Couch Slouch: College football playoffs on New Year’s Eve? Accidental brilliance

So two sacred American traditions – New Year’s Eve and the College Football Playoff – are colliding this week, leaving a Sports Nation full of drunken helmet heads to ponder the question:

Why oh why would they schedule the second-most important college football games of the year on the same night in which many of us annually go out and act like motherless fools?

To be truthful, Couch Slouch believes slating the apocalyptically consequential Oklahoma-Clemson and Michigan State-Alabama games on the last day of December is accidental genius, but before delving into that, let’s first deal with New Year’s Eve itself.

Nobody – well, nobody who is reasonably minded – goes out on New Year’s Eve anymore. Nobody.

Heck, more people go out on Halloween than on New Year’s Eve.

(I dressed this year as a post-middle-aged newspaper sports columnist shaking his head over the loss of readers in the past decade. And when I went to houses, I didn’t yell “Trick or treat!” as they opened the door, I offered them a two-year subscription for the price of one week.)

New Year’s Eve has to be the most overrated date on the calendar.

Here are my last three New Year’s Eves:

2012: Early-bird dinner at In-N-Out Burger followed by “Lou Grant” marathon on Hulu.

2013: Bowling 6 to 8:30 p.m., Toni fed me prunes in bed 8:45 to 11:55, Yuengling at midnight.

2014: Fell asleep at 10:20 p.m.

(My favorite New Year’s Eve was my first one – Dec. 31, 1958. My brother Steve was punished for “playing with the electricity” and sent to his room after supper while I got to stay up late to watch Guy Lombardo and Times Square on TV.)

What’s the point of venturing out on New Year’s Eve?

You go and eat a meal at twice the price that it would’ve cost the night before, then drive home in post-Armageddon “Mad Max 2” conditions trying to dodge DUI-laden crazies on simulated-rush-hour roads.

Shifting the college football semifinals to New Year’s Eve kills two birds with one stone:*

(* Note: No actual birds were harmed in the construction of that cliché.)

1. It allows Buffalo Wild Wings to charge triple for a dozen wings, to service those individuals who still insist on braving the streets.

2. It gives the rest of us staying at home something to do.

Or don’t you remember New Year’s Eves past? There already were college football games on – like the Sun Bowl, the Liberty Bowl and the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

I’d rather watch “F Troop” dubbed in Flemish.

As Bill Hancock, the College Football Playoff’s executive director, has said, “The College Football Playoff will change the paradigm of New Year’s Eve in this country.”

(My immediate sense was that I agreed with his sentiment, though, admittedly, I had to look up “paradigm.” What do you want from me? I went to the University of Maryland, which won’t be College Football Playoff-bound anytime this millennium.)

This year’s CFP schedule has the Oklahoma-Clemson Orange Bowl kicking off sometime after 4 p.m. ET and the Michigan State-Alabama Cotton Bowl kicking off sometime after 8 p.m. ET. This will provide more than seven hours of quality student-athlete football leading right up to 12 a.m. ET, which simultaneously brings us the start of 2016 and a new ESPN billing cycle.

That’s fine by me – my ESPN charges are comped, anyway.

Hey, I’d much rather be in the middle of a replay review at midnight with Kirk Herbstreit than watch the ball drop again – that sounds like a replay review, too – at Times Square with Ryan Seacrest.

Besides, in the Western half of the nation – I’m in L.A., baby! – the Cotton Bowl will end early enough that we’ll have plenty of time to party like it’s 1999.

Which means I still can be in bed by 10.

Ask The Slouch

Q. It has been some time since you last updated us on Stepson of Destiny Isaiah Eisendorf’s basketball career. His adoring fan base wants to know. (Rick Millward; Myersville, Md.)

A. Isaiah is a starting sophomore forward at Division 2 Gannon University in Erie, Pa., averaging 9.4 points and 5.2 rebounds; the Golden Knights, however, are 2-9. If Gannon loses 20 games, I will ask the school to revoke Isaiah’s scholarship and return him to the general population.

Q. Reading your last column, am I supposed to believe you and your crack cronies watch 10 NFL games at the same time? (Jay Rosen; Charlotte, N.C.)

A. Actually – and this speaks to America in a deeper fashion than any other example I can think of – you’d be amazed how often all 10 games are in commercial at the same time.

Q. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is suing the owner of Pizza Da Vinci in Troy, N.Y., for offering cooking classes under the name “Rensselaer Pizza Institute” and “RPI.” Is college basketball in for trouble next? (Dave Schooler; Washington, D.C.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.

Q. Should Jerry Jones ask the NFL to have Steve Harvey present the Lombardi Trophy so the Cowboys would have a chance? (Roger Lucas; Avon, Ind.)

A. Pay this fella, too.

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