Welcome back to the land of amateur football, dear readers, where the only consistency to life is the constant pain from watching Arizona State play the sport in the first place.
The plucky underdogs from Tempe were last seen getting wiped off the face of the earth by the one-two combo of the Texas Longhorns and a mediocre officiating crew, which teamed up to send Kenny Dillingham packing.
While we here at West Coast Bias Sports can tip our cap to America’s leading source of Elderly Millennial energy and his team of college football castoffs, the net result is that the Sun Devils are watching the CFP semis in the same setting as you & me — on TV.
Where Sparky exits, the four horsemen of the college football apocalypse known as Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State and Texas enter stage right, giving us a national semifinal that LeBron James must be happy about.
Luckily for The Chosen One, ESPN and the henchmen in Indianapolis opted to put Ohio State’s semifinal game against Texas on a night where the Lakers aren’t playing a game, meaning he can sit back, pop open a nice bottle of cabernet and watch Steve Sarkisian rip the Buckeyes’ hearts out, Mortal Kombat style.
LeBron adages aside, it’s high time to get back to guesstimating about who will advance to the first championship game of the CFP’s 12-team era, with Lions, Longhorns, Irishmen and Buckeyes, oh my!
Regular Season: 89-45 Straight-up/65-64 ATS
CFP: 3-4 Straight-up/2-5 ATS
All Odds Provided By ESPN BET
No. 7 Notre Dame (13-1) vs. No. 6 Penn State (13-2) — 4:30 p.m. Pacific time Thursday (ESPN)
Spread: Notre Dame -1.5
Our Pick: Notre Dame wins, 27-20
The one thing we know right now is that America will have a Black football coach in the national title game for the first time ever, thanks to having Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman square off against James Franklin of Penn State in Thursday’s semifinal round.
As my college football guru Spencer Hall noted so eloquently earlier today, Notre Dame football is downright entertaining to watch this year, with zero sense of offensive motivation and a defense that wants to chew a pound of ass on each snap of the ball.
Duke transfer Riley Leonard runs like a man on fire (literally in this sense), while completing just enough passes to keep opposing defenses from putting 11 men in the box.
On the other side, Penn State has managed to rebound from losing in the Big Ten title game to Oregon by whomping some ass, making me look like a complete dipshit by slashing SMU and Boise State like a bad horror film.
For now, I’ll go with Freeman’s defense to turn Franklin into the big game pumpkin that we’ve all come to know and love, with Notre Dame making just enough big plays to advance to the CFP title game for the first time ever come Thursday night.
No. 5 Texas (13-2) vs. No. 8 Ohio State (12-2) — 4:30 p.m. Pacific time Friday (ESPN)
Spread: Ohio State -6
Our Pick: Ohio State wins, 38-32
In the Friday night finale of the CFP semis that was brought on by Roger Goodell’s bloodlust for television supremacy, we have Steve Sarkisian vs. Ryan Day in a battle of Men Going Through Midlife Crises.
(Choose Your Fighter, CFB Head Coach Edition)
In the end, I’m going with Sarkisian to pull off all the little tongue-and-cheek, gridiron asshole play calls that won over Pete Carroll’s heart at USC, with Texas riding just enough slapdash momentum to turn the day into night in Columbus.
While it’s objectively hilarious to me that Baby Manning is still riding the pine in Austin as Mountain Man Quinn Ewers lobs bombs week after week, I do find it awesome to watch the Grizzly Adams look alike spamming deep throws galore on the sport’s biggest stage.
That’s why I’m expect Ewers and Sarkisian to throw in just enough explosive pass plays to overcome the inevitable mind cramp that will leave the announcing crew wondering what the hell both of them were thinking in the first place.