No question mark. Let's make that one official. I'm not a guru on college bowl season--the fact that there are 34 of them and teams like Minnesota and Marshall and Southern Miss play in them makes it tough to follow. Almost none of them matter to anyone but the schools' athletic directors and coaches on the hot seat, but they get aired on TV, there's tons of hype, and everything eventually leads to a highly-questionable and rarely-entertaining finale: the BCS Championship.
The problems with the BCS itself are numerous and I don't even feel like spouting them off. Every college football fan with BCS beef carries around the same notecard of talking points and reasons why it's total baloney. But this year the BCS took "stinkfest" to a new low.
Just take a look, for a moment, at the results:
1. Rose Bowl - Year in and year out, there is something unimpressive about Ohio State. They win lots of games, they are always highly ranked, but they give off vibes about being unable to beat the elite teams. I never want to see Ohio State in anything. They pooped the bed against Florida. They pooped the bed against LSU. They played the ho-humest of all ho-hums against Texas last year (broken-hearted Texas), and then lost to baby genius Matt Barkley and USC this year. On the flip side, Oregon was the hot pick, with the hot offense, the hot headed running back, and the team that is bound for glory and scoring records next season. I think they came into it as the more enjoyable team, but this game was a yawner. Oregon never gained any traction and lost pretty handily. I think most people, by this time next year, will be asking, "Wait, who played in the Rose Bowl last year?"
2. Sugar Bowl - Florida's talent level: 98. Cincinnati's talent level: 72. Sad, sad rout.
3. Fiesta Bowl - Outside of the fact that this game was low-scoring (despite feature such high-octane offenses), this was the only game that could really keep my interest, probably because I was most intrigued by the teams. But my main gripe is the set-up. I think the BCS blew some chances here, to make things more interesting. Florida is the team that people wanted to play (if they couldn't play in the championship game). Florida is the top of the totem pole. Give either Boise or TCU the shot to play them. I know, in a way, since they were both undefeated it would have been tough to pick, so playing them against each other is a fair solution... but it would only have an effect if it was a playoff system. I believe the BCS didn't want another upset. And some argue "they got better competition this way". Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not saying play these two teams against Iowa or Georgia Tech. But one of them should have gotten the chance at Florida. Probably TCU, as the best non-automatic qualifier. Then Boise would play Iowa (which was the other non-automatic qualifier). And Georgia Tech should have played Cincinnati, since they both won their conferences. All that aside, this game really didn't live up to it's hype. And I think underneath all the manufactured hoopla (generally there's a lot of hoopla involved) BOTH teams probably felt a little sad about the missed opportunity to knock out a big dog.
4. Orange Bowl - Georgia Tech. Iowa. This game couldn't have any less charisma if Bill Belichick did the color commentary. Who even won? (Iowa, I'm pretty sure.)
5. BCS Championship Game - Arguably. Colt McCoy went down like four seconds into regulation. And Alabama won, surprise surprise, forcing five turnovers against a freshman quarterback who got some serious licks in against UTEP and Louisiana-Monroe this season. Maybe you can say that a national championship contender should have a deeper roster, sure, but let's be real, Texas's offense struggled this year, and Colt McCoy to Jordan Shipley was the only thing that produced any real points all season, outside of Hunter Lawrence. The Longhorns were winning with McCoy. And Gilbert may end up being good and he showed some flashes in cutting the deficit to 24-21, but he was born in 1991. Think about that for a second. 1991? I was already smoking a pack a day by then. That makes him a contemporary of Miley Cyrus, and he's supposed to be ready to deliver in a pinch on college football's biggest stage? Sigh. I know injuries happen and they can ruin a national championship at any point, but if I was an Alabama fan, I wouldn't even be satisfied with this result. "Yay, we just beat a freshman quarterback after the Heisman finalist played a handful of snaps." It's deflating all around. I know a playoff wouldn't fix Texas's problem, sure. They lost, if it was a playoff they would still have lost. But at least a plus one gives us the opportunity to see what might be a completely scintillating (or completely stink-bombing) matchup between the two teams left standing--Boise and Bama. (And hopefully Kellen Moore wouldn't stub his toe on the first drive.)
I, for one, would love to see two teams with complete rosters playing full-throttle when the crystal's on the line.
No comments:
Post a Comment