2015 Florida Trip – Days 5 & 6 – New Years

New Year’s Eve was cold and rainy at Cedar Key and New Year’s Day was cool with some sunny periods making both perfect for what I wanted to do during these two days – pile up in the RV, relax, and watch college football. 

We passed on the RV Park New Year’s Eve party, but I did take a short football watching break to do a little cooking on Jan. 1.  As you will read in a future post, Cedar Key has a clam farming industry as well as oyster beds so we purchased some and while my non-clam-eating ladies went shopping, I invited our neighbors over for steamed little neck clams sided with garlic butter.  It's been years since I had these tasty babies and I thoroughly enjoyed every bite so I plan to get a bag for the road.

Then when the ladies got home we had some Oysters Rockefeller cooked on the grill. 

The clams and the oysters were both very good and I now know the difference that very fresh makes.

And now back to football for you fans out there, now that the bowls are over and only the National Championship Game remains, have a look at these results for the five power conferences:

CONFERENCE       EXPECTED  ACTUAL

SEC                           9-3                  7-5       

Big Ten                      0-10                5-5

Big 12                        5-2                  2-5   

Pac-12                       7-1                  6-2 

ACC                           4-8                  5-7

A few things really jump out at me:

1. The heretofore cream of the crop, my SEC, did not do well as the top five teams in its highly touted Western Division all lost, including top ranked Alabama.  The SEC's wins came from the two worst teams in the Western Division and all five of the Eastern Division teams who played in a bowl.

2. The recently maligned big 10 which was expected to lose all of their bowl games did way better including 2-1 against the SEC teams and 4th ranked Ohio State is in the Championship game after beating Bama.

3. The Big 12 had a terrible bowl season with only two wins.  Of particular note to me was Baylor, whose coach was was angry at everyone and outspoken about the Big 12 being left out of the playoffs with his team being ranked 5th.  As it turned out, Baylor got beat by Big 10 underdog Michigan State by giving up a 20 point lead in the fourth quarter.

4.  The Pac 12 is for real.

5. While it would be hard to leave out the undefeated, defending national champion Seminoles, unless the ACC teams can show some marque non-conference wins, I believe they should get a giant demerit, even if they are undefeated.

While I believe the selection committee did a good job of ranking the top twelve teams, it appears to me that Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, and TCU should have been the top four. 

So let's move on to next year and let the controversy continue.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/31/14 & 1/1/15 event dates