Mean Gene

The BCS Blah Blah Blah

Oh, how I love the yearly sobfest that surrounds the end of the college football season. Every other sport decides its champion by playing a game. College football decides its champion by having a handful of coaches and sportswriters spend 30 seconds before breakfast filling out a ballot. Oh, and there are computers involved too. Wow. Makes me want to jump up and down.

Last year USC played Texas for the national championship, and everyone agreed that these were the best two teams in the country. Were they? Maybe. My Nittany Lions lost on the last play of the game to Michigan, otherwise they would've had an undefeated season. Turns out that loss meant absolutely nothing. Had Penn State won that game, gone undefeated, the national championship game would've been...Texas and USC. A few years ago Auburn went undefeated in the SEC with a squad that featured four NFL first-round draft picks. That wasn't enough to get in the title game. The computers
weren't impressed enough. Oh well.

Let's also not forget that there's a team from Boise State who went undefeated this year. I know, Mountain West conference, they don't deserve to play for the title. So...exactly how many teams at the start of the year actually have a chance to win the national title? Now that the NCAA has decided that only teams BCS conferences can win the title (and, let's be real, no team from the Big East has a chance either), why don't the smaller conference teams just form their own association? There was talk a few years ago of the big boys splitting off and forming their own league--why don't the little guys try it?

This year fans in Gainesville and Ann Arbor will huddle around their televisions and radios and, yes, computers, to find out if the number assigned to their team is high enough to justify their participation in another meaningful football game. The drama, the pulse-pounding drama of it all.

Since every talking head has an opinion on the BCS, you may ask who I think should be playing in the title game. To my mind, the answer is obvious.

The Oklahoma Sooners.

Let's not forget, Oklahoma is 11-2. And one of those losses was a travesty even for college football, the doubly-blown call on the onside kick that went their way against Oregon. Not only did an Oregon player obviously touch the ball before it went ten yards, which would've given the ball and the game to Oklahoma, the replay official who reviewed the play has now admitted that he knew that Oklahoma had actually recovered the ball. But the rules, as he interpreted them, did not allow him to overturn that part of the play. Thus doubly gifted, Oregon went on to win the game.

Had Oklahoma won that game, who knows what it's BCS ranking would be? Under this scenario their lone lost would've been against Texas on October 7th. Might they now be ranked ahead of both Michigan and Florida? And let's not forget that the Sooners lost Heisman hopeful Adrian Peterson early in the year, and this after their starting QB was dismissed from the team.

So, you think there will be fans moaning and groaning in Ann Arbor and Gainesville? How the ones in Norman? Or Boise? Or Louisville, who lost just one game this year?

Ahh, this is all self-indulgent nonsense. College football is a great game. Right up to around the first week of December. And then I pretty much lose all interest in it. Here I am railing against the stupidity of college football, and I haven't even mentioned the fact that this "championship" game the computers come up with is held about SIX WEEKS after the qualifying teams play their final regular-season game.

Sigh. So much stupidity. And if there's one thing I've learned as I grow older, is that you shouldn't sweat the stupid stuff. And despite this post, every year college football helps me gain greater perspective over life.

Now, GO STEELERS!!!!!!!!!

<< Home