Happy Tuesday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session. Let me be blunt: I love Christmas. Even if you aren't particularly religious, the idea that we as a society have decided to just kind of go along with the premise that for at least a few days we'll all try and be somewhat less miserable to one another is pretty kickin rad to me. Snow, Christmas trees, bad ABC Family made for tv movies, and food, glorious food are all just the topping to the cake for me. Can't get enough of it.
Except for the music. Sweet Lord do I hate Christmas music. And I don't mean hymns, I mean every treacly cloying attempt by a music executive to try and recreate the warm and fuzzy feeling I get watching my grandma dump packing peanuts over her irritating dog's head by having Talyor Hicks sing about a homeless frog without socks or something.
Anyway, my point with this is that I spend a lot of my time around Christmas looking for music about the season that doesn't make me furious, and luckily I've been able to compile a few of my favorites (very, very NSFW) over the years. If you've got any more suggestions for me, please put them in the comments so that I can enjoy a sane and lovely holiday season.
Wither Thou, Boise? The New York Times has a nice breakdown of exactly how much cheddar the Broncos stand to lose out on due to one missed field goal that lowered them to 11-1 and the Maaco Bowl (yes, really), instead of BCS riches. I've talked in this space about how ridiculous I believe the BCS and bowl system to be, and not to put too fine of a point on it, but beyond the standard talk about who is better or "deserves" to be in a particular bowl, the disparity between the haves and the have nots is by far the worst aspect of how the current system works.
COME AT ME BRO The Bulldogs are spoiling for a fight. Georgia has recently been sniffing around the Big Ten for a challenger, and has been gauging interest from Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, and Notre Dame. I personally feel that it is doubtful that OSU decides to schedule another home and home so soon (considering we've booked major OOC opponents through 2019), but I definitely endorse the idea of SEC teams going slumming up north in a (hopefully) vain attempt to gain prestige by beating up on a poor befuddled Big Ten team. Especially the mediocre SEC teams.
As If You Needed Confirmation Bollman haters to the back. Jim Tressel has unequivocally stated that no one on his staff be fired due to external pressure, meaning that you, yes you, Joe Everyman and Jill Administrator, will have pretty much no say in how Tressel organizes his staff:
"We’ve been fortunate. We’ve got great guys on our coaching staff. We’ve not had to be confronted with that ‘Hey, you better make some changes’ moment. I’d like to think we’ll never be faced with that. They might have to throw me out of here before I want to face one of those situations."
As frustrated as we can be from time to time with various coaches on the team, this is still a pretty great thing to hear from the Senator. Oftentimes a recruit will say that staff consistency is a big part of why they attend a school, and as was pointed out yesterday, Tressel is the king of preserving that. In a year that saw some massive staff shakeups at a number of high profile schools, it can't hurt that OSU remains a relative rock (despite the amicable departure of Hazell).
Caveat Emptor Around 1,680 tickets for the Sugar Bowl were accidentally printed twice, meaning there is a small possibility that if any of you are planning on making the trip to the Big Easy you could be faced with a "first come, first served" situation at the gate. Vendors have been instructed to destroy any duplicates, and most of them will likely not make it out to the public, but on the other hand it might not be a bad decision to try and make it to the game a tad earlier than usual. Godspeed, drunken revelers.
The Silver Lining Let's be honest. The bowls so far have been pretty bad. But you know what wasn't bad about them, not one bit? This:
Thanks to Matt Hinton over at Dr. Saturday for the picture. Turns out our own Luke screen capped the image but was unattributed by the Good Doctor. We'll let it slide in the spirit of Christmas. Merry Christmas everybody!
