End of the Year Means Another Contrived College Football Playoff

The end of the American calendar sports year features a festival of college football bowl games that fill television airwaves — if not attendant stadiums — and since 2014 a four-team playoff to determine which of the blessed chosen gets to shout from a mountaintop that is, arguably, mythical.

This year, however, the most memorable season’s punctuation really should be the likely conclusion of the college career of the brilliant Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. In mid-November, he played one series — or one game, if extreme pragmatism is your choice of perspectives — too long.

In sending Tagovailoa onto the field against Mississippi State one week after clear evidence that he was not fully recovered from the surgical aftermath of a high ankle sprain, Coach Nick Saban played for high-risk stakes with the arbiters of the sport and — much worse, for Tagovailoa’s sake — with the purveyors of fate.

Against any sub-.500 team in America, which is what Mississippi State was at the time, the star-laden Crimson Tide would be a heavy favorite, with or without its starting quarterback. With a four-touchdown lead late in the first half, Saban opted to have Tagovailoa work on the two-minute drill before taking him out.

Source: The New York Times

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College Football Playoff • American football • Brilliant, Alabama • Quarterback • Pragmatism • Point of view (philosophy) • Mississippi State University • Nick Saban • Mississippi State University • Alabama Crimson Tide football • Quarterback • Touchdown • Nick Saban • Hurry-up offense •