RedState Sports Report: Right Now, Kirby Smart (Understandably) Could Care Less About Football

Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. Sammy the Shark and Karl the Kraken want to assure everyone they are hard at work keeping their New Year’s resolutions to bring you, as Jim McKay intoned for years in the intro to ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” the constant variety of sport …

Or something like that.

Anyway, football fills the primary spot on 2025’s initial dance card. After the college football playoff’s less-than-scintillating start that proved nothing aside from how the 12-team field had four teams too many, the quarterfinals were at least interesting. Given the Buckeyes’ decidedly up and down season, it was surprising how easily and thoroughly Ohio State dominated Oregon. With the win, Ohio State is strongly favored against Texas, which needed double overtime to win out over a game Arizona State squad.

 Meanwhile, Penn State cleanly handled Boise State, with Notre Dame using some big play magic to put away Georgia. Although, given how Georgia’s head coach Kirby Smart’s father passed away on January 4, due to complications following hip surgery necessitated by a fall suffered by Sonny Smart while in New Orleans to see his son’s team, football is the least concern of the Bulldogs head coach right now.

A side note of at least some interest is how the Notre Dame-Penn State semifinal guarantees that the CFP championship game will feature a black head coach for the first time. I doubt the Fighting Irish or Nittany Lions fanbases are all that obsessed with this fact; winning the game and playing for the national championship is the sole consideration, as it should be. But it gives ESPN something to preen about.

In pro football news, the playoffs are very nearly set. The NFC lineup is subject to shuffling position-wise, but the teams themselves know who’s in. Meanwhile, in the AFC, one spot remains available for three teams. The Denver Broncos will secure the final berth if they can beat the Kansas City Chiefs on January 5 (good luck with that). 

The Miami Dolphins will take the spot if the Broncos lose and the Fins beat the New York Jets on January 5, which is not necessarily a challenge, except Miami will be without starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. The Cincinnati Bengals can get in if they beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on January 4, and Denver and Miami lose the following day.

In the roundball round-up, the Miami Heat have suspended disgruntled forward Jimmy Butler while working on a trade for the player they swore a few days ago would not be traded. The problem is that trading him would involve a deal very few teams are willing to enter because of the Gordian knot that is the NBA salary structure. When your arrangements regarding what can and cannot be done salary-wise make the U.S. tax code seem simplistic, the next time the NBA and its players get together to hammer out a labor agreement, someone should propose something more straightforward.

Last, but certainly not least (especially to Sammy and Karl), hockey. If, at the season’s commencement, you had said that on January 4, 2025, the Anaheim Ducks would have more points than the New York Rangers, you would been laughed out of the room. No one is laughing now. The Quack Attack has won three of their last four games, with triumphs over top-tier opponents Edmonton, New Jersey, and Winnipeg. The Rangers? They’ve dropped 10 of their previous 13 games. Yikes. For a team that was supposedly in the Stanley Cup mix this season, that’s bad. Really, really bad.

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