Category: College Football (Page 294 of 296)

The knuckleheads in Congress certainly have better things to do (we are at war), but I have to admit I’m glad they’ve decided to have hearings on the BCS system for picking the college football national champion. Calling the system “deeply flawed,” Texas Republican Joe Barton announced hearings to be held next week by his subcommittee.

Barton said he does not have legislation in mind to force a change, but said he hopes congressional hearings will spur discussion and improvements. It won’t be the first time Congress has looked at the BCS. In 2003, the Senate probed whether the system was unfairly tilted against smaller schools.

Something has to give. The current system is an improvement over the old system, enabling #1 vs.# 2 matchups like Ohio State/Miami and Texas/USC (barring an upset today) that never would have happened under the old system. Yet it has also produced fiascos like the last two seasons. An undefeated SEC champ should never be left out of the process.

There are numerous scenarios that would work. Maybe Congress can actually do some good by forcing the parties to come up with a compromise.

All the BCS apologists are happy today now that Texas and USC are left as the only two unbeaten teams in the country. If they stay unbeaten, the system will have worked for this season, just as it did in 2002 when Ohio State and Miami squared off in an epic battle for the National Championship.

Supporters of the BCS can argue that this system is much better than the pre-BCS days, when matchups like Miami/Ohio State and Texas/USC would not have taken place. But that really misses the point. Fans, players and coaches deserve a better system. Teams like Auburn last season deserved a shot at the title after going undefeated in the SEC. If Alabama had won out, they certainly would have deserved a shot. This season, teams like Miami and Ohio State have one and two losses, respectively, but does anyone doubt they would have a chance at the title if a real playoff system were in place?

I was rooting for Alabama, because another controversy might have tipped the balance in favor of a playoff system. It looks like we’ll get an incredible game between Texas and USC, but we deserve much more.

Fourth-and-nine at their own 26, less than two minutes remaining. Sixty-one yards later, USC is within field goal range, the Irish holding tightly to a 31-28 lead. A couple minutes later, after fumbling the ball out of bounds at the one on the previous play, Matt Leinart sneaks into the end zone with three seconds left on the clock.

ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski is already calling this back-and-forth contest “The Greatest Game Ever Played“:

“Wow. Even the goalposts had goose bumps. Seven seconds left. USC with the ball inside the Notre Dame 1-yard line. No timeouts remaining for the Trojans. Star running back Reggie Bush cramping up. The geeked-up sellout crowd near sideline’s edge, just waiting to storm the field.”

You gotta hand it to Charlie Weis and the Domers — they had this game in their hands, up until that sensational 61-yard pass to Dwayne Jarrett. Meanwhile, are Leinart and USC unstoppable? At this point, they may just be.

During the USC/Notre Dame game, as the camera caught a USC trainer on the sideline working on a player (on his back with legs in the air), color commentator Pat Haden had this to say:

“That’s not allowed in many parts of Utah.”

That’s a great yet totally inappropriate line. I love it.

Just about everyone has taken shots at Joe Paterno over the last several years, and frankly the criticisms were well deserved. Yet Paterno has an undefeated team and, more importantly, he’s ripping the BCS!

During a news conference Paterno called the BCS a “joke” and said that there ought to be a playoff system in college football. He’s one of the wise men of college football, and it’s great to see him give an honest assessment the ridiculous system used to select a national champion.