Go ahead, Bowl Championship Series brass. Rest easy, BCS director Kevin Weiberg. Lounge poolside in Pasadena, Tempe and Miami. It all worked out nice and neat for you, didn’t it? Two slots for the national title game in the Rose Bowl. Two unbeaten teams.
We media types are writing about matchups between USC’s offense and Texas’ defense instead of matchups between ruling university presidents and a pack of rabid dogs. So as we give you and the presidents a one-year reprieve from criticism for your inane system, we can join you poolside and bask in the glow of some terrific BCS matchups.
Even if top-ranked USC blows out Texas as it did Oklahoma the year before and Michigan the year before that, we can still stand in awe at the first three-
time defending champion in college football history.
That is, of course, if we
have energy to stand after an Ohio State-Notre Dame showdown that could be exhausting
in its drama and sheer skill. Yeah, Notre Dame would have gotten in anyway with just its name, but isn’t the bowl season better with Notre Dame near the top again?
Don’t answer that.
The 28 bowls begin Tuesday with the New Orleans Bowl in Lafayette, La., a cruel reminder to Louisiana Tech, the nation’s only seven-win team that didn’t get a bid. Central Michigan and Bowling Green didn’t get in either, despite 6-5 records, but that’s their fault for playing in the MAC.
There’s no need to wait until Jan. 4 to answer huge questions in college football: Will Nebraska turn a downer year into an upper by beating Michigan? Will Adrian Peterson or Brady Quinn make the bigger 2006 Heisman statement? Will Colorado bother showing up, or will the Buffaloes continue playing in Space Mountain?
And why, oh, why, is there a bowl game in Detroit?
In the meantime, we’ll be poolside.
Pass the rum, Mr. Weiberg.
