The Holidays? Nahh.. Christmas and New Years and Hannukah and Kwanzaa and anything else you can think of are merely ancillary to the real highlight of this time of year: Bowl Games!
I love bowl games. I’ll watch every damn one of them, no matter how meaningless it may seem to be. I wish we could dump the BCS and go back to the conference championship arrangements. The Big 10 and the Pac 10 should always play in the Rose Bowl. The SEC champ should be in the Sugar, and the Big 8 (or 12 or whatever) should be in the Orange. Period. I’ll never understand this mania to find the “real” national championship. I trace my opposition to any sort of playoff to two things: First-one of the best parts of NCAA football is that two dozen teams get to be champions of something. That’s cool, damnit, and we shouldn’t be so quick to get rid of it. Secondly, my alma mater Washington State won the Pac 10 championship in 1997. They qualified to play in the Rose Bowl for the first time in 67 years. Generations of Cougars had been supporting the team with that goal in mind. They went to the Rose Bowl, lost a heartbreaker to Michigan, but energized the team and its fans.
Had the NCAA instituted a playoff by then, WSU would have been the eight seed in a eight team playoff.
Where the hell is the fun in that?
Anyway, for this bowl season, I’ll do my best to do previews for each game. First game up is the New Orleans Bowl featuring the Southern Miss Golden Eagles and North Texas Mean Green.
To start out, check out CollegeFootballNews' Matchup Rankings.
As for the BCS, I think USC, Oklahoma and Auburn are all pretty much even, so there isn’t anyway around this mess. The team that gets screwed is Cal, as they lost only once, a heartbreaker to #1 USC. Texas takes their spot. The Longhorns only lost once as well, but they got stomped by #2 Oklahoma. This could cost Cal their coach. Tedford has to realize as Kirk Herbstreit put it on ESPN: a 10-1 Washington Husky team wouldn't have been passed over.
Thanks to Jeremy for pointing out what this could mean for Tedford.
Posted by Frinklin at December 6, 2004 12:28 AM