Sorry about not being able to post this sooner. (Well, you know those pesky-yet-vital life events...)
The 2017 NCAA Division 1-A "Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda" football playoffs are finished, and here's what happened (seeding in parentheses):
FIRST ROUND: Penn State (9) 28, Washington State (24) 0; Boise State (16) 16, Auburn (17)14; South Florida (20) 21, San Diego State (13) 14; Notre Dame (21) 29, Miami (FL) (12) 28; Troy (14) 42, Florida Atlantic (19) 32; Washington (11) 28, Michigan State (22) 7; TCU (18) 37, Memphis (15) 21; Oklahoma State (23) 53, USC (10) 28
SECOND ROUND: Penn State 42, Central Florida (1) 34; Toledo (8) 20, Boise State 15; Wisconsin (5) 21, South Florida 7; Clemson (4) 28, Notre Dame 21; Alabama (6) 59, Troy 13; Washington 28, Oklahoma (3) 25; Ohio State (7) 35, TCU 14; Georgia (2) 35, Oklahoma State 7
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Penn State 44, Toledo 21; Wisconsin 14, Clemson 7; Alabama 35, Washington 0; Georgia 15, Ohio State 14
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Wisconsin 28, Penn State 14; Georgia 35, Alabama 14
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Georgia 28, Wisconsin 17
Well, how about some highlights?
FIRST ROUND: Darius Anderson's three touchdowns helped Horned Frogs spoil Tigers' playoff debut...Brandon Silvers fired four TD passes to key Trojans' win over Owls...109,990 filled up Beaver Stadium as Saquon Barkley scored three times in Nittany Lions' rout of Cougars...Fighting Irish won because Brandon Wimbush (who also tossed three air scores) tallied the game-winning two-point conversion after Kevin Stepherson scooted in from 79 yards out with 2:27 to go in the fourth quarter...Broncos pulled it out with just 18 seconds to play in regulation when LB Desmond Williams sacked Tiger QB Jarrett Stidham in the end zone...Bulls won it on Quinton Flowers' 25-yard scoring strike to Tyre McCants with 5:42 left in the third period...Huskies wiped out a 7-0 Spartan lead; Myles Gaskin led the way with two TDs...Cowboys shocked Trojans because Mason Rudolph went 24-42-399 yards-2 TDs-2 INTs while Justice Hill ran for four TDs on a 15-rush, 121-yard night and James Washington caught seven balls for 124 yards and a score.
SECOND ROUND: Buckeyes rained 28 unanswered points on Frogs to erase a 14-7 TCU lead; J.K. Dobbins (20-83-2 TDs) led the way...Jonathan Taylor got 128 yards and two TDs (he ran 28 times) to help Badgers stop Bulls, who had 12 penalties for 77 yards...Logan Woodside flipped a one-yard TD pass to Jon'Vea Johnson with 2:07 remaining in regulation to enable Rockets to sideline Broncos...Tavien Feaster brought it in from the Irish one-yard line with 57 ticks to go in the fourth to let Tigers give Notre Dame a taste of its own medicine...Lavon Coleman's two scores (and another by Gaskin) allowed Huskies to overcome Sooners' 505-yard offensive display...Crimson Tide outrushed Trojans, 297-38, with Jalen Hurts going 15-108-1 TD (while passing for 270 yards and another score)...Sony Michel (15-105-2 TDs) and Nick Chubb (19-78-1 TD) keyed Bulldogs' lassoing of Cowboys, while Jake Fromm threw for two more scores...Golden Knights wasted McKenzie Milton's 28-35-309 yards-5 TDs-0 picks passing effort (and became the second top seed in as many seasons to go one-and-done) when Barkley scooted for 99 yards (on 20 carries) and three touchdowns.
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Taylor's one-yard score with 5:21 left in the fourth lifted Badgers over Tigers...Trace McSorley ran for three TDs and tossed an air score as Nittany Lions capitalized on 11 Rocket penalties that totaled 56 yards...Tide rolled, all right, nearly doubling up Huskies in yardage (521-267) while Damien Harris picked up three TDs (two on the ground, the other on a catch) and Hurts ran 10 times for 115 yards and connected on 11 of 21 throws for 205 yards and that TD pass...Fromm found Terry Godwin in the end zone from nine yards out with 1:25 to go in the fourth, and the Bulldogs won it on D'Andre Swift's two-point conversion run.
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Badgers held Nittany Lions to 128 total yards (38 on the ground) and sacked McSorley seven times (twice each by Alec James and D'Cota Dixon) while Taylor ran it 26 times for 137 yards and three tallies...Chubb scored twice on an 18-tote, 57-yard effort to put the Tide away.
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: At Atlanta's brand-new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Badgers coughed up a 14-7 halftime lead because Fromm went right to work, firing three scoring strikes, with the second TD toss- a ten-yarder to Riley Ridley- proving to be the winning score.
Result: Kirby Smart became just the third head coach to take an SEC team to the top of these D-1-A playoffs and, in the process, the 'Dogs ended the Big Ten's control of the championship trophy.
And, on top of that, not one, but two- two- TWO freshmen got the playoff MVP award: Taylor (for running 96 times for 399 yards and six touchdowns) and Fromm (because he completed 45 passes in 73 tosses for 814 yards and seven TDs against three picks...good for a rating of 177.1).
This season- well, at least on this computer- came down to the first Division 1-A championship game involving a pair of first-time participants since 2013 (when Baylor topped Louisville, 35-28).
What about next season?
Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
You've got no excuses now.
If you want Donald John Trump out of there, you're going to have to vote for Thomas Jonathan Ossoff this coming Tuesday.
That's all there is to it.
You just can't afford to sit this one out...the way some of you not only sat out last year's US presidential election, but also the 2010 and 2014 midterms.
Some people here in America don't think any sort of anti-Trump resistance is taking place. After all, Democrats are 0 for 2 in special elections thus far this year. Kansans in what used to be Mike Pompeo's US House district rejected James Thompson, the Democrat who was trying to take the seat out of Republican hands.
And Montanans just got through demonstrating that they wanted Republican Greg Gianforte (who beat up a reporter, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, on the eve of Big Sky Country's US House election, the effort to replace Ryan Zinke) instead of Democrat Rob Quist.
You folks are the firewall. You can't afford to wait until next year and cross your fingers.
Registered Democrats have GOT to end their history of staying away from polling places whenever there's a midterm election or a special election.
I mean, don't you understand, after all these years, that if you don't go out and cast a ballot, you give the opposition the choice?
Don't you remember how millions and millions and millions of Americans put their lives on the line- even gave up their lives- to expand the right to vote beyond White male landowners?
You've got no excuses. None.
The cat didn't eat your homework. What's more, if you electronically turned in your homework, the cat didn't walk across your laptop and hit "Delete."
Matter of fact, I researched Ossoff's platform and that of his opponent, Karen Handel (who, in 2007, became the first elected Republican to serve as the Peach State's secretary of state).
*First of all, the 30-year-old Ossoff has made suggestions that could save the US government $16 billion (an assertion Politifact agrees with). For example, if the government consolidated its data centers, it'd mean $5.4 billion extra to spend. And if the Department of Defense could try strategic sourcing, $4 billion would be freed up.
*If our businesses played with money the way America's government does, those firms would be in deep doo-doo. TJO wants to bring our government up to private-sector standards. (Think about this: The General Accounting Office found out that, in fiscal 2014, Uncle Sam made improper payments totaling $124.7 billion. Also, GAO found out 6.5 million active Social Security numbers have been set aside for people over the age of 112...despite the fact that only 42 such people the world over are currently drawing breath!)
*Jon Ossoff wants to promote high-tech and biotech research...at a time when today's GOP-led Congress wants to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, one of Georgia's top fifteen employers.
*On top of that, he's out to prioritize STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs, colleges, universities, and technical schools. Ossoff would like to let college students refinance their loan repayment programs and, in the process, reap the benefits of lower interest rates.
*Atlanta native Ossoff supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.
*He doesn't want nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned. (With those nonviolent drug offenders clogging up the jails, where's the room for the convicted murderers, sex offenders, what have you?)
*Jon won't raise your taxes; in fact, he's in favor of lowering taxes for small businesses.
*Ossoff wants the United States to stay in the Paris climate accord.
*Although he doesn't want a single-payer health-care system, he's in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act the law of the land. (Don't get him started on the proposed ACA replacement, the so-called American Health Care Act.)
*To top it all off, this son of an Australian mother will work for comprehensive immigration reform...the kind that strengthens enforcement along the US-Mexico border and makes a citizenship path for America's 11 million undocumented immigrants.
If you flip this platform around, you can just imagine what Handel's platform looks like.
Still, here it is:
*Handel wants to repeal the ACA (as did Tom Price, the new HHS secretary whose House seat Ossoff and Handel are after) and replace it with the AHCA...a proposal that, contrary to Republican assertions, reduces protections for preexisting conditions (in addition to taking health insurance away from at least 23 million Americans!).
*She's made it clear that she opposes the minimum wage: "I do not support a livable wage."
*Handel opposes abortion rights, government funding of Planned Parenthood, and embryonic stem-cell research.
*Karen wants to limit Uncle Sam's role in combating climate change; she'd rather leave it up to the states and their cities. What's more, she doesn't believe that we human beings are the biggest reason the world's average temperature has gone up.
*And, of course, Handel doesn't want an automatic (or any kind of) path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants.
*Do you remember when the 55-year-old Handel was an executive with Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure? Remember when, in 2012, the foundation pulled back a $700,000 grant to Planned Parenthood to fund mammograms and other breast-cancer-related services?
The cutoff was completely and totally political.
And it had Handel's fingerprints all over it.
The same woman who purged voter rolls as soon as she became Georgia's secretary of state five years earlier.
So there you are, Democrats in GA-6. Take it from me, a man who, in 1986, failed to cast a ballot in an historic election here in Nebraska.
Two women- a first here in these fifty states- fought for Bob Kerrey's gubernatorial seat as he sought a seat in the US Senate. Instead of former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis keeping the governor's mansion in Democratic hands,
State Treasurer Kay Orr put it back in the GOP's lap.
My excuse: "I ran out of time before I had to go to work."
I got raked over the coals for my decision...and ever since, I've made it a point to cast a ballot every chance I could get.
This one's too important to pass up...especially if you want Trump impeached and then convicted (before he and his people do further damage to America and its reputation).
Please...get up off your excuses and VOTE for Jon Ossoff!
Sincerely, Jim Boston
