The Situational: Tarnished Angels

They worked all year to gain entry onto the sport's most exclusive stage, and yet for most of these players and coaches it's going to conclude with well we should still be so proud of our otherwise great season. 

This is a cruelty perfected in March, when 68 teams are invited to dance before 67 of them are forced to say goodbye in succession with jerseys pulled over their heads to hide their tears. Football cuts straight to its Final Four. The play-in games took three months. No regionals, no Cinderellas and opening round home court-ish advantages.

Speaking of winning in unfamiliar territory, perhaps you remember the last time Clemson and Ohio State faced each other. The Tigers have this tradition of eternalizing every victory over a ranked team that occured away from home with a tombstone, which includes that Orange Bowl you've watched exactly once:

Tombstone win! The Tigers added this to their collection with the 40-35 win over Ohio State in the 2014 @OrangeBowl. pic.twitter.com/BTALSgjU1y

— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) March 5, 2014​​

The Buckeyes entered that game with America's 105th-ranked pass defense at full strength. That unit included future 1st round NFL draft pick and Super Bowl champion Bradley Roby, who chose to sit it out with a nagging injury in lieu of making an unfortunate cameo in Sammy Watkins' highlight film (16 catches for 227 yards and two touchdowns that evening).

It wasn't quite like skipping the Sun Bowl, but in the CFP era everything else might as well be in El Paso. (Roby's self-pardon occurred in the final year of the BCS)

Roby wasn't the only one missing. Noah Spence was also abruptly unavailable and Curtis Grant was only healthy enough for light jogging as Orange Bowl prep. It's a miracle Clemson only scored 40, but its graveyard only cares about the final score, and you know what - so do you. The two possible outcomes for New Year's Eve are the Buckeyes will either beat the Tigers in Glendale or land on another tombstone. By the way, tombstone revenge has a lousy track record as a motivational instrument.

If the youngest team in college football is going to be the only one that doesn't exit the playoff with a crushing loss, it will do so by way of having played every team ranked in the top eight except the loser of the other semifinal and, well, itself. A tougher road to the title than Ohio State's in 2016 is nearly impossible.

And yet, beat Clemson and it's one game away. Let's get Situational!

The Tradition

The Fiesta Bowl trophy is one of the gaudiest in all of sports and looks like it belongs in a Zoroastrian temple.

There are already five of them on display at the Woody. A sixth next weekend would out-value all of its predecessors except the one procured at the expense of Miami's 34-game win streak. Glendale presents the first trophy opportunity for Ohio State this season, since Illinois was off the schedule in 2016.

That leaves the Buckeyes as the only B1G program aside from the newest two that hasn't already had a trophy on the line this season:

Ed. The only link you should click on in the table above is The Situation Trophy, which isn't real but should be

Ohio State, in the spirit of the B1G's tireless vanity and manufactured traditions must install another trophy game with one of its other fake, non-Illinois rivals - but in the East, so that it can have an annual regular season trophy at stake.

It cannot be Michigan, because there's nothing fake about that. Not Penn State either, because there are reputations to uphold. Maryland is out because the Buckeyes already have a turtle trophy. Sparty has enough damn trophy games so nix them. And not Indiana either. Ohio State is 73-9-4 against the Hoosiers. No trophy.

So it's Rutgers then. Let the B1G's two scarlet teams play for, say, the Scarlet Witch. It wouldn't be the first B1G trophy game that was born from the Internet, and Rutgers would finally get the welcome wagon present it 100% doesn't deserve but benefits a conference moneymaker so it all works out.

And Ohio State fans wouldn't have to wait until the postseason for a shot at a gaudy trophy, despite playing in a conference that's littered with them. Let's make this happen.

The Villain

Photo Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

Just as every good song has already been written, every possible Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Jabrill Peppers take has also already been produced. 

You already know this playlist by heart: 1) Good Enough at Every Position (to just be okay) 2) Laughably Overrated 3) No Actually He's Quite Deserving 4) Bad Stats (What Stats?) 5) Peppers' Versatility Makes Don Brown's Defense Possible 6) Media Creation Borne Out of Desperately Wanting Another Charles Woodson to Happen

Ohio State fans are a reliably hypersensitive tribe incapable of separating what matters to them from the context of any other football subject. The way a lot of you diminish Peppers has dangerous potential to send you hurtling into an unstoppable hypocritical orbit. Without peeling this onion too far, please cite Eddie George's most memorable play or contribution to The Game. Was he overrated? See, this is a dangerous game.

So in that same vein, Peppers is the shittiest villain most Ohio State fans have ever witnessed in their lives. The result is every bit of adulation on his behalf becomes a triggering event.

Let's start with his school-sanctioned #HEI5MAN campaign:

https://t.co/MErnGkYoC0 #GoBlue #HEI5MAN pic.twitter.com/0CjgLatv0v

— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) December 11, 2016

Where to begin - the play being showcased here didn't count. You can literally see the flag that cancelled it at the beginning of the HEI5MAN highlight flying across your screen. It's in the screencap before you press play. This is Michigan's version of Greg Oden's iconic Final Four monster dunk against Georgetown which, inconveniently, didn't go in.

Let's continue with the tackling competence on display in that clip, which hasn't been seen in a Michigan-Rutgers game since the last time Michigan visited Rutgers:

Third of all it's a basic spin move...against Rutgers. Dontre Wilson does this whenever he enters a public restroom, which is the closest Rutgers approximation. It should have been more impressive, or even counted. But let's get back to the core of why Peppers hype is the perfect ruse for making Ohio State fans crazy.

We have heard the fawning since his recruitment by Brady Hoke. Buckeye fans listened to it every week during his freshman season, when he played a little before taking a medical redshirt. Then it happened all over again last season. Then again in 2016. We prepared ourselves for terror. You hold your breath whenever Peppers has the ball. Only if you're simultaneously being crop-dusted.

We are reliably hypersensitive, buuuuut also football-fluent enough to know what's real. Tom Harmon got a standing ovation in Ohio Stadium. Bo's turncoats during the Ten-Year War were despised because they overdelivered against the Buckeyes. I cannot type the words John Kolesar without tensing up. Woodson, Biakabutuka, Howard, hell - Shoelaces Robinson lighting up the bloated carcass of Ohio State's empty 2011 season gets a respectful nod. Michigan villains are as hated as they are fearsome.

Even the two most noteworthy 0-4 guys in Wolverines history:

...had moments of villainry, despite lacking a corresponding victory. Respect.

This brings us back to Peppers, whose empty statistics aren't worth throwing up here because - again - I buy into every track on the playlist above. Some football things just cannot be properly defended using stats. Sometimes you just need memorable plays.

Here's one.

That view doesn't do it justice - here's a better angle of Peppers trying to stop the least jukey full-time OSU quarterback since Todd Boeckman:

Here's another.

That's a 41-yard run by a quarterback who clocks 4.62 40. If Dontre seals his block properly, Peppers is chasing him all the way into the endzone like a one-man gopher colony. He had a great view of it.

Speaking of having a great view:

True Michigan villains are expected to deliver pain that burns for decades. They're as evil as they are effective, and their calculated assaults on Ohio State are burned into our memories forever.

Peppers also promised Curtis Samuel would take some punishment this year. So to this hypersensitive tribe, he's a winless promise-breaker who frequently shows up in Michigan highlights we actually enjoy watching. He never even achieved Jim Mandich or Chris Perry sub-villain status. But that doesn't mean he isn't exceptional otherwise.

From our vantage point - the only point we care about -  it was all just a lot of noise. Good luck at the next level, choose your financial planner wisely and thanks for the MEMORIE5.

The Bourbon

There is a bourbon for every situation. Sometimes the spirits and the events overlap, which means that where bourbon is concerned there can be more than one worthy choice.

Booker's. About to get rare and pricey. 

If you've ever scanned the bourbon section at your liquor store of choice you've undoubtedly seen the pristine pine coffins that contain Booker's bourbon, a smoky high-proof enormously oaky long-finishing sipping whiskey. Booker's works great if your face requires melting.

The packaging at a $60 price point also make it a worthy Gift Whiskey, so if you're looking for Christmas 2017 ideas that are easy to wrap then look no further than buying out the Booker's section at your local store. Wait, Christmas 2017? Yes.

That's because Booker's is going to cost $99 very shortly and become harder to find, as it artificially joins the ranks of the bourbon brand scarcity craze. Beam Suntory is playing with its supply curve again, which will result in a run on Booker's. If I had to guess why, Beam saw all of the superior high-proof options at similar or lower price points and made the call. As face-melters go, George Stagg is significantly better and already hard to find. Also:

drinking that first sip may feel like inhaling C-4 explosives, but that nose hair-destroying liquid fire burns like the best tobacco-flavored butterscotch you've ever had. It's wonderful. Imagine wasabi being gently rubbed on your frontal lobe.

Booker's doesn't have Stagg's character, but it will soon have its delicious scarcity problem. Will it taste any better for $40 more? No, not unless you can taste higher prices. But Booker's does become a more impressive present next Christmas if you buy it right now.

The Playoff

In the grand tradition of the Christmas Situational we'll close with a traditional song to inoffensively celebrate the King of Kings:

For the uninformed, Christmas Wrapping is arguably the most covered Christmas pop song of all time. There's a Spice Girls version, the live Kylie Minogue version (not to be confused with the in-studio duet with Iggy Pop version) a drinking Santas version and so many more. There just isn't a Jewish ska version. Haha kidding, of course there is.

Thank you for getting Situational today. Go Bucks and Merry Christmas.