The College Football finalists will be announced later today but for once, there is no drama this year. The seedings will likely be: Alabama; Michigan; Georgia; and Cincinnati. All are deserving of course and a notch above Notre Dame. SU says the decision-makers will not want a Georgia-Alabama rematch in the semi-finals, and therefore the safe play is to put Alabama at #1 based on their thrashing of Georgia yesterday.

The reality is that in college football, a season can change on just one play for most winning programs. Consider just last week that Alabama really should have lost to Auburn if their running back had stayed in-bounds with 2 minutes left in the game. There would not have been enough time to drive down the field to tie the game in the last seconds forcing overtime. Alabama’s quarterback was not effective for most of the game against Auburn but was dominant against the crazy good Georgia defense yesterday. Go figure.

Michigan was going to lose late to Penn State a few weeks ago but a long pass play to tight end Eric All changed all of that and they have been on a roll ever since. Jim Harbaugh went from again not beating a ranked team in the regular season to a coaching genius with this year’s team. SU says he was smart to bring in a team of young assistant coaches and created a culture that his players totally bought into with senior leadership. He also unshackled the offensive coordinator to open up the playbook. They are still a run-first team but for once, they have some playmakers and he is letting them make plays. For SU, the season is a success and they are now playing with house money. Anything from here on out is gravy.

Michigan has not always done well with the 3 weeks off before the bowl game and no doubt, Harbaugh will be focused on that as well. If they play Georgia, that will be an interesting match-up of an SEC powerhouse with many 5-star recruits vs. a hot team. But Georgia was the “hot” team going into the game yesterday and Alabama took care of business. Alabama has to be the favorite to win it all but SU does note that they don’t seem to have the dominant running back that they usually have. It’s why they play the games.

MLB has entered hibernation until likely mid-February according to most experts. Good move by MLB and the Players’ Union. Good move to have their fans pay no attention to baseball for several months and then develop a distaste for both sides going into next season. Brian Cashman is taking what might be a very effective strategy. Rather than over-pay now for free agents and the $300 million contracts that never pan out or end well, he will have money to spend in the few weeks before the start of the season in 2022 to snatch up free agents at bargain prices. Time will tell but hard to argue with that.

Teams are not allowed to have any contact with their players. How many pitchers will come in with arm issues not having done the off season work? Something to watch for.

And maybe the Mets will have a manager by April.