Well
we've arrived football fans. The last three weeks of college football
may have been the most exciting we've ever seen. Oklahoma State ended
Baylor's national championship dream with an epic performance, then
fell flat on their face in Bedlam as time wound down making Baylor
the Big Twelve Champ. Ohio State roared for 'War Eagle', to turn
around the following week and lay an eagle sized egg in the Big Ten
Championship. Auburn provided us three of the most intriguing and
exciting games in college football history with wins over Georgia,
Alabama, and Missouri. And Jameis Winston, despite his name being
dragged through the mud in the court of public opinion, continued
doing what he's been doing in putting together a perfect season.
Today...
it stops. It's over with. In every other organized sport this
excitement leads right into a playoff or championship when interest
it as its highest. But not college football. College football does
things it's own way. It likes to be different. It's above the rest of
the class. Why build on momentum? That would be stupid. College
football says that we should all catch our breath and reflect for the
next four weeks. Sure it'll create that much more anticipation. The
talking heads will spend the next month breaking down the
championship game. But what happens in that championship game... we
have no idea. When teams have four weeks to prepare anything can
happen.
In all
other sports you want to peak at the right time. In college football
you need to peak at the right time, win the right games, schedule
properly, make sure you're in the right conference, be a popular
entity already, and then you need to be good at enjoying the holidays
and figuring out what you were doing a month earlier. It's ludicrous.
What sport ends, and then has it's finish a month later?! College
football.
I
actually don't have a major problem with the college football BCS
Bowl system. It's flawed but more often than not we end up with the
best two teams going head to head at the end. The problem is we never
get to see those same teams that played through the regular season.
This thought process of waiting weeks on end to play these games just
doesn't make sense to me. It destroys all momentum and any excitement
built up over the final weeks.
I get
that New Years Day used to be the day we had all the great games. It
was a tradition around my house to set up three to four TV's and
watch them all with far too much food available. But what
significance does January 6th have over December 21st?
The
National Championship should be no more than two weeks after the
regular season ends. It's complete insanity to make these guys sit
around for so long and wait on this game. And who this affects the
most is the fans. The bowl game and sponsors think its great because
that's four weeks of promotion, breakdown, and value for their brand.
But the fans have a short attention span. We have other things to
worry about so now it's time to focus on mid-season NBA games (hey
did you see Kobe is back today?). The excitement of the NFL playoff
race will steal our attention. And since the NFL will go right into
it's playoffs the same weekend as the BCS National Championship, some
casual fans will forget the college football national championship
game was even being played.
This is
yet another reason my “NFL” friends make a point to me that I
can't counter why the NFL is better to watch and makes more sense.
Fortunately
this is all coming to an end. Next year I believe the semifinals will
be two weeks after the season finale and the championship two weeks
later. It's not ideal, but it does allow for travel accommodations,
ticket sales, and when teams have bye weeks they get two weeks to
prepare for a game. Why not give them a bye week before the final
three games of the regular season.
But for
this year it's one more year of waiting, watching a bunch of
worthless bowl games that pit teams together who have no business
enjoying a post-season, and then hoping the best two teams in the
country are still the best two teams in the country when they've been
practicing for a month straight.
FSU
finished undefeated and #1 at the end of the season so they are the
national champs, right? No way...Auburn polished off the Tide, the #5
Missouri Tigers and ran through the SEC with only one loss. Woah
guys... let's settle down. We'll figure this all out in a month.
Enjoy the holidays.
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