Last night’s game between the Chokelahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators was supposed to give college football a clear-cut champion, but after a sloppy game all fans are left with are a paper champion and three teams with legitimate beefs. The Bowl Championship Series is bull and should be revised like the latest version of Vista before frustrated football fans give up on the whole darn system. Give us a playoff system and for the love of the game stop sending Bob Stoops’ teams to the title game to get shellacked!
Call me a hater or a spoiled sport but count me one of the many college football fans that was unimpressed by either of the teams in last night’s Orange Bowl. In a game marred by turnovers, Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators dominated the TooSooners in what will go down as one of the most anticlimactic games in recent history. It’s not the players’ faults; the field was littered with future NFL players and All Americans. No, the blame goes to the BCS because any time you give two teams over a month to game plan you’re going to get two things, rust and overfamiliarization, both of which not only kills the offense but the flow of the game as well. By switching to a playoff system not only would fans be treated to a better game but they also wouldn’t have to wait a month to see their teams go out and play like crap.
The biggest problem with the BCS isn’t the system; the system works great, at least it does at ranking teams. The problem is that the masterminds behind college football take those rankings and then plug them into a bowl system. How else can you explain how third-ranked Texas ended up playing 10th-ranked Ohio State? If you’re going to have No. 1 play No. 2 in the Championship Game, shouldn’t you have the No. 3 team play the No. 4 team or am I just nuts? Now thanks to the bowl system’s insipid matchups Utah, USC, and Texas all have legitimate beefs on why they should be National Champions. But all of their cries will now go on deaf ears since Florida beat Chokelahoma last night in the BSC (Bull @#$% Championship) Championship Game. It’s ridiculous, college baseball has the College World Series, college basketball has the Final Four, and yet college football refuses to settle its championship on the field because the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl makes more money than a playoff game.
The Florida Gators are National Champions … at least on paper, which is a shame because Urban Meyer has put together a team that is complemented by speed, talent, and the leadership of Tim Tebow. The fact is that even if there were a playoff system in college football, Florida would probably still walk away with the title. Unfortunately thanks to the BCS and the idiots behind the Bowl System, the fans will never know. And that’s a shame especially if you live in Southern California, Austin, or Utah.
This article appears in January 9 • 2009.