The BCS And The Cop Out Hall Of Fame

Tonight at 8pm Boise State will take on TCU in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. This is the biggest cop out in the history of the NCAA (I hope that was an appropriate level of obligatory internet hyperbole). All season the argument was whether or not the mid-major teams deserved their high rankings. These two teams were at the center of the discussion as to whether or not either of them deserved to be in the top 10 based on the fact that they didn't play in a conference with an automatic BCS bowl bid and the competition in their respective leagues was supposedly inferior. Boise State is the Western Athletic Conference (the WAC, best conference name) and TCU is in the Mountain West Conference. There were other teams in these conferences, the Mountain West in particular with ranked teams who took shit all year about being ranked too high. BYU and Utah were both ranked relatively high for the whole season.

The whole argument was based on the fact that the competition in these leagues in inferior, whereas these conferences argue that they also have good records outside their divisions and that their bowl records are all very good. The latter argument was borne out this year when BYU smoked Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl (gotta love the irony of BYU playing in the Vegas Bowl) and also when Utah beat Cal in the Poinsettia Bowl. Similarly, Air Force (Mountain West) beat Houston in the Armed Forces Bowl and Wyoming (Mountain West) beat Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl.

So the mid-major conferences, the Mountain West in particular had a hell of a bowl season. Boise State has been wreaking havoc on bowl day for the past several years. This year the NCAA had a chance to really let these mid-majors prove themselves in some real BCS bowls and instead they take the two mid-majors who rpresent the best of what they ahve to offer and pit them against each other. This will prove absolutely nothing. One of them will win, the other will lose and in the end we won't be able to argue either way about whether they were ranked too highly or not.

Given that Ohio State and Oregon were locked into the Rose Bowl, the NCAA should have let TCU play Florida and Boise State play Cincinnati. That way when TCU would have gotten smoked by Florida (just like Cincinnati did) and Boise State would have probably beaten Cincinnati it would have been a good argument that the mid-majors were essentially as good as all the other conferences except for the SEC which is far and away the best conference (incidentally, Alabama is going to destroy Texas in the national championship game, thus proving that Florida is the clear #2 team in the country).

For the record the Big 10, which currently has 11 teams, and is soon going to have 12, is the most overrated conference. Ohio State is the only good team in that conference and they have consistently been destroyed in national championship games by teams from the SEC in the recent past. The Big Ten desperately needs to have a conference championship game, and the only reason they don't is because of the Ohio State / Michigan game. The people with the money want that to be the last game of the season every year, instead of just having a real championship like every other conference does. Big Ten = Wack. And not good like the WAC conference, but bad like in wiggety wiggety wiggety wack.

Also clearly they should just have a playoff system to determine the national championship. Notice how no one is arguing this year about who should play in the national championship game after the Alabama / Florida SEC championship game. If they would just have the top 4 teams they could determine a national champion in the span of 2 rounds totalling 3 games. If they had done that this year, they would have given TCU a chance to simply prove themselves in the playoff against Alabama, Texas, and Cincinnati.

What the Eff, Ref?

This really happened in a game this past weekend. The University of South Carolina was playing LSU when the ref ran up and nailed the USC quarterback. (Sorry this video sucks)



Then after the game the SEC said that the ref was in the proper position. This is just the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

Football season begins

Tonight, after a seven-month break, the NFL finally returns as the Indianapolis Colts face the blah blah blah... The Giants are totally gonna suck (Over/under on wins: 6. Place your bets now. I say under.), so I don't give a shit about the NFL this year.

The real football season began this past weekend -- college football.

I haven't really ever had a favorite team, although I guess Notre Dame is the team I follow most closely year in and year out. Growing up in Teaneck meant the closest thing to a local team (that was ever any good) was Penn State, so I also like them. But now, finally, those of us who grew up anywhere from Delaware ("Hi. I'm in Delaware." Little known fact: this "state" doesn't actually exist!) to Connecticut have a team. A damn good one, too.

"I once caught a fish thiiiiiis big!"

RUTGERS, BABY!
After years and years of going 1-10, 2-9, 0-11 and basically turning into a statewide joke, the Rutgers football program is now something more than just respectable -- they're a team to be feared. One of the top two or three best games all of last year was the Rutgers-Louisville Thursday night special in November. Had Rutgers not pulled off that ridiculous last-second field goal, Louisville might have found themselves in the National Championship game (where Florida probably would've stomped them worse than they did Ohio State, but nevertheless...). This year, mark your calendars for October 27th. That's when West Virginia -- currently ranked 3rd in the country -- makes the trip to Piscataway. Rutgers will have another chance to foil a top-5 team's national title hopes. I can only hope it's as good a game as last year's vs Louisville. Speaking of which, Rutgers' final game of the season, November 29, is the rematch with the Cardinals, this time down on their turf. Sure to be another great one, hopefully again with championship implications.

Oh, and one more thing: The Scarlet Knights' first "real" game this season is Sept. 29 against Maryland, a game which I'll be attending. For some reason, I've never been to a Division I college football game, so I want to soak it all up --

The tailgating:

the sea of red shirts:

the drinking:




















(No idea who this person is or why I chose this pic. But what a fox!)

Everything. So let's all arrange to go down there together, okay? Good.

I'm not going to get to into the Michigan/Appalachian St. game, as there's already been loads written on that, but what I will say is that I hope people stop overrating the Big Ten now. Last year, Ohio State got demolished by the SEC champ Florida in the title game. The SEC -- now that is clearly the best conference in football. LSU, currently ranked no. 2, opened the season last Thursday, and if you saw any of that game, you know that team is goddamn tremendous. (Incidentally, the best game of this weekend is LSU vs. Virginia Tech -- call it the "Whose Recent Tragedy Was Worse?" Bowl, or something.) But the Big Ten can eat a fat dick, and if that Michigan loss opens people's eyes to that fact, then great. The Big East is a far superior conference -- two legitimate National Title contenders in Louisville and West Virginia, with one dark horse possibility (R.U.), and four first-tier candidates for the Heisman Trophy in Steve Slaton (WVa), Pat White (WVa), Brian Brohm (Lou.), and Ray Rice (pictured, above). I don't know if there are any Big East-Big Ten matchups this year, but if there are, my money's on the Beasts of the East. (For a much better and deeper analysis of this check out Lozo's blog. He's really good, and he actually posts every day! What a concept!)

I suppose I could write a bit more about how the BCS sucks and how stupid it is to have polls ranking the teams before they even set foot on the field (polls shouldn't come out until at least 6 or 7 weeks into the season), but I'll save that for a later post. I guess I prefer to keep the focus on the Scarlet Knights for the time being.

And keep in mind: tomorrow night at 7, it's Rutgers vs. Navy. I'm sure it's on TV somewhere, so WATCH IT. Get to know them. Hop on the bandwagon like I did.

I promise, you'll see -- it's nice to finally have a team.