Tag Archives: BCS

Jan 10 2012

Some final thoughts on this year's BCS debacle and a possible solution to all our problems

In case you missed it, the University of Alabama defeated LSU last night, winning the BCS national championship best-of-two series by a 1-1 margin. Congrats to the Tide.

Yep, the BS BCS fails again. Which it always does. But not everyone hates it. I mean, all the corrupt people who profit from it love the system. But there are regular fans who defend it, as well. I have a friend, for instance – let’s call him Bob – who staunchly believes that a tournament to determine the D1 national football champion wouldn’t be any better than the BCS. I think he’s nuts, but he’s a very smart guy. He points to the flaws in playoff systems (for instance, for those who hated last night’s rematch, he notes that the most recent NY Giant Super Bowl win was a rematch and that the Patriots had won the first meeting). And we can sit Old Chicago with fine microbrew and argue for hours, I’m sure.  Continue reading →

Nov 8 2011

Joe must go. Today.

It’s the end of the line for JoePa. You can slice it and dice it, wring your hands and tear your hair, chastise and moralize all you like, but in the end it boils down to one word: recruiting.

Penn State has a long and distinguished history, as both a football program and as an actual, you know, university. Its athletics program has never been tainted by any sort of scandal before, and that may well be because they have not, in fact, cheated (as opposed to the method employed by so many other schools, which is to cheat but not get caught). But make no mistake, Joe Paterno’s unprecedented run as head football coach, which dates back to the early 17th century, has far less to do with integrity than it does winning. Continue reading →

Feb 1 2010

Nota Bene #102: Dancing Limbaughs

“What they really want to see is, they want you to chop your fucking arm off, hold up your arm, wave it around spewing blood, and believe me, if you did that, the crowd would go fucking ballistic. You only get four good shows like that, though. Four good shows, and then you’re just a torso and a head, trying to get one of your band mates to give you one last hurrah and chop your head off. Which they probably wouldn’t do, which would really be hell.” Who said it? Continue reading →

Dec 3 2009

Nota Bene #94: Bear Vs. Ninja

“Overture, curtain, lights Continue reading →

Nov 17 2008

The NFL's wack-ass, statistically improbable day

In case you were watching a What Not to Wear marathon on A&E and missed it, yesterday was one more weird-ass day in the NFL. Fun, but weird.

  • For the first time since 2002 there was a tie. The Bungles and Eagles slugged slogged it out for 75 minutes, and in the end neither team could quite outsuck the other.
  • Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. So the ridiculously injured Broncos, who were missing several running backs (right now I think I’m third on the depth chart at fullback) and their entire starting linebacker corps, started Spencer Larsen (who I’m not sure I’d ever heard of, and I’m a Bronco fan) at fullback and linebacker. Continue reading →
Dec 9 2007

2007 Heisman: What do they mean by "best player," anyway?

First, congratulations, Tim Tebow. You had a great year.

Now, a little context. The Heisman Trophy is allegedly awarded each year to the nation’s “most outstanding college football player.”

  • The Heisman has been awarded 73 times.
  • 27 of the recipients have been quarterbacks.
  • 41 times the winner was a running back.
  • On four occasions the winner was an end/receiver.
  • Only once has the winner been a primarily defensive player – Charles Woodson of Michigan in 1997. And it’s unlikely he’s have won if it weren’t for the fact that he was an impact kick returner who also played some on the offensive side of the ball.
  • To put this point a little differently, no player has ever won the award unless he played an offensive skill position.
  • 36 winners – almost half – hail from just 13 rich programs: Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas, Southern Cal and Wisconsin.

Continue reading →

Dec 3 2007

BCS: bungling, corrupt and stupid

Sun rises in east. Dog bites man. Mike Tyson gets arrested. Bowl Championship Series fucked again.

Any other stunning, never-saw-that-coming headlines I need to include here?

Once again the BS BCS, the NCAA’s laughable insult to the very concepts of competition and moral decency, has failed, and this time they’ve simply outdone themselves.

They finally managed to get LSU, a more than worthy contender, into the “championship” game, but the flagrant back-room conspiracy required to do so was ridiculous. Let’s examine some of the nuances of this year’s college football travesty. Continue reading →