It's December, so I'm complaining
Unsurprisingly, my recent four-week hiatus from blogging corresponded with a new video game purchase, namely Dragon Age: Origins. I won't bore you with a complete review, but if you've ever enjoyed a story- or character-based RPG, you'll love DA:O. I'm on my fourth playthrough, and still experiencing a few things for the first time.
Instead, I'll bore you with a thoroughly tired topic: the idiocy of the BCS. This year's college football season produced a remarkable five undefeated teams to vie for the "national title". But instead of a playoff system to determine the champion, we'll simply eliminate three contenders by vote, and instead award the opportunity to a couple of schedule-padding, big-money programs.
Even more comical is the fate of undefeated programs TCU and Boise State, thirsting for national recognition and a chance to prove themselves as legitimate programs, who will instead play each other in a totally meaningless third-place money-grab.
Again, let's go through the exercise of an eight-team playoff as I've proposed in the past, with the 6 BCS conference champs and two at-large conference champs. The playoff-eligible teams would be, in seeded order:
- Alabama
- Texas
- Cincinnati
- TCU
- Boise St.
- Oregon
- Ohio St.
- Georgia Tech
Is there be any doubt at all that the team emerging from this tournament unscathed would be a true national champion? Instead of the BCS clusterfuck, which insists on having a "championship" game that excludes three undefeated teams, we'd have an honest competition and a deserving winner. But who'd enjoy that?
Assassin's Creed II is up next, I'll probably pick it up after Christmas. But the one I'm really looking forward to comes out in February:
posted by Sweet Tea @ 1:26 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Meanie... While I share your sentiments with the BCS, you imply that Alabama and Texas were schedule padders (and TCU, Cincinnati, Boise Were not).
That simply isn't the case this year.
Base on:
http://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/strength-of-schedule-by-team
Alabama ranks 1
Texas ranks 31
Cincinatti 45
TCU ranks 74
Boise State 83
And we should note that our alta mater climbed up to 59! :-)
I'd still love to see the playoff though. I really want to know if Cincinatti, TCU, or Boise State could hang with the traditional "big boys".
I wasn't picking on Alabama and Texas in particular, although non-conference home matchups against Florida International, North Texas, Central Florida, and Louisiana Monroe speak for themselves.
The schedule-padding phenomenon is a function of the college football system, supported by tailgating boosters who want to party during blowout victories, and wealthy BCS bowls who will pay millions of dollars to undefeated schools with zero quality wins.
A playoff might help, as in NCAA basketball - there's still cupcakes, but also lots of powerhouse teams play each other during the regular season because it's better to have a tested team come tournament time than an undefeated one.
And even if the schedule-padding continued, at least the best team from each conference would have the right to settle the championship on the field.
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