Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: #4 Ohio State (9-2) v. #6 Notre Dame (9-2):

Here’s a game that features two of the most popular college football teams in the history of the sport in the Buckeyes and the Irish.  Speaking of the Irish, I have to get this out now.  Why is it that the Fighting Irish is an acceptable nickname for a team, but so many team names based on Native Americans and other cultures are considered offensive?  The Fighting Irish symbol is a fighting leprechaun.  This is a combination of two of the most prominent stereotypes in Irish culture, in leprechauns and fighting, and a conclusion could be drawn that a third stereotype is thrown in there with the leprechaun appearing to be drunk at all times (in the logo he looks a little tipsy and the mascot, although sometimes he's African-American/Irish, surely has to be drunk to be acting the way he does in front of hundreds of thousands of people; at least he seems that way).  Is the reason because Irish people embrace that name?  I would certainly embrace a team naming themselves after me or my culture no matter what.  The New York Ragin’ Matt Days?  The Detroit Fighting Lithuanians?  I love it.  I could understand if Native Americans disliked these team names because there were white people acting as mascots and turning sporting events into Native American minstrel shows, but for the most part, that’s not the case.  My high school team’s nickname was the Warriors, and we had a Native American chief with a headdress on as our mascot.  But for some reason, we had to change the image and though the name is still Warriors, it has almost no relation to the Native Americans that the school was trying to honor with that name.  However, Native Americans have been through a lot more than I have and definitely have a different outlook on American culture than I do, so I am not going to try to act like I understand their point of view.  This is just something that I wonder about sometimes.  Back to the subject at hand;  the fact that these teams travel very well and have such a storied tradition (with so many fans who will surely tune in) clearly factored into their selection; because in the end, it’s all about ratings and revenue.  Don’t think for a minute that Mike Bellotti and the #5 ranked Oregon Ducks aren’t feeling disrespected, but I will get to that later.  That being said, this should be a very entertaining game and I think Charlie Weis will teach a lesson in coaching to Jim Tressel, who I don’t think is very good (remember the Texas game when he rotated Troy Smith and Justin Zwick, but seemed to take each quarterback out of the game directly after they got into a groove, there were many questionable moves like that by Jim throughout the season).  I also think the Irish are a better team.  Better team + better coach = victory.  ND, 33-21. 

Nokia Sugar Bowl: #11 West Virginia (10-1) v. #7 Georgia (10-2)

This could very well be the ugly duckling of the BCS bowls.  We will see the winner of one of the better conferences in America, the SEC, against the winner of one of the worst conferences, the depleted Big East.  The Mountaineers have an impressive record, but they’ve played questionable opponents all season long (their only quality win was over #19 Louisville 46-44, and they will not be putting up points like that against Greg Blue and UGA’s tough defense).  The one time they played a team anywhere near Georgia’s level was Va. Tech (I had the pleasure of watching that game) and they were shut down.  I don’t think West Virginia will be able to hang with the Bulldogs, who have already taken out better teams than WV (i.e. LSU, Auburn).  As always, anything can happen, but I’m going to go with UGA, 31-13.

FedEx Orange Bowl: #3 Penn State (10-1) v. #22 Florida State (8-4)

I like to call this the Geritol Bowl.  You can toss the rankings and the records out the window for this game with the two winningest coaches (JoePa 353, Bowden 359) in Division 1A history going head to head.  Joe Paterno (age 79) has led the Nittany Lions to an amazing 10-1 record in a competitive Big Ten conference this season and I think it’s safe to say nobody predicted such a year.  Bobby Bowden (age 76) has had a much tougher season with the ‘Noles, however FSU always has the speed and talent to play with anybody in the nation.  The Orange Bowl also gives us a chance to see two of the best defenses in the nation, including three of the best linebackers in AJ Nicholson, Ernie Sims, and Paul Posluszny.  This should be a classic smashmouth game and I am definitely looking forward to watching this chess match between two coaches who have combined for 712 wins over the course of their great careers.  Nittany Lions, 21-17.

Rose Bowl: #2 Texas (12-0) v. #1 USC (12-0)

The game we’ve all been waiting for since before the season started.  I think the BCS committee is happier with these teams going undefeated than Mack Brown and Pete Carroll combined.  I don’t have much to say about this game that hasn’t already been said.  I think USC’s offense will be too much for Rodrique Wright, Michael Huff and the Texas defense.  When USC wants to win, more often than not they get it done; it’s as simple as that (and more often has been for the past 3 seasons now).  USC, 38-28

Now that those nice, positive analyses are over with, I will get into my critique of the BCS and the entire college bowl system.  Now remember, these are just general things that I notice, some things are more serious than others.  I believe certain aspects of college football can be improved, but I have come to the realization that some will always stay the same (due to human error and things of that nature).  Although I love the bowls themselves, I am an big advocate for a playoff in College football.  I think it’s almost naïve not to have one and I think that there is a way to have the best of both worlds and integrate the bowls with a playoff.  I’m itching to get my thoughts on this silly system out there, so here we go…

It’s all about the money.

College football (and the bowl system in particular) embodies this phrase.  You don’t have to look any further than the names of the bowls themselves, the amount of bowls there are, and the selection of certain teams to bowls (i.e. Notre Dame/OSU) for proof.  The almighty dollar is the cause for many of the things that I currently have a problem with in college football and you will see that it is a recurring theme in this post (keep the thought of potential financial gain for the schools involved, advertisers, and everybody else aside from the athletes themselves, in the back of your mind while reading). 

There are way too many bowls, bottom line.

There are a lot of layers to this.  First, somebody needs to do something about the standards for what is good enough to be considered bowl eligible.  As of right now, the standards for bowl eligibility are lower than those of Tom Arnold.  Nobody wants to watch two teams that barely kept their heads above water over the course of the season (many of them in questionable conferences) play each other in a game that means absolutely nothing.  I don’t know about you guys, but watching 6-5 Southern Miss (whose biggest accomplishment this year was being involved with Tyrone Prothro’s catch in that Alabama game) and 6-5 Arkansas State battle in the New Orleans bowl while the announcers talk about Dustin Almond’s place in Golden Eagles football lore is not my idea of an enjoyable bowl experience (and doesn’t it seem like Almond has been at So. Miss for like 7 years?  He’s up there on my list of guys who seemed like they were at college for way too long, with such notable names as Quentin Griffin and Anthony Glover St. John’s basketball).  Bowls are supposed to have prestige and meaning, and allowing bad teams to get into a bowl hurts not only the fans, who expect to see good teams competing (Personally, I think Al Bundy's alma mater Polk High has more of a right to be playing in some of these bowls than these 6-5 teams, but I always watch these games anyway, I can’t help it), it detracts from the meaning and importance of other bowls and the teams involved in those bowls.  Teams that have had legitimate successful seasons earned their way into a bowl, such as 9-2 Alabama (who did it in a very tough conference) do not want to turn around and see teams like 7-5 Colorado (who not only had a down season in a terrible conference, but finished up their season by getting absolutely worked in their conference championship game, 70 to 3) playing in a bowl like they are.  Putting a team with 4 or 5 losses into a bowl game is like putting Little John from Robin Hood: Men in Tights in a 400 meter individual medley against Michael Phelps, it diminishes the credibility of everybody involved.  If a team loses 4 or 5 times during a 11/12 game season (especially if they had no quality wins over decent opponents whatsoever), they simply aren’t that good and they certainly don’t deserve to be playing in a bowl.  However, it’s not only those teams that I have a gripe with.

I could make a case that some teams that have good looking records in horrible conferences should not be making it to bowl games either.  Take 9-2 Texas Tech for example.  The Red Raiders were in a very weak Big 12 (which I keep harping on for some reason) and the one good team that they played all season long, featuring a man named Vince Young, body slammed them 52-17.  TTU also lost a game to a very mediocre Oklahoma St. team.  I can say with some conviction that they probably shouldn’t be in a bowl.  Somehow, Texas Tech is ranked 15^th in the BCS standings and I have a feeling that has something to do with people not  What is the story with that?  Every time I hear about the computers tabulating the rankings and stuff like that, I get this image of these guys who look like the scientist from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, huddling around a computer and getting a little sheet of paper that shoots out of an orb (like those old stock tickers from the 1940’s).  I am not a fan, that whole computer thing needs to be tossed.   Back to the Cody Hodges and the Red Raiders.  Their wins came over one of the worst collections of teams I have ever seen on a schedule for a supposed #15 ranked team.  Now if there were a 16 team playoff, they may get in (not in my playoff – color me unimpressed with this team) and have the opportunity to prove themselves to the nation; but this isn’t a playoff and they haven’t proven anything to me at this point.  evaluating the team correctly, as well as the whole shady computer aspect of the BCS.

Now I understand that bowl wins can really benefit a school’s program on many levels (recruiting benefits, money for the program, etc.), but some of these bowls have little to no bearing on those benefits; and if the true aim shared by the people who set up these bowls, and the sponsors, was to give the schools an opportunity to bolster their programs (and they do try to make people believe that this is a big part of their aim), then the bowl committees would evaluate certain situations more fairly.  I believe that a BCS bid would have benefited Oregon this season much more than it would Notre Dame (Notre Dame doesn’t really need extra money, exposure, or help building the program, Oregon does), but ND can generate the revenue, so they got the bid.  In the words of Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase’s theme song “Money, money, money, money, moneyyyy!”  I bet that guy would make a great chairman for the BCS.   

The automatic bids are irrational unless there is a playoff/tournament.

There are a few reasons why I think automatic bids are unnecessary.  Automatic bids for the BCS function as a tool to ensure that the “best” teams in the nation (a.k.a. the most recognizable teams in most cases) gain spots in the BCS bowls.  However, even if there weren’t any automatic bids, the winners of the “power” conferences like the Big 10, Big 12, SEC, etc., would still be among the best teams in the nation.  Therefore, those teams would end up receiving bids in the BCS bowls because they would be near the top of all of the polls (along with any upstart teams that deserve to be ranked highly).  Let’s be honest, who else would get those bids, Boise State and Indiana? 

Automatic bids in the majority of postseason sporting events are used to assure the teams that earn them a spot in a tournament or playoff of some sort.  The true purpose for an automatic bid is to put a team in the position to make a run at a championship, think about it.  However, in the case of the BCS, all an automatic bid does is give a school who would have probably gotten a bid anyway (aside from certain schools like West Virginia and Florida State, who I will speak about in a second) a spot in a bowl which most likely will not result in a championship (aside from the national title game obviously -- which the BCS still rarely gets right and I don't see much of a difference from the pre-BCS days, with things like USC/LSU splitting the title, and Auburn last season having an argument, etc.).  The automatic bids in the BCS can also hurt teams that should rightfully be in one of the BCS games and get left out as a result of those bids.  West Virginia getting an automatic bid is a farce.  For one thing, the Big East should be stripped of its automatic bid until they prove they can be something without Miami, Va. Tech, and BC.  The Big East at this point is on par with some of the weaker conferences in the nation and they certainly don’t stack up to the Big 10, SEC, ACC, or Pac 10 (see: last year’s Fiesta Bowl: Utah 35 – Big East champion Pitt 7, in a game that was actually worse than the score would indicate).  Let me know if you truly believe that West Virginia deserves that bid over Oregon, LSU, Alabama, Auburn, or even Virginia Tech (who obviously had the opportunity to be in a BCS bowl but blew it to Florida State as a result of a scenario that shouldn’t exist).  The fact is, West Virginia is ranked below all of those teams aside from Alabama and LSU (who they should be ranked below) yet somehow they got a bid and that really irritates me.  As for Florida State, although they can play with anybody in the nation on any given day (they probably would have gone undefeated in the Big East), I don’t think they deserve to be in a BCS bowl over some of the teams that I mentioned before either.  Florida State had a somewhat poor year while Oregon, etc., had great years, and because FSU played one good game at the end of the season, they get a chance to play the #3 team in the country in the national spotlight.  I would advocate automatic bids, especially in a situation such as FSU’s, if those bids were a part of a tournament or playoff, because in that situation, the ACC championship game would be their saving grace and an opportunity to play for a national championship, while the teams that succeeded all year long, such as Virginia Tech and Miami, would also have no worries about getting into that tournament and being able to play for a national title (see: the NCAA basketball tourney).  More on that later on. 

The ever-present problem of certain teams getting hosed by the BCS.

This year, we have yet another example of this epidemic (which is another problem that roots from revenue, as mentioned before).  Adding insult to injury, instead of letting the Oregon Ducks play in the Fiesta Bowl, apparently the best the BCS committee can do for Oregon is give them the honor of playing in the extravaganza that is the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl against a team, in Oklahoma, that doesn’t even deserve to be in a bowl (another great example of the low standards for bowl eligibility).  Leaving Oregon out of the BCS is like locking them inside a rancid port-o-potty, and pitting them against a team like Oklahoma is like taking that port-o-potty while they are still inside and flipping it upside-down.  The Ducks could have easily been matched up against a team like Auburn, TCU, Alabama, or even Michigan (if the committee really felt the urge to have them face a prestigious team that has had a down year) and it would have been a much better scenario than this.  As I discussed before, Oregon is ranked higher than several teams who are going to be playing in BCS bowls, this madness must stop (but now I’m done arguing for Oregon - maybe the committee didn't like the fact that Stevie Wonder could see their solar-inspired uniforms or something).  If the current bowl system is going to continue (which I hope it does not), there really needs to be a more stringent inspection of a lot of these teams’ credentials by the bowl committee (this relates to my last paragraph and is clearly a theme in this post).  A team’s record doesn’t tell the whole story when you’re trying to separate 10-1 teams from 9-2 teams, and even 9-3 teams in some cases.  Part of this ties into another problem I have with college football…

The later in the season a team loses, the more it hurts.

This should not be the case, unfortunately, I think this is one of those things that will never change.  I’ve seen scenarios involving two teams in strong, comparable conferences that have looked something like this.  One team (Team A) loses the first two games of the year and wins the next ten, and another team (Team B) wins 11 games in a row and loses one at the end of the season; and at 10-2, Team A gets a higher ranking and better bowl bid than 11-1 Team B.  That’s a terrible thing and there is no reason for it.  A big reason for late losses paralyzing certain teams’ hopes for a national title and other achievements, is the polls (a.k.a. the human vote) and there is no way to ever change that.  This is the way it has been for years and the way it always will be, I just wanted to point out the fact that it’s ridiculous. 

Potential solution: my unfinished playoff idea.

Division I-A should implement a 16 team playoff that can be a hybrid of the Division I-AA playoff and the NCAA basketball tourney while still utilizing the bowls.  There can be a selection committee, just as there is for NCAA hoops, who analyzes the polls, the teams, their records, strength of schedule, etc., and determines the seedings.  In this scenario, I would be fully in favor of automatic bids from the winners of the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Pac 10, Big 12, and the Big East (if it ever gets somewhat strong again) the rest can be determined by the committee.  I would be confident with that because the NCAA hoops committee seems to do a great job every year.  There are currently 28 bowls.  There would be a total of 15 games in the playoff, and those games can be played at the most prominent bowls, with the Cotton (it’s time for the Cotton Bowl to be brought back into the fold), Peach, Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta rotating as sites for quarterfinals, semifinals, and the championship game on a yearly basis.  I would like to eliminate 8 of the current bowls (bowls such as the New Orleans Bowl, ####lord Hotels Music City Bowl, Champs Sports, MPC Computers, and San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl – I mean are we serious with these bowls?  Some of these sound like names that would be made up in a SNL parody of college football) and narrow the number of bowls down to 20.  The 5 bowls that aren’t involved with the playoff can serve as a platform for the 10 strongest teams who didn’t make the playoff to show their stuff and they can get the same treatment that the 2^nd tier of bowls gets right now.  Winning those bowls should benefit the respective schools just at bowl victories do in the present system (recruiting, etc.).   I think that’s a clear enough description of what I envision for a playoff.  If you have any questions about this, be a sport and use the comment section. 

I feel like I’m leaving quite a few of my thoughts out of this post still, but at the moment, this is all I can recall.  Fellow bloggers, remember to let me know if you want me to clear something up, I would be happy to oblige.  Adios for now.