BL: Is Sports about The Journey or just The Destination? … Plus SACS stuff

College Football Playoffs
BobLee
November12/ 2017

Is Sports, for YOU, about  The Journey or just The Destination?

… Plus SACS stuff

Several vitally important issues I should cover in-depth today but in-depth columns tend to scare certain factions of reader/viewers.   Website marketing consultants advise against in-depth columns unless they are sprinkled liberally (bad choice of adverbs) with pictures of nubile cheerleaders with their hair flying around.

I have from Day One been a fan of the Football Final Four concept. I strongly oppose expanding to six, eight… thirty-two teams but it probably will expand because sports marketers tend to be forever killing golden egg laying geese.

Now that Big Time College Football is officially into the Unofficial Playoff To The Playoffs, this Saturday was wear-out-the-remote day for sure. Champagne Wishes & Caviar Dreams were being squashed all over the place.

Kirby wasn’t quite as “Smart” as the Athens’ “Hedge” Fund crowd were hoping. But Kirby’s never-really-appreciated predecessor Mark Richt seems to have found love among the mangroves of Greater Dade County.

Another almost-but-not-quite year for the Horned Frogs as OU’s Wunderkin Coach Lincoln Riley is poised to be the first Head Coach in College Football’s Final Four who was TWO MONTHS old when Doug Flutie threw his Hail Mary to beat “The U” in the Orange Bowl in 1984.

NC State escaped chilly Chestnut Hill with a W but now must go to Groves/ BB&T before another “crowd” (?) of under 30K to face the point-a-minute Deacons of another coach named Dave.

Did I see where Wake’s “coach named Dave” is showing up on short-lists for coaching vacancies at the 6-8 places currently with vacancies? Deacon Dave won’t excite deranged fans too much at Tennessee, Arkansas unless he changes his name to Jon Gruden or Chip Kelly et al but he is young, cheap and apparently pretty darn good at getting the most out of 3-star talent.

Schools formally harboring Champagne Wishes are seeing those Wishes dashed on the jagged rocks of reality… can you say Georgia, Notre Dame, TCU, Ohio State, Penn State and the entire Pac-12… it begs the question…

Is following your team of choice only about The Final Destination or is it about The Journey… ever how far that journey might be?

Only ONE team will make confetti-angels on the floor of wherever the College Super Bowl is this year.

Is it a zero-sum game?

More than a few Wolfpackers were playing “what if” during September and October… and rightfully so. Now, in mid-November, those Champagne Wishes are Michelob Wishes… 9-3 probably… a Mythical State Championship… and a TaxSlayer/Weedeater/Camping World Christmas in Apalachicola… and, of course, a Best Buy swag bag.

It’s a heck of a lot better than all those ubiquitous 6-7 Win seasons for darn sure. “Almost beating Dabo… again” and having more than just “another NFL QB” for roster talent.

No Swoff Bowl… no Orange Bowl… no rings unless DD and Frau want to make up some reason to give them out. I recall Larry Fedora gave out Division Champion rings two years ago but DD and Frau can’t say that… yet.

Would that be enough to stoke Pack Pride? I don’t know. I’m asking. Has “The Journey” been fun or was it all about The Destination?

Certainly, if there is a stumble with either Wake, or the visiting Fedorians (YIKES!), this whole question is moot.

I wonder what Georgia, TCU, Penn State and Ohio State fans would say.

BobLee’s Final Four Today would be Alabama… Miami… Oklahoma… Wisconsin.

I see “The U” taking out Dabo in three weeks wherever The Swoff Bowl is being played this year. Somewhere that little boys and little girls can all pee together I suppose.

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Here is “a Ponder”…. will there be more fans at Groves/BBT for State/Wake… or at Kenan for The Catamounts’ historic  visit “amid the lofty pines”?  Smart $$$ says more at Groves/BBT…

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What was your reaction to “That Damn Dan” Kane’s story this week about how UNCCH escaped even a wrist slap from the NCAA by saying “it was all JUST a 20-year ACADEMIC Scandal”… which, one would think, would be of special interest to the SACS?

How many of you’ans even know what the acronym SACS stands for? I guarantee if ONE of you does that is one more than the number of Hall-of-Fame BB coaches at UNC that knows… or gives a damn.

The N&O should do a Jay-Walking poll on Franklin Street about The SACS… what it stands for and what does “accreditation” mean anyway?”  The” Don’t Know & Don’t Give A Damn” Factor would be very high.

SACS

I bet they would get more correct answers asking UNCers how to spell “Krzyzewski”… or Doherty… or Guthridge.

“Damn Dan” tweeted about how the possibility of UNC throwing their Academics under the bus to SAVE THE BANNERS might turn out to bite them in the butt. Obviously, it Could and Should in a sane world.   This disgusting mess left “a sane world” about 4-5 years ago.

… at the moment Governor Jim Martin told the UNC Trustees… “No, I did not talk to Coach Williams about any of this because I figured he was too busy…”.

Everything went down the rabbit hole after that.  It was like adults talking in a Charlie Brown Peanuts movie… wah Peanuts Adultswah wah wah wah….

The Save Our Precious Banners Crowd at UNC have never cared about anything but (1) Saving The Banners… and (2) Roy being able to sign 5-stars again.. They have both of those now. Chihuahua is on her own with the SACS whatever.

Now that said… “Accreditation” IS, apparently, REALLY REALLY important to Chancellor Chihuahua and her oh-so-pretentious faculty squirrels. It affects “federal research grants” and boring administrative crap like that.

To an Academaniac, being tenured at an UNaccredited college is like being Provost at Uncle Ralph’s Barber College & Tatt Parlour.  Not anything you brag about at a 30-year high school reunion…

Regardless of all the “could” and “should”, Damn Dan’s points are valid.

If it wasn’t an Athletic Scandal then it WAS a 20-year Academic Scandal.  All Dan has to do is get his hands on a copy of the Nashville transcript where Chihuahua tells the NCAA “It was ALL Academic… and not Athletic so PLEASE don’t take our banners”…

Then, of course, the SACS has to have the “fortitude” to drop its hammer. That simply is NOT likely to happen.

I’d pay cash money to watch an info-babe stick a live mic in Roy’s face and ask…

“Coach Williams, what does “accreditation” mean?”

Wouldn’t you?

Blondie has a Great Column about Hallmark Christmas Movies… 

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