Taking a humorous but analytical look at just about anything in the spirit of Groucho Marx: I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member!
Showing posts with label College Football Commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label College Football Commentary. Show all posts
Leave it to Nebraska. In this college football-crazy state, even the heat and storms typical of August but happening in June cannot keep the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers off the front page. The University's Board of Regents, in conjunction with some governing board for the entire Big Ten college athletic conference, has announced that Nebraska will be leaving its affiliation with the Big XII [pretentious, isn't it?--Ed.] and joining the Big Ten by the end of 2011. [And if you think I am kidding, I assure you, I am not. Local TV stations took down their weather warning crawlers this afternoon to announce first, that the Regents were meeting to discuss the change in affiliation; second, that the Regents were voting on it; and third, that the affiliation was going to change.--Ed]
The Regents have justified this by saying that several other members of the current Big XII will not commit to staying long-term in that conference, so it's in Nebraska's best interest to be proactive rather than wait until presented with a "fait accompli." The Regents also touted certain academic affiliations and certifications which both Nebraska and every school in the Big Ten maintain, and apparently to which not every school in the Big XII ascribes or aspires.
I don't care how they try to justify it. It's just wrong, on so many levels . . . let me count a few of the ways: (1) there are no natural rivals for Nebraska in the Big Ten; Iowa doesn't count. I don't care that Iowa is right next door; NU is used to chewing on Iowa State once a year. Cyclones go better with Cornhuskers than Hawkeyes do, and even that fit is not great. NU has always looked to its west and south for its main competition every year, clear back to the days of the Big Six. Looking east and north is not what we do--that's going backwards. We are natural affiliates of the other Plains States, not the Rust Belt.
Besides, Ohio State and Michigan already have their own classic rivalry going. NU's most natural rival is and always has been Oklahoma, from the glory days of the Big Six through the Big Eight and even the Big XII. Yes, bad enough when the Big Eight turned into the Big XII and split into North and South divisions, thus forcing NU's annual "big game" rival to be Colorado and not Oklahoma. Colorado football does not have the same historic cachet as NU-OU. Colorado just hasn't been good enough, long enough. [Not to mention that Colorado has already announced its plans to switch to the Pac 10 from the Big XII.--Ed.] I'm sorry, but football on Thanksgiving weekend MUST include the NU-OU game. Traditions matter in college football more than in just about any American sporting endeavor other than baseball. Eating turkey sandwiches while watching NU play anyone but OU on the day after Thanksgiving has never felt or tasted quite right. Knowing it's never coming back will feel and taste even worse.
OK, in the Big Ten, there IS Penn State, against whom Nebraska has played some memorable bowl games, but that just leads me to my second point. (2) The Big Ten cannot count. It already has eleven schools in its membership; what's it going to call itself after NU is officially embraced, too? "The Big Ten Plus Two"? Awkward. "The Big Twelve"? Allowing for the "XII," already taken . . . though who knows? If the Big XII really is falling apart the way the NU Board of Regents seems to think, maybe the name will become available. But will the conference still have only twelve members at that point? Rumors have been rife for years that Notre Dame has been recruited heavily by the Powers That Be in the Big Ten. Maybe the Fighting Irish will stop fighting assimilation. Whether ND stays independent or joins the conference, however, the conference's name still won't match its numbers. And that leads me to my third point: (3) despite the NU Board of Regents' touting of NU's and the Big Ten's high academic standards and qualifications, that inability to count has taken us back to the days where the "N" on the NU football helmet stands for "knowledge."
Before last night's Big XII Championship Game between the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers, winners of the Big XII North division, and the University of Texas Longhorns, winners of the Big XII South division (undefeated, and consensus #2 NCAA Division IA team in the nation after Alabama upset Florida yesterday), the general attitude in these parts was that Texas would probably win, though it was going to be closer than most national pundits would expect. And that's exactly what happened. Texas won the game 13-12, coming from behind with a 38-yard field goal with literally only one second on the clock.
So why does everyone in Husker Nation this morning feel rotten? Probably because two Nebraska errors (one poor execution, one 15-yard penalty) in the last one-and-a-half minutes (or so) of the game are the only reasons Texas was in a position to win at all. Nebraska scored a field goal to take the lead, 12-10 with about 1:40 left on the game clock. On the ensuing kick-off, instead of burying Texas deep in its own half of the field, the NU kicker flubbed it, and the ball went out of bounds short, giving Texas excellent field position near its own 40 yard line. And then a Nebraska defensive back, in trying to minimize the damage of a nineteen-yard-plus passing gain by Texas, made a horse collar tackle on the receiver . . . giving Texas another 15 yards on top of the gain, and another first down.
A couple of plays later, Texas QB Colt McCoy stopped the clock by throwing an incomplete pass so that there was only 1 second left on the official game clock--a play that had to be reviewed because several (including ALL the Cornhuskers) thought time had actually run out and Nebraska had won.
As it was, the Texas kicker was less than a yard away from missing the kick wide to the left. And at least 2 NU defenders were within inches of getting their hands on the ball and deflecting the kick.
The loss feels so especially awful because it's a classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. No one gave NU a serious chance in the game. The Huskers were a 14-point (if not more) underdog. And they came out firing on all cylinders, because they seemed to realize they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. On their first offensive series, they went for it on 4th-and-1. They didn't make it, but they were fairly deep in Texas' territory, and it sure sent the message to the Longhorns that the Huskers were not intimidated and that they'd come to play.
The old saying that "offense wins games but defense wins championships" is true . . . to a point. Defense can get you close to winning championships, but you have to score more points than the other guy to win. The Husker defense did its job. It held the vaunted Texas offense, which until last night had averaged 43 points per game, to only one touchdown. But NU's offense has had its ups--and downs--all season long. The most common term I've heard to describe the offense is "non-existent." They couldn't score even one touchdown against Texas last night. I do not mean to diss the Longhorns' defense. They are excellent--among the top 5 in the nation. But the Huskers had plenty of chances. They just couldn't capitalize on them, be it due to interceptions, penalties (some of dubious merit), or some questionable play calling.
I thought it was brilliant that NU head coach Bo Pelini put All-Universe defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh in as a fullback on more than one key third down play. I do not think it was brilliant that Suh was used as a blocker for the ball carrier in those situations. The entire Texas defensive line keyed on Suh--I can but wonder what would have happened had the Huskers put Suh in, let Texas go after him, and run the ball carrier on a counter, up the other side of the field. Methinks THAT would have gotten the Huskers some serious offensive yardage, as long as they didn't run such a play more than twice.
So the Huskers finished their regular season at 9-4, which would have been unthinkably awful 10 years ago, but is an improvement after the debacle of the Pederson-Callahan years. And the season could have been much better than that. They could have beaten Virginia Tech (lost by only one point, again, on a last minute bit of brilliance by Tech); they should have beaten both Iowa State (lost that game by 2 points after making a record-setting 8 offensive turnovers) AND Texas (as we've just discussed). The only superlatively bad game they had was the blowout they suffered at the hands of Texas Tech. Still, coach Bo Pelini and his staff have done well in this, only their second season.
The moral of the story is that having some hope often feels worse than having none. With some hope, one can be tormented by the "coulda, woulda, shoulda"s. With no hope, there are NO "coulda, woulda, shoulda"s. With some hope, even a loss that everyone else said was inevitable feels worse than a loss when there never was any chance to win. A loss like last night's leaves one feeling that "we wuz robbed!" even though that's not what happened. Putting that one second back on the clock was the correct call, as the replay showed. Besides, blaming the loss on that last play is like everyone bleating about how the GOP stole Florida in the 2000 presidential election. What happened in Florida would have been 100% irrelevant to the outcome if Al Gore had only managed to win his own home state of Tennessee. Had the final Huskers' kick off put Texas deep in its own territory, even if the horse collar tackle had still happened and been penalized, Texas most probably would not have been able to get close enough to try that last-second field goal in the first place.
Let's just hope that the Huskers learn the right lessons from this season's ups and downs, and that Pelini works as hard and as diligently on preparing the offense for next year as he did the defense for this one. Oh, and that the Huskers win big in their upcoming bowl game.
The speed at which time passes is flexible--rather, our perception of the speed at which time passes is flexible. Anyone who's ever been in a life-threatening crisis will testify to that. While the crisis is going on, time seems to stretch as though one is falling over the event horizon of a black hole. Once the crisis has passed, the putative victim is inevitably shocked to discover that what seemed like hours of agony really took but minutes, or even seconds, to pass.
I have been thinking a lot about the human brain's flexible response to the passage of time. I spent much of the first 60% of my life moving, not just from state to state, but overseas, once each to Southeast Asia and to Europe. The reality of being so frequently on the move not only helped me keep my own personal entropy under control; it helped me stay connected--plugged in, if you will--to the larger energy of world-wide events.
I have spent the subsequent 40% of my life to date living in one place. Yes, I've taken trips [though, mostly for logistical reasons connected to my lung disease, I've had to keep these trips to one day's length--Ed.], but somehow it's not the same. I still pay a great deal of attention to the events passing on the world's stage, and I still actively pursue learning so as better to evaluate the effects of those events on not just my life, but ultimately on history itself. But the sense of being "part of the flow" has vanished. And my own personal entropy has gotten totally out of hand.
Sometimes, I feel that even though I am still alive, my life is slipping away from me. I find that frightening. I'm not even distracted by the hum-drum of the minutiae of everyday living. I'm disconnecting from it. Some 40-year-old memories I have are more vivid in my brain than are memories I've generated in the past year. Maybe this should make me glad--I'm sure it reduces my levels of stress. But I cannot escape the vague sensation that somehow, it's very, very wrong, and I should fight it as hard and for as long as I can. I do not want to have to move, not ever again. But maybe it's exactly the physical jolt I need to overcome my mental entropy and the physical entropy surrounding me.
I am still quite good at working up some righteous anger over the injustices I see in the larger world, as anyone who's read more than one of these posts can attest. I have made it a habit of expressing my opinions and the reasons for them in more, and more diverse places. The beauty of a good idea is that once it's given expression, it's able to influence untold numbers in untold ways . . . not unlike the impact an excellent teacher can have on someone's life. Or such is my hope, that one of my little mental gems has sparkled and caught the attention of someone I don't even know, and that it has [in a way I cannot predict--Ed.] made a difference for the better in that person's life.
If this is mere dream or delusion, so be it. Leave me my dream, my delusion. It's all I have left.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Another odd thing about humanity's flexible perception of time involves anticipation. Note that anticipation is not necessarily a good thing. One may anticipate happy events that are to come, such as weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, reunions, what have you. But one may also anticipate upcoming appointments with dread, as I surmise the football players of Louisiana-Lafayette must have felt as their game against the mighty University of Nebraska, played yesterday, approached. Many people who watch the History Channel are getting all het up about the upcoming end of the world that's been predicted for 12/21/2012. Getting to yesterday must have felt that same way to the Ragin' Cajuns as they came to Lincoln to accept their drubbing at the hands of the Cornhuskers. If it wasn't the apocolypse, it was a pertect storm, and the Ragin' Cajuns knew they were plunging into its heart.
The factors creating this perfect storm? (1) Homecoming for the Huskers. Every team is hyper-hyped to win its homecoming game. The Huskers are no exception. (2) The 300th consecutive stadium home game sell-out in NU history. This is the longest active streak in NCAA history; Notre Dame holds the second-longest streak, at a 1/3 shorter 207 games. The only proper way to celebrate such a milestone is with a win--a BIG win. (3) Nebraska was coming off a loss, by one point, to Virginia Tech--a loss the Huskers let happen after having had the game in hand for about 58 of its 60-minute duration. Anyone who knows anything about Nebraska knows that the opponent facing NU the week after such a painful, self-inflicted defeat is going to be chewed up and spat out. And then stomped on. And then stomped on some more.
The final score was 55-0. Yes, Nebraska won. I hope the Ragin' Cajuns' share of the take from ticket sales and pay-per-view was worth what it probably cost the Louisiana-Lafayette players' psyches. True, they could see it coming. The first two factors have been known since the game was put on the schedule. But the third factor happened only a week before, and that's what makes me wonder about how the Ragin' Cajuns perceived the passage of time in that week before their annihilation for the sake of NU's quest to get back national championship glory.
I'm guessing the week seemed to pass very slowly to the Ragin' Cajuns. No sane person looks forward to being on the receiving end of such an experience. I would think they'd want it to be over and done with as soon as possible . . . thus making the time before it happened slow to a crawl. Oddly enough, I suspect the Huskers felt the same way. Every day they had to live with the taste of the Virginia Tech loss only increased their desire to replace the bitterness with the sweetness of a huge win. Who cares that the opponent was the proverbial 97-pound weakling?
And that's what is so odd about how human anticipation affects human perception of the passing of time. It's the waiting that's the operative factor, not whether the predicted outcome is dreaded or hoped for. Not to mention that when the event finally happens, it seems to fly by quickly and be either much less painful or much less satisfying than anticipated. Doubtless there is some biochemical explanation for this, but I cannot help but hope that biochemistry isn't the end of it. My experiences tell me that when we die, we're done. We're gone. But my heart hopes my experiences aren't telling me everything.
This year's Chicago Cubs illustrate this most excellently. Last year, the Cubs won 97 games, and took the NL Central title handily. And got swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Dodgers, 0-3. So the front office made personnel changes, and the talking heads on ESPN and MLBTV thereupon agreed that the Cubs once again would be the class of the league. Not all the fans agreed, however. Many of us wish to this day that the Cubs had not acquired Milton Bradley and had kept Mark DeRosa, but why the fans so often seem to know better than management is a topic for another day.
You still have to play the game . . . and when you do play the game, things happen. Unexpected, unanticipated things. Bad things. Third baseman Aramis Ramirez missed something like 50 games with a dislocated shoulder. The Cubs were almost 10 games over .500 when Ramirez got hurt, and went straight into the tank when their leading RBI man was lost to them for almost 1/3 of the season. They were as low as 4th place in mid-summer, though they did manage to claw their way back into a brief tie for the division lead before sinking firmly back to second place by the end of the dog days of August.
Outfielder Milton Bradley, always a prickly personality, did not play anywhere near his potential, or even up to the level he'd played for Texas the year before. His acrimonious relationship with the fans shocked me. Chicago Cubs fans embrace the Cubs like almost no other fans in any sport. They follow the careers of former Cubs and continue to root for them and wish them well (except for maybe when they are actually playing against the Cubs, that is--but Cubs fans still applaud them when they are introduced and when they come to bat).
The one thing Cubs fans hate is the player who isn't giving his best efforts at all times, the player who acts like he doesn't care. To the fans, Bradley did not seem to care or to be giving his all, resulting in his being mildly chided by some. But then Bradley opened his mouth and complained about how awful the fans and the city were treating him . . . and it got so bad that he was suspended and sent home almost a full month before the end of the season. [That he's had similar problems everywhere he's played should lead him to realize something, to wit: it's him, not the fans. He doesn't seem to have that kind of self-awareness, however.--Ed.]
And Mark DeRosa, traded into the American League (to Cleveland) so he wouldn't compete directly against the Cubs, got traded again. To St. Louis. Where he wound up playing directly against the Cubs after all. He is now an important part of the Cardinals' unpredicted rise to the NL Central title, which they clinched last night.
As September proceeded, and the Cardinals' "magic number" to clinch the division title shrank, several strange things happened. The Cubs started playing the way we fans knew they could, and they got back to several games over .500 (as I write this). St. Louis started playing a bit erratically, and lost some games the Cardinals should have won. The Cardinals' "magic number" to clinch hovered at "1" for several days. What that "magic number" means is that any combination of 1 win by the Cardinals OR one loss by the Cubs would make it mathematically impossible, even if the Cubs won all the rest of their remaining games, for the Cubs to wrest the title from the Cardinals.
Seeing a "magic number" hover for days at "1" is something I do not remember ever experiencing before. In my heart of hearts, knowing it was totally silly, I yet began to let a little hope for the impossible take root. Could the Cubs do it? Could they really win all their remaining games? That half of the equation seemed eminently possible. But would the Cardinals in turn lose ALL their remaining games? Not bloody likely. They're too good. And even if the Cards did, there'd still have to be a one-game playoff for the division title.
But as the Cards proved last night in coming from behind to beat the Colorado Rockies 6-3 and thus clinch the NL Central crown, they were in fact too good to let the title slip away. No matter that the Cubs earlier yesterday had beaten the San Francisco Giants.
Still, it kept the NL Central division race interesting a lot later into September than I'd have predicted (had anyone asked) back in August. What does all this has to do with time passing? Once again it comes back to anticipation. The hoped for, no matter how unlikely, can make our perception of the speed of time's passing slow down. In this case, unlike the case of the Huskers football team, however, it was not because of a rush to get beyond a prior insult or injury, but because of how good it felt to have a germ of hope springing to life inside.
What's even odder is that now that that hope has died, its death doesn't seem to hurt as much as its lack of existence at all, back in August, pained me. I wonder how the Cubs players themselves feel about the events of September, 2009. I suspect that they'd given up on any realistic chance to win the NL Central back around Labor Day, which is about when they started playing better again. For even though this year's team is not responsible for the Cubs' lack of a World Series title for more than 100 years, that century must weigh on them. They know their fans have come to expect a winner, and they [except for Milton Bradley, that is--Ed.] want to be that winner. This desire doubtless is reinforced every time the litany of all the close calls and missed opportunities ever since 1984 is replayed.
What the Cubs need to do as a team is learn a little Zen. They must embrace the burden by letting it go. To focus and concentrate on the big goal while not thinking about it during each at bat and each defensive play. To play to their capabilities without forcing them, without feeling obligated to carry around those 100-plus years of expectations. They have to feel the pressure, but not feel it; they must channel it to enhance their moment-to-moment performance, not let it swamp and thus overwhelm their thinking. I know from my own participation in various organized sports that this is the hardest thing to do and yet it is the only thing that separates champions from also-rans.
And I am taking some comfort in the Cubs' performance these past few weeks. Almost to the second they knew realistic pressure was off, they began playing like the winners they can be. I just hope they can internalize that during the off-season, and come back in 2010 to play the way it says they should "on paper." Just don't let them read it!
Forgive me for being a bit giddy. I am still recovering from watching one of the best college football games I've ever seen. Did you see the Colorado-Nebraska game yesterday? Nebraska came from behind with a school-record-breaking 57-yard field goal and a pass interception for a touchdown, both of which happened in the last two minutes, to smack Colorado 40-31. So Nebraska finishes its regular season at 8-4 and is in no way in the hunt for the national championship, let alone the Big XII title. It's a remarkable one-year turnaround from the debacle of the Bill Callahan era at NU. And the Huskers will be going to a bowl game, most probably the Gator Bowl as matters stand now. Thank you, Bo Pelini!
When I was in high school and even when I was a student at UNL, I was in no way a fan of Nebraska football. Football players at NU in those days regularly violated the law and got away with it, all for the sake of fielding teams that could win national championships. But seeing NU's precipitous "fall from grace" during Bill Callahan's tenure was shocking and hurtful. NU is, after all, my alma mater twice over, and I am no different from anyone else in wanting things to which I am connected to be seen favorably by those who know nothing else of me than of those things.
So yesterday was a lot of fun for me despite the fact that Nebraska began the game by giving up two quick touchdowns to Colorado and thus falling behind the Buffaloes 14-0. For some reason, I wasn't worried. Nebraska for decades now has had a tendency to give up long yardage to teams with great passing games, but I had a feeling that as the Husker offense found its rhythm, the game would turn around. I was (for once) rewarded for my patience.
This game epitomizes why I like college football better than pro football as a rule. Crazy things happen in the college game on a regular basis. In the pro game? Not so much--with one notable exception. This past Super Bowl was fun--the Giants played and won the game more like a college team than a pro team, and beat a previously unbeaten Patriots team to do it. That's a classic college scenario, not a pro one.
Nevertheless, I for one will never be totally satisfied with Nebraska football again until the Big XII comes to its senses and returns Oklahoma to its rightful status as Nebraska's foe during "Rivalry Week," the game played the day after Thanksgiving. What the powers that be haven't realized is that "Rivalry Week" has NOTHING to do with geography--if that were the case, Colorado would be a logical choice for Nebraska's opponent--it does have EVERYTHING to do with tradition. And the game rightfully called "The Game of the Century" was between Nebraska and Oklahoma. On the day after Thanksgiving.
I know. Nothing's going to change. The money isn't there, and everything is driven by money these days. But I can dream, can't I?
Yesterday, the Nebraska Cornhuskers managed to hold down the highest-scoring average offense in the nation during a 37-31 overtime loss to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas. Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini's Huskers have finally arrived.
After the Huskers got their collective clocks cleaned by Missouri last week, I was of a mind that it was going to take Pelini and his staff at least 2 more years to undo the damage to the program that former Athletic Director Steve Pederson and former Head Coach Bill Callahan had done. After yesterday, however, I have changed my mind. This team, as one of the TV announcers noted, "grew up before our eyes today." Husker football is back!
Now, the won-loss record still may not reflect that for another year or so (got to get the best possible personnel in all the key on-field positions), but this was a true Husker team. Texas Tech was in serious danger of losing its homecoming game, and everyone in Lubbock knew it.
I have not always been a fan of Husker football. For one thing, my dad's Air Force career meant that I'd lived in every other state comprising the (then) Big Eight long before he got stationed in Nebraska. So there was some question of prior loyalties. Furthermore, I never cared much for the fact that under legendary head coach Bob Devaney (and to a somewhat lesser extent, coach Tom Osborne), football players who committed criminal acts were protected from the consequences of those acts for the sake of the team--and winning. But Nebraska IS my alma mater, and Nebraska's academic scholarships awarded to me are what allowed me to afford getting a college education in the first place, so . . . it's kind of nice to see positive reporting related to my school in the national news for a change.
College football experienced a bloodbath this weekend. Four of the top five ranked teams were upset [hence my need for the pink stuff--Ed.], and even Nebraska managed to lose its first-of-this-season's nationally televised games by losing to Virginia Tech.
Bo (Pelini) may know football, but he needs to learn some anger management. After playing generally poorly, with occasional flashes of both offensive and defensive brilliance, it's a miracle of sorts the Huskers lost by only 5 points. What's worse, they may have won the game except for late and stupid self-inflicted penalties that kept Virginia Tech scoring drives alive. The worst of these was inflicted by head coach Pelini himself. After the officiating crew warned him, he kept arguing and didn't leave the field with enough alacrity--and got the Huskers slapped with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty . . . which kept alive the Hokies' touchdown drive that ultimately provided them their margin of victory.
There is no joy in Huskerville this morning.
Still, I don't think Pelini is in serious danger of losing the faith of the Husker Nation. Most of the tribe like and admire his passion and his intelligence, and concur with his ideas about "how to play the game." We just wish he'd be a little smarter about his sideline conduct while the game is being played.
Nebraska really stunk up the Cotton Bowl yesterday. The Huskers played exactly the way they've played in all their other losses this season: they came out strong in the first half, but didn't score as many points as their statistics suggested they should have; they then proceeded to stand around and give the game away in the second half, due to an unfortunate combination of turnovers, bad play calling, and worse play non-execution.
So Auburn won the game 17-14. Will this finally get the people around here to wake up and see that Bill Callahan is a fraud as a coach? Probably not. That's too bad for NU. Let's face it: Callahan got the job only because of Athleltic Director Steve Pederson's ego. Pederson didn't want retiring coach Tom Osborne's pick to head the program. He wanted to put his own stamp on the program by ensuring his own choice would coach NU. Frank Solich thus got canned for going 9-3. Callahan thereupon proceeded to drive the program so far into the ground that 9-3 now looks good . . . and now Husker players and fans are saying things like "we nearly have the quality of players we need to play in the highest echelons of the game."
Blech! [I never thought I'd say this, but where the heck is Bob Devaney when we need him?--Ed.]
On the other hand, Boise State is for real. This year's Fiesta Bowl has to be one of the most exciting, improbable, and compelling college bowl games I've ever seen. I am now officially a fan of blue AstroTurf. Or more correctly, of the team that plays its home games on it. There's no quit in those Broncos. After dominating Big XII Champion Oklahoma and building an 18-point lead in the third quarter, Boise State seemed to be collapsing in slow motion late in the game--to the degree that OU took the lead on an interception for a touchdown with about 1 minute to go. Yet the Broncos came back to tie the game with the chestnut Hook and Lateral play, force overtime, and then win with a variation on the Statue of Liberty play for a two-point conversion. [It's so much fun to see old plays being dusted off and put to good use again!--Ed.]
If ESPN Classic isn't replaying this game as an "Instant Classic," it ought to be. I don't get ESPN Classic anymore--my cable company removed it from my tier of service but raised my rates anyway. [How shocking is that? Not!--Ed.] I encourage you to watch the game if you have ESPN Classic and it is playing on that channel. It has to be one of the most exciting college football games I've ever seen.
Considering how many college football games I've seen, that says a lot. Yesterday, I actually was starting to burn out on college football. The Cotton Bowl was embarrassing, the Rose Bowl was a yawn, and there had been entirely too many yapping [not talking, yapping.--Ed.] heads and not enough exciting play . . . until the Fiesta Bowl. If Ohio State loses to Florida next Monday, Boise State ought to get voted National Champion. After all, in that case, Boise State would be the only undefeated Division I A team. That's not the way the Bowl Championship Series works, but that doesn't make it right. At the very least, if Ohio State loses, someone ought to offer to fund a game between Florida and Boise State to determine the national championship for 2006-07 with finality. If Ohio State wins next Monday, Boise State ought to be voted co-champion.
That won't happen, either, and for the same reasons there will never be a true playoff system in Division I A college football. There's not enough money in it for all the schools that would be shut out of a bowl game if a true playoff system were implemented. The current philosophy seems to be the more schools get any piece of the pie, the better. So why couldn't revenue sharing be implemented? I know, I know. It's a question of who decides which schools would get how much of the revenues available. Almost everyone with decision-making power in NCAA Division I A college football seems to prefer the current scattershot system to something that would actually make sense. This most probably because they all fear they'd lose funds if changes were made.
Better the devil you know, I suppose. Nor is it that a playoff system would extend the bowl season to an untenable degree. As far as I'm concerned, that's already happened. Since when do we have to wait until January 8th to find out who gets the coveted "National Championship"? Since now. I have a sneaky suspicion that unless the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl turn into barnburners exceeding the Fiesta Bowl (an exceedingly unlikely scenario), most of us won't care by January 8th whether Ohio State or Florida gets the win and thus the title.
Over time, the loss of interest due to the fans' collective short attention span will cost Division I A more than would any shifting of revenues resulting from a genuine playoff system going into effect.
So it's up to you, Ohio State football Buckeyes. Lose the BCS Championship Game next Monday so that we can kick this debate up "notches unknown to mankind!"
