Thursday, December 18, 2008

The BCS's BS is starting to make me sick

I came across this excellent article by Dan Wetzel about how big of a big money industry the Bowl System is, and how they are basically ripping the NCAA (and in some instances taxpayers) off.

Now, I've gone on record a trillion times saying that I'm not in favor of anything more than a "Plus 1" in college football, because I like the pressure of teams needing to win out to go to the title game. Most years, there are only three or four teams with a legitimate shot.

USC is probably the best team in the nation right now, and probably won't even finish in the Top 3 at the end of the year. However, I'm not sad for them at all. They have so much talent that they have no business losing to anybody, including a good but not great Oregon State team on the road.

However, some of the things pointed out in this article are pretty shameful, you should check it out.

** FYI ** ESPN owns and operates six bowl games: the Papajohns.com Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Armed Forces Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl.

Check out the date these things were founded:

Papa John's Bowl - Started 2006 in Birmingham, Alabama. This year they get Rutgers (7-5) and NC State (6-6).

New Mexico Bowl - Started 2006 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This year's matchup is Fresno State (7-5) and Colorado State (6-6).

Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl - Started 2002 in Honolulu, Hawaii. This year's match up is Notre Dame (6-6) and Hawaii (7-6).

Las Vegas Bowl - Started in 1992 in Las Vegas. This year they get BYU (again [4 straight years], which is strange considering the Mormon background of BYU juxtaposed with Sin City. They're 10-2) and Arizona (7-5).

Air Force Bowl - Started in 2003 in Fort Worth, Texas. This year's game features Houston (one of your few chances to see a black head coach this year, 7-5) and Air Force (8-4) in a rematch.

magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl - Started in 2008 in St. Pete. Great ESPN, exactly what we needed, another bowl. Let me guess ESPN, you're going to get the home town team in there too. What a surprise, South Florida (7-5) and Memphis (6-6) kicks off this great tradition. And what the hell is a "magicJack" anyway?

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