The MAC Makes it Official – the World is Nuts

On Friday, the Mid-American Conference did an about face on cancelling the 2020 Fall Football Season, joining the Big 10 and the Pac 12 in reneging on what was a smart decision.  On a day when the national case count was its highest in weeks, when games were being postponed because players were infected, when campuses across the country announced high-level case breakouts in fraternities and dormitories…

...someone thought it was a good idea to play football.

I love college football; it’s my favorite sport to indulge.  I have five “alma maters” I pull for weekly; schools I went to (Eastern Michigan), schools I taught at (EMU, Boise State, and Louisiana – Monroe, and schools I have no other association with other than I lived there (Michigan – I was born in Ann Arbor), and Oregon (lived in Eugene back in the 80s).  Every week my wife loses me to the Internet where I gorge on live radio broadcasts of everyone playing.  I’d indulge at the sportsbook too, if the Oregon Lottery’s Scoreboard too collegiate bets (they don’t, but that’s the least of their problems since they also have a habit of going off line on Sundays during the NFL season – don’t start me here). 

Anyway, suffice to say that when COVID became a threat to all sports, I realized that sacrifices would have to be made, and sports would go on the back burner.  Four of my five teams were in conferences that weren’t playing, and Louisiana – Monroe…isn’t going to show up on anyone’s Top 25.  I don’t get excited about the SEC, and I supposed I could find someone to root for in the Big 12 (which only has 10 members unlike the Big 10 which has…14).  And you wonder why kids today can’t do math.

Face it, especially with college sports, it’s not mandatory for the sake of the nation that young men and women go out and engage in physical feats of athletic prowess just so we fans can live through them vicariously, nor is it necessary to actually receive a college education by having sports teams.  You might have heard of Antioch College, no?  Pretty good academic institution.  No athletics.

What drives college sport is what drives pretty much everything – money.  Athletic departments and universities bemoaned the idea of going without all of that money from ticket sales, fan gear, and TV revenue.  So did ESPN, I’ll bet.  So however it happened, the decision to not play somehow was overruled by “It’ll be fine, probably” thinking and here we are.  The late-starting conferences won’t begin until the good weather has gone, and the seasons will last until it’s bowl time.  Roses in the Snow, Part Two?

It pains me to say that if the colleges won’t stick to their guns, I must stick to mine.  I supported the decision not to play.  I sighed heavily when the Big 10 went back on its word.  I kicked something, hard, when the PAC 12 and then the Mountain West and finally the MAC caved and said, “Let’s play.”

Sorry, guys – I am all out of fucks to give.  Sure, this might be the year Jim Harbaugh and his Wolverines finally beat OSU (even if I could bet on it, I wouldn’t).  Boise State was a favorite to win the Mountain West, and the Ducks of Oregon were favored in the PAC 12.  College football is athletics at its best; exciting, thrilling, fun to watch and listen to.

But not this year.  I just can’t.

Boy, I sure hope no one dies.  Oh, wait…

Playoff Sanity, Part Deux

Don't pout, Nicky - they'll let you into the playoffs no matter what.

Well, that’s inconvenient.  I wish Alabama had lost yesterday.  No, I am not a graduate of Auburn, I am not a Nick Saban hater, and I do not pronounce his last name “Satan,” nor do I think this is further justification for allowing a pedophile to win the Alabama Republican nomination for Senate last year.  It just that it would have made writing this post that much easier.

For the thrust of the post is to proclaim the need for the NCAA and the College Bowl Playoff Committee (or whatever-the-hell-it’s-called group of smug pretentious college cucks who think they understand football) to get their collective shit together and come up with a real, legit, eight or sixteen team college football playoff.  One that awards competitive spots to teams that are, y’know, actual CHAMPIONS of their leagues.

Last year I chucked (OK, guffawed) when Ohio State got blown out in the first round, courtesy of the same Clemson Tigers who ‘Bama beat.  (Full disclosure – I was born in Michigan, and ANYTIME the Buckeyes take a pounding is a good day).  OSU didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs last year for the same reason Alabama didn’t this year – they didn’t win their conference playoff.  They didn’t even PLAY in their conference playoff.  Why the hell reward mediocrity?

Oh, yeah.  Money.  Tradition.  Stupidity.

Bowl games used to be something special before there were 40 of them.  Top teams travelled to somewhere warm to put the best against the best; a reward for a great season.  Now, mediocre teams that win as many times as they lose get to go to exotic December locales like Annapolis, Detroit (inside, thankfully), New York (not inside), and…Boise?  Yeah, Boise.  I doubt Central Michigan alums made the trip to the Famous Potato Bowl this year, even though the temperature was a balmy 37°.  That’s 20 degrees warmer than last year, but I doubt many would have done this if the game was played in August.

Every other college sport has a National Championship where the winner comes from an actual tournament of participants that are not “hand-picked” by a so-called group of experts (with the help of a computer, for what that’s worth).  If you win, it’s because you beat ‘em all.  Upsets happen.  But somehow the committee feels that they only need to invite teams they feel like inviting, and they can say all they want about only taking conference champions, and then THROW THAT OUT THE WINDOW TWO YEARS IN A ROW.

I wrote about this last year when they picked Ohio State over Penn State (reminder – OSU lost the Big Ten Championship to…wait for it…Penn State).  Hell, at least then OSU played in the conference championship.  Alabama suffered a last-game defeat in the Iron Bowl to Auburn, and got bumped from the SEC Championship.  Of course, then Auburn was defeated in that championship by Georgia, a team they crushed earlier in the year 40-17.  So Georgia went on to the playoffs, and…so did the team that lost to the team they beat.  Say what?

I know Alabama has been in the last four playoffs, and they are a perennial winner.  They’ve been rewarded for those winning years by being in the playoff.  Now they’re being rewarded for when they don’t win.  Sure, they won last night because they are a quality team.  So is Ohio State.  And Penn State.  And Wisconsin.  And UCF, too.  Especially the undefeated UCF.  Let them ALL slug it out.

And the committee wonders why we complain.

When you win your conference championship, that’s supposed to be the summation of “why you play.”  When you make it “hey, win your conference, or, at least win most of your games until the end and then we’ll sneak you in because yargle bargle blah,” that just defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it?

Make it eight teams.  Make it 16.  Make it a real tournament.  It’s not like you haven’t changed crap around before.  Besides, there’s more money to be made.  You’d think that was incentive enough…

Does College Football have an Electoral College?

It sure seems like it.  Alabama, Clemson, Washington, and the Big Ten Champio…

What?  You’re not taking the Big Ten Champion?  You’re taking the other team that played in the Championship?  No, not them either?  Then who ARE you taking?

Oh, the team you always wanted, no matter how they played.  And you ranked them AHEAD of one of the other Champions.  Sure.

OK, full disclosure:  I was born and raised in a small college town in Michigan with two words in its name; one is a woman’s name and one is a word for a leafy, shady recess formed by branches.  And it rhymes with “Pam Harbor.”  So I might just have a bit of a bias against Ohio State.

But there are plenty of people who are like me, grumbling that OSU gets to play in the 2016 College Playoffs, and not THE ACTUAL BIG TEN CHAMPION PENN STATE.  See, never mentioned my Wolverines once.

The case for Ohio State is…uh…what, exactly, other than they were highly ranked almost all year long (right behind perennial #1 Alabama).  Their one lost was to…let me think…oh, yeah, THE ACTUAL BIG TEN CHAMPION PENN STATE.  Yes, it was a close game and the winning score came late in the game.

Like the Buckeyes victory two weeks ago against Michigan, a game that, had more referees been from some other state than Ohio, Michigan might have won.  And there would have been no need for the double overtime.

Michigan feels your pain, Ohio.  You lost to THE ACTUAL BIG TEN CHAMPION PENN STATE on a weird play – a blocked field goal ran back for a TD.  Michigan lost on a last-second field goal to Iowa on a cold, rainy field – had they won that game, all of this would be academic.  Had Michigan State made their two-point conversion late in the MSU-OSU game, this all wouldn’t matter.  OSU had other close calls, at Wisconsin and at home with Northwestern.

But still the ranking committee loved your “strength of schedule” (which included Bowling Green and Tulsa), and…I’m not sure what else.  SB Nation might have said it best today:

The larger takeaway asks what role conference championships might hold in the future. The Big Ten was, without question, the strongest conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Penn State was its champion, and the victor against the Big Ten representative, Ohio State.  Let’s rephrase that for added emphasis: The champion of the nation’s best league was trumped by the league’s runner-up, and defeated that same team during the regular season.

Some folks have pointed out that Penn State lost a non-conference match to rival Pitt (by three), and that the selection committee doesn’t care much for teams to have blemishes like that.  In fact, only one team has ever made the playoffs with a non-conference loss. 

Guess who?  Ohio State in 2014.

Look, there’s a reason the playoffs were created, and then expanded.  Money.  Oh, and the idea that the best teams in the country should play, rather than select some team or two teams (when the playoffs included just two teams) by some arbitrary method.

So they expanded the playoffs to four teams, and it still seems as arbitrary as ever.  It was so in 2014 when both Baylor and TCU got the snub.  It was better last year, as the selections seemed obvious, but there were some that were miffed that the 12-1 Ohio State Buckeyes didn’t get an invite.  No, really.  Like this year, OSU was tied for the Big Ten East Division, but didn’t play in the Big Ten Championship because Michigan State won their head-to-head game (stop me if you’ve heard this one before).  It didn’t help when Alabama blew out the Spartans 38-0.

I guess the committee tried to make up for that slight with this year’s pick, making OSU the first non-conference champion to make the playoffs.

And you wonder why we hate the Buckeyes so.

Personally, I hope Clemson whips their ass, and badly.  Right now OSU is actually favored by three, despite being the #3 seed to Clemson’s #2.  You don’t need to ask where my money is, do you?