December 15, 2006

Not Worthy

-- The Onion continues to have fun with the BCS and the Buckeyes.

In what many BCS officials are citing as "proof that their flawless system indeed works," no Division 1-A college football team was found to possess the sheer excellence required to face Ohio State, the No. 1 ranked team since the season began, in this year's BCS Championship game.

"The main job of the BCS is to place the best football players in the nation in a single game in order to decide the national champion," said BCS chairman Mike Coleman. "This year, our computer took hours to process the polls' relevant data—by which I mean the opinions of the nation's finest sportscasters, sports-radio hosts, coaches, color commentators, and ESPN The Magazine contributors—and determined that no championship game is necessary. No team in America deserves to even step on the same field as Ohio State, let alone actually play in a game against them."

"It's good to know that, after the Harris and the USA Today polls carefully and painstakingly take care of the fallible, emotional, potentially biased human element of the ranking through old-fashioned voting, the BCS then takes that human element and subjects it to its own infallible rigid mathematical formulas," Coleman continued. "It's a confidence-inspiring system that has never failed us before."

"Although I'll be the first to admit that previous years have usually featured some sort of game," Coleman added.

-- Several of the Buckeye juniors are considering leaving school early for the NFL. Ted Ginn Jr. and Antonio Pittman are said to be gone for sure by some program insiders. Tackle Kirk Barton and receiver Tony Gonzalez are keeping their options open, filing the necessary paperwork with the NFL. The Bucks could sure use Gonzo next year as a captain and team leader, and to assist our first-year starter at QB. And he doesn't sound too anxious to turn pro:

"What I want to do is come back, that's for sure," Gonzalez said. "That's easy because it's fun here. The vast majority of the people I know in the NFL are miserable."

There is the money, though. It's a big year for receivers coming out, Ginn included, but Gonzalez will be in a similar situation again next year, and he may decide his value will never be higher than it is now.

-- Click and read The Sports Guy. It's Mailbag Day and hilarity ensues. In a serious moment, he explains to a reader why he doesn't write about college football much:

SG: Here's my defense: From late September through Christmas, everyone spends three solid months complaining about how screwed up the BCS system is, how no other sport's championship would ever be decided by a voting process, how half of these kids don't even belong in school, how the coaches are constantly screwing over their players by switching colleges, how dumb it is that you have to wait 50 days between games for the national championship, how the officials are terrible, how the announcers are terrible, how everything's about the money now, how it would be so much better if there was a real playoff system, how the NCAA is more corrupt than the mafia, how there are way too many bowl games … I mean, what's so fun about college football? What am I missing? I spend enough time complaining about sports that I actually like -- I need more complaining in my life? I'll stick with the pros, thanks.
Posted by dan at December 15, 2006 9:47 PM