SPORTS TEASER By George Hassell
Ho Ho Ho Sports Teaser Fans, shall I dare say it? Can you believe it? Santa is on his way and Christmas is almost here. (Finish the turkey leftovers
yet?) I know everyone has been nice this year, certainly not naughty, so hopefully your tree will be packed with presents underneath for the big day.
No coal, nobody likes coal!
Sadly, December means that we are almost at the end of the college football season. We have some big conference championship games coming
up and bowl games and the playoffs, but as usual, the season comes and goes too quickly. We wait all year for the fall and football and now it’s almost
over.
Quite a bit has changed over the season as we know, with the emergence of LSU as a potential national champion. Clemson, as we all thought for
the most part, is right there at the end with their march through the mediocre ACC. The mighty Crimson Tide suffered a loss to LSU and now are hoping
to get in through the back door and it looks like Ohio State will for sure. Georgia still has a clear path, as well as a few other teams, but everything will
shake out with the conference championship games the first part of this month. My prediction for the final four team’s standing are: LSU, Ohio State,
Clemson and Oregon.
If Georgia wins out and then beats LSU however, they would be in of course as SEC champs. That can happen but the defense will have to continue
to play at the high level that they have been and the offense will try to figure out how to get some touchdowns and not field goals. The lack of red zone
efficiency for the Bulldogs has been a problem all year and that’s got to change. You’re not going to beat LSU or Clemson or Ohio State kicking field
goals. That I know.
It would appear that Georgia would be headed for a great bowl game if they were to lose to LSU ending up in the Orange or Sugar bowls. If that’s the
case, let’s just hope they decide to show up versus last year’s Sugar Bowl “effort” against Texas. It will be a great end to the college football season
no matter what happens I feel, but it sure would be great to have the Dogs in the mix once again!
On to the NFL where the local teams aren’t faring as well as I had thought before the season started. The Falcons have all sorts of problems and it
has shown with their lousy record. Despite beating the Saints to get their second win of the campaign, it looks like another year of missing the playoffs.
It will be interesting to see if they start to look for Matt Ryan’s replacement in the next draft or so as he’s not getting any younger. The Jaguars have
had a middling season and will get Nick Foles back. A playoff run might be in order but I’m thinking they will get to 8-8 and that won’t be enough.
The cream of the crop seems to be Green Bay, San Francisco and Minnesota in the NFC with Baltimore, New England and maybe Houston in the AFC.
Kansas City has struggled this year and look fairly average, especially on defense where they have given up a lot of points and yards. That’s not a
good recipe as we all know! I will admit that my LA Chargers pick for the Super Bowl was pretty off, ok way off! More on the NFL playoffs in January.
Finally, have some golf down under in December with the President’s Cup. Some fella named Tiger is the team captain and will also be playing I
hear. A few people might be watching the matches I would gather. Tiger TV is always good and a great early Christmas stocking stuffer.... I like red!
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season! See you in 2020!
38 TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | DEC 2019