Southern Cal did look great, but if you are expecting
me to think that this was a championship performance
by a true national champion, then forget about it.
Argue till the cows come home and you won't convince
me that this game decided anything except that maybe
Southern Cal was much more focused Tuesday night and
that Oklahoma probably spent too much time on South
Beach enjoying the bowl week parties. Had Southern Cal
stuck it to Oklahoma at the end of a championship
tournament run with just a week to come up with a game
plan and I would have been very impressed.
A playoff makes good sense. It's logical. But instead
of common sense and logic we have this beast called
the Bowl Championship Series that decides the national
champion for college football by selecting two teams
through this thingy they call the BCS Standings.
Here's the BCS system in a nutshell: Geeks who don't
know which end of the football is up but can program a
computer to wash your socks and get you a Friday night
date have a say in it. Coaches who have their sports
information directors actually do the voting have a
say in it. Sports writers who usually cover just one
team and don't have a clue about the rest of the
nation have a say in it. Essentially, what we have are
the judges of those real sports such as water ballet
and ice dancing deciding the two finalists for college
football's ultimate prize.
Throw in the complicity of the BCS with its
alternating four-bowl system and it's power play
attempt to squeeze all but a few power conferences out
of the mix and you end up with deserving and
undefeated Utah getting into a $14 million BCS game by
the skin of its teeth and deserving teams like Boise State and Louisville playing in the Liberty Bowl for a
million. Instead of undefeated Utah against undefeated
Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, Utah gets its welcome to
life with the big boys by having to face mediocre Pitt
in the Fiesta Bowl.
The best two teams I saw in the BCS conglomeration
were Utah and Southern Cal. I'm not so certain that
Utah could have stopped Southern Cal's offense, but
I'm also not so certain that Southern Cal's offense
could have done much more than just slow down that
high octane Utah offense just a tad. I'm not sure
there is a team out there that could have actually
stopped it.
I also saw Louisville play Boise State in a game that
was as good as any you could have hoped to see. I'm
certainly convinced they deserved something better
than being stuck in Memphis for the Liberty Bowl. I'm
also convinced that there isn't a team in the BCS that
would have relished the thought of trying to stop
either one of those offenses. Pitt got $14 million to
play in the BCS with three losses. Louisville lost
just one game on the road to Miami. Boise State didn't
lose until the Liberty Bowl.
Wouldn't all of college football benefit from a
playoff that would have allowed Utah or Boise State or
Louisville a chance to prove that there really is such
a thing as Cinderella? But instead of something so
entertaining and with the potential to keep everyone
in the nation who loves college football on edge for
three weeks, we get this charade that's the BCS which
follows something that's called Bowl Week, a parade of
games pitting undeserving 6-5 and 7-4 teams in games
that have no meaning other than to save some college
president or athletic director from having to fire a
coach who's got the football program up to its hips in
mediocrity.
Southern Cal is our national champion by virtue of
this system that is so bad that every year it has to
be tweaked. If it has to be tweaked every year, isn't
that a sure sign that something serious is wrong with
the system? Yet, we're told not only is this the
system, it's the system that we're going to have to
endure because the college presidents and athletic
directors are against a playoff.
I just love the arguments they give us for no
playoffs. The first one I always hear is that silly
argument that the bowls reward the kids, coaches and
fans for a job well done. Then there's that equally
ridiculous argument that if we extend the season,
we're going to keep these student-athletes from
earning a college degree. Last but not least is the
one that we're asking too much of our fans to have to
travel to all the games that you would have with a
playoff system.
I'll shoot those arguments down one by one.
Should 6-5 teams be rewarded with a chance to play
another 6-5 team in a meaningless bowl game that won't
sell out and that no one will watch on television?
We've got so many bowls now that if you finish above
.500 that it's almost considered an entitlement to
make it to a bowl game. If we're going to use the
reward excuse, then at least have the guts to cut back
on the bowls so that the teams that actually deserve a
reward can play in games that have fan interest, will
sell out the stadium, and will be watched on
television. You finish one game over .500 and you do
NOT deserve to be in a bowl game.
I love the one about how extending the season will
hurt academics. That doesn't seem to bother anyone
during the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Make it to the
Final Four and chances are you've missed a month of
class if you're on one of the teams. Football is
played in September, October and November. You play
one game a week, so the athletes typically miss school
only on Friday. Throw in playoffs and you have the
month of December and in the last half of December,
there's no class anyway. Basketball begins in November
and extends into the first weekend of April and
typically teams play twice a week. So, I guess the
college athletic directors and presidents are telling
us that the basketball players are smarter and can
afford to miss more class than the football players?
If the season is extended three weeks, the same fans
who can afford to travel to the away games will
continue to travel to the away games. How many
thousands of dollars must you donate to get season
tickets at any top tier football program in Division
I? I guess those fans who shell out $3000 a year or
more for the right to buy two season tickets won't go
to a football game that leads to the championship
game?
They have playoffs in Division I-AA, Division II and
Division III and have had them for years. The
champions in each of these divisions play at least
four extra games which means that their students miss
class and their fans have to travel. Are we to believe
that the athletes in the lower divisions aren't as
smart as the ones in Division I? Are we to believe
that the fans of these teams can't afford to travel to
support their teams?
The simple thing for the presidents and athletic
directors to do would be to say they want the networks
to propose a playoff system but the kicker is it has
to pay more than the bowl games presently ante up
every year. Do you think for one second that some
network or a consortium of networks wouldn't come up
with a plan and the cash? If that didn't happen, then
the presidents and athletic directors could tell us
the bowl system is the best we have and we could
believe it. We'd have the proof we need and you
wouldn't hear talk about playoffs for years to come.
Instead, we hear the same old tired arguments about
missing class, student athletes, extending the season.
Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. And, we keep on with the same old
system that "rewards" 6-5 teams then dupes us into
believing that computers, SID's and sports writers can
pick out two teams from the 117 that play Division I
football and line them up 30 days later for a real
championship game.
So, pardon me if I'm not all that impressed with
Southern Cal's championship. To be impressed means I
have to buy into the hypocrisy. To be impressed means
I think the system we have is a good one.
I know it's not a good system. You know it's not a
good system. Now why can't the presidents and athletic
directors figure that out?