Bring on the cupcakes

Schedules, schedules. This is the biggest complaint about football teams every year. Every team's partisans makes the case that it's team is better, regardless of who they play. But as reported by Charles Rich of Fanhouse a while back, the cupcakery is becoming not just a nasty trend, but a strategic plan. What I think we are seeing is coaches and athletic departments noticing that despite Hawai'i's ludicrously weak schedule, anyone who can manage an undefeated or one-loss record has a chance at a BCS bowl and the big bucks that go along with it.

We have already seen this tendency even among the elite of the most topheavy conferences like the Big 10. Ohio State had either the 53rd or 54th toughest schedule in the land, depending on who's numbers you use, while Hawai'i clocked in at either 112th or 132nd. Kansas clocked in at either 74th or 80th. All these teams wound up in BCS bowls (OSU in the BCS championship). What is the lesson here?

True, LSU was a 2-loss team and wound up in the BCS championship, so we can't say that schedule strength isn't a factor -- it clearly is. But the lesson here appears to be that unless you really are the best football team in the land, you'd be better off to schedule like Hawai'i and Kansas than LSU. Having the toughest schedule in the land didn't really help Ole Miss or UCLA.

Quinton McDawg of Georgia Sports Blog suggests that teams aren't holding up their end in scheduling, and proposes a solution:

Many teams have done their part simply because they have a rival they hate. Florida has Florida State. Florida State has Miami. Georgia has Georgia Tech. South Carolina has Clemson. Meanwhile, teams like Texas, LSU, and Penn State can pick and choose when they want to play these games and when they want to sit out a year. (By the way, I'm not picking on those teams because they typically do a decent job of nonconference scheduling, but they don't have a team out of conference that they have to play. They have a choice.) It seems unfair to have one power team with the option to play a big nonconference game while others do so as a matter of course.

I would respectfully suggest to Quinton that this is not by accident, but by design. These days, teams are looking harder for I-AA opponents than they are BCS opponents. Could the NCAA enforce a scheme where all BCS teams were required to schedule at least one BCS out-of-conference opponent? I don't think Duke could handle the load, they'd be getting calls from every team in the nation.

The tendency these days seems to be "schedule easy, go to a bowl." Let's face it, no matter how much derision weak schedules draw from bloggers like Quinton and I, the bottom line is, going to a bowl means the big, sweet dollars and exposure for recruiting. Given the choice between having a few journalists and bloggers laugh at your schedule and a visit to the Orange Bowl, I think most coaches and AD's would say "I'll take the Orange Blowl, keep your praise."

Until there is a true and enforceable penalty for scheduling pastries, this problem is bound to get worse before it gets better.

Around the SEC bloggers

We are in that time of year where the remnants of the college football season is, in the words of Montgomery Gentry:

Gone like a freight-train, gone like yesterday
Gone like a soldier in the civil war, bang bang

That's right. Gone. We are in that long, 7-month period where recruiting and the NFL draft will be the only things to talk about, and glory on the field is over half a year away.

Ethanator1088, The SEC Football Blogger, thinks that this is a good time to reminisce a little, like back to Auburn's 2004 undefeated season in which it was denied the Hajj to the BCS championship:

Let me get right to the point. Auburn was gypped. They were cheated. They were “ done wrong”. They should have won the national championship. This is the best reason for a college playoff. I do not care if you are an Auburn fan. If a team goes undefeated through the SEC, they deserve a shot at the National Championship. It is idiotic to think otherwise.

After castigating Booty and Cotu below for whining, I'll bet you think I am going to do the same thing here. But you would be wrong. I think Ethanator1088 is right. Auburn wasn't necessarily robbed because they were a better team than either of the eventual contestants, although I think I could make a sound argument they were. Rather, they were robbed by the system which forces a choice between two of three virtually equal teams in every respect without giving them a chance to settle the matter on the field.

Of course, I have agitated over this all year long, and since we are entering the interregnum between this season and next, I expect to agitate some more. But not today.

Moving to the sport that tends to occupy our attention during said interregnum, it seems that Ole Miss easily dispatched a tough Mississippi State [UPDATE: OOOps. Got that one backward. Thanks to Marcus for pointing out my egregious error, and apologies to MSU for my faux pas. Too much blogging lately.] Mississippi State dispatched an Ole Miss team that has been on a roll yesterday at the Hump. Strands of Crepe Paper has the word:

The score on this one says it all. State beat us tonight like a drum at a sold out Humphrey Coliseum. Charles Rhodes completely had his way inside, scoring 26 points on 12 of 14 shooting. Curtis, Kenny Williams and Malcolm White were continuously schooled inside and stayed in foul trouble.

Ole Miss has announced its arrival as an SEC force, for this year at least. I really expected MSU to do better, and as a Kentucky Wildcat fan, this isn't encouraging after MSU beat Kentucky in a tough game at the Hump. As a Kentucky fan, the MSU loss now doesn't seem so bad. Kudos to Ole Miss MSU, and Parrish Alford tells the tale from the Rebel side of things:

What’s next? State wasn’t a must-win game. The biggest loss in the last two games was at Auburn, because that’s a place the Rebels were favored and a road game they could have won. It was going to be far more difficult to win at State.

To my mind, the ultimate act of disrespect to a rival is to say something like the above. Just another game. Meant nothing. Ouch.

Turning back to football, Third Saturday in Blogtober has an update on Alabama's search for a new Offensive Coordinator, and the name ... Jim McElwain. Your reaction is probably the same as mine, and his: Jim Mc-who? The Tide Druid is also reporting on this.

Joel at Rocky Top Talk is reporting that Eric Ainge was named the offensive MVP for the South in the Senior Bowl. Kudos to Ainge and the Vols. In more Volunteer news, Georgia went up to Tennessee to challenge the knot-headed Volunteers in hoops, and got sent home bloodied and humbled. Lawvol at Gate 21 has the call:

In the process of laying it to the Dawgs, Tennessee secured its 27th consecutive victory in the Tommy Bowl. and improved to 17-2 on the season. Chris Lofton — apparently feeling the juice once more — scored 27 points, including 6 three-pointers. Lofton has been steadily improving over the last few games, which is good considering now is when the Vols will need his shooting ability most — in the heart of the SEC schedule.

Paul Westerdawg at The Georgia Sports Blog has the view from the other side:

Here's my issue with the game...no the program as a whole. My source of frustration if you will. I'm no hoops guru, but I know three things to pretty much be unshakable, unwavering hoops truths:

1. If you don't hustle defensively on the road, you don't win.

2. If you don't pass well or move without the ball effectively, you're easy to defend. I think it was Bobby Knight who said, "The easiest man to defend is the man standing still."

3. Moving and passing intelligently do NOT depend on talent.

Speaking as a person who is a hoops guru (well, I like to think so, anyway), I think he is dead right in all three areas.

Finally, the Bleacher Report gores one of my all-time favorite oxen -- Bobby Petrino. Seems the game of musical defensive coordinators has left Petrino the odd man out, and not Spurrier after all:

[Ellis] Johnson left his position at Mississippi State around a month ago to be the new defensive coordinator at Arkansas.

Then he moved on to join sleazeball extraordinaire, Bobby Petrino, to rebuild the Razorbacks. Well, that marriage also lasted just a month.

Now Arkansas is the odd man out: The only party without a defensive coordinator. I think it is great. Petrino deserves it.

See, it seems that Spurrier stole Johnson away from Petrino. Ah, [dis]loyalty -- it's not just for head coaches anymore.

Booty still arguing that USC should have been in BCS Champoinship

You know, hearing the USC players and some fans continually argue that "they wuz robbed" is getting old. Not that it will stop anyone, but at least I have a blog to vent about it on. Got some cheese? Ready for some whine? Take it away, John David Booty:

“After the Rose Bowl we knew, and I think a lot of people around the country knew, that we should have been in that game,” said Booty, the Trojans’ quarterback. “And we would have been if we hadn’t hit a little rough patch there during the middle of the season.”

So let me get this straight. It says here that you lost to Stanford at home. Standford was a team that won 4 whole games all year, and lost to *ahem* Notre Dame! The loss to Oregon was on the road and definitely against a worthy opponent, but losing at home to Stanford is as unforgivable, in the BCS championship game sense, as losing to Appalachian State (arguably a much better team). LSU, on the other hand, lost multiple overtime games to two teams that went to mid-level bowls.

So I really wish you would do us all a favor, JD, and be a man and a leader. Own up to the fact that your team's big bowl blowout was against a team that half the SEC could have beaten, and accept it. We are all very sorry you were hurt for the Stanford game, but if you were so important to the team that it can't even defeat an overwhelmingly inferior opponent at home without you, what chance had you against LSU -- or Ohio State, for that matter?

Not to be outdone, Georgia's kicker, Brandon Cotu, aught to close his pie hole as well. Cotu brings us a Southern vintage of Booty's whine:

“We definitely had an argument for being the two-loss team that should have had the opportunity to move forward and play for the national championship,” Coutu said. “If we had played any of the other teams, I think we definitely would have given them a game, if not won.”

WAAAAHHH. Good grief. You couldn't even hold serve at home against South Carolina, a team that also failed to make a bowl appearance, and Tennessee drubbed you in Knoxville. They didn't just beat you -- they beat the living daylights out of you, and LSU beat Tennessee. So by what twisted logic do you consider yourselves justified in making such a claim? Spare me, and yourself further embarrassment and just stuff a sock in it.

LSU Vindicates the SEC and Les Miles Mouth

I have taken a long two weeks off from blogging, but it is time for me to salute the LSU Tigers, champions of the BCS.

In many ways, the outcome of this game was predetermined by Ohio State's fast start. It was a moderate improvement by Ohio State, but except for the first quarter, there was never really any doubt who the best team was. Despite this, LSU made a few poor decisions and mental errors that could have cost them dearly. But alas for Ohio State, LSU was able not only to recover from their mistakes, but to play very clean football while the famously poised Buckeyes took no less than five major penalties, every one of them personal fouls and every one of them costly.

Nobody can argue with Les Miles now. I think we can all safely say that when he said of the Pac-10, "They're going to play real knockdown, drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkeley, Stanford - some real juggernauts," he nailed it. How is a comment about the Pac-10 relevant to this game? If you think it was only intended for the Pac-10, I think you are mistaken. That was meant for the ears of every non-SEC FBS team.

And the SEC? All the SEC has done is delivered two BCS championships in a row, both over Ohio State in convincing fashion, and the BCS championship 4 out of the 10 years of its existence, two more than any other conference. The SEC also went an astonishing 7/9 in all its bowl games, dropping only 1 BCS bowl out of 3, including the BCS championship. SEC fans have been utterly vindicated in every meaningful way when they asserted their superiority over the rest of the nation's football conferences. For at least the last 2 years, and arguably for the last 5 or 6, the SEC can lay claim to being the best college football conference in all the land.

Congratulations to the LSU Tigers for bringing the crystal back to the conference where it may well stay for most of the next decade, and where it truly belongs -- with the best football conference in the land. Looking forward, the SEC is likely to have 2 and possibly 3 teams ranked in the top five pre-season next year, and as many as 8 in the pre-season top 25. Pretty sweet.

So now, it's time for some comments from the LSU bloggers, who are probably much hung-over this morning from celebration last night.

And The Valley Shook says this wasn't all about SEC speed:

Clearly, the SEC Speed thing was overblown. Best I can tell, no one saw it coming (with the exception of SMQ and possibly Pete Fiutak at CFN): the SEC isn't a bunch of Nancy Boys who can only outrun other teams to victory; LSU, at least, can win - and has won - by simply being more physical.

That is simply indisputable. Clearly, Ohio State had speed. LSU won this game with speed in the defensive secondary and power in both lines, as well as overall athleticism. This game was as much about LSU power as it was anything else.

Louisiana Love notes Harry Coleman's nearly flawless performance all over the field:

What didn't reserve safety Harry Coleman do for LSU's defense? In the first quarter, the sophomore from Baldwin, La., recovered a muffed punt return by LSU's Chad Jones at the Tigers' 16. In the second quarter, Coleman blitzed and hit Boeckman, forcing him to underthrow a pass down the left sideline. Cornerback Chevis Jackson intercepted the pass and returned it 34 yards to the Ohio State 24, setting up the touchdown that put LSU ahead 24-10 at the half. Coleman added another fumble recovery early in the fourth quarter, after linebacker Ali Highsmith drilled Boeckman on a fourth-down play.

The kid was simply everywhere, all the time. It was a game-long highlight reel. Richard Pittman at Geaux Tuscaloosa calls the game "fairly boring."

How did the rest of the SEC bloggers see the game? Predictably, as a win for the SEC, which it was. Cocknfire at Garnet and Black Attack could speak for many:

There is a sense of pride in this conference. One Wisconsin fan I know was astonished that I root for every SEC team -- except, of course, Georgia -- when it comes to bowl games. He could never see himself rooting for Michigan or Ohio State. He seemed to see this as a uniquely Southern phenomenon.

It does seem passing strange to me that conference affiliation seems to be much weaker in other conferences. I would have assumed that all conference's fans were similar in the respect that they pulled for their conference first, except for rivalries. This is anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

Ryan Ferguson, writing for Fanhouse, says that even though preparation is usually the difference, it wasn't so in this game:

How did LSU win this game? First, from top to bottom, they simply fielded better players. QB Matt Flynn easily outplayed and outmanaged Todd Boeckman. LSU's offensive and defensive lines controlled the line of scrimmage for most of the game. LSU's receivers were faster and more physical, and made big plays when it really mattered.

Indeed. At then end of the day, it was all about who brought the talent, and LSU had more, especially in the trenches where championships are won and lost. LSU's lines simply pushed the much-vaunted OSU "big uglies" around all night. And if that wasn't enough, OSU's receivers were simply out-athleted by LSU's secondary in one of the biggest athletic mismatches, offense to defense, I can remember. It is truly a wonderful thing when you don't have to play zone in the secondary, and you can send extra people flying into the backfield at the quarterback. The game just becomes so much easier.

Henry Gomez at Saurian Sagacity wonders what could be more embarrassing than losing two consecutive BCS championships by lopsided margins:

What could be more humiliating than losing two consecutive BCS SHAM-pionships to SEC teams by a combined score of 79-31?

Ouch!

PS, LSU has scored 265% more than OSU allowed per game this year. LSU has scored 10 more points than Illinois which had the previous high-water mark against OSU this season with 28.

Ouch, indeed.

Kyle King of Dawg Sports, in a post before the game, goes all Rodney King on us:

On this, the night of the B.C.S. national championship game, I interrupt my review of the Mark Richt record to offer a few words in defense of interconference unity. I have tried and tried to promote good relations between the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference, which is an objective in which some Big Ten fans are interested but others evidently are not.

I think interconference love is fine, as long as every other conference in America acknowledges the obvious fact of SEC football superiority. I'm certainly willing to acknowledge the accomplishments of other conferences -- as soon as they actually have any.

King notes for the record that Ohio State was anointed into this game last year and, for all intents and purposes, this year as well, while the Tigers had to fight, claw and scratch their way through superior competition just to have the right to prove the obvious fact that at least two and arguably three SEC team could have won this game.

Finally, we go for the record to the camps of non-SEC bloggers, and breathe deep of schadenfreude as they tread the sour grapes of defeat into the wine of misery. Mike at Card Chronicle will lead the way:

One of the most memorable college football seasons of all-time will come to a close tonight with a game that will undoubtedly be overwhelmingly forgettable. If LSU wins, then a two-loss team that fell to 6-7 Arkansas and 8-5 Kentucky will be deemed more deserving a national champion than two one-loss teams (one of which won a BCS game), and five other two-loss teams. If Ohio State wins, then it will be a team that defeated a grand total of one ranked opponent (Outback Bowl loser Wisconsin) in the regular season that will be crowned as the nation's best.

I can scarcely recall a post anywhere so disrespectful of a team's on-the-field accomplishments. I think Mike is trying to somehow escape the fact that bitter rival Kentucky defeated the football Cardinals who provided new meaning to the term "overmarket and underperform" coined by UK president Lee Todd of a couple years back. Rather than acknowledge that LSU's victory here validates not only Kentucky's victory over Louisville, but the entire SEC, he would rather just say "feh."

The Buckeye Blog wrote a redemption post before the game, proved pretty prescient, at least in part:

This game will come down to defense. The Buckeyes have one of the best in the land and I believe they will shock the LSU offense coming out of the gate. If LSU can adjust, we have a game on our hands. Likewise, a healthy Glenn Dorsey will give the Buckeye offense a run for their money. The offensive line needs to get on him early to give Wells the running room he needs.

The game did come down to defense -- LSU's. The Buckeyes did shock the Tigers early. The O-line did get Wells off early. Almost all that he hoped for came to pass -- in the first half of the first quarter. The rest went, well, less according to his script.

Some Buckeye fans have so far decided to take the high road. Men of the Scarlet and Gray writes:

As for LSU, I hope the media gives them the props they deserve. None of this “yeah-but-USC” argument. Any team that puts up 31 unanswered points against the best defense in college football is, without question, the best in the country.

Indeed. This is a classy post by a classy blog. The "USC is better" meme will no doubt be repeated endlessly, and not without at least the thinnest connection to reality. Unfortunately, because we still have no form of playoff as we have lamented many, many times, and since the Pac-10 as well as the Big Ten are adamantly opposed to a playoff or "plus one" game, I'd say it's fitting they are hoist on their own petard. Still, lemming-like, we will see many in the media dutifully vote USC as the number one team, regardless of tonight's result. They may even be voted #1 by the AP. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, especially after their "traditional" bowl format provided them with an overmatched opponent for them to crush.

And lest you not take my word for it, perhaps you'll accept that of the Southern Cal blog Conquest Chronicles, who writes:

Today there are some who seem to think that SC would actually have a claim to a split title depending on the outcome of tonight's BCS title game against Ohio State and LSU.

For those who would actually pine for a split title I would say...STOP IT!

We don't deserve it and it shouldn't happen. From the Baton Rouge Advocate via Wolf's blog:

J. Barker Davis of the Washington Times isn't buying it.

"Georgia -- just beat the lamest BCS team in history," Davis said. As for USC, whose 24-23 home loss to 4-8 Stanford was one of the season's biggest stunners, "The Trojans did less with more than any team in the nation this season and should be ashamed for having the audacity to do any stumping after the Stanford debacle."

What can I say? The guy is right on the dot, and it is very forthright of him to say so.

I expect to have more later today, but I make no promises. Blogging for me is a "when I have time for it" activity these days.

The BCS -- "And the beat goes on ..."

I went and said a couple of posts down that I was done talking about the BCS. Apparently, I lied.

The reason is because I stumbled upon this on-line debate between Sunday Morning Quarterback (hereinafter SMQ) and Kyle King at Dawg Sports. Essentially, the two are taking opposite positions on the viability of the BCS system versus a playoff of some sort. The exact form a playoff would take is left somewhat open, but more on that later. What I will do is summarize their arguments briefly, with apologies and a guaranteed public correction upon notification if I get them substantially wrong. I have left out a few expansions in the interest of brevity that I consider to be relatively inconsequential.

Anti-playoff -- T. Kyle King:

1. A playoff system will favor only top teams, while a bowl system allows teams at different levels to participate in the post-season;
2. A bowl system favors tradition;
3. Playoffs don't always produce a "best team" result;
4. King raises the debate between Einstein and Heisenberg over the Uncertainty Principle as an allegory of the bowl vs. playoff debate, with the bowl system as the Heisenberg-based model of the atom (i.e. electron "cloud") and the Bohr model which shows electrons in discrete positions representing the playoff model.
5. Argues that the accomplishments of the regular season would be diminished by a playoff; I.E. that a playoff system will not adequately differentiate between a perfect season an a season with one or more losses;
6. "The playoff is the regular season";
7. The controversy produced by the BCS is a good thing;
8. The BCS is messy, like life is, and a playoff produces artificial certainty.

Pro-playoff -- SMQ

1. Playoff determines a champion "on the field" by a series of competitive games;
2. There is no such thing as a "best" team;
3. There is no adequate standard to measure performance;
4. Championships should not be awarded by committee;
5. Bowls may be traditional, but as a means for determining a "national champion," they are ineffective;
6. Interest in the regular season would not be affected by instituting a playoff;
7. "Why should an opinion of performance have any official standing in sport?"
8. Differences between the top teams are too minor to be measured by any system we currently possess.

As I said, there are more arguments, counter arguments and proofs of arguments offered in the posts of these two worthy men. Please read their posts for all of that. For me, and this post, I will deal with the main ones. Since I am a proponent of a playoff, and since SMQ and I both have a similar view of how a playoff should be arranged (i.e. an 8-team playoff using the upper tier bowls as the playoff sites, which would produce four winners. This would simply be a slight modification of the "plus one" model), I will simply address Kyle's arguments:

Argument: A playoff system will favor only top teams, while a bowl system allows teams at different levels to participate in the post-season

Response: Not if the current bowl system were used. All other bowls could proceed as they are now. In other words, only the very top teams would be affected at all.

Argument: A bowl system favors tradition.

Response: Change is the only constant in the Universe. Why should it not be so for college football? Nobody can argue that the current system satisfies the sense of fairness that Americans demand of their sports endeavors, primarily because the mechanism of choosing the two "championship" participants is utterly opaque to everyone, and the different ratings mechanisms involved produce wildly disparate results. From these ashes, a phoenix is supposed to rise that satisfies our sense of propriety, but it never happens. Besides, if we utilize the existing bowl format, impact on tradition is minimized if not totally absent.

Argument: Playoffs don't always produce a "best team" result.

Response: Neither do regular seasons or the BCS. The "best team" is at best an ephemeral concept. What a playoff does is attempt to give the best 8 teams, among which is a very high probability of the two "best teams," an opportunity to compete for a definitive result. Our forebears competed in tournaments in everything from running in the nude to jousting to every other imaginable sports endeavor, and none of those tournaments always produced the "best" whatever. However, they always had the virtue of producing a champion, something that Americans desire. If not, why did the AP start voting for a national champion out of the bowl chaos lo these many years ago? Americans want a champion -- even a champion who isn't objectively "the best."

Argument: The best teams can never be known (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle debate).

Response: Even if true, we can still crown a champion. A champion doesn't have to be the best, but to be a champion that most Americans demand, his claim to the championship has to be tested. That is an objective result obtained by trial on the field, and even if we have located the electron by forcing it into a certain place at a certain time, that is precisely what college football fans want -- a sense of certainty backed up by at least a modicum of credibility, which the current system cannot produce. The absence of credibility (which is a direct result of the Byzantine process used to determine the final game participants) is what galls college football fans. We do nothing by oligarchy here in America, except college football and figure skating.

Argument: The regular season's accomplishments would be diminished by a playoff.

Response: This is the appeal to tradition logical fallacy. A regular season's accomplishments would be validated by a playoff, especially if we used a seeding system. By seeding the teams, your regular season is the major determinant of your seeding. If, as has been argued, the teams are in fact so close together, the seeding will not dramatically impact the likely outcome of the competition, but could be used to provide a closer venue for fans of the higher seed, at minimum.

Argument: The playoff is the regular season.

Response: Then let the NCAA set the regular season so that every team plays a comparably difficult schedule. That way, there would be some confidence that the resultant representatives are not getting there by dint of scheduling weak teams. The strength of schedule is the most difficult variable to account for, and not doing so is one of the biggest sources of frustration among college football fans when it comes to selecting the participants in the "championship" game. Addressing this variable is the true purpose of a playoff system, as it tests the result of your season on the field before allowing you to ascend to the throne.

Argument: BCS controversy is a good thing.

Response: Would it go away if we instituted a playoff? Hardly. The controversy would be removed to a slightly lower level, but by doing so it would greatly enhance the chances of giving the top two teams a chance to win the championship.

Argument: The BCS is messy, like life is, and a playoff produces artificial certainty.

Response: Artificial certainty is better than none at all. The purpose of athletic competition is to produce a champion in every contest. If we are going to do that for the entirety of college football, should some semblance of credibility not be provided for the process? The credibility of the judgments of computers and men is the thing that drives the debate, and determining the national champion largely by some kind of scoring method rather than a playoff is fundamentally contrary to the very essence of team sport. Even if the tournament produces a flawed result, the process is unaffected by the result. In the current method, the process is the problem, not necessarily the result.

Ultimately, we are faced with a choice between an opaque, Byzantine process that few people have confidence in that may produce a correct result, and a tried and true process that allows competition events to produce what may be a correct result. In other words, the same uncertainty of result remains, but in the latter case, the process is transparent, and produces it's result by a method virtually everyone can agree upon from history immemorial -- tournament competition.

As to the other arguments about travel, classes, number of games played, lucre ... Well, I'll just let SMQ speak for me in response to those: "Canards all!"

Christmas is over, time to clean up the BCS mess

The Capstone Report recently mentioned that I might have a thing or two to say about the BCS now that, in his words, "the apocalypse has arrived." If only that were so.

Before I go on, let me explain what I was hoping for. I was hoping for the kind of situation that would force conferences like the SEC, who are top-heavy but not nearly as much as conferences like the Big Ten and the Pac 10, force change. I wanted to see Hawaii or Kansas playing for the Mythical National Championship, and I wanted to see the SEC shut out of it by weaker teams playing weaker schedules. I wanted a genuine apocalypse, a cataclysm that would force a change in the way people see the BCS, like Hawaii or Kansas playing in the BCS championship game. I'm not demeaning either one of those fine teams, but you can't compare the schedule they played to that of, say, LSU or Georgia or even Arizona State or USC.

But alas, it was not so, and as a result, we must face at least one more year before an outcry will reach sufficient volume to produce changes. Despite the reasoned arguments of Henry Gomez and Mergz at the excellent Saurian Sagacity, Jai Eugene at Loser with Socks, and Senator Blutarsky of Get the Picture, nobody will listen, and there will be little outcry. Thanks to MSM pundits like Teddy Greenstein (who's inane arguments against the BCS set new records for sports pundit lunacy) and Jason Whitlock. After reading these articles, you might think that these guys were actually watching some other sport, like maybe soccer, and occasionally writing about football by perusing box scores. What is even more disturbing is the fact that the official BCS website lists these defenses of their flawed scheme as "News". As Henry Gomez of Saurian Sagacity points out, what other sports governing body shamelessly plugs media defenses of their setup. It is unseemly, unfair, and should probably inspire conspiracy theories.

But unfortunately, the outcome of the BCS has produced a result that will appear to most football fans as only slightly flawed, and arguably not as flawed as many other times in it's history. What that means, my friends and neighbors in the blogosphere, is that change has been delayed yet another year. Outcries will be poo-poo'ed by the likes of ESPN and others in the established sports media, who seem for all the world to have a vested interest in the current setup. "Fairness" doesn't appear to be the most important thing, and that should be frightening to every sports fan. Nobody likes playing a rigged game, but college football teams do it every year, and what we get are indefensible defenses of the BCS, all lined up neatly as though ordained from above.

This will be my last lament of the BCS this season, as fans will quickly move on to other things. But trust me, we will revisit this again next year, and hopefully we will get a little help from a benevolent God (whom I am convinced is a football fan) who must sometimes feel the need to intervene and supply the impetus for change our BCS system so badly needs. I thought it might be this year, but alas and alack, we are to be denied even the least of that.

Blogging? You mean I have to actually write stuff here?

Contrary to popular belief (and the fact that I haven't posted in like 4 days), I am not dead. Nor am in jail, or kidnapped. Merely a victim of excessively demanding customers and AT &T's DNS, having been without Internet service for over 24 hours.

Well, life can be frustrating. But on we go.

So LSU is the pick to play in the BCS championship game. Meh. I was hoping for carnage, and I got so much of my wish that everything worked itself out. My crusade against the BCS is likely to be futile until next season at least. Life is like that sometimes -- first you can't blog, then your best-laid plans go in the toilet. Oh well ...

Let's just see for a second what is interesting out there in the SEC blogosphere? What could possibly be interesting ... hmm, lessseee ....

Garnet and Black Attack has an interesting post today, musing over the second best team in the BCS right now:

So by wins alone -- and by the cumulative strength of their schedule -- the Sooners should get the second spot on my ballot. But wait. Close margin or not, injuries aside, Oklahoma lost to a mediocre Colorado team and an above-average Texas Tech team. Ohio State, on the other had, lost to a team currently headed to the Rose Bowl. Yes, commercial considerations played into it, but if Illinois were not regarded as a good team, they wouldn't even be eligible to go to Pasadena.

Hmm. Well, I couldn't figure it out either. I say, flip a coin or something.

I just knew this crap was coming:

But, really, Hawaii was the only team that could summon a no-spin argument for engaging Ohio State in the championship game.

Sure, you'd like to see a tougher nonconference gantlet than Northern Colorado, Charleston Southern and UNLV. And, yeah, Hawaii used its overwhelming home advantage against Boise State and Washington, and if the officials hadn't mistakenly flagged Jake Locker for an illegal pass, the Huskies might have won.

Well, sure, if you throw strength of schedule out the window. How do you suppose the Rainbows would have done in the SEC? About like Kentucky, I figure, and nobody is arguing for them to have a shot at OSU, who itself can't point too many fingers at Hawai'i schedule-wise.

Look, I love Hawai'i. Love it. I am going there next year for vacation, and I have been there many times. But playing football in paradise comes with a cost, and if the WAC is the best comp you get, you just can't get into the big game. Sorry.

Jai Eugene at Loser With Socks wonders why Ohio State gets to go to the BCS championship:

LSU is a very decent team but tOSU just fucking blows, but OSU played in a weak Big 10 and struggled in games they shouldn’t have, and LSU is lucky they don’t have 4 losses. It sure is gonna be interesting to see what happens when the Failboats match up with the athleticism of a top-tier SEC team. WTF did I just say? Every team in the SEC, with the exception of Ole Miss, is top tier.

Heh. You'd have to say that getting 10 teams bowl eligible in one conference is one hell of a thing.

When enough is not enough ...

Ah, yes. It's time to pull out my favorite ax again for a little grinding -- the BCS.

Turns out, there are quite a few interesting articles on the BCS today, some from bloggers and some from regular old MSM'ers. But I'll start with the MSM, just for the heck of it.

This first piece comes from the Lawrence Journal-World out in Kansas. The piece is written by Gil Lebreton from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is very much on the same page as I am:

The cynics and troublemakers want to see chaos.

They want to see upsets. They want to see Missouri, the college football Cinderella, turn into a pumpkin. They want to see Dave Wannstedt’s underachieving Pitt team spoil West Virginia’s heavenly dreams.

They want bloodshed in Baton Rouge and Columbus.

They want a total Bowl Championship Series meltdown. They want to see some sort of combination of aligned planets, howling dogs and Southeastern Conference losses where the final rankings send, oh, Hawaii and Appalachian State to the BCS title game.

And it’s hard to blame them. The BCS deserves all the misery and criticism that it gets.

Oh, hell yes! That describes my attitude to a T. I want outrageous injustice, something as over-the-top as anyone can imagine ... except apparently this guy -- Hawai'i and Appy State? But I like your thinking, Gil.

His argument is that whenever the BCS works out, it is more by accident than by design, and I think he has it exactly right, as is his ultimate conclusion:

As colleague Nico Van Thyn put it so well Sunday, the path to the BCS title game is often clearly drawn. It begins with basic geography: Play in a major conference that lacks major competition. If a team can count the dangerous opponents on one hand, it probably has a chance at playing in the BCS title game.

That's exactly what we have seen this year. Yes, we have seen the humans and to some extent the cyborgs try to insert some semblance of schedule strength in there, but with only a modicum of success. Extreme top-heavy conferences have a much easier path to the BCS championship than, say, any SEC team. Add the league championship game into the equation, and you wind up with virtually two different levels of football. Try to imagine, if you will, an NCAA basketball tournament where one team gets to play nothing but 7 seeds and lower until it gets to the championship game.

Sweet deal, if you can get it -- and some conferences have it (I'm looking at you, Big 10 and Big East).

The always outstanding Sunday Morning Quarterback sideswipes this issue in a recent post, where he quotes Kirk Herbstreit thus:

... Ohio State will gain more respect if it plays USC in the Rose Bowl and wins that game, than if it goes and beats West Virginia and wins the national title. From an image standpoint, Ohio State would score more points going to the Rose Bowl than by going to the national championship game. If you can believe that, that's the truth.

Well. So Kirk is sayin' that the Rose Bowl means more than the BCS championship, I guess, because the quality of the teams likely to be playing there are better than that of the BCS championship? How else could a victory there "gain more respect" for anyone, or is this some sort of nouveaux logique that keeps the Worldwide Leader ... well, the Worldwide Leader?

Naturally, SMQ reaches the same conclusion:

But this remains the only time I'm aware of that a well-known, mainstream talking head has suggested there is a greater reward than being selected for the concocted championship. USC got a little sympathy in 2003 with the AP vote, but that didn't seem to dent the myth of a real, be-all, end-all championship. I don't remember anyone on ESPN in 2004 arguing that Auburn should be considered on par with USC for its 13-0 season. The Tigers were just screwed. Sorry, guys, and better luck next time.

Let's see -- Does that only work for Ohio State, Kirk, or can, say LSU or Georgia play? Sheesh.

LSU's student newspaper, The Daily Reveille, has an excellent interview with SEC Commissioner and BCS coordinator Mike Silve about the BCS system. In spite of this year's season Silve is still sticking to one of two possible changes to the BCS:

One potential system would produce an additional set of standings after the bowl games. The No. 1 and No. 2 teams based on that week would then play in the title game.

The other possibility would mimic a tournament. The top teams would be seeded in bowls based on the regular season standings with the winners playing for the title the following week.

Slive said there are three components that he considers in developing such a system. He said he aims to protect the regular season, the bowl system and the length of the season interfering with the academics of athletes.

Silve also admitted that undefeated Auburn in 2004 being left out of the mix for the championship affected his thinking, but I personally don't think it affected it all that much. Still, either of the two possibilities Silve appears open to would be an improvement over the current (non) system.

AEM, writing for MVN's SEConds to Victory, notes that #1 Missouri is a 3-point dog against #9 Oklahoma in their face off in San Antonio for the Big 12 championship:

So, a neutral site, number one against number nine, a 11-1 team against a 10-2 team, should be that Missouri is going to be the favorite, since the BCS has them as the top team in the nation. Well, surprise surprise to one and all, Oklahoma is the team that is favorite in this game, by all means, a small 3 points, but it still makes no sense does it now. The number one team in the country playing either at home or on a neutral site should be favorite against anyone except maybe the number two team. However Oklahoma is the ninth team in the nation, not the second, and is favored in this game. And in my non professional opinion the Sooners will win this game pretty easily.

I don't really know who wins, but he has a point. There is no way that the #1 team in the nation should be a dog at a neutral site against the #9. The only way that happens is with a seriously flawed system, and perhaps this is the most egregious example of all. It might not be an issue if Oklahoma were #3 or even #4. But #9?

An argument would be that Vegas doesn't care about BCS rankings, but let's get serious -- Vegas probably knows these teams' potentials better than any voter in the BCS system. Not one of the BCS voters have any money at stake in the BCS, and the Vegas casinos most certainly do. The argument that "Vegas doesn't vote in the BCS" is true, facile and utterly flawed if applied to the argument.

Bottom line -- we need something better, and this year is just one more reason.

Now this is an outrage!

I just ran across this in a CSTV piece:

It's that kind of carnage that has opened the door for Ohio State, which has yet to play anyone of note and could go the rest of the season without facing a ranked opponent. In spite of that, it appears that the Buckeyes are the only team that controls its own destiny in the BCS. If Ohio State wins out and wins by the margins voters like, it will get another shot at winning the BCS title.

So help me, if that happens, I am done with college football until they fix this unacceptably broken system. In a perverse way, I almost hope it does, because the outrage from the SEC, Big East and probably a couple of other conferences will should be deafening.

College basketball teams get to the national championship mostly on merit. Only in the deranged world of college football can you get by solely on past performance, reputation and pre-season positioning. As you can see in the piece just below this one, mostly due to work done by others, this entire football-BCS arrangement is a gigantic fraud, and whether or not by design, the powers that stand to benefit the most from continuing this deception are the ones who would appear to benefit the most, and continue to support the BCS. I know, knock me over with a feather.

If SEC officials sit still for allowing Ohio State to stroll through a pathetically weak schedule (at least by national championship standards) to the national championship game without demanding meaningful change, well ... they should be ashamed of themselves. In fact, they should be ashamed for taking no action last year. People have been warning for years that just this sort of thing was possible with the BCS -- what will happen if it becomes a reality?

But lest that not convince you, consider this paragraph from later in the same CSTV article:

Note that I am not lumping Ohio State in with USF and BC in this scenario. Even though the Buckeyes may play the weakest schedule of the three, they are a college football blue blood. Ohio State could go undefeated and only play one opponent that was ranked at the time it played them, and that is Purdue, which was No. 20 when it faced the Buckeyes on Oct. 6. Of its remaining five opponents, only Michigan is currently ranked in either BCS poll (No. 25 in Harris).

Oh. Well. That makes it all right then. We can't be worrying about such trivialities as schedule strength and merit when we are talking about royalty, now can we? I say, why wait? Let's just declare the "bluebloods" the only eligible teams, pat the "serfs" and "peasants" on their pointy little 2-star heads and send them to the Astro-Bluebonnet-Chick-Fil-A-Frito-Tostito bowl, and turn our attention to more important things. No way those lesser teams deserve a shot at the title. Fugghitaboudit.

The BCS is about (God willing) to be exposed for the incredible farce it truly is. The really sad thing is that we all fell for it for so long, as if we can't go futzing with the all-important pursuit of lucré such as TV contracts and what not. Noooo, buddy! We have already sacrificed the integrity of the game on the altar of expedience once. What matter if we send it's head rolling down the guillotine one more time, even if the victim is already as stiff as Houston Nutt after a text message?

Upset Saturday: Will this be the year the BCS dies?

Once again, the SEC has proven itself to be the toughest conference in the land. And once again, it looks like they will suffer for it.

As a Kentucky fan, I am still giddy from the huge upset of LSU last night by my Wildcats. It was a great game, and from my standpoint at least, a great result. I think at this point, the Wildcats have proven to everyone in this league that they are not a fraud. More than that, they now have an argument, albeit a convoluted one, that they are the best team in the East.

But what I want to talk about today are a couple of articles I ran across at the Washington Post and on Yahoo. The first, the WaPo article, suggests that the SEC is "Too good for its own good":

Watch a game from another conference on television and then watch a game in the SEC and note the difference in speed and overall physical brutality. No conference makes it more difficult for its teams to emerge from a season with an unbeaten record.

Well, we've all heard this before, and not just from the SEC. The Pac 10 keeps telling us that they are really better, and the Big Ten keeps asking us to watch it's network, claiming you will see the best football in the nation there.

This debate is no nearer being resolved today than it was in the summer, when Pac 10 commissioner Tom Hansen claimed, when asked if the Pac 10 would walk away from the BCS over a "plus one game" answered "Yes, no question."

First of all, this response strikes me as cowardly. Hansen and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney claim that they are all about protecting the "integrity of the Rose Bowl". But what integrity does the Rose Bowl have, in terms of its history, under the current BCS system? The Pac 10 and Big Ten sold out the integrity of the Rose Bowl eleven years ago. Hansen's statement is a dodge, because he knows that in a plus one system, there are much better odds that two SEC teams will be playing for the national championship than a Big Ten or a Pac 10 team. And he would rather take his football elsewhere (where is unknown) than do that.

Stewart Mandel has already accused Hansen of not dealing in reality, and suggests that more likely, Delaney and Hansen are just staking out a stance for negotiation. It really isn't in the interest of either of the two traditional Rose Bowl schools to actually pull out of the BCS, as it would create a schism in college football that would be way worse for the game than their original sell-out of the Rose Bowl.

But to be fair (or hypercritical), many of the SEC schools have also opposed a the plus one model, although their reasons must be quite different. But that was before this strange season happened.

It's early, of course, but let us suppose that Ohio State wins out it's remaining soft schedule and winds up the #1 team. Let us further suppose that USF wins out (a bit more of a stretch) and becomes the #2 team. LSU, South Carolina, and every other SEC school who played a much tougher schedule would wind up on the outside looking in.

There is still a lot of football to be played, and all this may sort itself out in the end. If so, that would almost be a shame, because a major catastrophe seems to be the only thing that will get these conservative college presidents off their duff and into a system that is less controversial and more fair. A plus one game is a start, although to be honest, I am not convinced it won't create as many problems as it solves. They may be different problems, though, and I am very much for giving it a try.

And ultimately, I have been persuaded by Mergz at Saurian Sagacity who argues convincingly that an NCAA national championship in football does not, and never did, exist. Mergz goes on to conclude that the BCS has made the entire system of selecting a national champion worse by continually changing the criteria for selecting the national champion. No less than 5 times has the BCS formula changed. By changing the formula for selecting the participants every year or so, how are the teams supposed to have any confidence that the system has any integrity whatsoever?

As Mergz points out, the very fact that the system can be changed by lobbying efforts on behalf of conferences and/or teams is proof of it's utter failure as a system for determining accurately and with unbiased objectivity the teams that should play for the national championship.

Mergz conclusion is the same as mine -- some form of playoff is required to produce any real plausibility to the system of selecting a national championship. The BCS is really no better than what we had before it, and the reason is it lacks integrity and year to year process continuity. They change the selection criteria at the whim of powerful interested parties, and the selection system itself is so opaque that the BCS cannot truly demonstrate any semblance of fair or objective judgment. It is a mess.

So if your team plays for the "national championship" this year, just realize that yours is no more legitimate than the 300-odd claims by various schools to a piece of that distinction over the years.