Hometown Hero Hates Computers
They beat up on a terrible team. The computer didn't factor in that the QB hadn't started a game before!
That’s because Louisville is bad and BYU is good and TCU won at BYU and Iowa hasn’t lost and Boise State got shafted two years ago and Southern Cal has fabulous cheerleaders. Or some damned thing.
I like how he complains that it's so confusing. Hey, BYU is a better team than Louisville, so a win over BYU should count more! BYU was 6-1 coming in, while Louisville was 2-4.
Also, Iowa, Boise State and Southern Cal all have much more impressive resumes - wins over Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin (Iowa), Oregon (BSU, though their claim is weakest), Notre Dame, Cal, and Ohio State (USC) are more impressive than Cicninnati's.
It's not debatable.
The rankings account for schedule strength, conference strength, coaches voting, global warming, black helicopters and things that go bump in the night. To the BCS computers, if Florida beats Georgia in the parking lot of a Gainesville Burger King Saturday, it means less than if the Gators had done the winning out behind Weaver D’s Restaurant in Athens. Even if REM is eating there.
What? How hard is it to comprehend schedule strength? How hard is it to explain that a win on the road is a little more impressive than a win at home? How hard is it to explain conference strength?
Also, what are all those references doing here? Is this a Bill Simmons article? REM? Black helicopters? I don't get it.
The Bearcats are taking this well. Brian Kelly is absolutely rational about it. Kelly says all the right things, which for Kelly is highly unusual: We’re in the mix, he says. We have some big games coming up. Nobody’s great. Our players don’t think about it. Let’s let it play out.
Good for Brian Kelly, who is being rational about it. I like how Daugherty is surprised that Mr. Kelly is being rational. Like he expects the coach to share his hysterical, irrational perspective.
“It’s great the university is getting that recognition,’’ the coach allows. “I hope our admissions (are) up.’’
Fabulous. Let’s hear it for more applications.
What Kelly doesn’t say is, the whole deal is rigged. Not rigged in the manner of Soviet elections or nickel slots, but rigged just the same. Bloodlines matter, so Florida will win everything. Unless it’s Texas or Alabama.
Bloodlines matter and playing good opponents matter. How hard is this to understand?
The BCS is ingenious in the way it gets us all worked up about college football. Around here, it’s great we have the chance to get worked up personally. It beats planning the roadie to the Papajohn’s.com Bowl.
Sure, because Cincinnati has its best team in school history. But that doesn't mean they've ascended to the top of college football.
But America isn’t supposed to work this way. We compete. We tap gloves and come out fighting, may the best man win. My mousetrap against yours. We compete. We play off. Computing for a champion doesn’t compute.
Except that all 118 teams in FBS can't play, because a team can only play one game a week, and there aren't 118 weeks in the season. Even the top 25 can't all play! I realize this is a thinly veiled argument for a playoff, but the article doesn't mention any of the stumbling blocks to that end.
I asked Einstein about the BCS. How does it work? I ran it by Galileo, Copernicus and Kant. They had no clue. Stephen Hawking was stumped. Freud said it had something to do with my mother.
Well, I'm glad I read this.
I took my troubles down to Madame Rue. You know, the gypsy with the gold-capped tooth. What about the BCS? She gave me a Nick Saban voodoo doll and some pins. The good fans of Utah begged me to lie down in a cool place.
Well, I'm glad I read this.
“We’re coached just to do what we’re told to do on the field. It’s not a big deal’’ to the players, says Bearcats wideout D.J. Woods. Well, OK, but how come players hung around with their laptops Sunday afternoon, awaiting the new BCS rankings?
Because they want to do well? They're hopeful, even in a tough situation?
“Sunday, everybody was shocked,’’ Woods concedes. “How did that happen? I guess you have to be a big school surrounded by a big stadium.’’
I guess you have to be a school that schedules the best teams in college football instead of SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE.
Kelly argues that UC’s success is too new to make a big enough dent. The rookies have to stand on the table and sing their alma maters. You can’t just pledge the BCS frat. You have to swallow some goldfish first.
Or beat some good teams first. The comparison to a frat initiation is asinine. The team has to prove itself on the field of champions, instead of the field of patsies.
“That new person on the block has to prove (himself),’’ is Kelly’s explanation. “We keep winning, we’ll change the perceptions of what those traditional powers are. We’re in the process of putting together another great season.
“(If we) start doing that year in and year out, I think that changes everything.’’
Yes. Or, if your AD would've set up a tougher schedule five years ago, that would've given you a chance.
Maybe. But how many years? How many seasons of 10-win cred does it take a Cincinnati, or a program like it, to break the BCS glass ceiling?
More than one.
What if the Bearcats play, say, Alabama, in the Sugar Bowl, and roll the Tide the way Utah did? Then do they get a seat at the big boy table?
If they play more than one good team and beat them, then yes, they do. One win does not a champion make.
“We’ve got some games in front of us that really are going to serve us well,’’ Kelly adds. True enough, and those wins over Top 25s West Virginia and Pitt would get the Bearcats just high enough to chant “We’re Number Three!’’ if they win their BCS bowl game.
Good luck, Bearcats. But beating West Virginia and Pitt still don't prove your mettle like winning in a better conference would.
The BCS rankings have us talking, all right. Who’s listening?
Lots of people are listening. This is a terrible ending to a terrible article. The BCS has its flaws, I suppose, but this is a stupid article with a stupid premise. Shameless homerism which ignores the facts of the situation - that UC hasn't played and won against good teams, while other teams have - is embarrassing for any news writer or any newspaper.