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Winners and Losers

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LOSER: ACC basketball

Ugh. Outside of Duke, what do we have? Eleven dwarfs. North Carolina and Virginia Tech were supposed to contend for #2, but both are weak 9-4s. Traditional powers Georgia Tech and Wake Forest are 7-5 and 6-8, respectively, with losses to the likes of Kennesaw State, Stetson, Winthrop, UNC-Wilmington and Siena.

The league might get two NCAA bids. Three seems a stretch right now.

I repeat: ugh.
 

LOSER: Common sense

The NFC West champ hosts the defending Super Bowl champ in next week’s NFL playoffs first round. The sin of the New Orleans Saints: being assigned to the NFC South. The West will be won by either St. Louis (7-8 at this writing) or Seattle (6-9). New Orleans finished 11-5 after its 23-13 loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday. Tampa, incidentally, is one of two NFC teams with 10 wins sitting on the sidelines while a seven- or eight-win West team gets to advance.

Dumb.
   

LOSER: The Rex Grossman Experiment

Grossman famously replaced the supposedly ineffective Donovan McNabb for Washington’s final three games in 2010. The result: a 1-2 record and a 77.4 passer rating. McNabb’s numbers: a 5-8 record and a 77.1 passer rating.

So now entering 2011, the Redskins either have Grossman as the incumbent or, more likely, nobody. Back to square one in Redskin Park.

Wonderful. More of the same in D.C.
 

WINNER: Those who fancy the death of the BCS

Way to go, TCU. Many thanks for showing yet again the hypocrisy of the system that renders the world’s best regular-season spectator sport into a mindless series of meaningless exhibition games thereafter.

And I had thought that #5 Wisconsin was maybe the nation’s best heading into the postseason. Turns out maybe it was TCU. Not that we’ll ever know for sure.

Column by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at [email protected].

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