By MONTE DUTTON

A year ago at this time, some said there weren’t really 12 college football teams capable of winning a national playoff.
Like everything else in sports above a certain level, TV made the call and didn’t care. Its money is what counts. The Mothership in Bristol, Conn., runs college sports. The NCAA and its member institutions merely administer it.
Touchdown Jesus. The Horseshoe. Happy Valley. Keep Austin Weird. Those are the places TV wanted to be.

The way the system, which could not have been crafted any better by the unrepentant gerrymanderers of a Southern legislature, is drawn up, Boise State got a first-round bye because no one wanted to televise there. The Broncos play on a blue field. Football should be played on a green field, as God and Monsanto intended.

They wanted The Ohio State University, a white-out in the Nittany Mountains, the Golden Dome and Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium, weather be damned. In only the last was the weather undamned.
Clemson put up the best fight, losing by two touchdowns in Austin, the only venue where FEMA wasn’t on alert.
The theme of every broadcast crew was, Isn’t it great to watch this blowout in such a hallowed venue?

Kirk Herbstreit said Tennessee brought 40,000 fans to Columbus. He said it with a straight face, but Chris Fowler had a hard time keeping his. The Vols brought as many as could get tickets in Ohio Stadium, but it wasn’t half as many as Herbstreit claimed.
The team that wins the title isn’t going to be the best team. It’s going to be the one that still has health to go along with wealth after 17 games.
One day a road team is going to win one of these games. It’s going to be the Age of Aquarius, when Jupiter aligns with Mars, and love will rule the planet.

Where a road team won was Templeton Center. Manhattan came from behind to defeat Presbyterian, 86-81, in overtime in a Saturday men’s basketball matinee.
The Blue Hose are 7-7. The average score in the victories is 71-54. The average loss is 73-83. PC has feasted on Carolina Christian (120-45), Columbia College (97-57) and Virginia of Lynchburg (116-53). Presbyterian is 4-1 at Templeton Center, but the only victory with significance attached was a 71-68 verdict over Wofford on Nov. 14.

The road record is 1-6, and 2-0 on a neutral court, which was located in Nacogdoches, Texas. The Blue Hose also won against that court’s home team, Stephen F. Austin.
The latest was a feast and a famine.
A little past the halfway point of the first half, Presbyterian led by 19 points (29-10). The Jaspers never led by more than the final margin of five. The Blue Hose won the first half, 43-30. Manhattan won the second, 43-30, and the extra period, 13-8.

Jaden Winston, Will Signor and Devin Dinkins all scored 18 points for the Jaspers, and Masiah Gilyard and Wesley Robinson added 14 apiece. Gilyard snagged 10 rebounds. Dinkins distributed five assists.
PC put four players in double figures, led by Carl Parrish III, a sophomore from Miami Gardens, Fla., who scored 23 points and popped 6/9 three-pointers.

The rest of the team was 5/23 outside the arc.
Kory Mincy scored 18 points, Jamahri Harvey 13 and Kobe Stewart 12. Jaylen Peterson grabbed 10 rebounds. Mincy doled out seven assists but also committed five of PC’s 11 turnovers.
Manhattan (6-5) won the game by the five more free throws it hit, 25/32 to 20/29. Forty-three fouls were charged in the game, not to mention three technicals, two of them against Presbyterian.

Mincy started the overtime period’s scoring with a driving layup. Manhattan tied the score at 75. After Parrish knocked down another three, giving the Blue Hose their last lead with 3:46 on the clock. Manhattan scored five straight points. Mincy made a free throw cutting Manhattan’s lead to one point, 80-79. The Jaspers scored six of the game’s final eight points.

Presbyterian travels to Columbia, facing SEC foe South Carolina at Colonial Life Arena on Monday at 7 p.m.
Take a look at the stats here.
“Life is hard no matter where you go. It’s a tortured path, tough row to hoe. When the wheels spin, got a heavy load, hoping I can get to the paved road.”

Wellpilgrim.com is adjusting to the winter chill.
Times are changing. I am aware of how irrelevant what I do for a living has become and thus how unimportant my efforts are. The readers appreciate them, but there aren’t enough of them. I doubt there ever will be again.
It’s what I do. It’s what I know.

Support the advertisers. They are all fine people who want their businesses associated with honest coverage of local sports.
In the off chance you’d like to read my novels and other books, they’re available on Amazon and many prominent bookseller sites.
You can read them on your phones and other devices for a modest cost. I make a bit more if you purchase the actual books, but what I mainly want is for folks to read them.

The Latter Days is a baseball novel about a former player and manager, Clyde Kinlaw, trying to prove the game hasn’t passed him by. His proof is a raw talent named Taiquan Wattson.

Photo galleries are posted on Instagram @furmanatt and @laurenscountysports.
Thanks for putting up with me.