1. The commercials are going to be good. The simple fact there is a Ferris Bueller commercial makes this year’s game worth watching (at least until that commercial airs). Matthew Broderick may be well past the age he was when he created the iconic role of Bueller (Bueller, Bueller) but that does not mean it will not be fun to revisit Ferris. I also heard about a Jerry Seinfeld commercial which has piqued my interest as well. So, perhaps I won’t be tuning in to watch the game. That doesn’t mean, however, I won’t be watching.

2. Bill Belichick will bore you. I don’t mean with his coaching, I mean with his answers to any sort of question posed to him. Has there ever been a guy who stayed more focused on not divulging a single thing when faced by a barrage of media than the guy in the hoody? I don’t think so, although Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin could be a close second.

3. You’ll wonder exactly why Madonna is ‘entertaining’ you at halftime. Ever since the infamous wardrobe malfunction a few years back the Super Bowl has played it very safe with its halftime entertainment and I’m sure this year will be the same. There was a time, about 20 years ago, that Madonna was controversial. That time, much like my youth, is long gone. So we’ll be forced to listen to her sing her greatest hits all the while wondering just how those songs became hits in the first place.

4. Eli Manning will outplay Tom Brady. The Patriots defense is so bad I cannot see any possible other outcome. Manning shredded the Packers defense (which is also pretty suspect) two games ago, then threw for over 300 yards and two touchdowns against a very good 49ers defense. On the other hand Brady put up very pedestrian numbers against the Ravens, not throwing for a touchdown, and was very lucky to see his team leave the Razor with a victory. And it will be because of Eli’s play that …

5. The Giants will win the Super Bowl. In my opinion the Patriots, the greatest football dynasty of the first part of the 21st century are simply lucky to be in the Super Bowl. The best team in the AFC (the Houston Texans) lost their quarterback and thus bowed out of the playoffs early. The Ravens (who defeated the Texans in the second round of the playoffs) may have very well beaten the Pats had it not been for a dropped touchdown pass, then saw their kicker miss a field goal that is made 99 percent of the time. As I said, New England has been lucky. The Giants, on the other hand, are the hot team. They dominated Atlanta, blew out the best team of the year Green Bay, then went to San Francisco and beat the Niners. New York may not have been the best team over the length of the year, but they are the hottest team right now and usually the hottest team is the one that wins the Super Bowl.

Paterno, obviously, left the game in a sad way. I’ve talked about the scandal that led to his firing from a Nittany Lion program he’d been a part of for over 60 years before and I don’t have much more to say on the matter now. It is a shame that what should have been one of the greatest legacies in the sport of football will be tarnished for eternity because there’s no way his legacy will ever be able to escape its dirty end. Still, there is no denying the fact Paterno was a great football coach and it is in that way that I will try and remember him.

Turning to a happier (for some) football subject, the NFL’s championship games certainly gave us some exciting moments on Sunday, didn’t they? As a fan who had little rooting interest in either game I couldn’t have asked for much more than the way both the games ended. Well, I suppose I could have asked for the Ravens and 49ers to win so we could have had a Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh and New England Patriot-free Super Bowl but it seems like that might have been asking too much. As it was, the finishes of both games brought all kinds of emotions – joy, pain, frustration – to everyone who was watching. Overtime, missed field goals, dropped touchdown catches, honestly, what more could a fan ask for? Hopefully the Super Bowl turns out to be just as exciting because I don’t think I can ever recall two teams playing in the big game that I could care less about than I do about New England and the Giants. I guess there’s always the commercials – right?

Seems like Syracuse hoops’ coach Jim Boeheim now has the fourth most wins in college basketball history. If you would have told me this was going to come to pass when I was a teenager rooting against his Rony Seikaly teams I would not have believed you. As it turns out, I would have been wrong. Boeheim has persevered and somewhat quietly become one of the all-time great college hoops coaches. And, since I no longer go out of my way to root against his squads, I’ll go ahead and say good for him.

Finally a fond farewell to New York Yankee Jorge Posada. As a Red Sox fan, the guy mostly tormented me for years, but he did it in a usually classy manner and he represented the pinstripes in a dignified manner. I’m guessing it will be a long time before New York has another backstop like Posada. So, in his honor, I offer one final, hip, hip, Jorge!

First and foremost, being the best team in the league can be hard once the playoffs start. Yes, I’m talking about the Green Bay Packers who lost just one game before being unceremoniously booted from the playoffs by the New York football Giants. The Packers, who had a bye week and did not play most of their starters in the final week of the season, looked every bit the rusty team as they were knocked out by Eli Manning and company. I suppose it’s a double-edged sword for a team that has nothing to play for in the final weeks of the regular season. Do they rest their starters and risk rust or do they play their starters and risk injury? The Packers chose the former and were stung by it. Of course there is no correct answer but I believe this goes to show why so often the best team in the regular season does not end up in the Super Bowl.

Secondly, and I hate to say it, Tim Tebow really isn’t very good, is he? Okay, I knew this going in, but I had hoped Tebow would somehow vanquish the evil empire that is the New England Patriots and send Tom Brady home crying to his super-model wife. Instead Brady looked the part of the best quarterback on the planet and sent Tebow-mania out with little more than a whimper. A day after the game Denver’s vice president of football operations John Elway (who seems to be in little danger of losing the title of the Broncos’ greatest quarterback of all time) said Tebow would enter training camp as the team’s number one starter. Honestly, I’d thought this was a foregone conclusion. Apparently I was wrong. So Tebow has close to eight months to improve his mechanics enough to be a worthy NFL quarterback. If he can’t, I won’t be surprised if someone else is under center by midseason next year in Denver and Tebow-mania is looking for a new home.

And finally, you can only get so far with your third string quarterback. This was the hardest truth for me to realize, but it really is the case. TJ Yates looked so ridiculously out of place for most of the game with Baltimore that it was kind of a miracle the Texans were as close as they were to the Ravens. A lot of credit has to go to Arian Foster and the defense for keeping the team in that game. The good news is Yates is not the starting quarterback and once Matt Schaub is healthy, Houston can resume its quest to be the best team in the league.

In case you’ve had your head in a hole, or perhaps had way too much nog over the holidays, then you may be unaware the Panthers have won their first 28 games this season. Yes, that’s right, they are 28-0. There are a lot of teams that don’t win 28 games in a two or three-year span. Pflugerville, on the other hand, has done it in just about two months. I think the thing that I find most impressive about the Panthers’ run is the fact that they are undefeated means they won every tournament they entered this year. And Pflugerville doesn’t just enter local tournaments populated by lesser teams. No, the Panthers have prevailed in the Greater Austin Tournament, the Bowie High Tournament and the Mansfield Tournament (which takes place in Arlington and features tough Dallas-area competition). If these facts alone have not impressed you, then maybe this will, Pflugerville has done it all with just one returning starter from last year’s team.

As you may recall last year the Panthers had a special team. They were good enough to reach the regional finals, missing the state tournament by just one game. Two of their players are now playing serious minutes at Division I schools. They seemed to be the kind of team that only comes along once in a very-long while. However, this year’s team may very well be better and that fact boggles my mind.

Part of the key to that success is the depth of talent in the Panther program. Pflugerville’s team last year was loaded with seniors which meant most observers were unaware of the talent the underclassmen possessed. The other key, of course, is the coach and Nancy Walling is as good a basketball coach as I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Her ability to field top-notch teams year in and year out is impressive to say the least.

So, these Panthers entered play this week with an unblemished record and the No. 2 rank in the state. They are a balanced group that can go nine or 10 players deep if they need to which brings me to the ultimate question – just how far can this team go?

I honestly have no idea because I don’t have a scouting report for the teams Pflugerville will face in the playoffs. I can tell you the team ranked ahead of them, Irving MacArthur, is in a different region, so it would seem the sky is truly the limit for this year’s Pflugerville team. At the very least it will be fun to see just how far they can go.

5. Lockouts. In a lot of ways this is a non-story, right? I mean, labor disputes happen in every line of work. Unfortunately fans had to suffer through two such fights in 2011, both of which nearly brought an end to their respective league’s seasons. If you read the column on a semi-regular basis then you probably know I wasn’t that concerned with the possibility of losing the NBA season. Professional basketball is pretty boring right up until the playoffs start in my opinion, so not having games in November or December is really not much of a loss. However, the prospect of enduring a fall without professional football was almost more than I could bear. Fortunately none of this came to pass. However, the entire experience was enough to cause a shudder in the spine of even the most casual fan.

4. A true fall classic. Truth be told I was not really into the idea of a St. Louis Cardinal-Texas Ranger World Series being must-see TV. In fact, I fought it at every turn. However, the seven-game grudge match which ended ultimately with a Cardinals’ victory following an epic collapse by the team from Texas, turned out to be a lot better than I ever expected.

3. Conference realignment. What held my attention the most was Texas A&M abandoning a century-old rivalry to jump out of the Big 12 and become an SEC team. However, it seemed that for most of the year the ground on which college sports were built was shaky at best. In fact the year saw one team, TCU, change conferences twice while competing in a third. By the time the year closed there was no resolution to all this mess. Plenty of teams moved while the ones who stayed in some conferences scrambled to find other teams to play next year. It is an issue the NCAA has to fix before their league becomes the joke it is shaping up to be.

2. Tim Tebow. I’ll admit it. I’ve got Tebow mania. Not so much that I sit around rooting for the Broncos, but I don’t understand how someone could not root on this guy. I love the way he plays the game, I love his humility and, honestly, I love his limited skill set. When I was growing up I always wondered why guys like Tebow (or earlier versions like Bucky Richardson or Turner Gill) never were given a real chance by NFL teams. I mean, these guys know how to win and isn’t that what the game is about? Does it matter if you can throw for 500 yards a game if your team loses all the time? So far things have gone well for Tebow and he seems to have earned himself a chance to start for Denver next year as well. We’ll have to wait and see what ultimately becomes of him, but for the moment I think we can all enjoy the ride.

1. The Penn State scandal. I hate to end on a sour note, especially one that cost one of the all-time great college football coaches his job, but there is simply no other story that can possibly top this list. Former Penn State defensive coordinator and alleged child molester Jerry Sandusky supposedly committed the most heinous of crimes and in the process he ruined the legacy of Joe Paterno. It is a sad story from every angle you look at it and while Paterno’s ruin is hard to take, it does not come close to being as awful as what happened to all those innocent children. The fact that JoePa had to pay for his inaction is certainly understandable but it was a sad way for a guy who seemed to epitomize class for 50 years to end his career.

What exactly was going on at Candlestick Park on Monday night? If you missed it, there were two power outages during the Steelers-49ers Monday night game which stopped play for a while. There is speculation the 49ers did it on purpose because they want a new stadium. I suppose anything is possible, right?

Sunday was an interesting day in the NFL. The Packers lost, the Colts won and Tim Tebow seemed less than super-human. I’d chalk it up to one of those days. The Packers probably are the best team in the NFL but I never thought they were perfect. The Colts are certainly the worst team, but you know the saying about any given Sunday. As for Tebow, well I love the way the guy plays but it seemed hard to believe he was going to be able to rally his team from a fourth-quarter deficit every game. Like I said, it was just one of those days.

Hard to think of the Los Angeles Clippers as a relevant NBA team, but that’s exactly what they are after getting Chris Paul from the Hornets. In fact, with Paul and Blake Griffin it seems to me the Clippers are probably the most exciting team to call the Staples Center their home court. Yes, that means they seem to be more exciting to me than the Lakers. I don’t know if this means they are better than the Lakers. After all, Kobe Bryant knows a lot about winning. What it does mean is that I’d rather watch Paul and Griffin run up and down the court for 48 minutes than Bryant and Pau Gasol. Time and history tells me this will not work out for the Clippers. It will be interesting to see if they can finally shake the monkey that’s been clinging to their back for so long.

It was a little disappointed Barry Bonds didn’t have to go to prison. Never has an athlete gotten on my nerves as much as baseball’s artificially inflated home run champ. Maybe they’ll get him on the appeal.

Not a surprise to see the Texas Rangers win the Yu Darvish sweepstakes. The Rangers have gotten bold with Nolan Ryan at the helm and are proving they are definitely players in the realm of baseball’s financial elite. Of course it didn’t hurt that the Yankees and Red Sox have decided to go into cost-cutting mode and thus didn’t bid for Darvish. After the Angels signed Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, Texas had to do something. However, I’m a bit wary of big investments in Japanese pitchers. They say Darvish is different, but after watching Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch for a while now, that’s something I’ll need to see to believe.

Finally, Ohio State was banned from playing in bowl games after this season for all of the Terrell Pryor mess. I wonder if their new coach, Urban Meyer, is having any regret about signing on in Columbus?

About 10 years ago I was the sports editor of a newspaper in California and as far as the NFL went I was lost. For most of my life, since the retirement of Roger Staubach I had been a fan vagabond, bouncing from team to team, year after year, having a good time, but at the same time never really building an undying love for any one franchise. Into this void came the Houston Texans and things have not been the same since.

I had no real reason to back a team from Houston. When I was a kid in Garland the Oilers were simply the second best team in Texas, and I hardly ever gave them any thought. Sure, I liked Earl Campbell, but what Texas schoolboy didn’t? I had a brief flirtation with the team early in the 1990’s when they drafted Bucky Richardson but Bucky was never destined to do anything great in the NFL and as soon as I realized this (and the Oilers dumped the greatest Texas A&M football player ever) I moved on. However, the opportunity to get in on the ground floor with a team, and especially a team based in Texas, was more than I could pass up. So, before Houston had a player or even a coach I wrote a column in the Imperial Valley Press proclaiming my love for this team which really had not even been born yet.

As you know, if you’re even a casual follower of the team, from this high came years of suffering. I’ll be honest, after they won their first-ever game (beating the Dallas Cowboys) I thought it might not be that hard. Heck, I thought they might even make the playoffs that first season. I realize now I was being a little ridiculous. And every Sunday that they lost (and more recently every Sunday that they blew a late lead to lose in spectacular fashion) felt like a kick in my teeth. Being a lifelong Red Sox fan had taught me to live with pain, but the Texans were delivering it on a way-too-frequent basis for my liking.

Still, I kept the faith. I knew after the team hired Gary Kubiak, drafted Andre Johnson and traded for Matt Schaub that they had as much offensive talent (both on the field and on the sideline) as any team in the league. And every year, as they added more pieces to the defense I hoped they would finally turn that corner and start winning the close games they had been losing. This year, they finally did.

Thirteen games into this season the Texans have 10 wins and are going to the playoffs. No matter what happens in the next three weeks. If you’d have told me this would be the case prior to the start of this season I would have agreed with you, because I never quit believing. The Texans are my team and they have been my team for as long as they have existed. I believed they could make the playoffs and I believe they can win once they get there. My name is Chris Grant and I am a Houston Texans fan. Not once in the past 10 years have I been embarrassed to say those words. However, I can finally tell you I am as proud as I possibly could be to say them.

My best memory of a Texas-Texas A&M football game is set at the veteran’s administration hospital in Roseburg, Oregon, of all places. My father (the old Aggie) had taken a job at the hospital after being laid off from his teaching/coaching job at the local junior college. Because of this we had Thanksgiving dinner in the recreation room where he worked and settled in shortly thereafter to watch the annual Turkey-day game. It was in this strange place, foreign as it was to the Texas blood coursing through my veins, that I was given the greatest football-watching gift of all time. After the Aggie offense struggled for much of the contest against the Longhorn defense, A&M coach Jackie Sherrill inserted freshman quarterback Bucky Richardson into the game and as stars flashed in my eyes Bucky led the Aggies storming back to defeat the Horns. I’ll never forget the moment he scored the go-ahead touchdown, taking the time to flash the “Hook ‘Em” sign to the Texas fans at Kyle Field before running off the field to the sounds of thunderous applause. It was in that moment that Bucky Richardson became my favorite college football player of all time and that the Aggies established themselves as the best college program in the state (at least for a while).

You can be sure there are other memories. Memories of being in Kyle Field the night the two teams played their final Southwest Conference game. Memories of watching the game after bonfire collapsed, of Ricky Williams running, seemingly uncontested over the Aggie defense and into the NCAA record books, of the great wins and often of the bitter defeats. They are there as well, close to 40 years of them, and the thought that the final chapter in that book of memories was written with a Longhorn walk-off victory last Thursday night is almost more than I can bear.

I’m sure you’re well aware of the fact I do not support A&M’s move to the SEC. I believe colleges should play regional rivals and save the cross-country trips for bowl games or the occasional pre-conference, made-for-TV, matchup. In my opinion all the schools in Texas were better off when they were in the Southwest Conference, but that’s all fodder for a different column. Because as long as Texas was playing Texas A&M on Thanksgiving night the rest of the college football season didn’t matter much to me. The Aggies trying to best the Longhorns every year was what made me care about college football and now it is gone and I can promise you no one is better off for it.

I have a hard time grasping the concept that my daughter might never know the rivalry the way I did. I’m sure the words to the “Aggie War Hymn” will mean nothing to her (and, honestly, why would they?) She will never have the joy of celebrating a win over Texas, nor will she know the year-long pain a defeat can bring. Perhaps she can jump on the Longhorn bandwagon and get that same feel for their yearly clash with Oklahoma because I don’t see how she’ll feel any sort of disdain for LSU or Mississippi State or the University of Florida the way I feel disdain for my burnt-orange nemesis.

So it seems my final memory of the A&M-Texas game will be one of sadness and, ultimately, regret. I realize there is a chance the teams will play each other again in five or 10 years but I can promise you it will never be the same. In the end both sides put money, envy and jealousy ahead of a 100-plus year tradition and we all end up losing. And that, quite frankly, is a memory I could do without.

10. Stuffing. I’ve perfected my mother’s recipe and it’s still the best thing on the Thanksgiving-day plate. Now excuse me while I get a second helping.

9. It’s not baseball season. My team (the Boston Red Sox) are in complete disarray and my hopes for a rebound year in 2012 wane a bit more each day.

8. Sydney Crosby’s return. I realize I don’t talk much hockey here, but the best player in the NHL is coming back this week and since he’s on my fantasy hockey team, this is a good thing for me.

7. The high school football playoffs. Okay, so they ended a bit earlier than I would have liked but the four games I got to watch were quite exciting (even if the wrong teams won).

6. Turmoil in the BCS. I truly believe that the messier the BCS system becomes the closer we get to having an actual playoff in college football. Hopefully I’m right.

5. No NBA. So, it’s not that I don’t want them to play, it’s more like I think both sides are being ridiculous and should learn to compromise. Until that time comes, they deserve to lose the millions of dollars in revenue they are losing daily.

4. Meaningful NFL games on Thanksgiving! For the first time in a long time the Detroit Lions are good and they are playing the undefeated Green Bay Packers. Should make for a good appetizer to the Thanksgiving-day feast.

3. Arian Foster, Ben Tate and the Houston Texans’ offensive line. While I love the work these guys have done this season I’m even more happy about their presence considering the injury to Matt Schaub. I have zero confidence in Matt Leinart, so the running game has to continue to dominate if the Texans are going to finally reach the playoffs.

2. Aggies-Longhorns, one last time. I have a hard time believing Thursday night’s game will be the last time I get to watch the greatest clash in Texas football history. I’ve said more than once in this space that I think the Aggies are making a huge mistake moving to the SEC and I’m positive history will prove this point for me. However, the greater tragedy, both for me and for the game of college football, is the loss of this rivalry. Hard to believe my child might grow up in a world without this game.

1. Eliana Louise Grant. Speaking of the kid, I suppose this one might be getting a bit sappy, but if you’re a parent you know as well as I do that on a list of things you’re thankful for your child belongs at the top. It’s hard to believe Ellie is 5 already and while there are certainly trying times, every day with her is truly a blessing.

Actually I’m not sure what it all means as far as how long any one of the three schools will continue to play. Pflugerville and Hendrickson both kind of backed in and in the Panthers’ case they come into the playoffs with a 4-6 record. Luckily for them they are facing a team from Del Valle that is 2-8. Yes, that’s right there is a team in the playoffs that is six games under .500. If you were unaware of that, then you probably don’t also realize there is another team from the exact same district (Austin High) that is also in the playoffs with a 2-8 record.

You know, I’m all for letting kids get the playoff experience and getting as many teams and fans involved in the postseason, but this seems a bit ridiculous. Not only did these teams have losing records on the year, they also had losing records in their district. They both finished 2-3 in 15-5A and were tied with Anderson (who coincidentally did have a winning record on the season), but got in based on head-to-head matchups. Honestly, I’ve never really liked letting four teams from each district (especially districts with six teams) into the playoff mix and here’s a good reason why – 2-8 teams should not be playing once the regular season ends. Oh, one more thing I realized as I was doing my homework on the playoffs – if, but some act of providence, Austin or Del Valle were to go on and win the state title, they would be the state champion with a .500 record. Yep, a team needs to win six games to get the state title, so that nice 6-0 run would at least make their records average.

So getting back to our local playoff mix it seems to me like we should have at least one school playing in the second round. Of course if the Panthers play the way they played against Stony Point on Friday then the outcome of their game with Del Valle is anyone’s guess. I watched the Cardinals play Connally early in the season and they didn’t seem to be that bad to me. Of course a lot of things change over the course of a football season.

Connally and Hendrick-son’s matchups are harder for me to gauge, but their opponents are coming to Waco from a tough district which means the two games I drive north to watch this week should be good ones. Hendrickson is actually getting a rematch with a West Mesquite team that knocked them from the first round last year. A year older and wiser, I suspect the Hawks will be looking for payback Friday.

Whatever the outcome I’m guessing this weekend will be chock full of football action that none of us should miss.