Welcome back! Happy New Year to you all! 2017 is here and the holiday weekend has given us plenty of things to talk about around the water cooler today. The first “Weekend Recap” of the year has you covered. I’ve got my thoughts on the national semifinals in college football, the rest of the New Year’s Six bowls, and a little NFL coaching carousel for today.

Alabama-Clemson National Championship Rematch Set 

We’ll start the recap going back to “Semifinal Saturday” which saw the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl go the way of chalk. Alabama dominated Washington in the Peach Bowl 24-7 on the strength of its top ranked defense in the nation. I tweeted it at the time and I still believe it a few days out, Alabama looked like a boa constrictor in this game, slowly choking the life out of the Huskies.

Washington came out with a lot of energy on offense, opening up the scoring with an impressive touchdown drive to take the early lead. It was all Tide after that though. Bama marched down the field going almost exclusively with its running game to tie it up. The Huskies were moving swiftly but fumbled at midfield, which sucked the air out of the Washington offense. The rest of the game was seemingly played entirely on Washington’s side of the field.

Credit to the Washington defense though, watching the game you never would have guessed that it was a ten-point game for much of the second half. That deficit could have been a lot worse given the way Alabama controlled field position and shut down the Huskies offense.

I do have to admit that I totally blew my prediction for this game, probably my worst game pick of the season. The first ten minutes of that game went the way I thought it would but once Alabama started to lean on Washington, the momentum never left the Tide’s possession. That’s football for you, especially picking against the overwhelming favorite.

The real surprise of the day came in primetime with the Fiesta Bowl. Clemson opened up a serious can of you-know-what on Ohio State en route to an impressive 31-0 blowout win. I really do wonder how the Buckeyes were even favored in the game, but I did not see them just getting rolled by the Tigers. Penn State fans were likely very happy with that result though.

Urban Meyer suffered his first shutout loss as the Ohio State coach as his team ends its year with a whimper, although the biggest loser of the night might have been the selection committee. Twitter was set ablaze with hot takes from all across the sports world about how wrong the Ohio State seeding, and even selection had been for these playoffs.

What is set up though, is one hell of a national championship game. The first game between these two last season was a classic, so the rematch will have a ton of juice leading up to Monday night. This is probably the best possible outcome for the national championship game in terms of storylines and the on-field matchup.

Mixed Bag in the Rest of the New Year’s Six Bowls 

While the semifinal games were kind of “meh” the rest of the major bowl games delivered its fair share of excitement. We’ll start with yesterday’s Rose Bowl between USC and Penn State. What a game in what will go down as one of the best Rose Bowl’s in the history of the game (doesn’t touch the ’05 title game between Texas and USC but its up there).

This game was rich with exciting twists, turns, and huge plays. USC controlled the game for much of the first half but looked left for dead once the second half started. Penn State closed the first half with a touchdown to make it 27-21 at the break. The Nittany Lions then opened the half with an offensive onslaught rarely seen on the big stage. Three plays for three touchdowns. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Penn State ripped off a pair of 70+ yard touchdowns and then turned a Brandon Bell interception into a short touchdown. Boom! Just like that, the Nittany Lions were up 42-27 within the first five minutes of the third quarter. Penn State carried a 14-point lead into the fourth quarter with USC reeling and looking defeated.

All of a sudden though, USC came alive in the late stages of the fourth quarter. Redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Darnold looked like a cold-blooded killer leading the comeback charge. A star-making performance for the young USC QB brought the game all even with just over a minute left in the game.

Penn State still had its chance to salvage a victory out of a blown fourth quarter lead until quarterback Trace McSorely threw his third interception of the night on his own side of the field. With USC on the fringe of field goal range they only needed a few yards to give kicker Sam Boermeester a chance to kick the game-winner, which he would do from 46-yards out as the clock expired. This was easily the game of the weekend.

The early “game of the weekend” in the clubhouse before Sunday was Friday night’s Orange Bowl between Florida State and Michigan. The Seminoles upset the Wolverines in a 33-32 thriller. Granted, Michigan was without star defensive player Jabrill Peppers, who was a late scratch from the game with a hamstring injury.

Florida State running back Dalvin Cook took home Orange Bowl MVP honors capping off his collegiate career with a monster night against a tough Michigan defense. Cook rushed for 145 yards and touchdown while adding another 62 receiving yards. While Cook will be playing on Sundays next year, much of this Florida State team will be back next season and will make them one of the favorites in the national title chase.

For Michigan, it was a very disappointing end to a promising season. The Wolverines finished the year losing three out of its last four games by a total of five points. That is certainly a tough way to go out, but Michigan will be locked and loaded next season. We’ll have to wait and see whether or not Peppers will be back in the fold though. His intentions to enter the NFL draft will be one of the top situations to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

While the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl delivered some compelling action, the same can’t be said for the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl. Wisconsin picked up the only New Year’s Six victory for the Big Ten conference, taking down Cinderella story Western Michigan 24-16 in the Cotton Bowl. The Badgers were in control all game long making short work of the previously undefeated Broncos.

The MAC champions weren’t exactly outclassed in this game but just didn’t have the talent to overcome a very tough Wisconsin team. I’m still in shock that Western Michigan coach PJ Fleck didn’t get poached by a Power Five school, because the job that he has done with the Broncos has been impressive to say the least. He will be a name to keep an eye on down the line.

Finally, we get to last night’s Sugar Bowl, which saw Oklahoma dominate Auburn 35-19. The Sooners overcame an early flurry from the Tigers, and reeled off 21 unanswered points in the second half to take a 35-13 lead. Auburn would add a late touchdown but by then Oklahoma had already gave Bob Stoops his Gatorade bath. This was a case of one team knowing whom it was while the other team figuring out what the future holds. Oklahoma is getting ready to contend for a national championship next season while Auburn was left figuring out what this team will look like next year. Hopefully the national championship game can erase the memory of this clunker from our collective memory.

NFL Postseason is Set, And the Coaching Carousel Begins

The last Sunday of the NFL regular season lacked the drama of past years but regardless the field is set for the postseason. New England, Dallas, Kansas City, and Atlanta all secured first round byes (New England and Dallas have home-field advantage throughout the postseason). Aside from figuring out the final wild card in the NFC, there wasn’t much to be decided on Sunday. I’ll have more on the playoffs this week, starting with tomorrow’s “No Huddle.”

Sunday’s games were overshadowed by the litany of coaching and GM vacancies that opened throughout the day. The real shocker of the beginning of the coaching carousel was the abrupt retirement of Denver head coach Gary Kubiak. Citing health and family reasons, the Super Bowl winning coach is hanging up his clipboard. Kubiak’s sudden retirement certainly turned many heads and opens up a juicy spot with the soon-to-be former Super Bowl champions.

Two West Coast teams swiftly cleaned house prior to the beginning of the Sunday night game. One move was a mild surprise while the other move had been coming for weeks. San Diego fired coach Mike McCoy following another season that will find them drafting the in top-ten in the upcoming NFL draft.

I do think McCoy got the short end of the stick considering all of the injuries that the Chargers have endured over the past two years. That is the nature of the beast though. Keep an eye on this situation because with Philip Rivers and a good amount of talent on this roster, the Chargers could be primed for a quick turnaround if the right coach gets the job (Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia would be a great hire for this team).

Now the move that should have come as no surprise to anyone that follows the NFL is San Francisco’s firings of coach Chip Kelly and GM Trent Baalke. The 49ers had to hit the reset button on the front office/head coach following a meteoric collapse that saw this team go from a Super Bowl appearance four seasons ago to the 2-14 season this year. There are a ton of factors that led to this, but the fact remains that Baalke needed to go having failed to retool this roster following the shocking rate of retirements/departures and that meant Kelly was out the door as well (which all but ends the Chip Kelly experiment in the NFL).

As it stands now, there are six head coaching vacancies across the NFL and potentially more by the end of the season. It should be very interesting to see who ends up where, but this is always intriguing part of the offseason. Also, nothing is set in stone until the guy signs on the dotted line so be wary of the countless rumors you will see in the next few weeks.

That’s it for me today. I’ll be back tomorrow with my power rankings of the playoff teams in “No Huddle.” Be on the look out for my fantasy football awards later this week in the final “Reality of Fantasy” of the season. Follow me on Twitter @thereal_jmooney and go like the Shooting the Moon page on Facebook.