Believe it or not, should you choose to Google “how to cook crow,” more than a few recipes will appear. You can apparently make a crow soup with sweet cream and mushrooms. You can bake a crow pot pie. There also are all manner of roasted crow offerings, certainly enough for every football team from the Southeastern Conference’s Western Division that lost a bowl game to have its own signature dish.
And that’s a good thing because the SEC West is going to be expected to eat a good amount of the brutish, black bird between now and the start of the 2015 season, given its 2-5 record in postseason play over the past week.
It was one thing for No. 1 Alabama to lose to underrated Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Throw out that 59-0 thrashing of Texas A&M and this Bama bunch almost never looked nearly as dominating as the three Nick Saban-coached outfits that won it all for the Crimson Tide in 2009, 2011 and 2012.
Nor was the pummeling Ole Miss suffered against TCU in the Peach Bowl completely without explanation. It seems clear today that TCU — not 2013 national champ Florida State — should have been the fourth team chosen for the playoff following the Horned Frogs’ 42-3 victory over the Rebels and the Seminoles’ 59-20 loss to Oregon in the Rose Bowl.
But that doesn’t explain Auburn’s uneven performance against Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl. Or LSU’s late fizzle against Notre Dame in the Music City Bowl. Or Mississippi State’s struggles against Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, which may have been the best example of the league’s mediocrity, since Atlantic Coast Conference member Tech had won earlier at Georgia.