I believe the saying goes – “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, then shame on me.”
So, what happened during the 2004-2005 college football season? I’ve scoured the Internet for hours and can’t seem to find a thing about it. I thought that USC won the national championship, but I can’t find a single statistic from the NCAA about their season, and that season is also skipped in the list of Heisman Trophy winners.
Weird!
Obviously, I am joking, but Reggie Bush’s infamous actions from that season have already left a black mark on his reputation, as well as that of the Heisman Trust, the USC football program, and the game of college football.
Fortunately, we can all put that behind us and move on with our lives, right? WRONG! Not even two months removed from the closing of the book on Reggie Bush, a new book may be opening right before our eyes in Auburn, AL.
In 2008, while at Florida, Newton was arrested for burglary, larceny, and obstruction of justice after having stolen a laptop. He then left Florida to play JuCo ball at Blinn College in Texas.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Newton may not have left Florida just because of the theft charges, but that he actually was under investigation for three separate instances of academic cheating, and was actually facing expulsion.
Just days after the cheating allegations were reported, sources came forward with accusations that Newton was involved in a pay-for-play scandal, which the sources cite as the reason Newton chose Auburn over Mississippi State.
Now, I understand that these latest charges of academic cheating and pay-for-play have not been confirmed… yet. And while I completely agree that a person is innocent until proven guilty, it is important to note that these charges have also not been proven false.
I am not advocating Cam Newton’s expulsion from college football, but the allegations levied against him are very serious, and if the Heisman Trust and the national pollsters blindly ignore these charges, they are opening themselves up for another very messy, long, drawn out scandal that could result in yet another non-season for the history books.
I am reminded of a scene from the HBO Series Band of Brothers, when a British Tank Commander is warned that he is driving right into a trap. Because he cannot technically ‘see’ the gun waiting to kill him, though, he is forbidden from taking the measures necessary to protect himself, and his men. So even though he anticipates an attack, and even though he has been warned by others that there is a gun pointed right at his head, his blind compliance with foolish rules that do not take circumstance into consideration result in his own death.
This is a situation where voters have an opportunity to prevent a possible embarrassment.
It is not about following the rules, because, if the allegations are correct, Cam Newton himself was not concerned with following the rules. The voters have an obligation to protect the integrity of the awards they have been honored with the privilege of bestowing. Knowingly and willingly granting those awards to a player or team that they have reason to believe may be ineligible is carelessly risking the integrity of the award, and cheapens the accomplishments of all those other winners who did it the right way.
Moreover, it cheapens the efforts of every other person who was ELIGIBLE for the award.
When allegations like those surrounding Cam Newton surface, there are only two ways that awards such as the Heisman or the BCS national championship, can be given WITHOUT fear of further scandal or controversy. Either postpone voting until the charges can be confirmed or denied, or allow that speculation to influence the votes cast during the process.
If the voters ignore the allegations, and continue to keep Cam Newton and his Auburn Tigers at the head of the pack while still under investigation, then shame on the voters.
Duke and Michigan State have made the Final Four… yawn!
In no way are my comments intended to diminish the impressive accomplishment that both schools have made. But let’s be honest – it is nothing new. And in this March Madness tournament, where the unprecedented has become the only precedent, there just is not any room on my wish list for programs and coaches who visit the Final Four with the same seeming regularity as my weekly trips to the grocery store.
Their counterparts, however, in the collection of 2010 NCAA Tournament Regional Champions are about to experience something altogether new.
It has been more than 50 years since the West Virginia Mountaineers last reached the Final Four with a shot to compete for the national championship, and 2010 marks the first time since the Calvin Coolidge administration that the Butler Bulldogs are in consideration for the nation’s top basketball prize. In this tournament of firsts, it only seems fitting that the championship matchup should pit two teams against each other that are competing for their first ever tournament title.
More important is the fact that both West Virginia and Butler are more deserving of the crown than Duke and Michigan State.
To begin with, neither of these teams should be a surprise as Final Four participants. Although Butler is coming out of the mid-major Horizon League Conference, they are the owners of the longest active winning streak in the country with their last loss coming at the hands of UAB BEFORE Christmas last year! Throughout the season they faced off against (and defeated) some of the top teams in the country, including victories over Ohio State and Xavier, both of whom were Sweet Sixteen teams.
As for West Virginia, the Mountaineers simply have too much talent on the floor to be stopped. In a year where much of the talent within the “usual” Big East powerhouses would be lacking (I TOLD YOU SO!), the combination of Da’Sean Butler, Devin Ebanks, and Joe Mazzulla was more than enough to carry the Big East banner deep into the 2010 tournament. Behind their seemingly re-invented head coach, Bob Huggins, this Mountaineers team has played like a team of destiny all season long.
Next, when comparing the tournament roads that each of the respective regional champions took to get to the Final Four, Butler and West Virginia have clearly faced off against the tougher competition, and both have survived intact. Butler had to take on and defeat both of the top two teams within their region (Syracuse and Kansas State) in order to continue the nation’s longest active win-streak. West Virginia was handed the task of beating the Kentucky Wildcats, a team which led the rankings as the nation’s top program for much of the 2009-2010 season (at least when Kansas wasn’t).
Compare that to Duke, who coasted into the Final Four as the beneficiaries of the weakest regional draw in the tournament, or to Michigan State, who played lesser-ranked teams in both of their Sweet Sixteen (against ninth-seeded Northern Iowa) and Elite Eight (versus sixth-seeded Tennessee) matchups.
While Butler and West Virginia were busy taking care of the so-called best teams in the country, Duke and Michigan State simply sat back and let other teams do all the hard work, while they just cleaned up the scraps.
Butler and West Virginia have already proven to be the best two teams remaining in the tournament, because they have both BEATEN the teams previously recognized as the best in the tournament. A championship game featuring these two teams would provide one of the most entertaining and dramatic tournament finals in memory.
If we have learned anything from the 2010 March Madness tournament, it is that the “establishment” needs to be shaken up a little bit. What was once considered gospel in the world of college basketball can no longer be counted on. The tried and true principles that we have assigned to the game of college hoops for years no longer seems viable, and we are now forced with redefining our criteria for recognizing the top teams in the country. It is time to see some new faces on top of the heap, and what better way to cap off this season of revolution than with a Butler-West Virginia national championship?.
What did I tell you?! The March Madness tournament this year will be a) one of the most competitive we have ever seen, and b) LOADED with upset potential.
Day One did not disappoint! Congratulations to Old Dominion, Murray State, Ohio, Washington, and St. Mary’s for pulling off very exciting (and very entertaining) upsets yesterday, and for screwing up a lot of brackets around the country!
Speaking of screw-ups, the Big East had a TERRIBLE showing yesterday. In four games during the first day of competition, the Big East was LUCKY to finish at 1-3, with Notre Dame, Marquette, and Georgetown on the losing end of MAJOR upsets while Villanova was fortunate to escape with their tournament lives in order to avoid a sweep!
Now that the alleged depth of the Big East has once again been exposed for what it really is – overblown hype from having too many teams in the conference – we can move forward and take a look at which region is shaping up to be the toughest of the tournament.
Even with the early departure of the Georgetown Hoyas at the hands of a “lowly” mid-major MAC team (in case you haven’t learned yet, I am a supporter of the mid-major programs), the toughest region of the tournament is the Midwest.
To start with, the Midwest Region features the Kansas Jayhawks, who entered the tournament as the top team in the country. That fact alone means that 15 out of the 16 teams in that region would have go through the best team in the country just make it out of the region and into the Final Four!
Beyond the strength of the top seed in this region the Midwest is stocked with some of the strongest teams in the tournament.
Sitting opposite Kansas in the bracket is the Ohio State Buckeyes, who are led by the favorite for the NCAA Player of the Year award, Evan Turner. The Buckeyes, fresh off of claiming the Big Ten championship, were among the teams being tossed around as possible one seeds for the tournament, and have been playing some of the best basketball in the country over the last two months of the season.
Traveling further down the region, the road doesn’t get any easier. Sitting in the fourth position in the region is the second place team out of the ACC – Maryland. In a year where the overall performance of the ACC has been down, Maryland has been one of the two teams within that conference that still played exceptionally well this season, even defeating Duke earlier this month.
After Maryland comes fifth-seeded Michigan State. Although the Spartans struggled against many of the highly ranked teams they faced throughout the 2010 season, they are led by arguably the greatest tournament coach of the last decade in Tom Izzo (Editor’s note: Stay tuned next week for that debate). Under Izzo’s leadership the Spartans are now entering their THIRTEENTH consecutive NCAA appearance. During that run of thirteen straight NCAA Tournament berths, Izzo has reached the Sweet Sixteen EIGHT different times, has been to the Elite Eight SIX times, has FIVE different Final Four appearances, and has been to the championship game twice (WINNING the title in 2000)! If anyone knows how to “dance” it is Izzo.
If that is not tough enough, consider that some of the double-digit seeds in this region are capable of some very impressive feats! Entering the region as the ten seed, Georgia Tech showed during the ACC Tournament that they are capable of playing with and beating many of the top teams in the nation (including a victory over the aforementioned Maryland Terrapins). Then at 14 sits the Ohio Bobcats who already have proven they will run with anybody after they SMOKED Georgetown on Thursday by a score of 97-83.
We learned yesterday that there is no such thing as a free ride in the NCAA Tournament for 2010, and in no region is that more evident than in the Midwest. From top to bottom, the strongest caliber of teams at each level are represented in this corner of the bracket, and the team that ultimately does emerge victorious from this gauntlet will have tested and proven their mettle against the very best that March Madness has to offer!
Let’s take a trip back in time to April 2, 2009, shall we?
On this date, who would you rather be – Wake Forest (seeded fourth in the NCAA Midwest Region), Utah (seeded fifth in the NCAA Midwest Region), or Penn State (seeded second in the NIT)?
When April 2, 2009 rolled around there were only six teams in all of college basketball that were still alive and competing – the national championship field had been narrowed down to the Final Four, and two teams were still alive in the NIT.
Both Wake Forest and Utah, who had been given the glory of being invited to March Madness, were sitting at home on their couches after being bumped out in the first round, while the “snubbed” Penn State team was getting ready for their NIT championship matchup against Baylor.
There is no question – I would rather be with Penn State!
I understand the excitement and drama around being selected to compete for the National Championship. If this were a debate about whether it is better to be selected for the NCAA Tournament, or instead selected for the NIT, there is no doubt that the NCAA Tournament is the clear preference. But that is not the subject of the debate today.
We are instead asking the question of which is better – NIT success or NCAA Tournament first-round failure. There will invariably be 33 losers after the first round of the NCAA Tournament games are completed, and every single one of those losers would trade places IN A HEARTBEAT with a team that was still alive in the NIT. Why? Because the NIT kids still get to play!
Let me put the question another way. Would you rather own a losing PowerBall lottery ticket, or winning $500 scratch-off ticket? With PowerBall, you had the POTENTIAL to win a better prize, but came away empty handed. With the scratch-off ticket, you may not have had the opportunity to win a prize as impressive as the PowerBall, but you actually have a real prize in your hands that is worth celebrating.
I’ll take the cash!
Penn State, who went on to win the NIT last season, had a more successful postseason than Wake Forest, Utah, and many other so-called favorites who were given the opportunity to compete for a spot in the Final Four. Does that mean the Nittany Lions were happy to have been selected for the NIT instead of March Madness? No, but only a fool would trade their NIT Championship for Utah’s first-round ouster.
When the 2009 season was completed, Penn State had a postseason championship. Wake Forest and Utah did not.
Looking ahead to the 2010 brackets, the University of Illinois serves as another example to illustrate what I am talking about. Would the Illini prefer a shot at the national championship over a shot at the NIT crown? Of course they would. However, if they go on to play deep into the NIT, they will be much happier with their postseason than are the Winthrop Eagles, who last night were defeated by Arkansas Pine-Bluff during the play-in Game of the National Tournament.
By the end of March, the two teams still vying for the NIT crown will have had a more successful postseason than MOST of the teams which played in March Madness. They will have accomplished something worthy of celebration, and would not trade that experience for a first-round loss in the national championship tournament.
The March Madness tournament exists to determine a national champion. To my knowledge, there has never been a question at the conclusion of the March Madness Tournament as to who the “real” national champion is. To the contrary, the tournament already provides a definitive process where the champion can be crowned with no question as to the team’s legitimacy.
Want proof? Take on this little Sports Debates Challenge – Try to genuinely convince just ONE person that Nicholls State SHOULD have been invited to the March Madness tournament last year, that they were LEGITIMATELY worthy of consideration as one of the best teams in the country, and that they would have beaten North Carolina in the tournament if they squared off. I’ll even get you started with a little help – Nicholls State won 20 games last year, but Wisconsin and Arizona only won 19 games each, yet both the Badgers AND the Wildcats received at-large bids.
Any luck? I didn’t think so!
The reason you cannot win that argument is because the notion that a school like Nicholls State deserved to be in the national tournament last year is absurd. Yet, Nicholls State is precisely the caliber of team that would be added to the national tournament if the pool of competitors is expanded.
Does that mean that schools like Nicholls State should automatically be excluded from the national championship tournament? Of course not! Every single one of the 347 teams that participate in NCAA Division I basketball ALREADY has an opportunity to compete for the national championship. That’s right, unlike college football, where some schools can literally play through a perfect season and STILL be excluded from consideration for a national championship opportunity, EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL from Air Force to Youngstown State (there are no schools that start with ‘Z’) in Division I college basketball has a real and legitimate opportunity to play for the national championship – win and you’re in!
Each of the 33 conferences in Division I are awarded an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament, equaling 33 invitations which are given to the schools that win conference championships. If Nicholls State won the Southland Conference Tournament last year, they WOULD have been invited to the dance.
That leaves 32 additional ‘At-Large’ invitations which are awarded to those 32 teams that did not win a conference tournament, but still performed well enough to have earned an opportunity for a ‘second chance’ at the crown.
Those 65 teams are then ranked from 1-65, and accordingly seeded into four different brackets. That means that the teams which earned a ranking from 61-65 are the ‘worst’ teams in the tournament, and are subsequently placed as the 16th seeds in their respective brackets (with the 64th and 65th ranked teams first meeting in a play-in game).
Fact: No team that has been ranked as a 16th seed has EVER won a game in the national basketball tournament!
If the “worst” teams (ranked 61 through 65) currently participating in the tournament have NEVER won a game, how could it happen with the teams ranked from 66 through 96?!
Populating that 66-96 range would be a combination of Mid-Major programs that failed to win any big games (including their own conference tournament, as well as games against Major conference members), and the last place teams of Major conferences who already had AMPLE opportunity to prove their worth against those top programs, but failed in the attempt. Those teams had their chance to prove they were worthy of consideration, and were unable to meet the task.
Their performances simply do not warrant any consideration for the tournament. Nicholls State, a Mid-Major, could not even cut it among the ranks of McNeese State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Another example is the Cincinnati Bearcats, a team that finished 2009 with a 10th place finish in the Big East thanks to an 8-10 conference record, and an 18-14 overall record. The Bearcats lost to teams such as Louisville, Pitt, Villanova, Connecticut, and Marquette, along with a loss to DePaul in the first round of the Big East Tournament. Do the Bearcats really belong in the national tournament competing AGAIN against many of those exact same teams?
The system today is fair, and it works. The schools that win their conference championships will go on to compete on the national stage along with those programs that proved throughout the rigorous regular season that they, too, are among the best in the nation. Although there will always be four or five “snubbed” schools that were also worthy of consideration, opening the floodgates to 33 additional teams in order to allow those few snubs into the tournament is not the answer.
Read the arguments from Loyal Homer and Sports Geek about which conference had the best bowl season in 2009.
I am shocked that college football is over (I miss it already)!
With the end of the college football season, though, comes the final bit of analysis to close out 2009 where we must determine which teams and which conferences had the most success during the bowl season. There were several conferences which put forth outstanding results this year, including the WAC (proving with yet another BCS victory that they can hang with the big boys), the Mountain West (4-1 overall record) and the Big East (4-2 overall), and the SEC (winning two BCS games, including a fourth consecutive national championship).
However, only one conference defied all expectations, and won ALL of its biggest games, on the biggest stages, against the toughest opponents – The Big Ten!
During the 2009-2010 bowl season, the Big Ten was one of only two conferences (along with the ACC) in which every one of its opponents came from another BCS-Conference. The Pac-10, Big XII, SEC, and Big East, contrarily, each had at least one game scheduled against a non-BCS school from the Sun-Belt or MAC, for example. In addition, four of the Big Ten matchups came against higher ranked opponents, all of whom were ranked in the top-15, and two of which were BCS games.
With all due respect to the Mountain West’s impressive bowl record of 4-1, the conference accomplished that record by playing the WAC (two games), Conference-USA (one game), and Pac-10 (two games). Its teams did not face any teams from the Big East, SEC, Big XII, Big Ten, or the ACC. Likewise, the Big East had a record of 4-2, but those games were played against Conference-USA (one game), the MAC (one game), the ACC (two games against one of the WEAKEST BCS conferences), and the SEC (two games). In addition, only two each of the Mountain West and Big East opponents were ranked among the top-25 teams in the nation.
BCS matchups also carry additional weight, because they feature the best that each conference has to offer. Winning games against unranked MAC opponents is not quite the same as winning games against ranked opponents from the SEC or Big Ten. Consequently, BCS victories carry more weight because they earn more credit for the conference.
Of the five BCS matchups, only one game was won by a conference OTHER than the SEC (Florida in the Sugar Bowl and Alabama in the National Championship) or the Big Ten (Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Iowa in the Orange Bowl). With those results it is difficult to argue that the Mountain West or Big East had the best bowl performances, despite their impressive overall bowl records, because their premier teams lost on the biggest stage against the other premier teams in college football. In fact, the Big East lost its BCS game AGAINST the SEC. Likewise, the ACC, Pac-10, and Big XII also lost BCS games.
Because the SEC and Big Ten both won two BCS bowl games, is it logical to move down the hierarchy of remaining bowl games, beginning with how each conference performed against each other, before deciding the best performance as a conference overall.
There were two bowl games which pitted the SEC against the Big Ten, and each conference won one game. However, the Big Ten victory came in the Capital One Bowl (where #13 Penn State defeated #12 LSU) while the SEC victory came in the Outback Bowl (where unranked Auburn needed overtime to squeak past unranked Northwestern, which has not won a bowl game in 60 years). In the only game between a ranked SEC team and a ranked Big Ten team, it was the Big Ten that emerged victorious.
Last, the Big Ten went 4-0 against ranked opponents in the bowl season, while the SEC went 3-2 against ranked opponents, including that loss to the Big Ten. In each of those games against ranked opposition, the Big Ten was expected to lose. Yet, in each of those games the Big Ten defied the odds and came away victorious. With a win against #15 Miami (ACC), in addition to the aforementioned victories over #12 LSU (SEC), #9 Georgia Tech (ACC), and #7 Oregon (Pac-10), the Big Ten had a perfect record against four of the best teams in the country!
The Big Ten has been much maligned of late for struggling in bowl games. Although the criticism has been warranted in previous seasons, it was not the case in 2009-2010. Instead, the Big Ten faced arguably the toughest bowl schedule in the country, walking away with not just a winning record, but an UNDEFEATED record against ranked opponents, two BCS wins, and a whole lot more respect than it had entering the bowls season.
Congratulations to the Ohio State Buckeyes, Iowa Hawkeyes, Penn State Nittany Lions, and Wisconsin Badgers for bringing victory (and restoring pride) to the best conference in college football!
Sports Geek is on the record saying he enjoys the bowl season. In fact, I believe he mentioned it in his argument on Friday. I enjoy it also. One of the many quirks of the bowl season is the fact that there is a lengthy layoff between games, especially for those teams that play after January 1. It is a big deal for the Big Ten teams, as Sports Geek pointed out in the intro, but the fact of the matter is that it is an issue a lot of teams have to deal with, regardless of the conference.
This season, with Alabama and Texas both playing on December 5th, they encounter over a month of layoff (34 days to be exact), which is a short break if you ask Ohio State fans! If you are coaching one of these teams, do you continue to bust the tails of the players throughout the layoff, or do you reward the players for a job well done by giving them some time off? I choose the latter.
Most of these guys have been busting it since late July or early August. They have been to practice nearly every day, except for a couple of days off during the scheduled off week during the season. In the process, they have made a ton of money for their respective universities (how many times have I seen in a press release in the past two weeks that the Texas Longhorn athletic department has given over $6M back to the university?) They have brought all sorts of recognition to the school. They deserve a break. After finals, the players deserve a chance to go spend some time with their families and enjoy the Holiday season with loved ones. Keep in mind that this year’s BCS championship is 13 days after Christmas! That is more than enough time to get the mind back into championship mode, especially since the guys have already spent many hours looking at film of the opposing team.
To contradict what Bleacher Fan said in his argument, let’s look at what the Florida Gators did last season. The Gators had a 33 day layoff last season between the SEC Championship and the BCS National Championship. Urban Meyer gave the players the week off following the victory over Alabama as they had finals coming up. They then had a week of light practice during the week of finals as they went over basic fundamentals. After that, they were given five days off for Christmas break, as they had an opportunity to go home to their families. This gave the coaches a breather as well, as I am sure they used this time to go do some last minute shopping for their spouses (thoughts of Urban Meyer walking through a Gainesville mall immediately come to mind)! After the break, the team reconvened and prepared for the battle with the Sooners. And guess what? The Gators won a second championship in three years. It is hard to argue with how Meyer handled the layoff.
If you are a coach, here is what you have got to be thinking: You have trusted your players to take you through the season and get you this far. You might as well trust them to handle the time off appropriately and be prepared to win the game upon their return.
Division I FBS is the only NCAA program that does not award its championship based on a playoff system, relying instead on a complicated formula of polls (with some big-school bias added in for flavoring) and computer statistics which are used to single out the two teams most “worthy” of playing for the national championship. It is an imperfect system, and it favors schools which generate revenue.
As a dedicated supporter of mid-major programs, I would love nothing more than to see a school from the MAC, WAC, or Mountain West (for example) actually represent the non-BCS world in the national championship game. I was one of the voices cheering for a ‘Huskers upset this past weekend, just because it would have opened the door for either TCU (a school from a non-BCS conference) or Cincinnati (a school from the embattled Big East) to upset the SEC/Big XII/Big Ten/Pac-10 stranglehold that has existed in college football for the past seven years.
Hating the BCS and clamoring for a playoff system are not the topics of our debate, though. Instead, my question for Sports Geek and Loyal Homer was to contemplate whether or not having five undefeated teams finish out the year and enter into BCS play was good for the BCS or not. Putting all of those anti-BCS sentiments to the side, I am awarding the debate to Sports Geek!
Sports Geek accurately described the “mission” of the BCS, keenly pointing out that it is not just about the national championship. While the BCS may facilitate a national championship game, the greater purpose of the Bowl Championship Series is to host a coalition of the five “best” bowl games of the season, with the national championship game as the centerpiece. As Sports Geek points out, each game is a “prime time game designed to draw the maximum amount of exposure.” Thanks to the presence of so many undefeated teams in the BCS, there can be no question that the best teams in the nation have earned invitations, and will be playing on college football’s grandest stages!
There does not seem to be any question regarding the validity in choosing Texas and Alabama as the two teams to compete for the championship. Even Brian Kelly, head coach of the BCS-bound Cincinnati Bearcats, has admitted that the best two teams in the nation are playing in the championship game, a fact pointed out by Loyal Homer.
At the end of the day, the BCS has done exactly what it promised, setting the stage for some potentially classic matchups. In fact, the 2009 season will mark the first time since the inception of the Bowl Alliance System in 1992 (which was the precursor to the BCS) that every one of the top-ranked teams is participating. In every season prior to this one, at least one team of higher ranking was snubbed for a lower-ranked (usually automatic) invitation. Not this season. There were ten invitations to the BCS, and the ten best teams in the country will be playing.
That’s right – the BCS worked! The (undisputed) two best teams in the country will be deservedly playing in the national championship game, and the eight teams remaining in the top 10 will square off in prime-time matchups that are each designed to do nothing more than showcase the best football programs of the 2009 season. Included in those matchups is a game between two unbeaten schools from non-BCS conferences, and a matchup that will pit the undefeated champion from the Big East Conference against the team that was recognized throughout the entire regular season as the best team in the nation (and will consequently become the swan-song of one of the best players in college football history). You could not ask for a better close to the 2009 season than that!
Like fireworks on the Fourth of July, the college football season will save its best for last. During the pre-BCS bowl season we will be treated to many entertaining and exciting matchups, but they are all meant as appetizers to the main course. Ultimately, those bowl games will build up to a Grand Finale featuring the most exciting and explosive teams of the season. And as much as I would love to see a playoff system one day, I cannot pretend to ignore the “oohs!” and “aahs!” in store for us as the ten best teams in the nation take the field in a five-game showcase of the best college football in the land!
FINALLY, we have some worthwhile football to watch this weekend. If last night’s unofficial Pac-10 Championship between Oregon and Oregon State is any indication of what is in store for us this weekend, then we are all in for a treat! With three premier games on the slate – #5 Cincinnati at #15 Pittsburgh for the Big East Championship, #3 Texas versus #22 Nebraska for the Big XII Championship, and #1 Florida versus #2 Alabama for the SEC Championship – Saturday should make for a college football lover’s dream come true!
That is, of course, unless you face a dilemma similar to Bleacher Fan’s this weekend. You see, the Bleacher Fan Clan (without soliciting any actual input from Bleacher Fan) felt that Saturday, December 5th, would be the PERFECT time to embark on an annual holiday tradition. That means that while the rest of America is settling down to enjoy some of the best college football games of the year, Bleacher Fan will be heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols. I, therefore, must choose between the three games and select the one that I most want to watch, sacrificing the other two all because the most enduring traditions of the season are best enjoyed in the warm embrace of kith and kin. Thith THTINKTH!
Fortunately, the decision is not a difficult one. Although the Big XII and Big East Championships should make for outstanding games, neither will be able to match the excitement (or impact) of the National SEC Championship Game.
Any time the top two teams in the nation play it is a game worth watching. This one, however, comes loaded with implications exceeding even those of your “normal” number one versus number two matchup. First, it is a championship game. The winner of the Florida–Alabama game will not only be named the top team in the country but also the 2009 SEC champions (a pretty good title to have when you consider that the last three SEC Champions have also gone on to become national champions).
Second, both teams are virtually GUARANTEED an invitation to the BCS, with the winner being offered the opportunity to play in the national championship game. For people who want to see a college playoff setup, this is about the closest that we can get. Two BCS-caliber teams will take the field with the winner moving along to the national championship game – I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a playoff setting to me!
There is even more at stake, specifically for the Florida Gators who are teetering on the brink of “Dynasty” status. Having already won national championships in 2006 and 2008, the Gators are very close to winning a third title in four years. Depending on the outcome of the other conference championship games, Alabama may be the last REAL opportunity for a school to prevent that from happening. When you consider that the Crimson Tide are conference rivals of the Gators, it is safe to assume that ‘Bama would love nothing more than to be the team that stopped Florida in its tracks.
Neither coach is a stranger to the BCS (Urban Meyer won national championships in 2006 and 2008, and Nick Saban earned one title while head coach of LSU in 2003), and both schools would be worthy representatives from the SEC at the title game in January. All we have to do is sit back and enjoy as these two titans battle it out on the field at the Georgia Dome this Saturday at 4pm. It’s a winner-take-all matchup between the best two teams in the country for the SEC crown and a shot at the national championship – it doesn’t get any better than this!
I hope you guys enjoyed your Thanksgiving break. I certainly did. Now I can go shop for a new pair of jeans that fit my ever enlarging waist! Food and watching football will do that to you (though I did teach my little cousins the nuances of the triple option… perhaps Georgia was eavesdropping on my lesson as the ‘Dawgs managed to stop Georgia Tech’s triple option Saturday night). After watching numerous games over the weekend and seeing highlights of several more, I have decided that the real winner of the Thanksgiving Football Feast was Texas quarterback Colt McCoy.
Coming into the weekend the Heisman race was wide open. The list of possible contenders was as long as the list of bowl games (okay, maybe not that long), including McCoy, Tim Tebow, Mark Ingram, and Toby Gerhart near the top of the list. But guys like Clemson’s C.J. Spiller had the opportunity to make big impressions with a big performance in a rivalry game. Ingram was a dud against Auburn, though his team managed to escape the Iron Bowl with a victory. Spiller returned the opening kickoff against South Carolina and did nothing else in a disappointing upset loss to South Carolina. Gerhart had a phenomenal game against Notre Dame with 205 yards rushing and three touchdowns (and also one passing). Tebow was his usual self in a victory over an overmatched Florida State. But what McCoy did against rival Texas A&M was nothing short of remarkable and it made him the clear frontrunner in the Heisman race.
All he did was rack up 479 yards of total offense, including 175 yards on the ground, totaling five touchdowns. The game against the Aggies was much tougher than most thought it would be. Rallying behind an amazing performance by quarterback Jerrod Johnson (who had 439 yards of total offense himself), the Aggies were in prime position to pull the upset in this see-saw battle. The Longhorns only led by seven at the half and the Aggies actually cut it to three a couple of times in the second half, but the Longhorns were able to respond and escape the Home of the 12th man with a victory. I was talking to a friend of mine the day after the game and he said, “Colt McCoy single-handily saved Texas’s season last night. He won the game for them.” My friend was right. If Texas lost that game, it would have all but eliminated any chance at a national title and would have thrown the national championship door wide open for teams like TCU and Cincinnati. Instead, he left College Station as the clear-cut favorite in the race for the Heisman.
McCoy still has to have a solid game this week against Nebraska in the Big 12 championship to close the deal on the Heisman, especially with Tebow playing that day as well in the SEC championship. But it is McCoy’s to lose now and he can thank his Heisman-like performance against Texas A&M for that.
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Posted by Bleacher Fan 
