Up here in the Northeast, we generally could care less about the Red River Shootout or the Heisman Trophy, unless it has Doug Flutie‘s name attached to it. And that Doak Walker character doesn’t really interest us, unless he comes in blue label.
And The Game? That would be Harvard vs. Yale, not Ohio State vs. Michigan. Unless you went to neither. Then it would just be an overhyped waste of your time.
For years, I have tried to argue that college football should be relevant up here. In college, I even tailgated at BU (yup, I was the one) until they yanked the grill — and the football team — out from under my dorm window.
My Boston University roommate, Eric, always thought I was wasting my time with college football, and you know what? I should’ve listened to him. He is from Gloucester, where the B.S. meter is off the charts high, in case you weren’t aware. Go ahead, try and pull the wool over they eyes of someone from G-Town. Not possible. They can smell when something’s fishy.
And it’s not like they don’t like football up in Gloucester. Just spend a Friday night watching the Fishermen, a perennial M.I.A.A. Super Bowl powerhouse, and you’ll know they love the game up there. They’re just not big on B.S.
In fact, I’d argue that New Englanders are all born with some inherent level of B.S. detection, which brings me back to college football. Why don’t we seem to have much time for it up here? Because it sends the B.S. meters into overdrive.
Now, I’m ready to admit to something that the rest of you have known all along: College football is a scam. It stinks right now, and it’s about time I remove the Rose Bowl-colored glasses and see just what a mess this sport has become.
Look, this is not intended to make light of the folks who fill stadiums in the South to capacity. And I’m not trying to taint the traditions that have made Saturday afternoons in the fall sacred everywhere else but up here.
The BCS has already handled that.
Here are a few suggestions for tweaking:
What a BC-Mess
It’s all but unanimous: the BCS is worthless. This year, TCU, Boise State and Cincinnati all finished the regular season undefeated, yet buying a ticket is the only way they’ll get to the BCS Championship Game.
(Side thought: do you think the BCS bigwigs huddle in a room and privately pop champagne like Mercury Morris and the ’72 Dolphins every time a non-BCS conference team falls from the ranks of the unbeaten? The bubbly remains on ice this year. The BCS? That’s on thin ice.)
Someone please explain the logic in this system for me, if you can. Cincy, TCU, and Boise State all had wins against higher-ranked opponents than Alabama and Texas, and yet they aren’t good enough to play for the title? Now, I’m not saying any of them are better than Florida, Alabama or Texas, but shouldn’t that debate be settled on the field? A computer system is for fantasy football.
I get that there are a number of obstacles that stand in the way of a playoff system, namely logistics, final exams and the unimaginative tweeds who trumpet the BCS and the cash it lines their pockets with. But let’s face it, college football is stuck on itself and missing the bigger picture because of it.
Could you imagine if men’s basketball had no NCAA Tournament, instead using some math geek’s algorithm for determining that Duke and North Carolina should again play for the national championship? I can guarantee you one thing — you wouldn’t care. You’re glued to March Madness because of Cinderella and the potential she may crash the ball, a la Villanova or George Mason. You plan your day around the tourney’s schedule, staking out a place at the bar or on your couch. Or even at work. You bet absurd amounts of money in office pools and then spend the end of March with a bracket growing out of your hand.
Now, could you see yourself doing all this for the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (Utah vs. Cal on December 23)?
Exactly.
Wake Up The Echoes
Notre Dame and college football are tied to each other — when one is no longer relevant, neither is the other.
And right now, the Irish are about as relevant as … well … the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. Charlie Weis is out. The boosters are restless. Notre Dame wasted a brilliant season from quarterback Jimmy Clausen, a former top national recruit who will now forgo his senior season to enter the NFL Draft this spring.
Weis, for all of his huffing and puffing coming into South Bend, blows out of town with a 35-27 record, the third-worst of any Irish head coach who spent at least three seasons there.
What makes this program’s failures so remarkable is that Notre Dame has the tools — Touchdown Jesus, the Golden Dome, games on NBC Sports. What it doesn’t have is Lou Holtz. The Irish simply cannot misfire on another head coach.
Ivy Playoff
As Harvard players flooded the Yale Bowl on November 21 in the closing seconds of a thrilling come-from-behind win over their longstanding rivals, it occurred to me that this was it.
For more than a century, Harvard-Yale has served as a de facto Ivy League championship game. But what does it say about the winner? That Harvard is better than Yale?
That is no longer good enough. It’s time the Ivy League include itself in the NCAA’s FCS playoff (which, by the way, happens to be an example of how the FBS could fix itself with a 16-team, single elimination playoff system in December).
But the Ivy continues to refuse an automatic bid into the tournament, despite the fact that schools like Harvard and Yale regularly appearing in the FCS (also known as Division I-AA) national rankings. Furthermore, football is the only Ivy League sport that doesn’t compete in playoffs.
Change is good, even if it takes an entire century to come about.
BC vs. UConn
If you were at Boston College’s win over Florida State this September, or UConn’s last-second loss to Rutgers in October, you got a glimpse of how college football can thrive up here. The stadiums were packed. The atmospheres were loud and proud. And I couldn’t help but leave Storrs after that October game wondering just why the two largest college programs in New England don’t play each other.
Randy Edsall has delivered the Huskies to the doorstep of national prominence, while Boston College is a regular on the national scene. We’re talking bragging rights. It’s Big East vs. ACC (or Big East defector, if you’re still hung up on that).
It’s also a likely difficult non-conference game in a sport that just doesn’t schedule tough non-conference games.
Silly me, I forgot — cupcakes only, please.
But the bottom line remains. Until college football can address some of these issues, it will remain a sugarcoated version of the game I was raised on.
