As teams schedule for a championship, college football loses relevance

I’ve always had a strange affection for the BCS. I loved the idea from the beginning. Having two teams actually play for a National Championship as opposed to letting writers (the sports version of death panels) pick the champion was what college football had always been missing. And when it screwed up and the wrong teams ended up playing for the title, I stuck by its side, turning my head the way a delusional parent does when they find out their angel of a child is actually using pages from his math book as rolling paper.

Put simple, I might be the system’s biggest apologist. But if Rutgers ends up playing Penn State for the National Championship, I’m out. I will disown the BCS forever.

Normally this wouldn’t be a concern at all. It’s been strange enough to see the Scarlet Knights finish in the top half of the Big East the past few seasons and the Nittany Lions are typically a mortal lock to screw up at least one must-win game every year. But given their embarrassing schedules, both teams have a realistic shot to run the table, a notion that has to make the people at ABC queasy.

If Rutgers is unbeaten after it travels to Maryland (a team that might win four games all season) at the end of September, the talk of a perfect season will start to get loud. The Scarlet Knights get Pitt, South Florida and a down West Virginia team at home and something tells me Army just won’t have what it takes to stop them.

Meanwhile, Penn State is more likely to get beat by its practice squad than the nonconference teams it scheduled. In what most people consider the easiest schedule of any BCS program, the Nittany Lions play Akron, Temple, Syracuse and Eastern Illinois and go on the road just four times all season. Joe Paterno himself could quarterback his team through this schedule.

It’s not just the two teams from the northeast guilty of scheduling for a championship. Ole Miss, who beat Florida last season, is a top ten program playing two games against IAA teams and two others against schools who couldn’t win a high school championship in most states (Memphis & UAB). Wisconsin misses Ohio State in the Big 10 this season, plays three nonconference games against teams that won’t finish in the top 100 and also has a IAA team on its schedule. And don’t forget about Notre Dame, who crazy Lou Holtz picked to play for the BCS Championship specifically because of its weak schedule.

The only thing worse than not having a playoff decide the champion is allowing a team that has five variations of Wofford on its schedule to reach the title game. And that’s what could very well happen this season.

If it does, college football will be hockey to me.

Click here to read the rest of this entry >>

Utah's story couldn't get any better

It’s times like these where you start to realize that mom and dad truly dropped the ball. I mean how could they raise me in Connecticut’s friendliest city or you in north Jersey or him in southern California? How could they have brought children up anywhere other than the state of Utah? Ah the Beehive State, where bee stings are the most common form of violence. Gangs aren’t the problem in Salt Lake City – cults are. There is no temptation whatsoever – all forms of gambling are banned; it’s the hardest state to purchase alcohol in; and any drug use might really screw up your hunting season. A wee bit boring if you ask me, but it has to be the safest place in the country to grow up.

There are no real problems in Utah, at least that’s what the state’s Attorney General Mark Shurtleff was saying when he announced that he was going to investigate the Bowl Championship Series for a violation of federal antitrust laws following the University of Utah’s unbeaten football season, in which it was left out of the BCS title game. “Honey, you don’t even have to cook dinner tonight. I’ll be in my den. I’ve got real work to do now.”

My initial reaction to all of this was the same as Pardon the Interruption’s Tony Kornheiser’s: Someone that out of touch with reality should be forced to resign. But then it hit me. This isn’t all Shurtleff’s fault. If everyone else is on board, why shouldn’t an appointed official drive the bandwagon?

After all, Shurtleff is just like you and I. He gets his information and develops his opinions based mainly on what he reads in the newspaper or sees and hears on television. And the fact is, the majority of the mainstream media is lambasting the BCS for not including the nation’s only unbeaten team in the national championship game. Even ESPN’s Rick Reilly is calling the Utes the people’s national champion.

See, most people already disliked the BCS, even if it has been correct about 80 percent of the time, but now that there is a poster child for everyone to feel badly for, the heat has turned up a notch. The problem is Utah doesn’t deserve to be playing for a national title anymore than its biggest rival (BYU) deserved to be winning one under a much more flawed system 24 years ago.

The Utes were better than Alabama last Friday night, there’s no arguing that, but stick them in any of the major conferences (even the ACC or Big East) and there is no chance that team goes undefeated. They aren’t big enough or deep enough to handle a BCS conference schedule and while they have been a nice story, there isn’t anyone in their right mind that thinks they would pose a challenge for Florida or Oklahoma.

Today, the story of Utah looks like the BCS’ biggest flaw, but guess what? Under the old system, the Utes never would have gotten a chance to prove themselves against a team like Alabama. And if there was a playoff, if it managed to even get invited, Utah would not be winning a national championship. Go figure, an imperfect system kept the Utes perfect.

So they’re stuck with an undefeated season, a win in a major bowl game and endless national media sympathy. Sounds to me like the Utes got everything it deserved and more.

Click here to read the rest of this entry >>