Let's talk some football!

The conference championship games have ended.  There were winners and losers; some perfect seasons ruined, some blemished seasons made better.  The final Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings have come out, and the bowl games have been selected.  With 35 bowl games, and 70 teams, I can't tell you about every one, but I will preview the bigger, BCS bowl games.  In case you didn't know, this is the last year of the BCS selecting the bowl games and their match ups.  Some teams, in a lot of cases the Pac-12 conference teams such as Oregon or Stanford, felt as is they deserved a chance at the BCS National Championship Game, but instead were selected 3rd in the final rankings (the top two teams make it).  On June 26, 2012, it was announced that the Bowl Championship Series will be replaced by a four-team playoff, effective for the 2014–15 season, to be called the College Football Playoff.  The five BCS bowls are, the Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Florida, the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and the BCS National Championship game, also to be played in Pasadena.

Every one of the match ups for these games looks to be particularly entertaining, except for maybe UCF playing a very talented, explosive, and offensive Baylor team in the Fiesta Bowl.  Standford is looking to win its second straight Rose Bowl as it plays a Michigan State team (GO SPARTANS!) that recently knocked off an undefeated, and previously considered by many to be the best team in the country in the Ohio State Buckeyes.  Should be a close, low-scoring game of two defenses.  With Ohio State losing to Michigan State, and Alabama losing to Auburn with a miracle a couple of weeks ago another couple of great games are set up.  In the Sugar Bowl Alabama plays Oklahoma and in the Orange Bowl Ohio State plays Clemson.  Looks to be a great Bowl Series. Can't wait to watch these bowl games while on Winter Break!

What an upset...

The University of North Carolina Tar Heels went into East Lansing, Michigan, walked into the Breslin Center, and knocked off the #1 team in the country, at home.  As I sat there watching my team play terribly, I couldn't help but wonder how does this make any sense?  Michigan State is the number one team in assists per game, and were entering into that game averaging over 22 per game.  The Spartans finished the game with 12 total.  North Carolina is a team with a lot young potential yet is inexperienced.  The Tar Heels had lost to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Belmont.  According to ESPN, "The Spartans (7-1) lost to an unranked nonconference team at home for the first time in more than a decade."  Michigan State also beat a very good Kentucky team, and has the senior leadership of Adreian Payne, Keith Appling, and one of the best young players in the country, Gary Harris.  Usually a great shooting team MSU hit very few threes and was getting dominated inside.  But this is what you have go to love about College Basketball.  Even with all of the signs on paper pointing towards a Michigan State win, North Carolina pulled a sound 14 point victory over the Spartans.  "One of the more disappointing performances of my career here," Tom Izzo, the coach of Michigan State, said. "From the jump ball, they kind of took it to us.""You can't tell in college basketball what's going to happen," Roy Williams, the North Carolina coach said. "At one

point, we had three freshmen, a sophomore and a junior on the court."  Goes to show anything can happen in college basketball.  As I like to say, there's no transitive property in basketball! Never count a team out!

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) Description Courtesy of ESPN: Brice Johnson #11 of the North Carolina Tar Heels reacts, as teammates look on, to beating the Michigan State Spartans 79-65 at the Jack T. Breslin Student Events Center on December 4, 2013 in East Lansing, Michigan.

This is a blog about...

My name is Nnamdi Render and my passion is sports.  Particularly college sports.  Ever since I was a kid, I have always had an urge to study, learn, and participate in sports.  Yet also from an early age, I have always seen the landscape of professional sports to be vastly flawed.  Don't get me wrong I love watching pro sports as much as the next person, yet I think college athletics represents everything good about the basis of sports.  Sports is a great equalizer.  Sports is a peacemaker.  Sports is a way to be included, to find friends, even feel accepted.  As the late Nelson Mandela said in a speech in 2006 "Sport has the power to chance the world. It has the power to unite people in a way little else does. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair."  As an athlete myself, I believe sports should be more about rewarding young men and women for their endeavors with pride and honor instead of pumping up their heads with contracts bigger than the endowments of colleges.  All in all nothing against those who don't, but I prefer college sports to professional sports.  Often times within this blog you will encounter some bias.  The team in college sports that I love with all my heart is the Spartans of Michigan State University.  I will attempt to remain objective in my posts about other schools, but when it comes to my Spartans, there's no holding back!  Just one note: my favorite sport to play, watch and analyze is basketball so I will mostly be writing about that but I also love soccer, baseball, track and field, football and many others.

  I hope you enjoy reading my posts about college sports and every topic underneath that broad umbrella. Thank you for reading.