The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday afternoon @ 1:30 PM lurks. Since age 12, when I drank my first Blue and Gold Kool Aid, I have had many a miserable Saturday afternoon in the late fall at this aging facility. I replaced the Kool Aid with beverages that more effectively numb the senses because winning and Coliseum are some of the scarcest words in a Bruin Football Google Search. I can deal with a 48 point beat down, I just can not stomach getting sucked into a close game, getting my hopes dashed and then having five drunken USC fraternity brothers taunt me all the way back to my car.
It is not all about me, my childhood trauma and the Bruin BBQ on Exposition Boulevard, I want West Virginia and Missouri to make it to the BCS title game. That is the game and the story I want to see written that make college sports memorable and refreshing. It is Chase Daniels at Missouri and Pat White of West Virginia Mountaineers. Teams never ranked this high, this late. Players who followed their dreams a bit further off the interstate and all of the faithful who cheer them and will never forget them. Owen Schmitt of WVA has never lost a yard rushing in his 19 collegiate games. He is 6’3” and 250. He will never run a 4.4 40 but he is smash mouth football. These are incredible stories about kids who are having legendary seasons at non-legendary schools in college football. Both quarterbacks should be in New York when the Heisman Trophy is awarded. And Owen Schmitt can be my wing man any night. That is what makes college athletics refreshing and exciting. Actually that and college coeds but that is another story on a different web site. This year is unique and I embrace it for those teams and these moments. Next year, every tradtional power is ready to re-load and cash the checks they already wrote.
NCAA Division One College Football is the only sport on the entire planet that does not have a play off to determine their champion. The reason is not because these are student athletes and University Presidents do not want to extend the season so they can study. It is not because it would upset the Bowl history. And it is not because I am wasting your moments here lobbying for a playoff. It is all about the Benjamins.
The BCS is controlled by the six biggest conferences in NCAA football. The Pac-10, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC have had two BCS Bowl Teams almost every year. The Big East and the ACC long for that double dip but they are just happy to be included in the Gravy Train. The Average pay out to each school in a BCS Conference is a minimum of $1.4 million and can be $2 million+ this year. This is every school and this is every year just for the BCS games not the Meinke Muffler Blue Bonnet Games. Those Second Tier bowls that UCLA, Oregon State and Boise State are invited to, is money on top of the big dollars. In BCS monopoly money, Stanford is making as much money as USC if USC wins the Rose Bowl. In a non-BCS conference, best case scenario it is $352,000/school if two schools become BCS eligible. That has never happened since the BCS was founded.
Why would BCS conference University Presidents want to open the doors to a play off when they already are printing money and they do not have a payroll cap?
The BCS is the brain child of the commissioner of the SEC not some neutral third party interested in determining a true champion. It is cash distribution system for the elite conferences to increase income and dispense it among their elite members so they can remain elite. It is old school economics for the old schools. It is a January Payday and the usual suspects are already in line. Next year is lining up the same way. It works for my conference but does it work for all? Ask the University of Hawaii on Monday.
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Hawaii like Bosie State last year will take it in the kester regarding the BCS. I watched the slaughter Boise State last week and from watching Colt Brennan one game this year...give him the Heisman. That too is a bunch of crap the way its awarded. More Benny's behind that one too.
The most impressive series of plays I've witnessed this year was this; Boise State punts and with the back spin on it, it's downed at the 2 yard line. Hawaii lines up in a shotgun formation with no one in the backfield but the gunslinger. Boise State calls time out. I can hear the conversation on the BS side, WTF are these guys thinking...let's sack this guy and get back in the game boys!
3 pass plays later Hawaii is celebrating another touchdown. His receivers are amazing and makes me wonder if Fred Blientikof is selling the sticky stuff on a web site somewhere...but of course it's clear now.
It’s a rough predicament that UCLA alumni are put in this time of year . . . On the one hand, it’s embedded in their DNA to hate, hate, hate all that is USC – and therefore cheer, cheer, cheer on for the “Gutty Little Bruins” to try to pull out another 13-9 Hail-Mary outta their ___’s . . . On the other hand, if the hated Trojans were to trounce the Bruins this year this could just be the Final-Straw to “Dump Dorrell” . . It’s the classic Catch-22 of short-term gratification vs. long-term vision – i.e., is it better to have a year of 13-9 to wallow in and suffer through another .500-esque Dorrell bore-fest season, or is it better to just bite the bullet and get trounced by the Hated Trojans but at least have a Ray-Of-Hope for the future hoping to catch a Howland-In-A-Bottle for the football program?
I have to concur with the Mid-West biased ramblings of reader TD this go-around . . In a season when there really is no clear-cut Heisman candidate, go ahead and give it to the statistical-crazy Colt Brennan, (although I personally think that Tebow might overcome the Sophomore ‘Thang and get the award) . .
P.S. When you think about it, the LOGICAL Heisman winner should actually be Dennis Dixon, (if part of your criteria is “most valuable”) . . . By all accounts, Dixon was one of the Heisman front-runners when he went down for the Eight-Count with his knee tweakage . . And Oregon was on pace to to be in a BCS title game . . With Dixon gone, the Ducks have quacked, quacked, quacked and drowned . . . . What better measure is there of a player’s impact? . . . (unless one was to take Clausen off the Domers – ahh, but that’s another topic altogether, huh)?
Predictions: Missouri and West Virginia win and meet in the BCS title game . . . . The Laws-Of-Karma assert themselves with a wide existential grin, and USC beats the Gutty Little Bruins by a score of 13-9 . . . (:-
Postscript: I have it from a very reliable source that Kevin Love is actually an Indigo-Child who is channeling a certain unnamed Red-Headed aging Dead-Head . . .
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