Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way shall we?



The Good:

We’re in a BCS Bowl – Did anyone think we’d actually wind up in one? I remember being so frustrated and depressed after the UT game that I was going to be surprised if we even sniffed the Outback. At that point in time, EVERY team on our schedule had the strength to beat us and the Florida and Auburn games loomed large. We turned a potential 6-6 season into a 10-2 one and are playing in the Sugar Bowl instead of the Music City. I hate to pull that “it’s an honor to be nominated” crap, but just the opportunity to play in the MNC was nice enough.

We are still considered one of the best teams in the country – Sure, it sucks not being in the MNC, but has anyone heard a pundit say that UGA is not a good team? We all know opinions are like a$$holes, but it still is nice to know that teams don’t want to play you. Hawai’i might, but seriously, I think they’re just excited to get off the island. Couple that with an article like this and you realize that not ALL of the media wants to hose the Dawgs, which is refreshing.



The Bad:

Being jumped like we were – I could understand maybe being jumped by LSU, VT, or Oklahoma based on the computer rankings and/or their dominant performances on the field MIGHT have made a couple of writers say “well, we guessed wrong about X Team,” but the problem I had was that we were in position as the #4 team in the country. In normal weeks, we move up to #2. However, we were told this wasn’t a normal week. So let me get this straight…are you saying the other weeks aren’t as important or that this week was just extra important? I understand it was the final week of voting, but all of a sudden saying “You know, we really didn’t mean UGA was ready to jump into the title game ultimately, we just felt they were good enough for THAT week.” The whole thing sounds fishy to me and had Nebraska ’01 and Oklahoma ’03 not happened, we’d be in the title game. In other words, it was a “face-saving” move to have us jumped.

The coaches voting LSU in – Make no mistake, I think this is media driven, but for some ungodly reason, the coaches saw that a weak-@ss LSU was a better option than a dominating OU, a back-from-the-grave VT, and a hotter-than-thou UGA/USC. It really didn’t seem like they voted on the best team as much as they did the best team from the best conference. Lee Corso actually summed it up perfectly when he said “I believe the SEC Champion will be in the MNC game” after LSU had already won. He was basically tipping his cap to his belief that it was the strongest of the strong that should fill that #2 slot. Now would UT have filled that spot had they won? No, but I believe UGA would have had they beaten LSU.



The Ugly:

The media hype around the whole thing – As soon as Pitt showed they weren’t going to go quietly into the night, the media machine started turning and everyone had something to say about it. As The Good Senator pointed out, it took Herbie and Brent M. little to no time to start declaring Ohio State and LSU the natural selections. Conference champions or not, the media should’ve had enough integrity (sorry…hold on a second while I stop laughing……ahhhhhh, better) to look at the resumes of all teams, look at their most recent victories, and then go from there. Was anyone impressed with how LSU won? I sure wasn’t. Was I impressed how OU won? Absolutely…who wasn’t???

The system in general – The BCS is built around finding a way to place the two hottest teams in college football in the title game. It doesn’t look at the body of work so much in that two-thirds of the voters could give less of a crap about the body of work. They look at #1 Did they win or lose? #2 Where were they ranked previously? #3 Who won or lost ahead of them? Past that, I think the voters rarely (if ever) look at the “body of work” until (obviously) the last week. Hence the reason why we have this dramatic reshuffling. The computers look at the body of work. That’s their job.

The lack of change – Every year there is a BCS debate. The only time there isn’t is when two teams from BCS conferences go undefeated. At that point, the BCS works (like training a monkey “works” if you give him a square peg and a table with only square holes) and no one can complain. However, corporate money negates any real change and the Rose Bowl continues to show its @ss by constantly passing over good matchups in favor of tradition. All I know is that this year the Rose cost themselves a lot of money and viewership by going traditional. They’re also the last cog in the desire for change, as they don’t want to lose the “traditional” matchup in favor of joining a “Plus One” system. Cool traditions are OK. Traditions like the Rose Bowl blow my sack.



So where do we go from here? Before I write that post, I’d like to hear your arguments. There are a lot of good ideas out there and I want to hear them. Do me a favor and don’t just say “playoff.” Explain what type of playoff you’re looking for. 16/8/4 team playoff? Do you like the current BCS system and think it worked this time around? Or do you want a “plus one” approach?

Let me know.



Until next time kids.

Be safe.

Labels: College Football, Damn It, UGA Football