|
|
David Spates College football is great, until the season ends If ever there were a year to soundly beat
the anti-BCS drum, this is it. With Tennessee's loss to LSU Saturday night,
the Bowl Championship Series has been thrown into a tailspin
and, more importantly, it's been pegged as the bad joke it is. Let me preface this column with an admission.
I write this column every year about this time, and for those
of you with little or no interest in college football, please
feel free to read something else. I'm sure John Whitehead has
something interesting to say. He's fairly clever. Let's move on. College football is something
I enjoy, but it doesn't rule my life. It's fun. It's a pastime.
I enjoy watching movies, reading, watching football and lots
of other activities. Like a good book (say, Tuesdays With Morrie)
or satisfying movie (let's go with American Beauty here), football
stirs my emotions, albeit not the same emotions. I've chatted up Tuesdays With Morrie and American
Beauty, and now it's time to revisit the dreadful manner in which
college football determines its champion. I hate the bowl system. I've hated the bowl
system long before anyone ever heard of the BCS. As part of my
disdain for the bowls, I refuse to attend any bowl game other
than a national championship matchup. Being a Virginia Tech fan,
the only bowl game I've ever attended was the Sugar Bowl against
Florida State following the 1999 season. I know it's of little
concern to the organizers of the bowls that one man passes on
a game, but they're my principles and I'm sticking to them. I
can either be part of the problem or part of the solution. If
I attend a meaningless bowl game, I'm part of the problem. What other sport in the world decides its
champion in such a ridiculous manner? If you didn't know anything
about the system and I tried to explain how it worked, you'd
roll your eyes throughout the entire conversation. Maybe it would go a little something like
this: "See what we do is take the top two teams
and let them play a championship game. Sounds great, doesn't
it?" (A brow is furrowed.) "Well, who decides
which teams get to play?" "We have polls. Coaches and sports writers
determine a big part of it. We also have computerized formulas
to help." (The eyes are rolling.) "Coaches? Sports
writers? Why are their opinions any more valid than anyone else's?
And computers? What do computers have to do with football? Why
can't there just be a playoff after the regular season is done?
That's what every other sport in the free world does." "Well, you see, we have these bowls.
There's a lot of tradition behind them. Besides, the old guys
in the bad sports jackets seem to like them. You probably saw
their RVs parked outside." (By now, the eyes are rolling like a teenage
prankster on Halloween night.) "Forget it. I prefer my sports
to be less arbitrary and subjective. Diving and figure skating
leap to mind." I wholeheartedly support a playoff system
for college football. It's the only plan that makes any sense.
All you'd need to do is take the top 16 teams and let them duke
it out on the field. (Sure, there'll be some grumbling from the
17th-ranked school, but too freakin' bad.) After four weekends
of thrilling games, you'd have an undisputed champion. If nothing
else, it would leave the computers, sports writers and football
coaches to do what they do best. The computers would be used
to play solitaire, the sports writers would spend more time eating
free chow in hospitality rooms, and the coaches would focus their
attention on regurgitating sports clichés. And, most importantly, the football teams
would be the ones to decide the outcomes. Three extra weekends
of football games shouldn't be too much trouble for the NCAA. It's not a matter of life and death. After
Sept. 11, I think we all have a refreshed sense of what's really
important in the world. This is just football, but it could be
better. The BCS is a farce. The championship game is the only
bowl that matters. The others should be renamed the Consolation
Bowls. The only positives that come from them is cash to the
schools and improved recruiting status. We, the fans, the ones
who are footing the bills, get nothing. Take March Madness, arguably the most exciting
month in college sports. Win and your team moves on. Lose and
you go home. That's the way sports should be. Now imagine the
excitement, not to mention the money generated, by injecting
football into a March Madness format. How can anyone think that
would be a bad idea? I know I've addressed this in years past, but if I don't make an effort to fix the problem, I feel as if I have little room to gripe about it. If they did it like I want to do it, my Virginia Tech Hokies would still be in the hunt for a national championship -- so would your Tennessee Volunteers. Just a little something to consider as we watch Nebraska and Miami tee it up in January. · · · |