The Overton Window shifts on the college football playoffs. Oh, and the 2025-26 championship game is 19 January (tonight).
And…drumroll…it all comes down to this.
If you don’t personally remember Howard Cosell (look it up, yard-rats), that probably doesn’t resound in your head in Cosell Portentous Voice.
But come down it does, nevertheless.
The first glimpse of the CFPB+/-WD bracket.
Inner Circle Continue reading “Football Follies 2025 (-2026): A rough beast slouches toward Miami”
New Year announces its presence with authority.
At this point, I’m happier than not that I didn’t manage to get a New Year greeting posted before now. Three Five days into 2026, it has already held more drama than one might have imagined to develop in the first three months – or perhaps even the entire year.
Something about the events in both Venezuela and Iran brings to mind John Keats’s 1816 sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” – Homer, of course, being the ancient Greek author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their civilization-defining stature as epic poems. But with due homage to Homer, the emphasis in my mind is less on him, and more on “stout Cortez,” staring at the Pacific with a wild surmise, silent upon the peak in Darien.*
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. Continue reading “Happy New Year 2026”
This week, a drive-thru order more than a smorgasbord.
We’re down to four college games of note this week, and the first out of the gate is Sunday evening in, wouldn’t you know it, Canton, Ohio. We’re been there before with Div III, but there’s other news too.
With too much exciting stuff happening in Venezuela and Iran, we’ll need to keep this focused. Fortunately, no one cares that the CFPB+/-WD semis are “bowl games.” We can dispense with extraneous details as regards the Fiesta and Peach Bowls. A whole lot of money will be spent. Yee-ha.
Herewith the bracket. Continue reading “Football Follies 2025: Other ranks sing their last; Semifinals erupt in their own special way”
Playoffs vs. Bowls Smackdown.
[Note: Assembling the full Follies needs a little more time, so the completed portion is loaded below, and will be filled in when the rest is finalized. – J.E.]
[Update: Please see the minimal, essentials-only update to the section for the bowl-bowls of 31 December. That’s all the much that’s going to happen before the 1st. Iran’s kind of erupting at the moment. It’s always something, right? Fill-ins to come for the 2 January 2026 bowl day, when Navy represents us in the Liberty Bowl. Happy New Year! – J.E.]
[Update 2: The 2 January lineup makes its appearance in its allotted slot below, though not with the level of rich, intriguing detail we previously intended. It became apparent that it just wasn’t going to happen. We know everyone must be watching Navy right now anyway. At any rate, the completeness has reached its peak for week 3. Up next will be the FCS and Div III finals and the FBS semifinals in the coming week. – J.E.]
Let’s face it, nobody cares whether the Rose Bowl is the Granddaddy of them all now. It’s not about the iconic Rose Bowl anymore. It’s now about the CFPB+/-WD playoff game, and after the Rose and three other bowls there’ll be three games still left to play to get us to a CFP champion. Those games won’t be bowls either, even though two of them wear bowl names. They’ll be playoff semifinals, and a final.
BO-ring.
The view of the bracket. Continue reading “Football Follies 2025: Bowl week 3 (Quarterfinals occupy the vibe)”
Boundless promise.
I’m taking the opportunity at the outset to wish our Jewish friends a belated Happy Hanukkah. I did better at getting a greeting up at social media this year.
Light overcomes the darkness. Sometimes light hits hard, Continue reading “Christmas 2025”
The Optimistic Conservative 