GBU: End of the NFL Season and Start of Bowl Mania
We are headed into the last week of the NFL season and the Cleveland Browns still do not have a win on their resume. Facing rival Pittsburgh, the Browns have a very good chance to finish the season with the imperfect record of 0–16. The college bowl season is official underway as we move through the slate of bowl games with the best names (Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl, Raycom Media Camellia Bowl, Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl, Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl, etc.) before the New Year’s Day slate of high profile matchups. In NBA news Nike’s laundry list of jersey miscues continues as this year was the first in recent memory without special edition Christmas Day Game Jerseys. With all that in mind lets jump into the last week in sports news:
The Good: The Blake Bortles vs Jadeveon Clowney Beef
Ever since Bleacher Report’s NFL Analyst Chris Simms ranked current Jacksonville Jaguar quarterback Blake Bortles 70th overall, Blake has thrown for 1,285 yards, 9 touchdowns and helped lead his team to a 3–1 record in the month of December. Even though the Jaguars have surprised many with their impressive season thusfar, there are still a growing number of Bortles non-believers. Among them is Houston Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney who called the quarterback, “trash.” This caught the eye of the Jacksonville faithful who began to defend their fearless leader by buying and shipping trashcans to Clowney. Not one to miss out on an opportunity, Jadeveon used the trashcans sent to him to give out toys to children in the Houston community.
The Bad: Laker Legal Problems
Laker guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is in the midst of serving a 25 day jail sentence after violating probation. For the duration of the sentence Pope is living in a state detention center but is allowed to come out to Laker games and practices. He is unfortunately not allowed to leave the state so he will miss all Laker away games during that stretch (5 games). As an added bonus Pope might have to wear a GPS tracker whenever he is away from the detention center which would obviously clash with the Laker gold uniforms.
The Ugly: Florida State Football
Florida State just can’t win this year. After starting the season ranked #3 in the country the Seminoles finished the regular season with a meek 6–6 record and lost their coach Jimbo Fisher in the process. Unfortunately for Nole Nation when it rains it truly does pour. One of Florida State’s regular season wins was a decisive 77–6 victory over perennial powerhouse Delaware State. However a college football writer pointed out that Delaware did not have enough scholarship athletes over a two year period to make a victory over them count towards bowl eligibility. This means that Florida State actually shouldn’t have been bowl eligible even though they finished the season with 6 wins. The NCAA however missed this and Florida State ended up winning the Independence Bowl that they were never supposed to be in.
