Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

I’ve been looking forward to the College Football Playoffs for a long time.  The new 12-team format should be very popular with everyone as it gives more teams an opportunity to play for a college national title while giving football fans more games to enjoy over the holidays.

Top-ranked Oregon earned a first-round bye in the college playoffs, while Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State also earned byes due to winning their conference title and being one of the top five conferences in the nation.

Among the other eight teams selected were three more Big Ten teams — Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana — along with Texas, Clemson, Tennessee, SMU and Notre Dame.

The one school you’ll see that was among the teams left out of the CFP was Alabama and that’s a good thing for me because I’m not much of an Alabama fan and with three losses, I didn’t think they deserved to be in the playoffs anyway.

The quarterfinal games are set for the weekend of Dec. 20-21, while the quarterfinals are set for Dec. 31-Jan. 1, the semifinals are Jan. 9-10 and the national championship is slated for Jan. 20.

I’ll be rooting for Texas, Oregon, Penn State and Indiana to make the semifinals and I think Oregon will be the team that wins the first CFP title with a close win over Penn State in the championship. 

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Vikings one win from playoffs

The Minnesota Vikings took another step toward the NFL playoffs with a dominating win over Atlanta, Sunday at home.  They are now one win, or a loss by the LA Rams, from earning a playoff berth.

The Vikings improved to 11-2 for the season, which ties with Philadelphia for the third-best record in the entire NFL behind Kansas City and Detroit, who are both 12-1.

The Vikings’ defense is as good as any other defense in the NFL and when the offense is clicking, they are very tough to stop.  The team has also played its share of close games this year which should help in the playoffs.

Right now, if the playoff teams were decided, the Vikings would be the first wildcard team and play Tampa Bay in the first round.  

Except for a very strong Detroit team, the NFC is wide open this year.  The Lions are due for a bad game and hopefully, that game will come when they play the Vikings to close out the regular season, Sunday, Jan. 5.

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Lakers ranked in early state polls

The early state polls for basketball and wrestling were recently released and a number of Laker wrestlers and the girls basketball team were included in the early rankings.

The Minnewaska Area girls basketball team is ranked ninth in state Class AA, which is very good news.  The bad news is that WCC nemesis Sauk Centre is ranked sixth and Section 3AA foe NLS is ranked fifth.

The Lakers will get a shot at both of those teams this week with away games at NLS, Tuesday (tomorrow) and at Sauk Centre, Friday.

•  In wrestling, three Laker wrestlers are ranked among the top 10 wrestlers in their weight class in the preseason rankings.

Landon Schiffler is ranked sixth at 107 pounds, Miles Wildman is rated fifth at 133 pounds and Chase Smith is ranked seventh at 139.  All three of those wrestlers qualified to state last year.

Among the Section 8AA wrestling teams, DGF is ranked sixth in state, while Perham didn’t earn a ranking in the top-12, but did receive some state votes.

In addition, Team United (DB, LQP and Montevideo) is ranked ninth in state and will be the favorite in the WCC again this year.