Florida is already looking; Nebraska canned Bo Pelini this weekend; Michigan will be looking soon – and there are a number of big-time coordinator jobs open as Auburn is looking for a defensive coordinator (insert Iron Bowl joke here) and Clemson is looking for an OC. (Side note: Tip of the visor to former UTC AD Rick Hart, who landed Clemson OC Chad Morris to run the SMU Mustangs. We’ll still love Smoo even if they get better.

Georgia Tech and Ole Miss. Well done gents. Paul Johnson kept his composure and the Jackets rallied for an OT win. Hugh Freeze may be the top name on the hot-name list.

—

Weekend losers

Tennessee Titans. What are you excited about if you are a Titans fan this year? Exactly.

Brian Kelly. Notre Dame was top-five before Halloween. Then the Irish had their guts ripped out at Tallahassee and since, they have played gutless.

UAB football. Wow, the news leaked out that the Blazers may bag football. Wow. Just wow.

The 5-at-10’s waist line. Sweet buckets of second-helpings, we may have gained 10 pounds over the weekend. Yes, more dressing please.

—

More college football, SEC style

Our ace columnist Mark Wiedmer suggested the potential pratfalls on the horizon for the college football committee. He also suggested that maybe the SEC is not as good as we thought.

We concur emphatically on the first one, and think there could be a real car wreck on the horizon.

The projected top four of Alabama, Oregon, FSU and TCU will have challenges. Alabama faces a Missouri team with nothing to lose. Calm down Johnny Tide Fan, we believe you’ll win, but the Tigers get a free swing.) Oregon plays the team that has given them fits the last two years. Georgia Tech has an impossible offense to prepare for in one week, so FSU is in a dangerous spot. TCU is going to face a real threat from the rearview mirror considering Baylor, which beat TCU head-to-head, is looming.

As for the second, well, we’re not so sure. We are well aware of the faulty argument that when SEC teams lose its because of a “deep conference” and when other leagues beat on each other its because of “weak conference” in the eyes of Johnny SEC Fans everywhere.

That said, we’ll make two points of contention about the state of the conference.

One, if Laquan Treadwell could have missed the collison at the goal-line against Auburn, the Ole Miss Rebels would be squarely in the mix of the College Football Four and likely in Atlanta.

Secondly, Alabama is overwhelmingly talented, and anyone else have any questions about Lane Kiffin as a playcaller? Dude went toe-to-toe with Gus Malzahn and scored at will.

(Side note: Amari Cooper’s pretty good, and there were three big-time NFL wide outs on the field at the Iron Bowl.)

—

This and that

– Jomo can fire his anti-UT shot all he wants, but getting to the postseason was a big step this year for Butch Jones and company. It’s about raising expectations and taking steps. Plus, if the Vols had failed to make progress, there would of have been a fair amount of rumbling among the Johnny Vols Fans this holiday season. (We’d still like to find a Ronco Cordless Bowl champs T-shirt, though.)

– The ginormous Fab 14 picks went 8-6. So it goes. Better than the other way, right?. Right?

– Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski lined up a 43-yard field-goal try with a little more than two minutes to play in the Packers 26-21 win. It was likely the most expensive/profitable kick of the season. Follow along: New England was getting 3 points, and that kick would have covered the number. It missed and the Packers ran out the clock. It’s funny when you pay attention to stuff like that, and after a while, you know that there are four-to-five plays that generally decide the difference between winning and losing between evenly matched teams. In gambling, there’s almost always the same number of players that decide the Vegas victor regardless of talent or balance.

– Kobe messed around and got a triple double this weekend as the Lakers won. Kobe also became the first NBA player ever to get 30,000 points and 6,000 assists. Those are career numbers, because season or game totals like that would have made the news. Is Kobe the No. 2 all-time shooting guard behind Jordan right now? Discuss.

—

Today’s question

We want to hear about your winners and losers of the weekend. (Side note: We’d put TFP readers on the winning side this weekend. The Saturday and Sunday sports section were especially readable we thought, and need to tip the visor to Stephen Hargis for his story on the Huesmans and his update of Terrell Robinson this weekend. Good stuff.)

We also need to mention that today is the 59th anniversary of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. Well played indeed Mrs. Parks. Rushmore of Parks? Whatcha got?

Also, since Nebraska fired Bo Pelini despire his averaging nine wins a year during his seven years in Lincoln, what’s our Rushmore of most delusional fan bases?