If you’re an idiot, you’ll probably get a huge kick out of the BCS Championship game between Texas and Alabama. Texas is the 2nd-ranked team in the country based on the fact that the Big 12 has had a year about as successful as Ross Perot’s quest for a Thai wife with sand dollar nipples. And yeah, Alabama beat Florida but watching the Tide play this year is like listening to a sea urchin mating ritual on the radio.

This game will determine the champ. There’s no debating that because of the collective creativity and competence of the BCS. After last night’s Iowa-Ramblin’ Wreck game, tomorrow’s Grey Cup of college football is about as stimulating as deconstructing one of the figurative turds in Dali’s Lugubrious Game. Or watching flies perform oral sex on each other.

The fact that the most successful (and most exciting) team in college football won’t be playing for all the booster-provided SUVs is a testament to the fact that Boise State is the most hosed sports franchise in the country. All the Broncos do is go undefeated every year right before they fuck up some overrated team from the BCS’s scotch bar. Fresh off their dismantling of TCU, Boise State is going to spend Thursday night at home, in Boise, wondering why the BCS is the closest thing we have in this country to a Burmese junta. If any of the AP voters had any onions, they’d vote the Broncos #1. Of course that won’t happen, much in the same way as I won’t crack open Ursula Andress’ conch shell. But that doesn’t mean Dr. No should get carte blanche to play calypso anytime he wants.

 We at the BCS would like to congratulate Boise State on a 14-0 season. Now go f*** yourselves! The BCS makes every game count, except for the 33 bowl games that don’t. Yours was one of them. Sucks for you. If the NFL was smart enough to adopt our system, then Minnesota and the Bengals would be gearing up for an exciting but meaningless game. Sadly, the NFL goes with a “playoff” system that settles it on the field. How can you screw teams from small cities when you have a playoff? Idiots. Well, when the ratings for the Super Bowl approach those for the BCS Title Game, then we’ll talk.

Our computers have determined who the top two teams are, just like they determined that Cincinnati was better than Florida and that TCU was better than Boise State. The computers are never wrong. Why play games when you have computers? In fact, we are thinking about calling off all the games next year and just showing computer simulations of what would have happened had the two teams played.

Of course, part of the reason that we don’t do a playoff is because we care so much about our student-athletes. Division II (or whatever the hell we call it now) has a playoff, and you should see how many kids drop out of college because of it. National Champion Villanova has a graduation rate of like 5%. It’s really sad.

And finally, if we did a playoff, what would that do to our other historic bowls? What would happen to the Ford AT&T Frito Lay BankofAmerica.com Bowl? What would happen to our Papa Johns Applebees International House of Pancakes Welchsgrapejelly.com Bowl? There is way too much history behind these bowls to just let them fall by the wayside.

And so, you see, we have no choice but to keep things like they are. And keep telling teams that you can win every single game, and when the season is over, to go and shove that meaningless trophy up your ass. God, it’s good to be King.

Sincerely,
The BCS*                                                                                                                                                            

*In case you can’t tell, this is not really a letter from the BCS. Knowing how stupid and evil they are, they’d probably sue us if we didn’t add this disclaimer.

The Villanova Wildcats women’s volleyball football team won the FCS national football title by defeating Montana 23-21 last night in Chatanooga. We’re less than a year removed from Nova’s Final Four appearance and with any luck, the Cats could be contending for a basketball title next March. Pretty good times for Villanova, which should mean pretty good times for Philly Sports fans.

Obviously there won’t be any parade down Broad St. (the snow notwithstanding) but this is pretty sweet if for no other reason than it shows how successful the 16-team playoff format used in college football’s second division can be. I suppose this flabbergasts the incredulous money-grabbers in the FBS; it turns out college athletes can walk and chew gum at the same time. Here’s to hoping they take notice and change their prehistoric notion that a playoff isn’t as bizarre as the current system of choosing a champ in the same way figure skating crowns its winner.

This has been a season marked by the AP voters’ collective attempt to justify their preseason predictions. Of course, that distinguishes this year from years past in no way whatsoever. Fortunately, the AP voters don’t have any say in the BCS standings, which themselves are overdetermined by their programming in order to favor the teams from the “top” 6 conferences.

There really isn’t too much to complain about in this final regular season poll other than the fact that Florida, after being handily beaten by Alabama, is ranked ahead of Boise State. The undefeated Broncos have shown that  for yet another season, despite the fact they’ve won all their games (as they did last year), there’s a real chance they won’t appear in a BCS game (as they did not last year, either). Boise State has lost 3 regular season games in the past 4 seasons. And for that they’ve been rewarded 1 BCS appearance (where they beat Oklahoma in one of the more thrilling Fiesta Bowls we’ve seen). The BCS selection show is tonight and we’ll soon find out if they get hosed again.

One other quick beef: there’s talk that Iowa will get bumped from an Orange Bowl appearance in favor of Penn State, a team that has no argument whatsoever to jump Iowa. If the Orange Bowl people take the Lions over the Hawkeyes, it will show yet again the fact that millions of loyal fans patronize a sport that is controlled solely by perceived financial interest and one that has absolutely no interest in competitive fairness. I really hope this doesn’t happen.

UPDATE: The BCS has announced its matchups and here’s how they look:

BCS Championship Game: Texas vs. Alabama.

Rose Bowl: Oregon vs. Ohio State

Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. Iowa

Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Cincinnati

Fiesta Bowl: Boise State vs. TCU.

The only complaint I have here is that the BCS didn’t want to see Boise State or TCU knock off another “top 6″ conference team so they pitted these two against each other. And Texas looks like the weakest #2 to get itself into a Championship game after their gift win against Nebraska. But who can argue with the wisdom of the BCS? It would be like telling Cornelius Vanderbilt that his business practices weren’t fair.

The AP and BCS polls are out after a relatively light weekend in college football. While it wasn’t a Saturday marked by marquis matchups, there were three happenings over the past few days that are worthy of note.

The first is Jeremiah Masoli rallying Oregon from a 4th quarter deficit at a very tough Arizona team to eventually win the game in overtime. Not only was this a huge win for the 8th-ranked Ducks, it kept alive Oregon’s PAC-10 and Rose Bowl hopes. Donovan McNabb should watch tape of that game and see Masoli’s poise both on the field and on the sidelines. He put on a leadership clinic.

Secondly, Les Miles’ ineptitude in the LSU/Ole Miss game. After making about 4 clock management mistakes on their final possession, Miles and his coaching staff delivered the self-inflicted coup de grace by instructing quarterback Jordan Jefferson to spike the ball with 1 second on the clock. Needless to say the game ended, LSU lost and the SEC looked stupid.

And the greatest/worst occurrence surrounding this week’s college football is reports that Jimmy Clausen was punched in the face by an irate fan upon leaving a restaurant with his family on Saturday night. Of course, the Notre Dame quarterback is hardly the scapegoat in South Bend: he completed 67% of his passes against Connecticut for 329 yards and 2 TDs. Regardless, someone has to pay the price for this fan’s frustration, though if I were that guy I would have punched Les Miles.

Ok. Time for my weekly beef: in a sign that the AP voters simply cannot shake their old boys club bias, they have Penn State ranked ahead of Iowa. For my part, I think Penn State is probably playing better football than Iowa at this point but if fairness and demonstrated performance mean anything, this is an absolute farce.

How can a PSU team with the same 10-2 record as Iowa be ranked ahead of the Hawkeyes when Iowa beat Penn State at Happy Valley? How can Penn State who is behind Iowa in the Big Ten standings be ranked ahead of Iowa? How can Penn State, who lost to Big Ten leader Ohio State 24-7 at home be ranked ahead of an Iowa team who took Ohio State to overtime at the Horseshoe, be ranked ahead of Iowa?

The AP voters are like a bunch of second rate criminals who can’t get their story straight. They flub around, hoping nobody will notice that all they really do is rank their traditional favorites as high as they can and hope it’ll slide. Of course, their inability to do their jobs correctly may be part of the reason their poll isn’t used in determining a national champion.

This week’s A.P. college football poll is out and Florida is still #1. I suppose they deserve to stay in the top spot because they’ve won all their games and they have remained tops each week this season with the exception of Week 7. With that said, their non-conference schedule included a non-FBS team (Charleston Southern) and Troy. They struggled again this week against South Carolina and dating back to the end of September, they’ve only really won 2 game convincingly (against Georgia and Vanderbilt). I could say the same thing for Alabama in the #2 spot which brings me to my first gripe this week.

Texas should be the #1 team in the country. They are 10-0 and are averaging a 29-point margin of victory this season. They’ve played 2 close games this year, the first being a 3-point win against #22 Oklahoma and the other was a 10-point win against Texas Tech. If you remove those two games from the mix, Texas has won their other 8 games by an average margin of 35 points. That’s a 5-touchdown margin of victory. Compare that to Florida’s average margin of victory (19 points–I didn’t include their 62-3 Week 1 win against Charleston Southern because, well, they’re not an FBS team) and Texas is handily ahead. Alabama, the #2 team ahead of Texas is averaging a 20-point margin of victory. Of course, those two teams play in the SEC which means that voters think of them the same way they think of their first sexual experience. In the end it won’t matter because Texas will have its day in the BCS championship game.

Beef #2. Why the hell is USC ranked 22nd? They lost to Stanford yesterday by 5 touchdowns (55-21). Three weeks ago, they lost to Oregon by 4 touchdowns (47-20). Sandwiched in between those losses was a 5-point win against a 4-6 Arizona State team (14-9). USC has lost 2 of its last 3 games by a combined 9 touchdowns and they’re still in the top-25. I understand it’s USC’s birthright to be ranked but they’re in 5th place in their own conference, for pete’s sake. Even the Elysian conference, the SEC, doesn’t have its 5th place team ranked.

And beef #3 is a structural one. CBS’s coverage of the SEC is disgracefully biased. “The SEC on CBS.” “The SEC Network.” Gary Danielson’s shameless lack of professional journalism in calling the games; he makes every Florida play sound like Doug Flutie’s hail mary against Miami in 1984. It’s no wonder the SEC has been elevated to mythical status when they have their own network and its attendant media cheerleaders. The SEC has a total of 3 teams ranked in the top-25 (Florida, Alabama and LSU all in the top-10). The Big 12 has 3 also. The Big East has 3. The Mountain West has 3. The ACC has 4. The Big 10 has 4. The PAC 10 has 5. Of course, the response to any criticism of conference-wide quality is that the SEC is so good that the teams beat up on each other. It’s hard to argue that Florida and Alabama aren’t any good as they’re a combined 20-0 but the idea that the SEC as a whole is so much better that the other conferences is something that’s starting to be seen for what it is: a flawed assumption.

This week’s poll is out and while most of it is ho-hum, there are the requisite miscarriages of justice. In their annual ritual of determining that only 5 teams are capable of playing for the national title, several of college football’s inconvenient teams (mere mortals, really) took themselves out of the BCS picture. Notre Dame, Oregon, Penn State, LSU and Iowa all lost which means the only programs left to stiff are TCU, Boise State and Cincinnati. Assuming the BCS doesn’t give all 3 at-large bids to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place teams in the SEC, both the AP voters and the BCS are headed for smoother sailing.

It turns out the Oracle at Delphi’s pronouncement back in August that Florida, Texas and Alabama truly do reside on Mount Olympus was right. Which means the other teams that comprise college football probably will only have to offer up one team to the AP altar of self-congratulation. And while SEC #1 and Texas will play for the title, the loser of the SEC Title Game will be sipping hemlock while the other two members of the divine triumverate will be wrestling naked with each other. For the rest of us, it’s a small price to pay to protect the continued arrogance and self-entitlement of the world’s strangest and most righteous brotherhood: sports writers and university presidents.

Here is this week’s biggest joke. And it’s a full-blown, Bill Hicks-stlye punchline: after escaping with a win against lowly Arizona State, USC finds itself at #11, 3 spots ahead of Oregon. If my memory serves me correctly, Oregon absolutely undressed USC two weeks ago and shares a common record with the Trojans at 7-2. But Oregon’s road loss to PAC-10 #3 Stanford wasn’t good enough to repel the Trojans birthright of a higher ranking. Never mind the fact that Oregon is still #1 in the PAC-10. Or that USC is #4 in the PAC-10 (how can a team that is #4 in its own conference be ranked #11, ahead of all other teams in the same conference?). Or that, two weeks ago, Oregon beat them by 4 touchdowns.

USC’s superior ranking to Oregon is this week’s shining example of why the voters in the AP Poll are a collective joke. To be sure, the AP Poll doesn’t figure into the BCS rankings (ostensibly) but its establishment of teams’ positions early in the season sets the table for the BCS’s initial standings. There are 5 honorary members who, according to the AP, are allowed to play for the national title and will have, by writ from on high, every excuse made for them to ensure they stay alive. They are Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio State, USC and any team in the SEC. If you’re not in the club, you might as well disband your squad and try your football hand on the New Mexico women’s soccer team.

UPDATE: The BCS rankings are out and they contain a similar USC/Oregon logical anomaly.

In one of the more sensible adjustments to the AP rankings this year, Alabama has moved from number 2 to the top spot in this week’s poll. Of course, there’s lots to love about things that come in pairs in ‘Bama but I’m sure most Crimson Tide fans are happier with the number 1 next to their school’s name. The crowned king of college football, Florida, had held this spot all season but their two recent sub-par performances and Alabama’s strong play of late have resulted in a re-shuffling of the order of merit.

One of the compelling things about the way the poll works is its reliance on assumptions about the relative strength and weaknesses of the conferences. It has been a given all season that the SEC is the top conference and that (among other things) the Big 10 isn’t so hot. Because of this, the voters need to have lots of SEC teams in the top 25 to validate their assertion that Florida and Alabama are the greatest things since co-eds in tight shirts. While I agree that these two teams are the best in the country, the over-rating of their conference brethren and under-valuing of the Big 10 will go a long way in describing our gripes with this week’s AP Poll.

LSU. The Tigers are the team most indicative of the SEC bias that defines this week’s top 25. As we mentioned last week, LSU has no business being in the top 10. After a dismal performance against Florida, the Tigers found themselves ranked #10. And after not having played yesterday, they’re now #9. LSU is the 112th ranked offense (out of 120 teams) in the country and lags behind schools like Arkansas State, Temple, Middle Tennessee State and Rice in offensive production. If they were the #2 team in total defense there might be room for overall balance. But they’re not. Their defense ranks a mediocre 35th in the nation. LSU is a top-10 team because voters need the SEC to look strong. Keep in mind that the over-the-top adulation voters have for Florida, Alabama and the SEC is so strong that there is a real possibility that the SEC title game (assuming Florida and Alabama play in it) will be played again in January under a different name: the BCS championship game. And that, my friends, would be a disgrace.

Oklahoma. Oklahoma is 3-3 after losing a close game to Texas 16-13 at a “neutral site (the Cotton Bowl)” and they are ranked 25th. The predicate here is the hangover from last year’s strong performance (and unjust inclusion in the title game at Texas’ expense). Oklahoma has played a tough schedule but has failed to win any of their big games. They lost to BYU and Florida State early in the season and have as their three wins victories against Idaho, Tulsa and Baylor. The assumption here is two-fold: one, that memories of Sam Bradford are enough to keep them afloat (despite the fact he’s been a partial ghost this year) and two, that close losses against good teams mean OU can play with anyone. A good example of the last assumption’s inconsistency is that the Sooners are ranked with a worse record than a 4-2 Notre Dame team that has lost on last-second plays to USC and Michigan. I’m not saying the Irish should be ranked at this point but their season serves as a good counterpoint to the absurdity of Oklahoma being in the top 25.

Ohio State. Ah, we go back to the Ohio State well as we seem to every week. Two numerical realities should help to define why their #18 ranking is an absolute joke: 91 and 26-18. The first number is their national ranking in total offense (come to think of it, after seeing an LSU team ranked 9 spots ahead of them with a 112th ranking in total offense, this actually looks good). And the second number is the score of their losing effort yesterday against a Purdue team that came into the game with a 1-5 record. Ohio State did put up a decent effort against USC in a home loss but if there’s one thing that Notre Dame teaches us, it’s that a quality loss to the Trojans will do nothing for you ranking. So why reward the Buckeyes who can’t even beat Purdue? Simple answer: because Ohio State is a program that will receive any benefit of the doubt voters will give them. I really can’t wait until #7 Iowa goes into the Horseshoe in November and beats the stickers of the Buckeyes’ helmets.

Normally we go with three gripes but I have a third-and-a-half beef this week: Cincinnati at #5. Now I know that they’re undefeated and that they play in a nominal BCS conference in the Big East, but come on. Ranked ahead of the Big Ten leader Iowa? Ranked ahead of Boise State? The Bearcats’ 6-0 record has come against teams with a combined record of 17-20 and the only team in the top-25 they’ve beaten is South Florida (ranked #21 at the time). Cincinnati is the definition of an untested team and they play in a truly weak conference (they’re the only Big East team in the top-25). Because I assume the AP voters have a collective agenda, this is one ranking I really can’t figure out.

The first installment of the BCS computer rankings comes out today so I’ll post those when they materialize (I guess that omniscient computer they use is still on a 56k modem). Until next Sunday when even more crimes are committed in the name of the SEC, enjoy your week.

UPDATE: The first BCS standings are out. Wow, what a joke.

It is now the civic responsibility of every red-blooded American to cry foul the absurdity that college football’s system for determining a national champion is. The well-documented, monopolistic and exclusionary practices of the BCS selection process are so blatantly unfair that they’re being debated at the highest level of government. The computer program that spits out the predetermined BCS ranking later in the season takes into account both the AP Poll as well as the Coaches Poll (the later has been shown to be so out-of-touch that in several cases the coaches themselves aren’t even voting: members of their staffs are).

The polls’ biases are quite natural (let’s take the AP poll alone since its voters at least watch more than 1 game per weekend); sports writers determine before the season whom they think should be ranked where and then they do their best to justify the continued inclusion of their forecasts in the rankings. The problem with this is that each week’s rankings overdetermine how the teams are thought about the next week and that snowballs all the way until the rankings are computerized, in other words when the rankings matter.

With that said, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to document the three biggest AP Poll inconsistencies each week until the end of the season. After the Poll came out today, here’s what stands out:

Ohio State is ranked number 9. The combined record of the 4 teams OSU has beaten is 10-9 and that includes Toledo, Illinois, Navy and Indiana. The only truly challenging team they’ve played is USC and they lost. At home. While OSU does rank #9 in total defense, its ranking of 68th in total offense hardly warrants such a high overall standing. Furthermore, the Big Ten has only 3 teams ranked in the top-25 (the other two are Iowa and Penn State) and in a year when that conference is relatively weak, there’s no reason to force a 4-1 team that can’t win the big game at home into the top-10.

Oklahoma. This one is a real joke. They’re ranked #19 with a 2-2 record, having lost both games against good opponents in BYU and Miami (granted, both games were lost by 1-point margins). They’re without Sam Bradford which shouldn’t mean the voters are holding a spot for them in the rankings until he comes back. And their two wins? They came against Tulsa and Idaho State, an 0-5 team. Without Bradford, Oklahoma has achieved a ranking of 26th in total offense and has scored 20 and 14 points in its losses. While they were great last year and could be worthy of a top-25 ranking with Bradford under center, the fact is that he’s not and they’ve struggled. They’re being grandfathered into the rankings and that just ain’t right.

The exclusion of Notre Dame. I’m not going to make the argument that the Irish should be a top-10 team but the fact they’re on the outside looking in is absurd. Notre Dame is ranked 4th in the nation in total offense and has won 4 of its 5 games (the only loss a last second defeat at a 4-1 Michigan team). The Irish quarterback, Jimmy Claussen, leads the nation with a 179.3 passer rating. He’s 4th in total yards passing, averaging 309 per game. He has a 68% completion percentage and has thrown for 12 touchdowns against only 2 picks. In yet another come-from-behind win against Washington yesterday, Claussen threw for 422 yards while completing 74% of his passes. The Irish are led by the nation’s best quarterback and are scoring points in droves, despite being without their top receiver, Michael Floyd, for the season. Their biggest test will be in 2 weeks when they face USC in South Bend (a team that has the same 4-1 record as Notre Dame and is ranked 7th but has as its loss the University of Washington, a team Notre Dame just beat).

The plight of the Irish is demonstrative of what’s really wrong with the polling: at this point in the season a 4-1 team that’s not ranked has a lot more work to do than a 4-1 ranked team is. Take USC for example: they have the same record as Notre Dame and yet their 1 loss came against Washington, a team Notre Dame just beat. So in sum, both teams have identical records, the measuring stick of a common opponent and yet USC is ranked 7th while the Irish are unranked. They play each other in two weeks which will settle the question of which of these two particular teams is better but even if Notre Dame wins, can they be expected to overtake USC in the rankings, in other words an 18-spot jump?

Remember that guy that won that stupid American Idol type thing on ESPN a few years ago? Well, I kind of assume he’s being a contrarian, but he claims that he likes the BCS is just as good as the NCAA tourney. Which is completely ludicrous, but he does make some interesting points. 

Is this really the best way to determine who is the champion? When we look back at the 1985 basketball season, we look back at the winners that year, Villanova. But is that really an accurate depiction of who was the best team that season? Or does that more precisely say which team was the best for 3 weeks in March that year? The Cats were a No. 8 seed. Should they really have even legitimately been a part of the fight for the national championship?…But what about the smaller conferences? They completely ignore the entire 3 months of the regular season and which team truly was the champion of the conference. But they reward the team that happened to play the best 4 games in a 4 day span. Is that really right? Does that really show which team was the best in that conference that year?…Watch TV all day Sunday, all day Monday. Listen to sports radio all week long. What will you hear? Passionate arguments about how ridiculous and unfair it is that team X was left out of the NCAA tournament. And which team is team X? Why that would be the 66th best team in the country. What on earth makes anyone think that if we went to an 8 team college football playoff, that the outcry over the 9th best team in the country being left out would be small?