Well, the end has finally come. From our initial meeting to now, much has changed. I could barely get in contact with Sari at first, and now we regularly email each other. Communication flows a lot smoother. I rarely have to stop and define a word for him. He has definitely grown in his mastery of the English language. We have learned each other's backgrounds, families, cultures, and day to day life. He has grown from a class assignment to a true friend.
With dead days about to start, we decided to meet for lunch at McAllister's Deli before we got into finals mode. Believe me, I am not ready for that at all. I had been inundated with tests and papers recently, so this was a very nice break from the hustle and bustle of school. It is always nice to just sit and talk with a friend for a break.
Sari had heard a lot about the TCU football success and asked me about it. I by no means am a football expert, but I tried my best to explain what I knew. I told him how we had a great season this year, beating highly ranked teams. I also told him about the new playoff system. Before this year, the BCS committee determined the rank of the teams. They put the top two teams, in their opinion, in a bowl game. The winner of that game was the "national champion." There had been a lot of resistance to that system. The criteria for deciding those teams was not always clear. Sometimes there were multiple teams who seemed good enough for the national championship game. The old system had no way to handle three or four really good yet equal teams.
The new system implemented a playoff system. Every week, a committee of around twelve people met to discuss the current state of college football. They looked at all results from the previous week, and they released the top ten teams. The top four would be the teams that would go to playoffs. TCU had gotten on that list, which was great. At the second to last ranking, TCU was ranked third. Everyone was for sure that we were going to the playoffs. On our last week of football, we defeated Iowa St. easily. Unfortunately, Iowa St. was not highly ranked. Ohio State and Alabama played well. It wasn't so much what we did but how well the other teams performed. We dropped from three to six, and subsequently we were out of the playoffs. Even worse, we were ranked behind Baylor. I explained that if we were a "bigger" program that was more well known, we probably would have stayed in the playoffs. Hopefully, our players use their frustration with the system to come back with a vengeance next year. We are playing a good team in the Peach Bowl, and we need to show how good we are.
Sari seemed to understand about 90% of what I said, which is pretty impressive. I told him that he for sure needed to go to a game before he left TCU. It is such an American sport that can only be understood by directly participating. He promised me he would, so I will have to check next year to see if he did.
Finally, we got to the worst part: the goodbyes. Never easy to say, I was dreading this part. We had grown close, and it would be weird for this to come to a close. We promised we would stay in contact. I told him if he ever needed anything, whether it be football knowledge or places to visit, to shoot me an email. I let him know that all financial questions will be sent to him. I truly learned a lot about his culture, and I am so glad I had this experience.
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