Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

Among the many things for which I am grateful this Christmas season is that long ago I cured my NFL addiction.

Said addiction had dated to early childhood, when I watched the NFL, but favored the AFL, whose teams, players and coaches were more colorful.

As an AFL fan, I had to endure beatdowns of the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders at the hands of NFL champion Green Bay in the first two Super Bowls, only to have Joe Namath and the New York Jets strike one for the AFL in Super Bowl III by beating the Baltimore Colts. By then, however, the leagues had agreed to merge, an act you history buffs might appreciate for having eventually sent the Steelers to the AFC.

The genius in the growth of the NFL post-merger was making the games readily available on traditional TV, and giving a tacit nod to the betting aspect of the sport. Even before betting was widely legal, CBS in particular made a great effort to address odds and picks in its pregame shows.

But, just as we’ve moved on from once upon a time when all major boxing matches were available free on traditional over-the-air TV outlets, these days slices of NFL football are being parceled out only to those willing to pay a little extra to see the games.

It began with games showing up on the NFL Network, which a lot of people don’t receive on their cable or satellite packages.

More recently, Thursday night games have been shifted to Amazon’s Prime. I happened to get a free month of Prime recently and watched a bit of two Thursday night games on my computer. It was not nearly enough to encourage me to re-up for Prime.

As a side note, if one is patient, those Thursday night games are replayed after the fact on the NFL Network.

Coming Christmas Day, we have a couple of NFL games, including the Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs, that are being offered on Netflix. My programming guide indicates they will be replayed later that night on NFL Network.

I don’t do no Netflix, even using the sort of underhanded password sharing many previously used to partake, so I’ll be passing on the live games and I can’t see myself watching replays.

Supposedly games being livestreamed on Prime or Netflix must be available on over-the-air outlets in the home markets of teams involved, in this case CBS affiliates in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Baltimore and Houston. But we are not in the Pittsburgh home market, so no dice for Johnstown area fans watching the Steelers live on Christmas, other than on Netflix.

There was a time when such a thing, an attractive game not available without some sort of additional charge, would have offended me. Not anymore.

I see the NBA still is showing all five of its Christmas Day offerings on ABC or ESPN. Due to lack of interest, I won’t be watching them, either. But I’m glad to see they still are available on the customary outlets, for as long as that lasts.

I’m hoping Netflix does a better job with the NFL games than it did with the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight broadcast, which I’ve read was replete with buffering and freezing issues.

But, even if there are technical problems, I’ll be spared any annoyance. Think of it as the tree falling in the woods when you aren’t present to hear it.

I’m not exactly sure how I’ll spend Christmas Day in view of the fact that a significant chunk of the family is out of town. Our official celebration will wait for January.

What I do know is I won’t be watching NFL games on Christmas Day and I’m fine with that.

Having watched the National Lampoon Christmas Vacation movie for the umpteenth time, in particular the opening scenes about procuring the Griswold Family Christmas tree, I was inspired by how it rang true to my experiences.

In truth, the whole movie, with its dysfunctional family celebrations, resonates with the the majority of the populace, hence it’s enduring popularity. We all could tell tales. Here is my brief history of our Christmas trees.

My earliest recollections of my family’s Christmas tree experience was going to the lots that sprang up in December, buying a tree that looked a lot more full and straight on the lot, and then wrestling with the thing at home to get it to stand up in the holder.

Hatchets were wielded to trim the trunk to fit (and ostensibly to promote water flow to prolong needle life on the tree). Sometimes support strings were attached out of sight to aid in the fight to keep the tree erect despite gravity.

Eventually, our massive cardboard box of ornaments and lights were fetched from the attic and the tree was decorated. A week or two later, the whole process was repeated in reverse and the tree was sent to the curb.

Somewhere along the line, my dad, who was an idea man short on execution, decided buying cut trees was a waste of money. He had some property in Somerset County and his plan was to dig out our annual Christmas tree, keep it alive for the holiday season, then transplant said tree to that country plot of land. For what purpose, I’m still not sure.

What this meant for my brother and I was the act of procuring a Christmas tree became a whole lot more difficult.

My dad located a place that would allow us to dig up and purchase a tree. It was my brother and I who would accompany my dad, wield a pick, shovels and an ax to sever roots, load the whole thing into a large plastic tub and then into the bed of whatever pickup truck the old man was driving at the time.

Customarily we picked a rather smallish tree. Where our previous cut trees had tended to be in the six- or seven-foot range, these prospect transplant trees were more often four or five feet.

After the customary decoration and de-decoration in keeping with the season, the trees would be taken out to our land, where the brother and I again would be expected to dig into concrete-like frozen ground to make a suitable hole for the tree.

About four months later, we’d go out and check to find a dead, brown tree. And yet this act was repeated annually until we grew up and the old man gave up on it all. Call it the triumph of hope over experience.

There was a wide divide in how my grandparents addressed the whole Christmas tree matter.

My maternal grandmother lived in abject poverty, in a Walnut Grove hovel. My grandfather was dead from my very early years on, a victim of lung disease from his career as a coal miner. Yet my grandmother always seemed to have a magnificent live tree for Christmas. She also had those old bubble lights on her trees. I can’t believe this never led to the burning down of her house.

The exact opposite was my paternal grandparents, who lived in Dale Borough. They always were family first-movers of sorts, for example having been the first to acquire a cable television hookup.

It was during my early childhood that they made the move to an artificial tree. Those early trees didn’t even try to resemble live timber. My grandparents’ example had a silver wooden post into which branches were inserted. Those branches were thick metal wires with what looked like aluminum foil cut to resemble pine needles (if pine needles were silver, not green) attached.

One had to be careful with the lighting of these trees, lest a short circuit ruin your holiday. Often artificial tree people of the times had lights with a rotating color wheel beneath the trees to provide the illumination.

Our tree the past two years has been one of those pencil thin fakes, a consderable markdown from mammoth artificial trees we have displayed for many years.

But in the early years of my marriage, we went the live tree route, even anticipating that Christmas Vacation movie, which was released in 1989.

It was probably the early 1980s when the wife and I went out to a friend’s to hack down a tree he said was available for us, at a very small fee.

Like Clark Griswold from the movie, it turns out I had a problem judging size in an outdoor setting. I cut down the tree and struggled against gravity and friction from deep snow to drag this massive thing uphill to our waiting car.

At that point, I realized the tree was about as long, if not longer than my wife’s 1977 Plymouth Volare. I checked online and found that vehicle length to be a tad under 17 feet.

We lashed the thing to the roof, with plenty of tree hanging out the back and over the windshield. The fun was just beginning.

Once we got it home, I had to go to work pruning maybe seven feet off the bottom of the tree (our ceilings were just over nine feet) and trimming the massive branches to get the tree inside the house.

Eventually, we got it upright and decorated. The trophy was displaced in the corner of the dining room and protruded about halfway into the entrance to the living room. I just wish I’d taken pictures. But back then we didn’t all carry cameras/cell phones with us constantly.

That was my largest, most memorable live Christmas tree.

Looking back, at least I’d remembered the saw and hadn’t needed to dig it out.

Saturday’s football feast has been served and devoured, leaving us to deal with many cases of indigestion.

Begin with all the critics who used the blowout losses by Indiana Friday night and SMU Saturday to rail against those teams’ inclusion in the 12-team college playoff field.

Lane Kiffin’s sour grapes are predictable. His Ole Miss team is one of the units that didn’t make it despite going 9-3.

Lane, buddy, your stellar group lost to a 4-8 Kentucky team. Yet you had the hotty toddys to go on social media during Indiana’s 27-17 loss to Notre Dame, and SMU’s 38-10 defeat to Penn State to take jabs at the selection committee.

This just in, Lane, if only you had beaten mediocre Kentucky you probably are in the field. Any mirrors in your house? Try looking in one of them.

Others in the media and coaching fraternity were quick to rake the committee for including the teams from major conferences (Big Ten for Indiana and ACC for SMU) with the best records that didn’t win conference championships.

It seems ACC champion Clemson got a pass on its large first-round loss because, despite being dominated for a great part of a game at Texas Saturday, the Tigers rallied to lose by a relatively close 38-24 final. But, after jumping up 7-0, Clemson was outscored 31-3 over the next 30 minutes or so of playing time. This is less than stellar stuff.

The critics seemed to have lost their social media connections early in the nightcap, when Ohio State jumped out to a 21-0 lead vs. Tennessee. That would be Tennessee from the mighty SEC. But the Volunteers looked extremely overmatched.

By the fourth quarter, Ohio State was up 42-10 on the way to a 42-17 win. A “scarlet smackdown” announcer Chris Fowler branded it at game’s end.

If Tennessee had been wearing Indiana or SMU uniforms, critics would have rushed to judge. Get them out of the playoffs. They don’t belong. Look at them. Ridiculous. Overmatched.

But 10-2 Tennessee getting humbled invoked no such judgement. What, no rush to social media, Lane, to decry the weak SEC?

This Ohio State-Tennessee result was just another brick in the first-round wall, not a total indictment of the losers.

First, the opening round games are played in the home stadiums of the higher seed, an advantage most would agree. The home teams are thought to be better and are rewarded with a home game. That all four home teams would win, and mostly in impressive fashion, should have been expected to some degree.

Also, it’s winter in the north and teams from warmer climes, such as SMU or Tennessee, might be thought to be at something of a disadvantage due to the frigid temperatures.

Pregame coverage of the Tennessee-Ohio State game was long on detailing the great pains Tennessee had taken to try to keep its quarterback warm. It didn’t seem to help.

Videos of this Ohio State-Tennessee game should be provided to Kiffin and his ilk, to be viewed often ahead of next season in the pursuit of humility and perspective when it comes to the matter of playoff team selections.

What if Clueless Joe Biden’s farewell media tour included a stop at ESPN, where he was given the chance to pontificate on the cornucopia of football that begins tonight with a college playoff game at Notre Dame?

Given Joe’s penchant for shooting from the lip, without benefit of thought or reason, it would be entertaining. Here’s how we imagine it might go.

Q: Any thoughts on Indiana-Notre Dame to open the college football playoffs?

BIDEN: Come on, man! Indiana can’t play football. That’s the major college program with the most losses. But Notre Dame, I mean, Knuten Rockefeller, George Ripp, Arial Parhe, ge, se, you know what I mean. Gotta be Fighting Irish. Did I ever tell you about my Irish heritage? Just ask Cornpop, I was one mean fighter.

Q: Who are you picking in SMU at Penn State?

BIDEN: Can you believe that Franklin guy, not Ben, the Penn State coach? He’s whining about it being a break for students and so the stadium might not be full. And it’s going to be cold. You should love that, man. You got a team coming up from the south playing in a freezer. I guess now I know why he never wins the big one, like I beat Trump. Yeah, me. I beat Trump. They didn’t let me try again, but I did it. Franklin’s lucky Penn State doesn’t have a Nancy Pelosi to pull a coup on his losing butt.

Q: You like Tennessee or Ohio State?

BIDEN: Ohio’s a tough state for us Democrats. I mean, I didn’t win it. I don’t think a Democrat has won Ohio since I got Hunter his first sham job. But, hey, I kind of identify with the Buckeyes – the best team money can buy. You got to respect a college football team that they spent $20 million to assemble. Come to think of it, that’s not a whole lot. I mean, Kamala blew more than a billion bucks to lose big and ended up about $20 million in the hole. She could have duplicated Ohio State’s roster just for what she did in over-spending. As for Tennessee, we donkeys running for president haven’t won that state since 1996. Buckeyes, I say.

Q: Clemson-Texas?

BIDEN: Did I ever tell you about my great, great, great uncle Sam Houston William Travis Davey Crockett Biden? Died at the Alamo. Mexicans carried his body back across the Rio Grande and ate him. Cannibals! No joke! And Clemson — I’ll be a dog-faced pony soldier if I even know where Clemson is located. (Editor’s note: Biden was informed Clemson is in South Carolina, the same state where he showed up for a rally in February 2020 during his presidential run and proclaimed he was running for U.S. Senate). Right. Now I remember. I’m going with South Dakota.

Q: Before you have to go, Mr. President, there’s a big NFL game Saturday. You are from Delaware and the state has no pro football team, but Maryland is close and Baltimore’s Ravens are hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers. Thoughts?

A: Hey, you’re talking to Scranton Joe here. That’s in Pennsylvania, just like the Steelers. Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania, right? Or is this a trick question? Come on, man! Who do you think you’re talking to? Come to think of it, who are you talking to? Who am I? Why am I here? (Handlers whisper in his ear). Look, I’m tired of people beating down Lamar Jackson just because he’s about as good in the big moments as Kamala. I know he loses a lot to the Steelers, and looks bad doing it, sort of like me in that debate with Trump. Man, the Donald. Rough-spoken guy. I’d like to take him out behind the gym and kick his butt. But Jill and I still voted for him. Take that Barack, Nancy and Kamala. But back to football, in these times of rampant crime, got to go with Stealers, I mean Steelers.

Pro football playoffs open this weekend and there is a heavy schedule of NFL games, too.

Yes, my friends, the college game is nothing more than a minor league pro operation, at least at the upper levels. Name Image and Likeness (NIL) revenue is the tail that now wags the dog.

College sports programs have been taken to court and forced to share their monetary windfalls with the athletes. Part of of that is allowing said “amateur” athletes to collect on separate deals. And this leads to absurdity such as the backup Texas quarterback — in part owing to a last name of Manning — earning $3-plus million in NIL money, which is more than the starter gets.

I will watch the spectacle, but with a jaundiced eye and sheer disgust for when the broadcasters talk about playing for State.

This moves us to re-order a traditional Christmas carol to acknowledge the state of athletics.

Sing it to the tune of We Three Kings

College sports are stacking the cash

And this leads to lots of backlash

NILs and other payments

Make us all want to puke

Oh, stars make money, stars shine bright

Backups also claim their right

Making millions, even billions

This is a corrupt stew

College football, NFL

What’s the difference no one can tell

All are pros as ye can see

Playing for pay their thing

Oh, let’s all praise hypocrisy

Right in front, for all to see

Amateurs are a dying breed

Let us lament our loss

In the end, no longer a game

Just a chance to make it rain

Showing up on CNBC

Tracking the worth of State

Oh, once again let us proclaim

How we miss the college game

Big name coaches feel the same

Leaving the sport for dead.

Despite an evident mandate from the voting populace and the no-compromise leadership of Donald Trump, the man who made it all possible, incredibly many Republican politicians still don’t get it.

These feeble-minded types don’t seem to understand it is not business as usual in the Washington, D.C, swamp. Spending bills that are laden with handouts to special interest groups on both sides, no longer pass muster.

Kowtowing to Democrats to grease the legislative skids, in particular, no longer will be tolerated.

Period. End of story.

And yet people like House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to slip through one more ridiculous 1,547-page Continuing Resolution full of garbage spending, all in the name of keeping the government open and wasting even more money. This has gotten a firm no from Trump. Yes, Trump’s not yet president, but try telling the nation and world that as Clueless Joe Biden hangs out in Delaware on a “weekend” that began Tuesday.

Biden has ceded control of the nation and Cackling Kamala is too busy looking at a ridiculously lucrative book deal to spend any time on the nation.

It falls to Trump to try to reiterate, again, that the old ways no longer fly.

I’m moved to resume a favorite of holidays past. We rewrite lyrics to Christmas standards with a nod to current events.

Call this one No More Free Joy To The World (To be sung to the tune of Joy to the World)

Re-pub-li-cans, can’t get it right

Despite the word from Trump

They want to spend more pork

It makes the frugal york

And Democrats laugh in glee,

And Democrats laugh in glee

And Democrats and Democrats, they laugh in glee.

Trump says no way, this will not stand

And Johnson tries again

The Dems, they all say no way

We want some more free paydays

But Johnson just can’t give in

But Johnson just can’t give in

But Johnson oh Johnson, he can’t give in.

Just call their bluff, and shut it down

It isn’t a big deal

The world will continue to spin

Should Johnson refuse to give in

And Dems will all pout and cry

And Dems will all pout and cry

And Dems, dear Dems, just pout and cry.

Having emerged from an ailment induced stupor, I find drones in New Jersey still are big news, just as they were a few days back when I began to feel under the weather and took a pause from posting here.

The questions remain eerily similar.

Authorities’ explanations range from having no idea what the sightings are, to trying to explain them away as ordinary aircraft being misidentified. Yet always, they conclude with the statement that there is no danger to the populace.

First of all, some background. I’ve spent many a night fishing and observing the heavens between infrequent bites. Usually there are others fishing with me and we are more than passingly aware of what should and should not be up there.

One prime example I recall from night fishing at Lake Somerset, was a bright object, seemingly high in the air, that traversed about 180 degrees of visible sky in little more than a blink of an eye. The planes, the satellites, the international space station, don’t move that fast.

What was it? I have no idea. But all these years later it remains memorable. I have no video. But others saw it with me and no government lackey will convince me I didn’t see it.

Equally memorable from my youth were the ridiculous explanations the Project Blue Book people put out to explain UFO sightings. Those included absurd offerings such as swamp gas and temperature inversions. Even the Blue Book types admitted eventually the only hot air had come from them.

Fast-forward to recent years and we have defense department video of aerial sightings that cannot be explained away. When trained military pilots observe on radar and with their own two eyes things they cannot comprehend, it is past the time to ignore or attempt to explain away such phenomena with stale offerings.

These New Jersey drones, or whatever they are, seem to fall into that category.

Too many knowledgable people have seen them and have assured us they are not traditional planes and helicopters. We also have gotten different descriptions as to size, including some much larger than the traditional hobbyist drones your neighbor might fly to annoy you.

Sometimes the performance reported, and that which is observable in some videos, seems to be out of the norm for drones.

And yet drones is the accepted catchall term used here, so we will use it.

As our incoming president Donald Trump has observed on social media, it strains credibility that we know not what these things are, still insist they are no problem, and have opted not to intercept and bring down one for examination.

It reeks of the weak explanations given when the Chinese spy balloon was ignored until sightings were too numerous to discount, then it was shot down after it had traversed the U.S.

I love it when fingers are pointed back and forth between governmental agencies that no one has authority over this, or possesses proper technology to pursue it.

This must make the ears perk up in China, Russia, Iran, or other precincts that might wish us harm.

Hopefully, help is arriving soon. A captain once again will be manning the rudder of the U.S. ship of state.

Once Trump is back in charge, I have a strong suspicion these New Jersey sightings will have stopped, just because even aliens know he’s a man of action.

If Luigi Mangione, alleged killer of the United Healthcare executive in New York City, was a member of one of those stereotypical crime families, his nickname would have been “Brows.”

Those gangsters all seem to have nicknames, right? And Mangione absolutely would have had to have been called “Brows,” a reference to his prominent, bushy eyebrows.

Mangione looks like the love child of Joan Crawford and Groucho Marx, so prominent are his eyebrows. They are like a couple of solid black woolly bear caterpillars pasted to his forehead. I’ve seen plenty of moustaches (some on women) with less thickness.

And while we’re on the topic, why did none of Mangione’s family members or close associates recognize those distinctive eyebrows and rush to the proper authorities to identify him?

It causes one to wonder why it took a customer at an Altoona McDonald’s to make the identification and have someone contact police.

I’m also wondering about a report from my brother, seen on YouTube, that Mangione supposedly passed through Johnstown on a bus on his way to Altoona, where eventually he was captured. This seems to fly in the face of Greyhound bus schedules and I can find no confirmation of it.

But, it would not surprise me if it somehow, inexplicably, were true. Johnstown has a habit of making its way into national stories.

Ironically, a cousin and I were discussing this sort of thing just two days back. I noted it was a near-miss this time with the supposed assassin being captured in Altoona. When I worked at the local newspaper – it wasn’t the Woke Gazette then – it was a running joke in the newsroom how many national or international events had Johnstown area connections.

Here are just a few prominent examples. The iconic Iowa Jima flag-raising photo has immortalized Sgt. Michael Strank, a former resident of nearby Franklin Borough.

Sgt. Regis Ragan, one of the hostages seized at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, in late 1979 and held until early 1981, was a Johnstown native.

It seemed that any time there was a natural disaster, revolution or some other news event, there was someone with a Johnstown connection involved.

Just this past election, Cambria County, of which Johnstown is the largest town, was an embarrassment for being unable to accept and count votes for a time and was mentioned repeatedly in national election reporting due to the failure.

Johnstown has been tied to infamous acts. White supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin committed two of his murders in Johnstown, gunning down Arthur Smothers and Kathleen Mikula near Point Stadium on June 15, 1980.

Franklin never was arrested for those murders, but he confessed to them after he was apprehended for other crimes.

Back in the days when I traveled the country covering sports, particularly the Steelers, I often ran into Johnstown natives. One time, during a cab ride in San Diego with other sports writers, chitchat with the driver turned to hometowns.

I told him I was from a small town he probably never had heard of, Johnstown. Turns out, so was he.

It was my theory at the time, and remains so, that if all the people born here had stayed around, we’d have a population approaching that of New York City.

Instead, we’re an outpost with declining population, where the growth industries are crime and begging money from the government to fund nonprofits, not-for-profits, charities, foundations and other operations with only a passing acquaintance with free enterprise.

And yet, we seem able to find ways to have our area connected with major events. All this is notable, if nothing else.

Rain has been pelting down on Johnstown all day, but still it is a sunny day, metaphorically. Let me explain.

First, there is word out of New York City that Daniel Penny has been found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, this after the judge and prosecution had punted on a more serious charge Friday.

Make no mistake, Penny still faced legal jeopardy with the remaining charge, which reportedly could carry up to four years in prison. Fortunately, the jury invoked common sense. The jury members concluded – reasonably – that a man such as Neely with a background of mental problems who on this day was said also to be high on drugs, who had threatened passengers with death, and was quite the career criminal, set the stage for his death.

Penny was merely trying to help out those in the subway car who could not help themselves, invoking his military training to do so.

Predictably, there will be a civil suit from the Neely clan, trying to extract money from Penny in a proceeding with a lower burden of proof.

And the usual suspects will protest blindly, playing the race card.

To borrow a tactic of protesters: Daniel Penny. Say his name. Not Guilty.

This Penny verdict is just another indictment of the legal lunatic asylum of Manhattan prosecution, which you might recall has taken it upon itself to persecute Donald Trump, too.

Also on the death and destruction front with a New York City angle, there are reports that a man has been taken into custody in an Altoona McDonald’s who just might be the man who gunned down health care executive Brian Thompson on a New York City street last week.

Just as leftists ignored reality to go after Penny, so it is that many on the far left took to social media seemingly defending the murder of Thompson because his company, United Healthcare, supposedly denied too many claims.

That such thinking is commonplace on the left speaks to the massive job Trump faces in attempting to make good on his campaign promises.

Another ray of sunshine today comes in the form of news that CNN and Jake Tapper have lost ground in a defamation suit currently playing out in the courts.

Basically, CNN was forced to retract a story accusing a U.S. Navy veteran and his company of being part of a black market operation overcharging Afghans to get out of that failing country.

The judge has given the man suing CNN the right to punitive damages, among other rulings in his favor.

CNN had promoted the story widely, but ran one of the typically low-profile corrections. I’ve spoken of this sort of thing previously, where newspapers smear people with banner headlines on the front page, often for multiple days running, then slip in a correction at the bottom of page 2, consisting of a few paragraphs and a tiny headline.

That’s supposed to make it all okay, but it doesn’t. And this CNN case seems to be recognizing that reality.

One more ray of sunshine before we go, this a personal one. I was checking the open of precious metals trading at 6 p.m. local time Sunday night and the wide swings caught my attention. Gold and silver opened up strongly, soon fell back considerably, and spent much of the night on that see-saw.

I awoke this morning to news that China not only has its central bank buying gold again, the government also is stimulating its economy through fiscal policy.

My investment accounts responded appropriately.

Let the sun shine!

Think of the College Football Playoff selection committee as Clueless Joe Biden — eventually doing the right thing, if only after having been dragged there kicking and screaming.

In the case of the football playoffs, that means SMU is in and Alabama is out after what the chairman was quoted as saying was “quite a debate.”

It shouldn’t have been. SMU is 11-2 and lost a nailbiter to Clemson in the ACC title game. Alabama is 9-3, with two losses to 6-6 teams (Vanderbilt and Oklahoma) and that Oklahoma loss being of recent vintage, by a particularly one-sided score.

Clearly, Alabama has the superior football history, with multiple national titles. But this year, SMU deserves the nod. It should have been clearcut, but apparently was not.

Still, there was a possible bit of petty revenge regarding the actual game assignments, sort of like Clueless Joe rushing to endorse Kamala Chameleon to stick it in the face of the people who forced him out.

The committee equivalent is seeding SMU ahead of Clemson, the team it just lost to, and thereby sending the Mustangs from suburban Dallas to the great, white north for a late December game at Penn State.

SMU at Texas would have more sense for reasons of geography and rivalry.

Alas, getting SMU means PSU coach James Franklin, the college football equivalent of Biden, is saddled with a game that can’t help his reputation for losing the big games.

Penn State is the higher seed and will be favored by the gambling types, which means Franklin is expected to win. If Penn State wins, so what? Franklin and the Lions should do so as the higher seed playing at home. But if Penn State loses . . .

We shall await this game almost as much as Christmas. At least SMU got in and that’s the important takeaway.