Oklahoma staged a decent resurgence after falling behind 28-0 in the first 17 minutes. Final score 45-34.

The total yardage was darned close: 528-471, but at one point in the game, the tally was 191-0 in favor of the Tide. As predicted, Oklahoma’s Achilles heel was pass defense. Alabama was nearly perfect in the air, with 25 for 28 and four TDs. Oklahoma finished the year DEAD LAST in the nation in passing defense!

Alabama and Clemson will face off yet again, both undefeated this time. They met after the 2015 and 2016 seasons in the finals, and they met last year in the semi-finals, but none of those seasons produced an undefeated champion. In 2015, eventual champion Alabama lost early in the season to Ole Miss. In 2016, eventual champion Clemson had been shocked earlier in the season by losing to lowly Pitt, a team that went 8-5 for the year and finished unranked. In 2017, eventual champion Alabama dropped one to a tough Auburn team.

That 2017 Auburn team really had its ups and downs. During the regular season they defeated both of the teams that made it to the national championship game, but then lost their own bowl game to UCF! Or maybe that meant that UCF was just that good. As we’ve all noted many times, UCF is the Rodney Dangerfield of college football. No respect, I tell ya. And speaking of UCF, they are 7 1/2 point underdogs vs LSU. I rarely have a sentimental pick in these bowl games, but I will be pulling for UCF.

Not only will we have an undefeated champ this year, but the winner of that final game will finish 15-0, which will be a feat never accomplished in this century or the last. The last time a college team finished undefeated with 15 wins or more was in 1897!!

The early line on the final game is Alabama by 6.

Exercise fanatic Jessica Biel, wet and fit in that cinematic magnum opus, Summer Catch (2001).

Even the casting is ludicrous, and not just because it stars Freddie Prinze, Jr.

The baseball coach, a former left-handed pitcher, is played by Brian Dennehy. How many pitchers do you know who are 6’2″, 350? Although now that I think about it, Sabathia might be close to three and a half bills.

The team catcher is played by Prinze’s fellow member of the Young Shakespeare Society, Matthew Lillard. Lillard swings about the way Truman Capote would have swung if he had tried baseball.

On the other hand, there is Biel in a bikini and appearances by Hank Aaron and Dick Allen, representing some moments at least worth watching. That may make Summer Catch the Citizen Kane of Freddie Prinze, Jr movies. Has this guy ever been in anything watchable? (Doing voices for cartoons doesn’t count.)

Several experts defend their choices.

1974 was a foolish choice. It was such a bad year for films that they couldn’t come up with five respectable Oscar nominees. The Towering Inferno was nominated as Best Picture. People remember the year fondly because three of the iconic films in history appeared then: Godfather II, Blazing Saddles and Chinatown. Those were genuine stars, but there was no supporting cast.

How the internet has changed our lives:

Netflix says over 45 million accounts have watched ‘Bird Box’.

Assuming two people per viewing, that’s equivalent to 90 million ticket sales.

To place that into perspective, about 200 million people have seen Gone With the Wind in the theaters, and that’s the most-watched theatrical movie of all time. That took 80 years. The mediocre Bird Box (52 score at Metacritic) reached nearly 100 million people in one week!

It’s no wonder the Coen Brothers are willing to eschew the theaters.