Very exciting college football season. On balance, perhaps the best ever.
Fans of teams from coast to coast, and even Hawaii, got into the conversation of a national championship game.
LSU vs Ohio State? OK, we’ll take it if we have to. It would have been more fun to see Missouri play West Virginia for a change. Lots of points with two contrasting styles for sure. Not good for TV ratings or the old NCAA guard however.
PR Dept. at NCAA must have had lots of fun. Just sit back. Let the upsets occur. No need to try to stimulate discussion when the games and the BCS did it for themselves.
Talking heads on ESPN and other networks were confused. One week, “Well one team you don’t want to play right now is Boston College.” Ooops. Three teams who beat them didn’t mind.
Then it was, “Well you can expect LSU to run the table if they get by Florida.” Bad call. See games vs Kentucky and Arkansas.
“Cal looks like the real deal.” Yep, that’s why they went on a three game losing streak and lost six of seven.
“Forget the BCS standings, two hot teams you definitely don’t want to tangle with right now are USC and Georgia.” Yeah well what about Pitt? Didn’t they just beat the number two team in the country on # 2’s home field? Now that’s something. That’s what I call hot.
In fairness to the talking heads, they have hours and hours of programming to fill. College Game Day on ESPN is a two hour marathon that could easily be nailed down into 30 minutes without all the padding.
Speaking of padding did you see the Fox BCS Show to announce the bowl match-ups? Talk about worthless discussion to try to fill an hour of time. Anything just to sell more commercials. Terrible. At least CBS gives you a full bracket on their NCAA Basketball Tournament Show before they take a commercial break.
I understand the need for the bowl games, at least most of them. It used to be prestigious to play in a New Year’s Day Bowl. How about a New Year’s Morning Bowl? The Outback is at 11am Eastern, 10am Central or 8 am on the West Coast. The Cotton Bowl, once one of the big four bowls, is relegated to 10:30am Central-the time zones of participants Arkansas and Missouri. Better not party too hard the night before or you’ll miss the first half, perhaps the whole game.
Two of the major bowls are still on January 1. The Rose and Sugar. The Fiesta is on January 2. The Orange on January 3. Nothing on the 4th, darn.
Then comes the International on January 5 from Toronto featuring Rutgers and Ball State, huh? Make sure you tune in for that one. I’m sure Canada is a big recruiting area for both schools.
How about the GMAC Bowl on January 6th in Mobile? That dandy pits Tulsa against Bowling Green at 8pm. Ever want to see a half empty stadium? Then tune in.
Who needs a New Year’s Day, or New Year’s Morning Bowl for that matter when you can have one on January 6th? “Hey Gladys, cancel our vacation to Europe. We’re going to Mobile for the bowl game!”
Finally it all comes down to the National Championship game on Jan. 7. Then the trophy gets hoisted, spring football starts in a couple months, and we can start talking about this madness all over again.
