HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! … A very safe and prosperous New Year’s wish to everyone. Of course, if it is New Year’s Day it means football and there are four major college bowls on the schedule for today including two of the so-called NY6 games: the Rose and the Sugar Bowls. For the record, 6th ranked Oregon plays #8 Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl with KO at 5 PM ET on ESPN, while #5 Georgia faces #7 Baylor in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans at 8 PM also on ESPN. The other two games today both KO at 1 PM with Alabama playing Michigan in the Citrus on ABC, while Minnesota faces Auburn in the Outback Bowl on ESPN. Under normal circumstances we’d be extensively previewing today’s games, but the sad truth they are really nothing more than glorified exhibition games. Nobody cares. And we know that nobody really cares because a significant number of players have opted not to participate and are already actively preparing for the 2020 draft. As many as a half dozen Georgia Bulldawgs, for example, won’t be playing in the Sugar Bowl today for draft reasons including starting OTs Andrew Thomas, the team’s top prospect for the upcoming draft, and Isaiah Wilson. The bowls are an anachronism in this day and age of the actual college playoff system and appear to be maintained at the expense of an expanded playoff by the powers that currently run college football in order to maintain their control of who gets the sports big post-season dollars. And that’s not likely to change until fans demand it. End of rant!
However, there is one situation that pro scouts will be really focused on in today’s games and that’s the play of Oregon QB Justin Herbert against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. Right now it appears that the NFL views Joe Burrow of LSU and, if healthy, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa as the only true potential elite QB prospects in this year’s draft and that both, again assuming that Tua checks out medically during pre-draft testing after undergoing hip surgery earlier this fall, are likely to be off the board in the first 2-3 picks on April 23rd. After that, though, the QB situation for the upcoming draft is somewhat murkier. Herbert is generally considered to be the next best at the position with at least some top 10 potential; he’s got all the physical tools including good size, a really strong arm, along with excellent athleticism, but his play on the field hasn’t always lived up to that level. And with a lot of teams hoping to get an upgrade at QB at the 2020 draft, a strong performance by Herbert against the aggressive Wisconsin defense could enhance his ultimate grade and maybe push him closer to the top 5. Stay tuned!
