No football today. Finally.

It has been overkill since December 17, the first day of bowl games. There was at least one live game EVERY DAY between that day and yesterday. That’s 17 consecutive days if you’re counting.

There can be too much of a good thing, and there was too much in this case. Forty-one bowl games and 47 NFL games is overkill. It is time for four days of finding other things to watch on television than football.

USC defeated Penn State 52-49 in the Rose Bowl. I hated it.

Joe Paterno must have flipped over in his grave, not so much over the Nittany Lions losing, but for the team giving up FIFTY TWO points in a bowl game. Heck, there were some seasons where Paterno’s charges didn’t give up 52 points in half a season. In one game? Holy crap.

USC may have been known as “Tailback U” when John McKay and John Robinson led the Trojans, but USC would not have won any national championships without stellar defense. Don’t forget that one of the NFL’s best defenders this millennium, Troy Polamalu, played at USC.

The college game is so heavily tilted to the offense it isn’t funny. Yes, Alabama wins big with defense, but the Crimson Tide has Nick Saban. All of the others playing at the highest level of college football–126, at least 50 too many–don’t.

Yes, Deshaun Watson, in my opinion the best quarterback in college football this season, plays for Clemson. But last I checked, Ohio State did not score vs. the Tigers. The first time Urban Meyer has ever been shut out. FIRST. TIME. EVER. So what about that Clemson defense, huh?

If LSU had a halfway decent offense, it would have been in the playoff. The Bayou Bengals’ defense suffocated Lamar Jackson, the unworthy Heisman Trophy winner, and Louisville, which averaged 533 yards per game in the regular season. LSU’s defense was on par with any in the nation, a step below Alabama, but certainly above at least 110 of the 126 others.

I’m sorry for all those fans who like shootouts, but that’s not a winning formula. Not if you don’t have a good defense.

I do not like high scoring football. If you want to score at will, go play a video game.

People complain about the rules in the NFL being heavily tilted to the offense. If that’s the case, then the rules are tilted to the offense in college at a 90-degree angle. The defense has no chance. And with the clock stopping after every first down to move the chains, the game drags on and on and on and on.

In 2006, the NCAA changed two timing rules to try and speed the game up. One, the clock started on a kickoff when the ball was kicked, not when it was touched in the field of play; and second, the clock would restart following every change of possession when the ball was spotted ready for play, not on the snap.

I didn’t agree with those rules. That’s a little too much in trying to speed the game up. But the clock does not need to stop to move the chains, except maybe in the last two minutes of each half if the NCAA wants to keep that option in the rules.

Another idea: two timeouts per half. It works in Canada.

Okay enough ranting. I’ve got things to get done.

Five days at Buffalo Wild Wings playing tons of trivia. My ears need the rest after all the screaming, mostly by Chiefs and Iowa Hawkeyes fans.