The NEW National Championship

Ramblings Post #279
Some things always work. Basic stuff, like gravity, something hot buring you if you touch it, everything you've never tasted before tasting like chicken and that the really attractive girl has a boyfriend. Never fails. And in the south, sports work a certain way as well. And then they didn't. So I'm confused.

I would be broke right now. Like, right now.

Because if you had told me that a third string quarterback in his second or third start would lead a team that would beat Alabama, even in a scrimmage, I would have bet everything I own against it. Everything. House, car, 401k, comic books, and I just realized I don't own much else. Wow. But I'm not alone if the guys in the barbershop are any indication. To someone steeped in the dominance of Bible Belt football the very idea of Alabama losing in this situation doesn't make any sense. It tilts the universe just a little bit.

An Oregon v. Ohio State championship invalidates the entire idea of the BCS. Under the old system, neither team would have even been considered. It would a been a game between what we all assumed was the best team in college football against what we assumed was the second best. This is why I've preferred the NFL over college, in that it's selection of champions is much more rigorous, it's scheduling much less biased in filling the stands with victories over creme-puff foes. What happened to the Cardinals in the Wild Card round was what was supposed to happen to Ohio State. A third stringer against starters is supposed to do poorly. Get beat down. Worn out. That's why he's third string.

This upsetting of the apple cart, coupled with the highest rating for the bowls ever, means that not only is the BCS dead, even the wistful nostalgia for it just got kicked in the teeth. One almost wonders if TCU's whipping of Ole Miss can start the conversation for an even larger playoff bracket. I realize this means the end of a lot of fan started opinion arguments nationwide, but I think the country will survive. Heck, this year, I might even watch the game.

Barkeep, I need to order a pilsner of the Sweetwater 420, twenty buffalo wings with fries, a roast beef dip, and I'll need to reserve the end stall in your lavatory. Not going anywhere for a while.   

2007 Football Rant #2

Now that the season is over...yeah, it's over the Cowboys are no longer playing to whatever happens after this point is moot in my personal opinion... I feel a need to comment on the state of the NFL as whole.

Not bad.

Fairly concise assessment, eh? The vast majority of the teams are in parity, even those at the top end of the spectrum have to struggle occasionally, and so the mantra "on any given Sunday any team could beat any other team" is still valid. Which is what makes pro football so much better than college. Yeah, I said it. And you don't know how many rabid college football fans I know.

I will try not to comment on the debacle that was the Bowl Championship Series this year. A series of over hyped games with mismatched opponents that turned into laffers early. After these "premium" teams failed to live up to their softball schedules, it turned into a round robin grab bag for bowl selection, which lead to well...what you saw. By contrast the NFL playoffs have been exciting down to the last few minute contests for two weeks now. Good old fashioned football. Why Green Bay even gave us a game in the snow, a throwback in this day and age.

The chick I hit on at the Playoff Party...I think she was pregnant. She was sitting down when I started talking to her, but when she stood up, I'm like WTF? Like two or three months, just barely showing, don't get it twisted. That was a total tangent, forget I said anything.

As I watched TO get emotional about losing, and I was ready to turn my phone off to avoid having to discuss this with the Cowboy haters (my brother, old girl in Jacksonville, etc), I thought stoically that it wasn't the end of the world. We'd suit up again next season, without Jacques Reeves at corner and put a lock on just as early next year as we did this year. And the year after that we get the new Texas Stadium...ahhh...

And in the off season, Tom Brady and Bill Belichek would get busted picking up a transsexual transvestite.

Man can dream.

Barkeep. Chivas Regal. with just a drop of branch water.

Why the BCS is the greatest

The Bowl College Series (or the BCS) is the best designed and well constructed concept of it's kind. I state this because it is obvious the that most of the college football obsessed have no clue as to it's actual function. The BCS is not designed to pick a clear winner, but to further muddy the championship picture and create the off-season conversation and bickering that foster the rivialries that sell tons of officially licensed merchandise which fills the coffers of the NCAA, endquote.

It works to so well it's a wonder the NFL hasn't scrapped the Superbowl in favor this system that just invites long-term arguments.

As you may have figured out by now, I'm not really a big college football fan. At my alma mater the game wasn't really the draw. You didn't arrive until the 2nd quarter, you watched the band perform, spent the third quarter trying to find the location of the hottest party and were gone by the 4th. The university also had a paucity of home games, sometimes as few a four, in favor of "Classics" that allowed them to draw bigger audiences from alums reluctant to travel and change the revenue structure in their favor. So I guess I kinda missed out on my indoctrination.

But then if you watch college football, you have to know it's loaded on the top and squeezes out everybody else. A top team really only plays three or four quality games a year and so a team that finishes the season with more than one loss had a horrible season, as they lost in one of the few instances they actually had to play. Be real, the chances of Education is Our Focus University beating We turn out Pro Athletes by the Dozen Tech is slim at best, and it's only the marquee matchups between the afore mentioned Pro Athletes by the Dozen Tech and someplace like say Our Staduim is a Temple to Sport College that really matter. Which actually helps out in the Televison scheduling with the ad dollars, as they don't get spread out due to the paucity of these games.

It's not like the NFL where in a sixteen game schedule "on any given Sunday" one team can beat another. There are some who detract from the professional leagues because it means sometimes a team that went 8-8 is still in the hunt to be the champion, or that occasionally due to the conference setup a team that went 9-7 gets in when a team 10-6 finds itself enjoying an early winter, but the current system used by the pros is light years ahead of the BCS.

I know the BCS doesn't really work, as it is only used for the "top tier" of college football, whereas Division I-AA and Division II (terms the NCAA would prefer we not use) use the old fashioned playoff system. Why not use this at the top tier as well, getting eyeballs on the early bowls that would now actually mean something and giving even more importance to the latter, the middle ground colleges be damned. It's not like the "top tier" schools were educating most of these athletes anyway (look at the graduation rates) so what's a few more weeks until they can hang around campus flashing booster money?

I imagine this will be lost in the wind, another voice crying out in the darkness, but then I'm sitting down at the dark end of the bar, so my voice should have a little company.

Hey, barkeep...Marker's Mark with a dash of Sprite.