On Saturday w/ Mike Regan – New Years 6

Mike Regan January 2, 2024

Welcome everybody to the very first On Saturday of 2024. I hope you all had a great holiday filled with fun, laughter, and all the warm fuzzy feelings. If you didn’t, I hope you were at least able to get a good buzz going before that one relative with a deep-state-filled YouTube algorithm started preaching conspiracy theories. 

 

It’s been tough to keep up as the Bowl games have been taking place at a feverish pace. Since I’m lazy, instead of trying to keep up with the bowl schedule and get this column out quickly enough to avoid the content being dated, I punted. Now that the bowl games have all finished and we are officially a week away from the National Title game, we can all take a breath to look back on some of what took place. I’m going to go in-depth in my review of the College Football Playoff semi-final games (Rose Bowl & Sugar Bowl), but before that, there are some other bowl headlines I’d like to hit.

Random Bowl Season Headlines

Ryan Day’s Head Coaching Seat Continues to Heat Up

Ohio State lost the Cotton Bowl to Mizzou 14-3. No, that wasn’t the score after the first quarter, that was the score at the end of the game. The Buckeyes scored just three points and gained only 203 yards of offense. 

 

Due to the Transfer Portal and the draft, the team was missing some key starting pieces, notably, starting QB Kyle McCord and biggest of all, star wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. On top of that, sophomore QB Devin Brown left the game early with an ankle injury, forcing the team to turn to third-string signal caller Lincoln Kienholz. That is no excuse for what took place this past week in the Cotton Bowl. Ohio State is supposed to be one of the best football programs in the country with top-tier recruiting. Losing would’ve been fine, but such an embarrassing performance offensively, no matter how many backups had to play, is unacceptable. The finger has, rightfully, been pointed at head coach Ryan Day who refused to take any chance to open up the offense. In essentially an exhibition game, the only way for it to really harm a team is to have a poor performance. That’s what happened here, but it was made worse by Day’s bubble-wrapped play calling on offense. 

 

A Buckeye field goal late in the first quarter gave them a 3-0 lead that held on till the fourth quarter where the Tigers finally found the endzone twice to win the game. The first TD came on a seven-yard run by star walk-on RB Cody Schrader. The dagger TD was scored with roughly five minutes left when Brady Cook got the ball through an extremely tight window to Luther Burden III. Burden hit the Lebron as he put The Buckeyes in their cotton bowl coffin.

The Ugly Orange Bowl

If you were a Florida State fan hoping your team would go into its game against Georgia with a chip on their shoulder, motivated to show the committee they made the wrong decision, this was a rough night for you. By the time the game took place this past Saturday, 20 FSU starters had opted out. The result was brutal. Georgia outgained Florida St. 677 yards to 209 en route to a 63-3 victory over the short-handed Seminoles. 

 

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart celebrated his team’s Orange Bowl victory on the field after the final whistle blew but he also understood the circumstances of the game that just took place and voiced his displeasure in his postgame interview.

Smart brought up an important point. There is a lack of incentive for players to play in these non-playoff bowl games. Many rather stay healthy in preparation for the NFL draft, or jump into the  transfer portal during the winter window. It’s no secret that all the other bowl games are basically just exhibition games. In many cases they serve more as a sign of where the team is heading going into next year than they are a summation of their current season. However, for one of the NCAA’s New Year Six bowl games to go the way this one did, puts a big spotlight on the bowl system as it currently exists.  

 

It’s not an easy problem to fix, but here are some things to consider.

 

Don’t put the winter transfer portal window prior to bowl games. You’re forcing players who intend to transfer to make a tough choice. They could play with their teammates in a bowl game, but then they are taking the risk of having to enter the portal during the spring window. At that point, a lot of schools will have filled their most needed roster spots, and given out what NIL money they had allotted. Something that goes hand in hand with teams recruiting transfers prior to the end of the season, is the signing of coaches. 



In order for teams to go out and recruit the players they need, they also need to have the coach in place to do that recruiting. If these coaching moves didn’t happen until after bowl season, there might be less opt outs on the teams that had their coaches signed away by another school. Instead, a lot of players see the coach that recruited them leave and the direction of the program changing, which results in players deciding it’s time to go as well. 

 

My last idea may be considered a wild thought by some, or a sensible one if you’re someone with a rational brain. Maybe, just maybe, if the players got a small taste of the money that comes in from these bowl games, they would be a little more incentivized to take part.

The Pop-Tart Bowl Fraud

No disrespect to NC State or Kansas State, and congrats to The Wildcats for their 28-19 win over the Wolfpack, but that’s not why people were watching this game. It was all about the mascot. The college football world was a buzz at the promise of seeing the first ever edible mascot. I had so many questions. What flavor would it be? Would the edible mascot perspire and would that affect the taste of the pop tart? Does this count as cannibalism?

 

None of my curiosities were answered as the evil powers that be over at Kellog’s gave us this sham.

First of all, only sociopaths and people with an absurd amount of time on their hands toast their pop tarts. When I eat pop tarts it’s to fill an empty void in myself with unhealthy toaster pastries. I’m not going to take the time to toast one and risk thinking about how all the wrong decisions in life lead to me sitting at home on weekdays eating pop tarts instead of an actual lunch. 

 

Second, and most importantly, do you think I’m an idiot Kellog’s? There is no way you could toast a sentient pop tart that fast. People are mad about Florida St. getting left out of the playoffs? The real disgrace to the game was that in a random bowl game in the middle of December those Pop-Tart bastards pulled a bait and switched on their edible mascot promise. 

 

Oh, the Pop-Tart was strawberry by the way.

College Playoff Semi-Finals: the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl

The Rose Bowl presented by Prudential

#4 Alabama vs #1 Michigan

Alabama kicker Will Reichard kicked two long 50+ yard field goals. Meanwhile, Michigan muffed two punts, one was lost, the other pinned them on their own one yard line, and they missed an extra point. After all that happened I was excited to jump into my review of this game full of glee to talk about how this proved that special teams win championships. 

 

Then Jim Harbaugh and The Wolverines had to go and ruin all my fun by coming from behind to beat Alabama 27-20. Despite Big Blue spoiling my opportunity for some sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek writing (my favorite kind), I’ll let it slide because they did it in overtime. Overtime at the Rose Bowl for a spot in the National Title game. For college football fans it doesn’t get much better than that. As the broadcast headed to commercial break prior to the beginning of OT, I only saw one brave, intelligent, and devilishly handsome man on twitter who had the guts to ask the question that we were all thinking.

Look at the weak numbers on that amazing tweet. Follow this man on twitter you bums.

The game didn’t always appear as though it would end up in overtime. The 13-10 lead Michigan held at half time didn’t tell the true story. The Crimson Tide may have broken open the scoring, cashing in on UM’s first muffed punt for a touchdown to go up 7-0, but from that point on the Wolverines were in complete control. The Michigan defense dominated The Tide. They saw that they had an advantage up front and showed no fear as they repeatedly pinned their ears back, sending the extra rushers. During the first half, The Wolverines D tallied five sacks that cost Bama 44 yds. Jalen Milroe and the offense managed to gain some momentum with a ten play 52 yd drive that set up a Reichard 50 yd field goal to end the half. However, when you consider that the drive stalled when Milroe took a sack on 3rd and three, and that prior to the drive Bama only had 39 yards of offense, it wasn’t exactly a cause for optimism.

Some teams, when being outmatched as physically as The Tide were in the first half, would come out of intermission and get bullied for another thirty minutes. However, those teams don’t have Nick Saban as head coach. Saban did a Saban and made adjustments that led to what felt like a complete momentum shift in the second half. Saban and OC Tommy Rees found a way to finally start moving the ball. They may have been forced to abandon the deep shots they like to take with Milroe, but they managed to better handle the pressure from Michigan. They motioned more blockers into the backfield pre snap and leaned on the option plays for Milroe. Either get it out quick or take off. After putting Milroe on the ground five times in the first half, Michigan only got to him once in the second. It may have not led to the scoreboard getting lit up, but it did allow for a steadier level of play for their offense, and it had them sitting with a 20-13 lead late in the fourth. 

The shift in control of the game would not have happened without adjustments on the other side of the ball as well. In Michigan’s first four drives after halftime, the Alabama defense gave up zero points and just 44 yards of offense. It was the kind of performance you would expect from a Nick Saban defense and they locked down the Wolverines for almost the entire second half. 

Key word, almost. 

Down a touchdown Wolverine QB JJ McCarthy led the offense back out onto the field with roughly four and half minutes left on the clock. Honestly, this was the kind of situation I’ve been waiting to see Michigan in all season. Back against the wall, game on the line, facing an elite team. Did they have the type of players who could drive the length of the field and get into the endzone?

An often said cliche is that, “football is a game of inches.” When it comes to this game, it may have not even been inches but just an inch, as in, if Michigan WR Roman Wilson’s arms were an inch shorter, or if he jumped up an inch lower, The Crimson Tide may have left this game covered in rose petals and headed to the National Title game. With just over two minutes left Bama LB Deonte Lawson jumped up and got just enough of the ball to tip JJ McCarthy’s pass. The ball was sailing high towards the arm of Bama DB Malachi Moore before Wilson climbed the ladder to make the catch and get the ball down to the Alabama five.

Two plays later McCarthy would throw his third touchdown pass on the day when he connected with Roman Wilson on a four-yard score to tie the game 20-20 and send it to overtime. Sometimes cliches are spot on. It’s a game of inches.

The Wolverine offense took the field first for overtime, and it took just two plays from the team’s offensive MVP, running back Blake Corum to get into the endzone. As I touched on earlier Michigan had the size advantage and won the battle at the line on both sides of the ball. It was never more evident than here. After a nice eight-yard pick-up on his first carry in OT, Corum took it to the house on a 17-yard run that encapsulated the identity of Jim Harbaugh’s football team.

Look at how the O-line moved Bama’s defensive front. Look at the downfield blocking. Look at Corum fighting off contact to get into the endzone. If you don’t see the Mona Lisa-level beauty in that, you either don’t love this sport, or you aren’t a nerdy guy who writes about college football sometimes. 

 

The Alabama Crimson Tide held a touchdown lead with under five minutes left in the fourth quarter and now found themselves in need of a touchdown to force double overtime. It was a surreal image. It’s bad enough when your opponent is beating you in the trenches, it’s even worse when you are beating yourself. The Crimson Tide were plagued throughout the game by low and botched snaps. The last one came at the worst time. The game, and Alabama’s season, was on the line as they faced a fourth and goal from the three-yard line. Once again the snap was low. It was supposed to be an RPO. However, once Milroe scooped the ball up, there was no time for the read and he had no options. He charged forward in desperation into a mass of linemen and was stopped.

 

Michigan will now be playing for the National Championship. If you saw a monkey flying through the sky shortly after the game ended don’t be alarmed, that was Jim Harbaugh finally getting that monkey off his back and punting it from Pasadena to Houston where the Title game will take place. 

 

After spending his first handful of years as head coach in Ann Arbor, struggling to beat Ohio St., or win the Big Ten, Jim Harbaugh finally got his team over the hump two years ago as they made the playoffs and returned to being a contender. In 2021, they got pushed around 34-11 by Georgia. Last year, they got upset at the hands of Max Duggan and TCU. One of the most frustrating narratives to hear as a coach or player is that you can’t win big games. This win has begun to separate Harbaugh from that narrative. After all the drama of suspensions, recruiting violations, sign-stealing investigations, and manifestos. He got the big win, and he did it against one of the most elite college football programs of the last twenty years.

 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch Texas vs Washington to make sure Conor Stalions didn’t disguise himself as one of the mascots.

The AllState Sugar Bowl

#3 Texas vs #2 Washington

Should we stop doubting Washington? It feels like we should stop doubting Washington. The undefeated Huskies once again walked into a big game as underdogs against Big 12 Champion Texas. The game was a shootout, then it felt like it was over, and at the end it got wild. 

 

Washington QB Michael Penix Jr. ended up coming in second in Heisman voting to LSU QB Jayden Daniels. Penix might have made some people second-guess their ballot tonight. The senior QB was named the Sugar Bowl MVP after going 29 of 38, 430 yards, and 2 touchdowns. The Longhorn secondary are going to be seeing ghosts for a while after facing the Huskies wideout duo of Rome Odunze and Jayln Polk. Odunze finished with 125 yards, while Polk had 122 and a touchdown. It was a stark difference from the Bama vs Michigan game as Kalen Deboar had his offense out there chucking it deep right from the start.

You may be reading this and saying, “Okay, so they caught them with a deep one early. I’m sure Texas settled in as the game got going.” Well then, let’s check the second quarter.

The Huskies QB1 was feeling himself to the point that with under five left, with the lead, and in a situation where most teams would go conservative to kill clock, he was still dropping deep dimes down the sideline.

I apologize, I might be letting my love for Michael Penix Jr’s play overshadow my review of this game. I don’t want to be unfair to Texas who were up to the challenge for the track meet that took place. The first half in particular was a stalemate as they finished tied at 21 a piece. The Longhorns offense didn’t have the explosive plays to the level of Washington but they were able to march down the field. The issues arose in the second half. 

 

After Washington scored on the opening drive of the third quarter, The Longhorns’ next drive only lasted one play when freshman RB CJ Baxter fumbled and Washington recovered. The Longhorns’ defense did help stop the bleeding and held the Huskies to field goals for the rest of the game. However, their three offensive possessions in the third went fumble, punt, fumble and they went into the fourth down 34-21. 

 

At this point, it felt like we were headed for a melodramatic finish until The Longhorns showed signs of life. Halfway through the second, Texas capped a 10-play 72-yard drive with a one-yard touchdown pass from Quinn Ewers to Adonai Mitchell.

After trading field goals the score was 37-31 and it was back to feeling like an anticlimactic finish would take place. After a failed onside kick attempt, Washington had the ball in Texas territory with just 1:09 left. 

 

I bet the Washington ML in this one at +172. As I talk about the end of this game, let me tell you what was going through my head.

 

The Longhorns used their two remaining timeouts and did force the Huskies to punt, but it was still over. Texas was going to get the ball deep in their side of the field with under 50 seconds left, no timeouts, and in need of a touchdown. 

 

Mike’s inner thoughts: I’m rich biatch!

 

Texas WR Jordan Whittington called for the fair catch at his team’s 16-yard line, which is where they would’ve got the ball, but a Washington player made blatant contact with him as he was catching the ball. That’s 15 yards and the drive would now start at the 31. 

 

Mike’s inner thoughts: That was dumb. Why did he do that? So dumb. Whatever, it’s fine. I’m fine.

 

Next, Quinn Ewers proceeded to chuck up a, “It’s single coverage so screw it, let’s go deep.” kind of throw. Once again it was Jordan Whittington who leapt up and snagged the ball for a 41-yard gain.

All of sudden Texas had the ball at the Huskie 31 with roughly 20 seconds still on the clock. 

 

Mike’s Inner thoughts: I’ve been nice to Texas in my writing this season. Why are they doing this to me???

 

A couple of plays later Ewers connected with RB Jayden Blue for another 16 yards. 15 ticks left on the game clock and the ball on the Huskie 12. The Longhorns had a chance to grasp victory from defeat and ruin my last chance at finishing my betting day in the black.

 

Mike’s Inner Thoughts: WHAT THE F*CK IS HAPPENING!?!?!

 

A one-yard loss and an incomplete pass on the next two plays left only five seconds on the clock. Just one more play. The Huskies pass rush gets to Ewers who throws it away just before his knees hit the ground for a sack and of course, there is one second left on the clock. Would my bet survive?

One final toss into the endzone intended for Adonai Mitchell. Ewer’s pass is unfortunately too high and away for him to come down with. Washington finally gets the stop to hang on, cash my bet, and reserve a date with Michigan for the National Title. 

 

Mike’s Inner Thoughts:

via GIPHY

It was a fitting game for The Huskies who have spent the entire second half of the season refusing to die, pulling out wins late. Even here where it felt like they had the game under control, it ended up coming down to the final play. They’ve opened up as a 4.5-point underdog against The Wolverines in next week’s championship game.

 

Are you betting against them?

 

That’s not a rhetorical question. I need your advice. I have no clue anymore. 

 

That’s all for this week. I hope everyone has a great 2024 and sticks to their New Year’s resolutions. Or just keep letting the gym take the monthly fee out of your account while putting off the hassle and shame of canceling it. I will be back sometime later this week for a big-time preview breakdown of the National Title game and more.

Check out Mike’s best college football bets here, and the previous On Saturday w/ Mike Regan here.

 

If you like our football content, check out the newest episode of our twice weekly NFL Podcast, The Talent Alone Podcast.

 

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