It's the most wonderful time of the year

Yeah, it's Christmas and all, and as one of the Lord's I love this holiday (and of course I always have, including well before my salvation).
But it's something even more wonderful to me and this blog....... bowl season.


It's actually interesting, because I really don't get as worked up over the bowls themselves as you might expect. I probably watch 3 or 4 a year casually and commonly won't even make note of the results.
But that's besides the point.


You see, I'm NOT into the BCS just because I love the bowls. I think their tradition is awesome, and somehow they just give this essence to college football that is unmatchable. But just as much, it's because college football forces each game to receive an unparalleled interest.
In a playoff, we would just avoid the thought of a boring matchup like maybe Kansas and Virginia Tech, and instead make a bracket prediction or think ahead to possible second round matchups. And non-playoff bowls would be reduced to the interest level of the early rounds of the NIT... nil.

As I said, many years I don't have that much excitement over the actual bowls... though just having them around sets the atmosphere for this time of year. Perhaps, though, it's because I've followed the entirety of college football more closely on a week-to-week basis than I have in a while that makes me extremely excited this year.


It's amazing how many great games there are down in the depths.


I should point out, I am 100% satisfied with the national championship game. While I ranked LSU behind Oklahoma and Georgia the prior week, deep down I definitely believed LSU to be the better team.... and indeed the best, as I think they'll win as most people do, though I expect Ohio State to put up more of a dog fight than last year.
I'm also quite happy with the results for other teams. I was pleasantly surprised when the name West Virginia was revealed, as I was sure Oklahoma would play Kansas or Hawaii. Probably the BCS game of the year. Many complain that's why the BCS is messed up. Says you. There are some more interesting tournament games in each round, even among equally seeded teams. Some games are just more interesting. What's wrong with that? Of course Rich Rodriguez leaving will dull the game a little, but I'll live.
Hawaii-Georgia is a very interesting little game. Between a team that was on the National Championship bubble and the little engine that could. I don't think Hawaii will hang with Georgia. But what if they could?
VT-Kansas, as mentioned, is dull. VT is getting way too much love. They haven't done anything of note all year. They won the ACC. The pugly ACC. Kansas, in two weeks went from my favorite team ever, to the biggest pretender in a long time. Get dismantled by Missouri who then gets dissected by Oklahoma, and that happens.
Still they deserved to play 100x more than Missouri. If you can't beat Oklahoma twice, too bad.
The only fair option would be to axe the 2 teams per conference rule...... but they don't want to to do that..... which is fine by me, honestly. I can definitely see the merits of the rule. It keeps the politics from taking over the entire deal. It keeps the money more even, while still allowing a conference performing more consistently at a supreme level to take home some additional reward. It may leave a third deserving conference team out..... but too bad! Again: if you get it done on the field, you get what you deserve. If not, sometimes you'll win out, sometimes you won't, deal with it. Same deal as the title game. If you dominate the entire year, you will be playing the last game of the season.
At the same time, many are disgusted by the Rose Bowl. It does admittedly appear one sided, and USC should win easily. But Illinois beat OSU, what makes anyone think that if Illinois doesn't win, OSU could have? Maybe that's really the deal..... the Big 10 is the shame of college football. No one thinks they are even an ounce of good.
And I'll admit, they've earned the rep fair and square. Ohio State last January. Michigan. And somewhat even more stark, Minnesota's pure awfulness. The Big 10's OOC record is pretty poor..... except when beating up on the MAC... which only shows the 2007 MAC is far-and-away the WORST conference in college football in a few years.

Of course the bigger complaints by those in the know is that Arizona State didn't a BCS bowl berth... and the blame lies squarely on the format of the Rose Bowl leading Illinois to get in.
Fair enough, Arizona State almost certainly had the better rap sheet.
And the Rose Bowl indeed isn't that interesting this year (yet. I bet I will warm to it quickly in about 10 days!).

It brings up a reminder of my slight dislike of one aspect of bowls...... the setup conference matchups in every single bowl, particularly when certain conferences basically never meet (for instance the Big 12 and ACC... which at most meet once a year (this year Virginia and Texas Tech). More sadly, the second tier bowls are always the same few teams, and take away ever having, say, a top Big 10 team playing a top Big East team, save in the BCS.
But all the same, that's what the bowls are, isn't it? A little quirky. And that's why they are fun. I feel like Michigan and Florida have played 50 times in the Citrus Bowl (even when this is only like the second meeting), and it appears to be a very lopsided game. But it's fun!
Stick with me for a second.
Like I said before, the fact we focus on a game like this is really the whole foundation to what makes college football exciting.
In a playoff, we might well have the same game. But it'd be over before we even thought about it. And it'd be played the same weekend as a long list of other games. The bowl season allows us to pay a bit of extra attention to teams that normally wouldn't see it. Teams that have had solid years, many of them, but fallen short. It gives teams time in the spotlight. It's kind of like trotting the teams out slowly through a beauty pageant line. Two at a time. And we get the added bonus of seeing one more time whether our opinions of them are fair.
And again, while there are 40+ college football games each weekend, not like the visibility of the bowl system... the current system still makes each week mean so much. Every opponent is focused upon. Every week a vital game. Each week a piece to a puzzle that you have to put together perfectly to get it right. Even in a year like this year... where 20 teams probably lost a game they "couldn't afford to lose" and still ended up in the NC hunt... and the great quote Thanksgiving weekend "Arkansas has killed LSU's national title dreams"... there's still that big looming reality... you have to have one of the best two teams in the country to play for the title. You must be the creme of the crop. And so instead of each win and each loss just being some notes on a comparison chart... like in college basketball, where we have Bracketology, with key wins and losses listed along with all kinds of other stats to try and muddle through which teams are the more deserving .650 teams on the year... instead of not really knowing how each game will impact you, and a loss not really meaning too much, in college football, you know you've given up your right if you lose just one. Once you lose a game it's in fate's hands and your "body of work" doesn't mean nearly as much as what other teams do. In college basketball it's all about which big wins you have. In college football, that doesn't mean nearly as much as how many losses you have.

Back to my point: the Rose Bowl isn't perfect. None of this is perfect. I'm hearing Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, and Georgia fans whining "why not us". Honestly none of you deserved it nearly as much as LSU... and you gave up your right to complain when you lost that first game... then nailed it to the wall when you lost your second. The game is DEFINITELY the right game. I was of the opinion it should be LSU-OSU as conference championship Saturday wound to a close. But even if you aren't, you know it's the system we play in, everyone plays by it. It's like complaining about life not being fair because we die. And life is a pretty good system. But when all you can do is blame the system because of your team's shortcomings during the year, your arguments are empty.

A friend told me that based upon a combination of user simulations and stats, Clemson was the team picked to win a 16 team playoff bracket.
Clemson!?!
How disgusting!

People wrote off Georgia (I think VERY unfairly) out of the national title discussion because they didn't win (or play in) their conference title game (Who cares!?! We are looking for the best two teams. Why should a loss to Tennessee be 10x more damning than any other loss. LSU didn't win the West so much as Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn, and Mississippi State lost to each other and East teams enough to let LSU come on top. If Arkansas won close games against Alabama and Auburn........ then LSU would apparently suddenly be just as undeserving of a title shot? And I even hear people say Missouri deserves a BCS game more than Kansas, because at least they played in their conference title game. Well, I am totally agreed that an H2H win means much more than any other game...... but they is a limit on how much it means (Stanford won't be playing in the Rose Bowl, thankfully). Missouri got shut down two other times. They "had their chance" at top teams, and floundered. KU got one shot, and it's time they get another. There is too much emphasis placed on winning your conf title game. I know where it comes from, and I tend to agree in retrospect that Oklahoma didn't deserve in in 2003. But that's done. Had USC lost another game, there would've been no discussion. Oklahoma and LSU would have been the best two teams. All these "rules" people seem to think should streamline the decision making process to find the best team are subjective. People used the same rule (and some others) to discount Michigan from playing OSU again last year. What if UF lost to South Carolina as well? And any other contender lost another game too. There is a point where it's not a good argument anymore. So you can't use "conference winner" or "played a weak schedule" or "they had their chance to beat X team" as a doctrinal rule to how things should be done. There is limitations to how far it is taken, and different people will take it to different extremes. Just as people argue that everyone is going to have a different idea of religion and try to suggest "to each his own" (don't get me started 8-))... so too shouldn't that then be recognized in college football. There is no objectivity with all these supposed definitive rules people want to put up.)
Anyways, people wrote off Georgia for not winning the SEC... but want to put Clemson into a playoff with a fair shot at the title? Blech.



As to the Rose Bowl?
In a lot of ways, I wouldn't be too upset by a minimally invasive new playoff system that would restore the previous bowl matchups. This year's Rose is an argument FOR the bowls not against them. It's the BCS' fault that Illinois is the Big 10 representative... Ohio State won the conference by 2 games. If anything ever happens to change the current system, I can only hope it's something like a plus one deal that restores the bowl system entirely... including axing the BCS.
Or perhaps only restore the Rose Bowl, and keep the Coalition.
That would at least GUARANTEE 3 teams have a shot at the title... 4 in some years... and would force every team to prove themselves an additional time before becoming the champion.
This year, if we restored the Coalition and added a plus one, it would mean Ohio State played USC in the Rose Bowl, and then Virginia Tech played LSU in the Sugar Bowl. If Ohio State won, it would get the winner of LSU-VT. Otherwise Oklahoma or other teams down the line would get a shot.

But again, this emphasizes to me that the ONLY way to add a playoff is by adding a dynamic system. Using some sort of objective qualification. Or something determined subjectively before the bowl games (a vote or something). Some years, there are just two top teams.
Some years there are 4 or 5 that might have a fair voice in the discussion.
If you want a playoff, set up one to work with that.
It would satisfy my dictum that college football remain unique in it's format, as well as being more statistically right.



But I'm happy with how it is now. Again, the words "it isn't perfect, but it's the best we got do come to mind". People don't like the argument that the regular season IS the playoff... put off by how teams supposedly were knocked out but then found their way back in. The phrase maybe sounds blind and trivializing.
But once last time... life... college football... aren't perfect. They are battles to do the best we can with the situation. The Bills season ended in the snow of Cleveland last week. The Giants lost Jeremy Shockey, how will they respond? Denver's season turned on a set of unlikely plays against Chicago. It's a game between two teams to determine who is the best. Each quarter is 1/4th of the overall score. They don't play 55 minutes, then change the score for one final showdown.



So let the season of joy and cheer begin... Merry bowl season everyone!!!