The Cowboys Stadium timekeeper had the right idea. Let that last second tick off the clock and watch as the BCS crumbles. It was a hopeful gesture--the kind of heroism that makes legends--and if the replay evidence hadn't incontrovertibly placed one second back on the board, we might be telling our grandchildren about the guy.
As it stands, we're set for another year of crowing from BCS apologists, whose rapture at a "clear" 1 vs. 2 in Pasadena (a bulls--t notion) hinged not just on a very close Texas field goal but on the mere milliseconds longer that Colt McCoy's insane third down pass needed to stay in the air to ensure bedlam. And that's before we get to Nebraska kicker Adi Kunalic's out-of-bounder that set up the game-winning drive in the first place. Even if you accept the premise that the unexplained, uncodified, and likely illegal hierarchy of BCS conferences places undefeated Texas over undefeated Cincinnati, you've got to admit that any system that requires year after year of miracles cannot forever endure.
As for McCoy, has any college athlete since Chris Webber displayed such a stunning lack of clutchness? Moments after watching him scramble to the very brink of losing, Musburger and Herbstreit speculated that McCoy was looking at the playclock rather than the game clock. I say he was having a flashforward to his future as the last man in a lonely NFL Draft green room. Take a look at last night's numbers and tell me if anybody's taking this guy with an early pick. Teams already know about the Heisman curse. The last thing they need is the I-Didn't-Deserve-the-Heisman curse.
And yet it will be McCoy rather than Tony Pike (whose fourth quarter performance Saturday defined clutchness) who advances, an injustice whose reversal would still leave out TCU and Boise State, teams for whom no amount of excellence, no matter how sustained, will ever be sufficient under the current rules. Like the annual season-ending injury for Greg Oden, the annual BCS debacle manages somehow to fulfill our worst expectations while still surprising us. I thought Auburn's 2004 screwing was the worst that could ever occur in a major sport. Now I know that 2004 was just a warm-up.
-GM
GM,
In 1997, the following was a novel concept--one met with great resistance.
"Let's match the two best teams against each other regardless of what conference they're in."
College football isn't run by normal, functioning people like you and me; it's run by unimaginative, unreasonable, traditionalist buffoons whose response to playoff talk is typically something as compelling as, "It just wouldn't work." A month ago, an SEC president looked me in the eye and said the SEC and Big Ten were "head and shoulders" above the rest of the football conferences. Not only do we allow these people to make decisions about college football; we allow them to breathe our air, eat our food, make way more money than we'll ever make, and decide what's in the best interest of America's youth!
Somehow, they were persuaded to go along with an idea called the Bowl Championship Series. Brilliantly, an actual committee was created to use already-existent bowls, already-existent polls, and already-existent computer formulas to select two teams to play in an actual national championship game. Well, sort of. The AP poll's voters could crown any national champion they wanted, but that could never be an issue, right? With the exception of this obvious mistake, this is the idea third graders would have come up with, and you wouldn't have to pay them to operate as an entire organization. If you were to ask someone what they did for a living, you might be astonished if they responded like this:
"I do a job anyone could do for a company no one wants, all the while blocking the progress of the entire industry."
If you meet that person, though, you've just met the most honest member of the BCS committee.
-JW
In 1997, the following was a novel concept--one met with great resistance.
"Let's match the two best teams against each other regardless of what conference they're in."
College football isn't run by normal, functioning people like you and me; it's run by unimaginative, unreasonable, traditionalist buffoons whose response to playoff talk is typically something as compelling as, "It just wouldn't work." A month ago, an SEC president looked me in the eye and said the SEC and Big Ten were "head and shoulders" above the rest of the football conferences. Not only do we allow these people to make decisions about college football; we allow them to breathe our air, eat our food, make way more money than we'll ever make, and decide what's in the best interest of America's youth!
Somehow, they were persuaded to go along with an idea called the Bowl Championship Series. Brilliantly, an actual committee was created to use already-existent bowls, already-existent polls, and already-existent computer formulas to select two teams to play in an actual national championship game. Well, sort of. The AP poll's voters could crown any national champion they wanted, but that could never be an issue, right? With the exception of this obvious mistake, this is the idea third graders would have come up with, and you wouldn't have to pay them to operate as an entire organization. If you were to ask someone what they did for a living, you might be astonished if they responded like this:
"I do a job anyone could do for a company no one wants, all the while blocking the progress of the entire industry."
If you meet that person, though, you've just met the most honest member of the BCS committee.
-JW
