Various College Football Thoughts

Another college football season has ended, but just like most seasons so much is left undecided.


About last night's BCS "Championship" Game:

First off, congratulations to the Florida Gators they had a great season, they were a great team.

I really didn't think that the game was all that great though. It was actually pretty sloppy. There was never any rhythm to the game. It was either a penalty, a turnover, a clock issue, or a timeout that led to more commercials. The game never really got going for me.

Can we stop treating Tim Tebow like he is God? I am not attacking Tebow here, he seems like a really quality person. There is no denying he's a great player and will go down as one of the top college football players of all-time. But listening to the announcers of last night's game made me want to vomit. They talked about Tebow the same way announcers typically talk about Brett Favre and Derek Jeter. Announcers act like those players win games all by themselves and no one wants it more. His emotions are quite visible so announcers praise him endlessly for it. You heard statements like,"Look at Tebow willing his team to victory." and "Look at the determination." They show his reaction after every play! Tebow played really well in the second half of the game, but he also threw two interceptions in the first equaling his total for the entire season leading up to the game so it wasn't like the guy was perfect. There are dozens of other players on the team and they deserve some recognition as well. It's not like they didn't work hard to get to where they are. It's not like they don't want to win. It's not like those players aren't working as a team to win a game. Tebow wasn't blocking Oklahoma's defensive line last night. Tebow wasn't catching the passes he was throwing? Tebow wasn't defending passes or making tackles (except on his own interception) either. He has to rely on other players to win the game. He recognizes that and gives the team the credit as he should. Why can't the media understand that too?

Neither Florida or Oklahoma played their best game in the BCS Championship game. Both Heisman winning quarterbacks (Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford) threw two interceptions a piece. There was a lot of praise about Tebow and the Florida offense last night. Going into the game Oklahoma gave up 24.5 points per game making them a pretty average defense. Against the unstoppable Florida offense they gave up 24 points...or less than they usually give up. Coming into the game Oklahoma scored around 54 points a game...they managed only 14 points in this game. At the same time I suppose one could say that those numbers mean that there was great defense played. Oklahoma also came in sporting the best "redzone" offense in the nation coming into the game scoring TDs about 80% of the time (or something close to that) they got into the "redzone." In this game they twice went down to the Florida 5-yard line or closer and came up with nothing. Once it was an interception and the other time it was Florida stopping them on 4th down. There were far too many dumb and ill-timed penalties in the game.


BCS in general:

Does anyone support the BCS at this point? This is no way to decide the champion!

There needs to be a playoff, plain and simple. Either an eight team or sixteen team, I won't go into detail besides that, because I'd be writing all week long and that's something to write about another day.

What does the BCS attempt to do? Is it trying to find the best two teams to match-up for the championship? Is trying to find the two most deserving teams? I don't know, and no one in charge of the BCS has ever made that perfectly clear.

The computer rankings, which make up one-third of the BCS calculation, can tweaked to come up with any data the statistician wants to arrive at. Teams aren't really being compared effectively as the statistician thinks of some formula which ranks different teams, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those formulas actually convey anything that effectively ranks the teams based on how good they are.

Another third of the formula, the coach's poll, is a problem as well. Several coaches have openly admitted not being able to follow other teams and therefore don't have the best grasp of who the best teams in the nation are. Coaches also vote with favoritism to their conferences and their colleagues.

What I am getting at here is that these two components to the BCS (the other being the Harris Poll) alone are not effective tools in deciding the two best teams in the nation. Why should these ineffective tools decide who gets to play for a champion when they can decide it on the field much more effectively? An eight or sixteen team playoff would solve that problem. The ninth or seventeenth teems in the country may complain, but I think by the end of the regular season there could be a system in place that can at least decide the teams (eight or sixteen) that should be up for consideration for a championship. Does anyone really think that Florida is the best team in the nation hands down, no argument. No way! USC, Utah, and Texas all have legitimate arguments for being number one this year. The point that many people make about there not being a playoff is that a playoff system would add games to the season. Well, how come every other lower division of football has figured out a playoff system, but not the top division? It seems pretty doable. It's unfair to the rest of the teams and players on those teams that have a legitimate complaint about not being one of the top two teams in the BCS after the regular season finishes. You hear college presidents, athletic directors, and NCAA all talk about doing what is right for the student-athletes. Why don't they create a playoff system that is fair for the student-athletes by giving them a chance to compete for the championship and not have them rely on a ridiculous system that takes that chance away for all but two teams that may or not be clearly the best two teams in the country?

I am also sick of people saying that teams that weren't in the BCS Championship Game don't have a gripe with not being there. Sure they do. Before the bowls there were at least eight teams that had a legitimate argument to be in the BCS Championship game. After all the bowls have been played there are still four teams that have a legitimate argument in favor of their team being declared the champion. People argue that USC shouldn't have lost to Oregon St. Penn St. shouldn't have lost to Iowa. Texas shouldn't have lost to Texas Tech. While each team could have taken care of their own business by winning every game that simply didn't happen this year, minus Utah (and Boise St. before their bowl game). It's ridiculous though to think that all these teams had one loss (again not Utah), yet two get to play for the championship and the rest have to live with it. It's just a dumb argument, a cop-out, and it's really not fair to all these teams that are basically standing on equal ground at the end of the regular season. Look at what cost two teams a chance to play for the championship. USC plays one bad quarter on a Thursday night, on the road, at a tough place to play, and after the most high profile game of the season to that point. Texas gives up a touchdown with one second left to lose, on the road and the fourth game in a row against a top 15 team. Could these two teams have taken care of business? Sure. But should they be left out of championship consideration because they lost one game a piece just like the two teams that ended up playing for the BCS Championship. No way! Before the bowls all of the undefeated or only once beaten teams had a legitimate gripe for playing in the BCS Championship Game and it's simply not fair that they didn't get a chance because of some ridiculous formula having the power rather than those teams being able to play for it against each other.

The transitive property doesn't work. Just because Team X beat Team Y and Team Y beat Team Z does not mean that Team X would beat Team Z. This is what some have argued this year. Utah beat Oregon St. Oregon St. beat USC, therefore Utah is better than USC. It doesn't really work like that. Look at it this way Penn St. beat Oregon St. Oregon St. beat USC, USC absolutely demolished Penn St. in the Rose Bowl. These kinds of arguments don't have much merit.

HERE IS THE IMPORTANT NOTE: All these arguments about who should play in the BCS Championship Game are not arguments that anyone should have to have.

For instance people talk about whose loss was better/worse USC @ Oregon St or Florida at home to Ole Miss or Texas @ Texas Tech or Oklahoma on a neutral field to Texas or Penn St. @ Iowa. Or this team scored more points than this other team. Or this team's defense didn't allow as many points. Or this team lost early in the year. All of these types of arguments shouldn't have to take place among a bunch of teams trying to take two spots in a championship game.

We shouldn't have to have these kinds of silly arguments because the games should be decided on the field, period.