Behold, the Super Bowl, an in-your-face measuring stick for the cultural decline of this once great country.

Today is the 60^th installment of this NFL championship game, or LX if you opt for the pompous Roman numeral ordering system preferred by the league.

Like most 60-year-olds, the Super Bowl is showing its age, most evident by the pronounced leftward lurch by the league and this, its marquee game.

As most socialists/leftists, the NFL conveniently puts its ideological bent on the shelf when it comes to making money.

Sure, they preach that it takes all of us and to choose love, even as they dishonor our Flag and embrace just about any fringe left cause. Mostly, the league, its owners and its players, all grub for money. What do they want? More!

The league exists only due to an anti-trust exemption that allows this closed club of socialists to negotiate TV rights collectively.

They ought to have that message displayed on helmets, or stenciled around the edges of the playing field, maybe even at mid-field for additional prominence.

The smug, arrogant types who run the NFL see you as a captive audience, willing to endure their indoctrination in order to watch a few seconds of actual live action between those interminable commercial breaks.

Their television “partners” enable them with ever higher rights fees, which translate to 30-second spots on this year’s Super Bowl broadcast going for a cool $10 million.

According to a story on SI.com, the cheapest ticket to the game on Ticketmaster is $3,600. Some tickets earlier in the week were going for more than $50,000.

Forget Choose Love, Choose Greed!

The NFL is no different in its blatant hypocrisy than the perpetually adolescent songstress who co-opted a recent awards show to declare no one is illegal on stolen land. She had no such pithy observation regarding her mansion being located on what one Native American tribe denoted as stolen land, nor could she explain the gates, walls and other security she has in place to protect her bit of stolen land.

Did anyone else notice this twit seemed to be dressing for a costume party with her playing the part of Wednesday Addams?

Maybe “Wednesday” can make a guest appearance at the halftime show, the annual Wokefest the NFL inflicts on the country, alienating more than half of the audience if election results are to be believed.

If you squint hard, there actually is a football game somewhere amidst this morass of virtue signaling and political correctness.

It is somehow fitting that this Super Bowl is being contested in the aftermath of the pompous Hall of Fame electors opting not to select the game’s most successful coach in terms of winning these things – Bill Belichick – and team owner Robert Kraft, for Hall induction.

That says more about this pathetic exercise in political BS than having some wild hare singer doing the halftime show. I plan on tuning in the alternative halftime show.

During what little I will watch of today’s game, I will be rooting for New England, hoping the Patriots can stick it up the NFL’s pompous butts with a win. Alas, I expect Seattle to prevail.

And what better outcome to celebrate the NFL’s political bent than to have the title won by team representing a city of crazed leftists?

Allow me to share what I think is an amusing recollection on the occasion of this, the date the Washington ComPost has announced massive cutbacks, confirming running rumors that even billionaires such as Jeff Bezos get tired of throwing money into black holes.

To set the stage, in the early 1980s the Penguins held preseason camps in Johnstown and on one occasion the War Memorial Arena hosted a preseason game with the Washington Capitals, which I was assigned to cover, working as I was at the time for the local Woke Gazette.

I passed the evening in the press box seated next to a guy (don’t recall his name) from the Washington ComPost and we spoke of journalistic life.

Even back then, the sainted ComPost had seen its reputation sullied when DEI hire Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for a story about an eight-year-old heroin addict that she just made up. Still, the ComPost was a viable economic concern at the time and it was interesting to speak with someone on the inside.

The one thing he told me that is memorable all these years later spoke volumes about ComPost think. Specifically, the guy told me the toughest job at the ComPost was not covering the White House, or politics, or the international scene, but instead was covering the NFL team, then known by the lovably politically incorrect name of Washington Redskins.

I will paraphrase what he told me: Everyone at the place thinks they know more about the Redskins and could do a better job than the person currently covering the team, no matter who that might be.

This sort of delusional smugness helps explain why this publication has declined to the point of being downsized in an attempt to try to stop the money drain.

Returning to the Cooke tale, after the fact it was widely reported that many at the paper had questioned her story, but were branded as jealous types. And among the most sainted names of ComPost lore, Bob Woodward, is the assistant managing editor who submitted the story for the Pulitzer prize in feature writing. It should have been placed in the fiction category.

Did Woodward, he of Watergate fame, feel bad about it all? Apparently not.

Consider this from his statement on the whole Cooke mess: “It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.”

Nothing has changed through the years, with the ComPost and New York Times sharing a 2018 Pulitzer for the made-up Russiagate frenzy.

Leftist “journalists” have decided truth should not be allowed to diminish narrative. They are content to operate as well-paid propagandists, free to do so as long as someone else is picking up the tab.

For, you see, there is a declining market for such pablum, if there is a price to be paid for it. Bezos held his nose and paid the freight for a time. Now, even he tires.

And so, the smug ComPost, might want to consider changing the self-righteous masthead slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to something more appropriate, like “Propaganda Dies When it Meets Economic Reality.”

Punxsutawney Phil has become part of the virtue-signaling crowd, not a whole lot different than illiterates from the entertainment field who scream Fxxx ICE as routinely as average people say hello.

They play to their leftist crowd. Phil knows people, too. He recognizes that doom weather porn sells and, along that line, today he came across with his usual prediction of six more weeks of winter weather.

The meteorologist groundhog took the figurative temperature of the populace. Today was warmer and sunnier than it’s been, but the ground remains deep with snow, temperatures have dipped below zero on many recent nights, and are predicted to do so again in coming days.

Against that backdrop, tell the people what they fear, that harsh winter continues. If you’re wrong, and an early spring arrives, will people remember you were wrong, or be mad at you because of it?

Does Al Gore ever apologize for being wrong about climate catastrophes he’s predicted for decades, yet never seem to arrive?

I dragged myself out of bed around midday today (still ailing, unfortunately) to find granddaughter No. 2 home from school, suffering the same combo of flu and ear infection that put her sister, granddaughter No. 3, on the shelf last week.

I asked her for Phil’s prediction, interrupting the response to volunteer that it likely was six more weeks of winter. She confirmed that to be correct.

It’s not like I made a 50-50 pick. Phil predicts six more weeks of winter about 84 percent of the time, according to one article I read online. Phil is reported to have seen his shadow 32 straight years, from 1903 through 1933 inclusive.

That same online report indicated Phil has an accuracy rating of just 35 percent, as determined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You read that right, an agency of the federal government wastes its time and our tax dollars monitoring the accuracy of Phil and his fellow animal weather prognosticators.

NOAA says Staten Island Chuck is much more accurate, with a success rate for his predictions of 85 percent. Supposedly there is a bronze prairie dog statue in Wyoming, Lander Lil, with a 75-percent accuracy rating.

Based on those numbers, we should be happy with Phil’s pick, because it’s about a 65-percent likelihood to be wrong.

And here, NOAA uses more conventional methods such as computer modeling to weigh in with its own fearless prediction. Said long-range forecast is that most of the United States will experience above-average temperatures in February, March and April.

Sorry, Phil, but I’m going with NOAA’s bytes over the occasional bites you put on the fingers of your overly aggressive handlers.

Friday was the day from hell for me, and not because of that threatened strike by protesters of all things American.

It began early in the day, with gold and silver prices falling out of bed after having run mightily in recent weeks and months.

As I was sorting through that mentally, a monstrous decline that would see $40,000-plus shaved off my net worth on Friday alone, I went outside to shovel show, expanding the walkways and clearing my mind.

Then my wife dashed out on the rear deck and yelled that we had to talk.

It turns out she had gone downstairs to find our furnace spewing hot water from the pressure relief valve. She called our plumber, left a message, and sat around waiting.

Meanwhile, I called another local plumbing company, one that had done work for my mother over the years. They’d be happy to help — in about four weeks.

No, they were not participating in an anti-ICE strike. They just are extremely busy because this sustained cold snap (whatever happened to global warming?) means furnaces are breaking down in protest, much as mine had done.

I might add as an aside that granddaughter no. 3 had come down with an illness diagnosed as some strain of the flu about mid-week, had spent a couple of days here being watched by my wife and, yes, I was beginning to feel I had borrowed her malady.

When it rains, it pours. Or, at this time of year, when it snows, it’s a blizzard.

By Friday afternoon, I was desperate for a bit of good news. That came when the plumbing company my wife had called got back to us that a man was on the way. So, they weren’t on strike, either.

After about an hour here, he left with our old expansion tank in tow and presumably all was well. That relief valve might need replaced, though.

I don’t know what this plumbing visit will end up costing me, but it’s nothing compared to the Friday gold and silver massacre, and I’m sure I’d have paid multiples of the bill just to guarantee I had heat in the house on what was predicted to be a minus-7 night.

When I’d talked to the woman at the plumbing company that needed a month to get here, we’d discussed a potential problem of abnormally high water pressure as indicated by a gauge on the furnace.

It turns out I was reading the gauge wrong. But I stayed up until 4:30 a.m. Saturday, keeping track of the pressure and temperature of the furnace’s water supply.

The plumbing guys were back Saturday morning to replace the relief valve, but I took my wife’s word for it because I’ve basically been plastered to a bed in my son’s former room very sick and attempting not to spread it to the wife.

My feverish brain hoped against hope that the furnace would be fixed. I can worry about the gold and silver next week.

In a bit or irony, I saw I’d missed a call from my brother. I called him back and found out he’d had heating problems at his apartment, too. Misery loves company.

At about 8 p.m. Saturay night, it was as though a curtain had been lifted. Suddenly, after napping for an hour or so, I felt better and trudged down the stairs sorted though my mail and began to write this blog entry.

Trust me, if you had a bad day Friday, it pales in comparison to my day.

But, things are looking up now. I hope.

The deranged, delusional, contradictory claptrap that has become the staple of leftist discourse would be amusing if it weren’t so dangerous to the country.

Where to begin?

Hollywood types are calling for an economic strike to punish the country for ICE deporting criminal illegals. Actor Edward Norton, whose best portrayal arguably was of the weasel, worthless friend of poker-playing Matt Damon in the movie “Rounders,” seems to have become lost in the role, transferring all the negative characteristics of the character to real life.

It struck me while watching Norton stumble thought his strike suggestion, pausing, umming and generally, like, you know, sort of, kind of, so to speak, coming off as unpolished or insincere (or both), that he’s slipped considerably. One of the Gutfeld panelists came to the same conclusion, which I will take as affirmation I was correct.

Such is the scattergun messaging of the left, emitting words without thought, meaning or significance.

What exactly would Norton’s economic strike accomplish and how?

Crickets.

Then there’s Tampon Tim Walz, who supposedly talked cordially with President Trump about Minnesota’s many problems, then raced to podcasts to act all tough.

Yes, the guy shown in videos during the last presidential campaign trying to load a shotgun and looking more like he was sexually assaulting the weapon, again has threatened to kick the ass of sitting vice president JD Vance. I’d love to see this attempt, perhaps on the undercard of the UFC show at the White House.

I think someone’s ass would be kicked, but Tim has it all wrong, as usual.

Better Tampon Man should tend to his knitting in Minneapolis, which ought to be changing its nickname from Land of 10,000 Lakes, to Land of 10,000 Fakes (Somali daycares and such).

But Rachel Maddow, left-wing cable host and winner (loser?) of a Mark Cuban look alike contest, gloats that “we’re winning” as in the left is prevailing in Minnesota with all the street violence.

If this is winning, I’ll take losing. Sure, the weak-minded are buying the narratives being spun that the two shot protesters were just innocents. Those with a brain understand the woman killed was an active agitator and hit at least one agent with her vehicle.

As for the guy, who is being whitewashed as a peaceful demonstrator, video has emerged from days earlier, purportedly showing him spitting at officers and kicking out the rear taillight of a vehicle, which resulted in him being taken down physically.

And the gun he is said to have brought to the protest that was his last, he must not be too sharp considering it’s a gun with a very bad reputation of going off accidentally, without the trigger needing to be pulled.

In an amazing bit of hypocrisy, leftists shout that he had a legal carry permit and are citing the Second Amendment. Big deal. I have a carry permit, too, but I don’t take my gun to public events and get into confrontations with police or other law enforcement types while there.

Plus, when I do carry, I always have ID with me, including the permit. Our Minnesota victim reportedly had none of this and also reportedly had been urged by his parents not to take his gun and be confrontational.

One more point, much is being made of the guy being an nurse. Has anyone else noticed the flood of medical types making asses of themselves on social media with anti-ICE posts and sometimes losing their jobs for their efforts.

The days of those in the medical profession being upright citizens across the board are long gone.

And how about the Minnesota valedictorian who had her hand blown off when she grabbed an unexploded flashbang device and tried to throw it back toward law enforcement and instead blew off part of her (its?) hand?

Did you read Mamdani the Commie is putting the heat on NY Governor Kathy Hochul to tax the rich to bail out Mamdani’s New York City? Like most 30-sometimes who have been sponging off mom and dad all their lives, Mamdani is very good at spending other people’s money.

Plus, now that he won office by promising free stuff, he needs a scapegoat when he can’t deliver. Former mayor Eric Adams and Hochul are being fitted for that frame.

Jesse Ventura, former Minnesota governor and current gaping orifice, suggests the state secede from the U.S. Sold. Maybe we can trade with Canada, offering Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois, Oregon and maybe Washington state for Alberta?

Last, shed a tear for the whining leftist “journalists” at the Washington ComPost. Jeff Bezos made billions of dollars with Amazon and he’s getting tired of throwing away $100 million or so yearly keeping the ComPost open and spewing left-wing propaganda.

That means layoffs and cutbacks, such as contemplating dropping sports entirely and certainly not spending hordes of writers to cover the Olympics.

Will the last person leaving the ComPost, please turn out the lights?

Some of the appeal has been stripped from the AFC title game today due to the fractured right ankle of Denver quarterback Bo Nix, but the NFC title matchup of Seattle and Los Angeles remains intriguing. I’ll watch both because, as perhaps you have noticed, it’s snowing outside.

Steelers fans might want to avert their gaze from the New England-Denver game. Barring a major surprise, the Patriots are headed back to the Super Bowl, while the Steelers’ run of years without a playoff win is pushing a decade. There’s a serious case of envy developing.

They’ve got to be crying in Buffalo, too. Had the Bills not blown the game at Denver, it would be them facing the Patriots and, at last report, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen is relatively healthy.

When news broke of the Nix injury after the Bronco’s OT elimination of the Bills, the kneejerk reaction was to write off Denver’s chances. Nothing really has changed in the interim.

The betting line for New England at Denver has been hopping around. I’ve seen the Patriots favored by as many as 5.5 points and by as few as 3.5.

I think both lines are too modest, but if you can find 3.5 points, book it for New England.

That vaunted Denver defense can’t win by itself and my presumption is someone will have worked with Patriots quarterback Drake Maye – he of six fumbles in two playoff games – teaching him you’re supposed to hang onto the football.

On the other side, with all due respect to replacement Broncos quarterback Jarrett Stidham, he’s no Bo Nix, despite the fact both played college ball at Auburn.

There is a reason Stidham has exactly four starts in seven seasons of pro football and this will be his first start of the current season.

Denver had a week to work with him and build a reduced gameplan around him. If that’s enough to win the game, color me shocked.

Take New England and give the – hopefully as few as 3.5 – points.

Moving on to the Los Angeles Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks, Seattle has been a favorite all week in a range from 1.5 points to 2.5.

Let’s presume it’s a 2.5-point favorite status. If I were betting, I’d take the Rams based almost entirely on the quarterback differential.

The Rams have a proven Super Bowl winner in Matthew Stafford. Seattle has Sam Darnold, playing for his fifth team in eight seasons.

Notably, Darnold quarterbacked Minnesota to 14 regular-season wins in 2024, but lost in the playoffs and didn’t perform well late in the regular season. The Vikings were only too happy to see him leave as a free agent.

Darnold has presided over yet another 14-win regular season, this time for Seattle. And he’s won a playoff game as Seattle trounced overmatched San Francisco last week.

This week will be much more competitive, as have been both the teams’ regular-season games.

That means Darnold will have to come through at crunch time. Maybe he will or maybe he won’t.

But I’d bank on Stafford outplaying him and thus would take the Rams and the points.

Unlike left-wing politicians and social media agitators, most of them fond of shooting from the lip, I decided to sleep on the news Saturday that the Steelers would hire Mike McCarthy as their next coach before commenting.

I awoke late this morning to snow falling from the sky like God was wielding a salt shaker. The physical landscape had changed greatly overnight. But, my opinion of the reported McCarthy hiring remained largely unchanged, that being it is a break in decades of franchise tradition and just well might prove to be a huge mistake.

To recap, the Steelers have, since plucking Chuck Noll in 1969, hired young, defensive-oriented men to be their head coaches. That formula has produced six Super Bowl championships, two Hall of Fame coaches (Noll and Bill Cowher) and likely a third Hall coach in time with Mike Tomlin.

All those coaches were between 34 and 37 years of age when hired by the Steelers. McCarthy is 62.

Noll RETIRED when he was a week or so short of his 60^th birthday.

Being an even older guy than McCarthy myself, I don’t necessarily think he cannot succeed. It’s just that the odds are stacked against him.

It is notable that both Noll and Tomlin achieved their greatest successes, their championship seasons, early in their careers.

McCarthy seems to fall into that category, having coached the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl win, but way back in the 2010 season. Ironically, McCarthy’s Super Bowl victims were the Steelers.

Green Bay under McCarthy never got back to winning championships and eventually he was shown the door late in 2018. He landed a job in 2020 coaching the Dallas Cowboys, enjoyed little playoff success there and got the boot after the 2024 season.

Two aspects of the McCarthy hiring raise serious questions.

First, there have been reports of rumors from within the Steelers organization that hiring McCarthy might prompt ancient Aaron Rodgers to return as quarterback. Please, no. Yes, the pair were together for great success at Green Bay. But, also yes, that was a long time back.

If hiring McCarthy means Rodgers returns as quarterback in 2026, it’s a mistake just based on that.

Second, beyond the Rodgers question, McCarthy inherits a team that’s middle-of-the-pack in terms of talent, with some notable contributors getting long in the tooth for professional athletes. Cam Heyward is 36 and will be 37 in May.

Oft-injured T.J. Watt is 31 and turns 32 in October. His pro-football-playing brother, J.J., retired at the age of 34.

Steelers president Art Rooney II is operating under the delusion that the Steelers are Super Bowl contenders instead of facing the reality that they need a rebuild.

The Steelers fired coach Bill Austin after a 2-11-1 finish in 1968 and Noll produced an even worse 1-13 record in 1969 as he cleaned house.

Noll knew, and so did the ruling Rooney class back then, that the Steelers needed to start again.

Bringing in McCarthy and thinking he’s going to be able to overcome roster shortcomings due to his coaching genius is optimistic in the extreme.

Pssst. A big snowstorm is on its way. Pass the word.

For God’s sake, rush to the local grocery store to buy milk, bread and toilet paper. Then dash home, pack the old 300-horsepower sled in the garage, and fret about coming days.

While you’re doing that, layer on clothing so that you might turn down the thermostat. Also along that line, douse the electric lights, then turn off televisions, stereos and anything that might put a load on our creaky electrical grid.

Make sure you have batteries, medical supplies, food, water. You know, be sure to have available the sort of stuff you should have on-hand at all times.

Above all else remember, when in doubt, panic.

Is anyone else getting tired of such recurring, over-the-top weather porn?

I recall in my youth, when we got major snow storms, the world continued to spin. People still were expected to go to work. Kids often still went to school, and even when they didn’t, they weren’t being indoctrinated non-stop with Armageddon scenarios.

I wonder why this has happened?

Once, we were self-reliant people. In 1979, seeking to make sure I had mobility in bad weather, I bought my first new vehicle, a Jeep CJ-7 with its four-wheel drive ability.

These days, most people seem to have at least one 4-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive vehicle in the fleet. Such people should be able to travel in adverse weather.

Hell, I recall making it to the Greensburg office of my former Tribune-Reviewing Publishing employer, on a day when we in Greater Johnstown had put the final touches on a 30-inch snowfall, using just my trusty front-wheel drive Ford Escort.

Fellow workers were mildly amazed. Actually, it was no big deal.

Panic started early regarding this storm. On Friday, I saw reports on social media that the local Woke Gazette would not be publishing or distributing its print edition Monday. My garbage collection company also was warning they wouldn’t be here for the scheduled Monday pickup.

By Saturday, closings were crawling across the bottom of the television screen and our beloved governor Josh Shapiro had signed a proclamation of disaster emergency (panic), which seems to indicate he will be able to spend a lot of money on state employees and so make sure they vote for his re-election.

Shapiro also has a ban on commercial vehicles using many of our state’s highways and byways beginning at midnight tonight. There have been conflicting reports of whether or not that includes private vehicles.

I’m fairly certain that if I feel the need to venture out in coming days, I will be able to make it, using my current ancient Jeep Cherokee, or even the wife’s front-wheel drive conveyance. But, thanks for the concern, Josh.

Why is the initial response of these governmental types always to make a power grab? You would no doubt recall COVID hysteria and all the ridiculous dictates such as wearing masks, six-foot distancing and the like, things proven in the sane reflection since to have been utter bullspit.

Even though COVID over-reach has been debunked, we still have weather. If you feel the need to panic over some snow, feel free. It is the norm in this self-absorbed, poor-me society. Just don’t count on me joining you.

For those of us who grew up watching Perry Mason and similar shows, episodic examples in which justice prevailed before the hour-long broadcast ended, it was natural to have faith in the legal system.

The fact that real-life experience back then tended to mirror the fictional shows in that bad guys (or girls) paid the price and criminals were not given a pass simply because they were leftists, buttressed that faith.

Fast-forward to 2026 and reality is something altogether different.

Jack Smith, the epitome of weaponized justice has been testifying before Congress, the tables being turned on a special prosecutor who conducted an anti-Trump witch hunt which produced – wait for it – zip.

Smith was a pathetic guy during testimony, admitting his legal beagle act pursued only Republicans. Democrats? Nothing to see there. Keep moving.

But that Trump guy, he’s Hitler, fascist, defiler of the Constitution, threat to democracy, etc., etc., etc.

And, yes, Jackie boy expects he might end up on the wrong end of some charges because Trump is such a vindictive meanie.

So, Jack Smith, acting at the behest of the Biden regime and twisting the law to dog Trump in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent him from winning the 2024 election, which was extremely likely if you were paying attention, was not political. The Department of Justice under Trump possibly looking into whether Smith should face consequences for playing fast and loose with the law, well, that’s just shameful politics.

Don’t worry, Jack. You might be charged, but these days, Democrats never have to pay the price legally for misdeeds, real or imagined.

Even as Jack Be Nimble has been fending off questions, out in corrupt Minnesota, a leftist judge of some sort said Don Lemon (aids) cannot be charged for participating in a protest that invaded a Minnesota church, interrupted a service, and harassed parishioners.

Meanwhile, three of the protesters have been arrested. Again, get back to me if and when any of them actually is indicted, convicted and imprisoned.

The burgeoning fraud scandal in Minnesota, perhaps aided and abetted by clueless Democrats in charge there, takes a media backseat to ongoing disturbances because ICE officers have the temerity to do their jobs and arrest illegals.

That an overreaching demonstrator ended up stopping a bullet after hitting one of those ICE officers with her SUV, is being politicized to fuel the brainless types who scream at their cell phones for social media posts, perhaps only after cashing their paychecks for being paid agitators.

The Democrats are in bed with criminals and they seem to have the right people in the judiciary to keep them from having to account for this.

Our country’s legal/justice system is a joke due to these politically motivated judges who are willing to ignore the law in favor of advancing an agenda.

Optimists think this can be resolved at the ballot box. I’m seeing no hope on that front. Nothing short of the imposition of martial law, with the military taking over the functions of these conflicted judges, will solve the problem.

As my late father used to say, don’t hold your hand over your butt waiting for that, lest you die of terminal constipation.

Later tonight I will watch college football’s national championship game and, presumably like most of the country, root for Indiana.

Indiana, the team from the Hoosier state, has been portrayed as a Cinderella story, which is correct as far as it goes.

Yes, Indiana University’s sporting history has been that football is just something to do before basketball season begins. Indiana plays for college national championships in basketball, not football. Truth be told, despite recent success, Indiana is second among Division I schools in all-time football LOSSES!

And yet tonight, Indiana meets Miami for the national title and the Hoosiers are 7.5-point favorites, having run through their earlier playoff games in impressive fashion.

Indiana could cap off a 16-0 season, or about what they used to win, total, in four or five years.

But Indiana is doing it with more than luck and pluck. Begin with quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the Cal transfer reportedly making $2.6 million in Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) revenue. He won the Heisman Trophy and will be picked very early in the upcoming NFL draft. Mendoza is a player, period.

His counterpart on Miami is Carson Beck, who transferred to Miami, presumably in pursuit of opportunity and money, and is said to have pulled in about $3.1 million to play for The U this season.

That’s the way the game is played these days. It’s not like Indiana was experiencing this success 30 years ago, when college football still maintained the pretense of being an amateur competition.

Regardless, Curt Cignetti has pulled off something of a miracle. The one-time coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania has taken a team from a basketball school, with a star receiver who got his start playing for St. Francis, Pa., to the pinnacle of the college football world, just a win short of a national title.

Again, I’m rooting for Cignetti and Indiana to get the job done.

But, I have more pause than most over this. I recall Oregon putting on a lengthy ball-possession drive against Indiana, even after falling behind 7-0 on a pick-six interception earlier in these playoffs.

Oregon got away from that template and lost in embarrassing fashion.

Meanwhile, Miami has been the epitome of ground-and-pound offense, sprinkling in big pass plays, but winning on the strength of a punishing ground game.

If Miami can avoid turnovers and be patient, I think the Hurricanes have a chance. Were I betting, I’d certainly take them with the 7.5 points.

Indiana doesn’t need to play perfect football to win, merely avoid committing catastrophic turnovers, or surrendering uncharacteristic big plays. That sometimes can be easier said than done, especially under the bright lights.

Hopefully, I will be wrong and Indiana will win going away. Go Hoosiers!