Can you feel it friends? Can you feel it deep in your bones, deep in that special portion of your stomach reserved for beer, Cheez-Its, and assorted deep fried goodness? We are hurtling headlong toward another college football season sure to end in confusion, anarchy, dispute, disappointment; pick your word, so long as that word is not "resolution."
Wait a minute, you say. Auburn and Oregon are both undefeated and from major conferences, if they stay unbeaten then they will square off for the national title. Problem solved, BCS vindicated…but wait. Auburn's Cam Newton, the single most important player in college football, is now shrouded in suspicion as allegations about receiving improper benefits have drawn the interest and ire of the NCAA. We may well be watching a player who is ineligible according to NCAA rules, meaning that even if Auburn wins the championship this year, they could very well have to vacate this season's results in a year or two when the NCAA finalizes its investigation. It could also mean Newton, this year's runaway Heisman Trophy favorite, may have to forfeit the award, just as Reggie Bush did to his 2005 trophy this year. After never having a Heisman winner give back his award, we are looking at two players possibly relinquishing the honor in the span of a few years.
Even with all this, it doesn't even approach the total point and problem with college football. I personally guarantee that every team within a stone's throw of the National Championship game has a player or players that have received or are currently receiving improper benefits from somebody. To single out Newton and say that he can't play is naïve, unfair, and unrealistic when college players are getting paid all over this country every day.
Enough of this moaning about one team. Auburn may not get to the title game anyway, and then surely the BCS can bring forth the next best team to play for all the marbles.
Or not. Check out the BCS rankings. Oregon, sure, I get it, that team deserves to be number one: undefeated-check, major conference-check, transcendent talent-check. Then let's remove Auburn from the discussion for the sake of clarity (as if such a word really exists in the lexicon of college football). Here we have TCU, clearly deserving because they are undefeated and have annihilated their competition thus far. But wait, they play in the puny Mountain West you say? What about the team directly behind them in the standings that beat them in the Fiesta Bowl last year and is also undefeated, Boise State? Hold it…Boise and TCU both play in watered down conferences while there are a slew of big conference, one loss teams behind them in the standings just as deserving of a title shot (Wisconsin, LSU, Stanford, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Ohio State).
Isn't the point of sport, of competition in general, to pit two sides against one another and decide the victor by the results we see on the field of play? I don't remember the computer skills portion of any big football games in recent memory. Do they have a typing contest at halftime? Do they compete to see who can make an Excel spreadsheet the fastest? If you can kick a field goal while using Facebook and Twitter, do you get 5 points? Umm…
So why is a computer formula spitting out the two "best" football teams at the end of each year? The only thing that can produce the two best teams is a process of elimination, not generated by a computer program, but decided on the football field. The materials of the sport must determine the winner of the sport. A field, 22 players, a ball, and some refs, no keyboard or monitor necessary.
This maddening chaos defies my limited descriptive abilities as a wordsmith. Anything I say ultimately falls short of encapsulating the inadequacy of the BCS system. So in the end, let me quote a man far more advanced in the art of befuddling rhetoric, former President George W. Bush, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…you…you can't fool me again!"
--from Adam
(image from zimbio.com)
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| Building him up so we can tear him down |
Even with all this, it doesn't even approach the total point and problem with college football. I personally guarantee that every team within a stone's throw of the National Championship game has a player or players that have received or are currently receiving improper benefits from somebody. To single out Newton and say that he can't play is naïve, unfair, and unrealistic when college players are getting paid all over this country every day.
Enough of this moaning about one team. Auburn may not get to the title game anyway, and then surely the BCS can bring forth the next best team to play for all the marbles.
Or not. Check out the BCS rankings. Oregon, sure, I get it, that team deserves to be number one: undefeated-check, major conference-check, transcendent talent-check. Then let's remove Auburn from the discussion for the sake of clarity (as if such a word really exists in the lexicon of college football). Here we have TCU, clearly deserving because they are undefeated and have annihilated their competition thus far. But wait, they play in the puny Mountain West you say? What about the team directly behind them in the standings that beat them in the Fiesta Bowl last year and is also undefeated, Boise State? Hold it…Boise and TCU both play in watered down conferences while there are a slew of big conference, one loss teams behind them in the standings just as deserving of a title shot (Wisconsin, LSU, Stanford, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Ohio State).
Isn't the point of sport, of competition in general, to pit two sides against one another and decide the victor by the results we see on the field of play? I don't remember the computer skills portion of any big football games in recent memory. Do they have a typing contest at halftime? Do they compete to see who can make an Excel spreadsheet the fastest? If you can kick a field goal while using Facebook and Twitter, do you get 5 points? Umm…
So why is a computer formula spitting out the two "best" football teams at the end of each year? The only thing that can produce the two best teams is a process of elimination, not generated by a computer program, but decided on the football field. The materials of the sport must determine the winner of the sport. A field, 22 players, a ball, and some refs, no keyboard or monitor necessary.
This maddening chaos defies my limited descriptive abilities as a wordsmith. Anything I say ultimately falls short of encapsulating the inadequacy of the BCS system. So in the end, let me quote a man far more advanced in the art of befuddling rhetoric, former President George W. Bush, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…you…you can't fool me again!"
--from Adam
(image from zimbio.com)
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