College Football Week 14

The season has come to a close and Iowa's destination and opponent have been decided. The Hawkeyes take on the Champion of the ACC and will play their first opponent from the conference since the 1992 Kick-off Classic where they met the Wolfpack of North Carolina State.

The BCS was set up to determine the top two teams to play for the National Championship. This year it pits the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide, champions of the SEC against the Champions of the Big 12, #2 Texas Longhorns. There are three additional undefeated teams that will have a chance to claim a stake for the national title. Boise State, Cincinnati, and TCU--all Champions of their repsective conferences.

I am one who is in favor of the bowl process, but not necessarily the BCS. Many advantages to both, but choosing a true national champion this way will have problems. As for one who is against a play-off my solution is hypocritical, but this is how I would do it.

The regular season is important and the fact that each game means something needs to be preserved. However an eight-team playoff is the way to go. The NCAA BB tournament has 65 teams and there is still debate as to who should be the 65th team. How often does an 13 seed win the national title. Never.

My playoff would start the week of Thanksgiving. On that weekend the conference championships would be played. The conferences are responsible for deciding who their champion is. Whether by a one-game championship or by criteria based on standings. For example Ohio State is the Champion of the Big Ten based on their record and victory over Iowa. They received the Rose Bowl birth. The Big 12 and SEC are among various conferences with one game to decide. Teams that are included in the playoff are champions of the BCS conferences (Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, SEC, Pac 10, Big East) as well as the highest rated teams from among of pool of Notre Dame and other independents, and champions of the WAC, MAC, Big West, C-USA, SunBelt, etc.

The following weekend would be the first week of the playoff with the semi-finals played the week after. Then the championhsip game would be played days after New Year's at a rotating spot, decided upon by the bowls.

Those teams who are "bowl-eligible" can then begin to plan on their destination as determined by the conference tie-ins. There should not have to be the wait to decide Northern Illinois playing South Florida in Tornoto. If this process were to occur this year, the bracket would be as follows.

#1 Alabama
#8 Georgia Tech

#4 TCU
#5 Boise State

#3 Cincinnati
#6 Oregon

#2 Texas
#7 Ohio State

Once teams are defeated, they can be placed into their bowl tie-ins. For example, Ohio State, with a loss to Texas, would then go on to play in the Rose Bowl against Oregon, who based on seeding, would lose to Cincinnati. The remaining top ten BCS teams could then be placed as at-large teams in the current BCS bowl system. You may find some of the same bowl pairings as are scheduled for January of 2010, but the decision on who should play for the title will be decided on the field.

All are conference champions, seeding is based on BCS and this would include many interesting match-ups. Iowa fans would be disappointed with me as the Hawkeyes perhaps would not be traveling to Miami, instead Orlando. And yes, this 10-2 team is more deserving of a bowl greater than the Capital One Bowl, but it places the importance on winning your conference.

College Football Wrap-Up

A quick look back at the bowl season thanks to the USC Song Girls.

Florida head coach, Urban Meyer defended his former school, Utah and deemed them as a non-BCS school who is very much BCS quality. He mentioned the facilities are better than some BCS schools (Iowa), talent is better than some BCS schools (Indiana) and beat all BCS schools that came their way.

Congrats to the Pac 10. They went undefeated in all of their bowl games. A conference that was so maligned early defended themselves well into the post-season.

Big 10 lived up to expectations. Did many expect Penn State to beat USC in the Rose Bowl? Who had any faith in the Golden Gophers as they played Kansas? Wisconsin? Northwestern? Ohio State? Iowa played the best of any of the conference schools, but they did play a bad South Carolina team. Had the Hawkeyes played a game higher in the bowl line-up (Georgia, Cap One) the Big Ten may have increased their number of wins to 2. Ohio State hung with Texas longer than I thought.

The most exciting action of the day in El Paso may have been the world record set by Villiage People and the 41,000+ fans who performed "YMCA." Sure beat the 3-0 win by Oregon State.

Finally, many northerners have long said that if any southern school had to play for the title in the colder climate, the outcome would change. Consider this, six of the last six BCS title winners have come from warmer climates and three of those have played in their home state. Perhaps talent wants to stay close to home, but when was the last time Florida, LSU, or Alabama played a regular season game at a Big 10 or Big 12 school?

Check out this link ranking the Big 10 in 2009... http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-10-big-10-football,0,3555209.story

UPSET!!!

Last night Oregon State beat the #1 team in the land, the University of Southern California Trojans. I wrote earlier USC would not be beat and would land in the title game. That dream is over. There is much football to be played, but there are too many teams that will qualify for the BCS Champsionship Game and USC's performance on national television against a 1-2 team will not be forgotten by the pollsters.

We have elminated Ohio State and USC from title talk at this time, and one more team may be eliminated as well after this weekend. #3 Georgia has more on the line as they host #8 Alabama. The Bulldogs cannot afford to be upset at home on national television if they want to keep their title hopes alive.

Oklahoma has the tendency to be tripped up at some point during the season. They have a favorable schedule hosting Kansas and Nebraska, travelling to Dallas to play Texas in the Cotton Bowl, while finishing the regular season at Oklahoma State. Watch out there. The Cowboys have tripped up the Sooners before. The favorite team from the Big 12 North to face them in a title game is Missouri. The Tigers have to go to Austin for a showdown with the Longhorns and to Lincon to meet Nebraska. They meet Kansas in Kansas City to finish the year. I predict the Tigers to lose at least once, if not twice as well as in the Big 12 title game.

Take a look to the Big Ten. The Conference is down, but two undefeated teams have a chance. Penn State has road trips to Purdue, Wisconsin and Ohio State. The Nittany Lions will go down to two of those three. Wisconsin has the meat of their schedule in front of them. The next three weeks the Badgers will travel to Ann Arbor to meet the Wolverines, then come home to play Ohio State and Penn State. Two weeks after that is another home meeting with Illinois. I believe they will win all four, but in between Penn State and Illinois is a trip to Iowa City. That is a trap game and we'll see how Bielema's Badgers will stay grounded for this boarder battle.

The SEC will have a team in the BCS Title Game. This is the best conference for college football in 2008. Florida has two tough games, LSU in the Swamp, and Georgia in Jacksonville. They are my favorite to be playing for the national title.

Tonight's upset was exciting and it sets up another weekend of great college football. However this is the last upset of week 5. Oklahoma will not be tripped up by TCU, and if Illinois beats Penn State, is that a surprise? Post your thoughts and keep it clean.

College Football Week 3

This week we'll step aside from highlighting the conference by using its logo. Instead, Brianna of the UCLA Dance Team will be our representative to distinguish that not all is UGLY from the schools on the west coast. Let's take a look at how bad the Big One, Little Nine is this week.

Beside the beating Ohio State took at the hands of perhaps the best team in the nation, USC, the Pac 10 has nothing else to be proud of after Saturday. Let's begin in the great Northwest. A week after a controversial loss to BYU, the Washington Huskies were one dog who played dead on national tv against Oklahoma. OU may be one of the top three teams in the country, but the Huskies were embarrassed. Their in-state neighbor Washington State lost 45-10 at Big 12 doormat Baylor. Cal traveled east to Maryland and lost to a team which fell a week earlier to Middle Tennessee State.

Then there were the numerous showdowns with the members of the Mountain West Conference. Arizona lost to New Mexico, Stanford lost at TCU, UNLV upset ranked Arizona State in Tempe and UCLA was blown out at BYU 59-0.

The positives of the week outside of the L.A. Colisseum? Kudos to the state of Oregon. The Ducks rallied from behind to beat Purdue in two overtimes and Oregon State took care of Hawaii in Corvallis.

USC will not be tripped up by a fellow conference school in 2008.