Proof that people who aren’t Georgia Tech fans have lives.

Evidently lots of people had to shampoo their hair, were off visiting their sick mamas in the hospital or had some reading to catch up on Tuesday night.

The Orange Bowl featuring Iowa and Georgia Tech drew a 6.8 rating Tuesday night.

The Fiesta Bowl drew an 8.2 – perhaps crushing the notion that non-BCS teams can’t compete in TV viewership. The rating is better than the Orange’s last four ratings.

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Random musings at season’s end

• The BCS title game. I share Michael Elkon’s ambiguous feelings, although I’m wondering how much of it is the result of a familiarity-breeds-contempt frame of mind on my part.  I’ve seen ‘Bama struggle this season more than I’ve seen Texas struggle, in other words.  I also slightly discount the championship game results that most people seem to be relying upon in predicting a relatively safe night for the Tide.  Florida’s collective head wasn’t on straight for the SECCG and Texas took Nebraska a little too lightly.  In the end, I think tonight’s game comes down to which defense is better able to impose its will on the opposing team’s quarterback.
• Georgia 1983 = Florida 2010? I started with a shallow observation about the obvious comparison between two programs that achieved a high degree of national prominence led by once-in-a-generation players who left, but I wonder how far that analogy can be carried.  Georgia didn’t slide very much the year after Herschel left, but it turned out that the Walker era would be the high water mark of Dooley’s head coaching career.  It’s not an exact comparison, in that I don’t expect Florida’s recruiting to decline as precipitously as Georgia’s did in Dooley’s last four seasons, but then again, you’ve got the departure of a well-respected defensive coordinator in both cases and Florida has to contend with the turmoil surrounding its head coach’s health and the nascent reemergence of its two in-state rivals, both of which are potentially bigger problems than the Dawgs faced in the mid-1980s.  Who’s to say that history can’t repeat itself a bit?

The only thing worse than mixing football and politics is mixing football, politics and religion.

Nice.

With his unconventional pass delivery and a physical style that seems just as comfortable running the ball anyway, some wonder if University of Florida star quarterback Tim Tebow will achieve NFL glory. But football fans just may get to see the story of the Heisman Trophy winner and unapologetic Christian impact the pro sport’s biggest game of the year.

Colorado-based conservative group Focus on the Family reportedly may buy a Super Bowl spot for an ad about how Tebow’s mother carried him to term despite a difficult and dangerous pregnancy.

Sure, the underlying politics may be different, but ultimately, this is exploitation cut from the same crassly cynical cloth as Clay Travis’ “are you saving yourself for marriage” presser question.  (And I’ve no doubt that if this ad ever sees the light of day, Tebow will handle the media attention over it with as much aplomb as he did Travis.)

In a way, it’s even a little worse, because it’s not just about tweaking Tebow’s image to score a few cheap hey-look-at-me points.  It’s about using the kid to bash a few others.

… If true, it would be just another example of Tebow annoying the secular left. The quarterback is as famous for wearing Bible passage citations on his game-day eye black as for winning an NCAA championship. As NewsBusters has detailed, that practice – and the faith it symbolizes – is irksome to some commentators.

… The elite liberals at the Huffington Post and elsewhere in the media are embarrassed that Tebow insists on publicly testifying to his faith and using his high profile to exercise his Christian duty to evangelize.

Yeah, because everybody knows that the bad ol’ media are always picking on the sincerely devout in college football.

Thursday morning buffet

Last buffet before season’s end, so come and get it.

• Sure it’s early, but it sounds like Georgia may not settle on a new quarterback until fall practice.
• If you want a compelling reason as to why Georgia needed to make a change at defensive coordinator, it’s not just that scoring defense was trending upward under Martinez, it’s that it was doing so while the overall trend in college football was heading in the other direction.
• The guys at Playoff PAC think they’re doing a swell job.
• The Fiesta Bowl put asses in the seats, but didn’t do as good a job in keeping eyes glued to the tube.
• On the other hand, Mike Leach was very good for business at ESPN.  Guess all that pot-stirring paid off…
• It sounds like Art Briles is Texas Tech’s number one man for the head coaching job, but he’s got a $4 million buyout, which you would think would be a little rich for TTU’s taste.  Maybe they can get Briles to lock a player in a shed…
• If you’re looking for a BCS title game prediction, the Wiz has the mother of all round ups for you.
• Let’s see – players arguing with coaches, a starting quarterback who’s insufficiently focused on the next day’s game and a pouting running back.  It’s just another day in Paradise, er… Columbia, South Carolina.