Fun & Frivolity: College Bowl Games

Those of you who know me know I'm a huge college football fan. Sadly, my KSU Wildcats fell into a deep, dark hole this year, so I've had to get fulfillment (such as it is) from other teams, mainly around the Big 12. This has been the strangest season I can recall, with upset after upset after upset, even in the top 5 rankings. When your own team isn't one of those being upset, it's kind of fun to watch!

Anyway, the result of this crazy year is an absolutely awful lineup of bowl games. I've caught bits and pieces of a few games (though none in their entirety), and none of them have been particularly noteworthy. My philosophy is that if my own dog isn't in the fight, I just want the fight to be interesting and fun to watch. No dice on most of these:
- Texas 52 - Arizona State 34
This was even more boring than it sounds...
- Missouri 38 - Arkansas 7
An insomniac's cure...
- Texas Tech 31 - Virginia 28
This one actually had a fun finish, so no complaints here...
- USC 49 - Illinois 17
This made the Missouri game look riveting...
- Georgia 41 - Hawaii 10
I guess strength of schedule does matter, huh? This was painful...
- West Virginia 48 - Oklahoma 28
This was actually good to watch through about the beginning of the 4th quarter, but when WVU got their last touchdown, you could see OU give up, despite there being almost 10 minutes left to play. After that, it was just a series of penalties that prolonged the agony. After last year's epic battle between Boise State and OU (if you didn't see it, you MUST find a recording of it!), it seems Bob Stoops has become cursed to meet teams with a destiny. Bad luck.

I'm really hoping that the Orange Bowl provides some excitement. I think there's a possibility, but it's hard to know how good either KU or Virginia Tech really is. My only comment on the BCS Championship is that the thought of having a 2-loss national champion (if LSU wins) makes me nauseous. Of course, maybe that's what it'll take to get the idiot university presidents to make some much-needed changes to the BCS system. Nah, they probably won't budge even then.

Personally, I think something like an 8-team playoff would be perfect. It's short and sweet, it would generate the same kind of hype that March Madness does, and it would definitively answer the question of who was the best. You could use the existing bowl games to fill in the playoff slots, so no big change there. Drop the importance of the human polls (since humans are emotionally unsteady, and most of the voters don't even watch more than one game per Saturday) and increase the importance of the computer polls, and you'd have just about an ideal scenario. If you can't break into the top 8, you're just not that good, so stop your whining.

Anyway, it's that sad time of year when football wraps up. Fortunately, I discovered arena football last year, so that helps get me through the looooong stretch of desolation between February and August.

*sigh*

There's my two cents.