Why the NFL Rules!

This will be an awful post. Hell, just look at the picture of that water retention poster boy to the left. I have no coherent thought to express, just a few random thoughts on a College Football Bowl season that is both surprisingly exciting and amazingly depressing to this point.

We aren't even half way through the 34 bowl games scheduled for this year and I am already peeved. Oh yeah, 68 of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision's (FBS) 119 schools are playing in bowl games this year and we are only on game 11.

Remarkable.

THIS is the result of a meaningful regular season? Really?

What did BYU fans do for fun while in Las Vegas last week? What idiot thought that was a great idea? I understand that alot of this is due to conference affiliations, but shouldn't someone at the Las Vegas bowl have thought about calling Boise or El Paso and working out a trade?

I am watching the Emerald Bowl right now. Why? How the hell do I know. Not only do I not care about either team, but I am enraged that we won't even know who the better team is at the end of this game. Miami has five suspended players and might as well be playing on California's campus. Why did one of my two current man crushes suspend the players? Who cares. THE GAME DOESN'T MATTER! Miami is going to be a college football powerhouse again very soon, but we will never know based on this game.

By the way, the reason that I love Randy Shannon so much is that 1) the former players love what they are seeing in recruiting and in talent, and that means a lot; and 2) I LOVE his recruiting philosophy...no losers. He only recruits kids that have won a lot at every level. He has 6 freshmen on the roster from the 15-0 National Champion Miami Northwestern team. I am a huge fan!

Notre Dame finally won a bowl game. Yeah. Do you think another team in the country played a more important exhibition than the Irish? How could you tell? Jimmy Claussen was in that game forever. Charlie Weiss looked more scared for his job coaching that game than he has at any other point in his tenure there.

If we just let West Virginia play bowl games, they would be the best team in the country. I don't know what that is about, but if you draw WVU in a bowl, buckle up.

Are you aware that Florida State won 11 consecutive bowl games from 1985 t0 1995. Damn! Oh, and they pounded an overrated Wisconsin team today. You know, college football is so much better when all three Florida teams are relevant.

How important can bowl games really be? This is a serious question. We are lead to believe that the regular season is made more valuable by the current bowl structure and the progression to a championship is that much better. But let me ask this question...how often do you see coaches taking new jobs PRIOR to the bowl game being played? It happens all of the time! This year, Florida and USC have lost coordinators prior to their games. FLORIDA IS IN THE BCS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! I will never understand this.

So, why did I start this post? Well, because next years BCS standings will be partially driven by what happens in these 34 exhibition games. Remember, the first human polls come out before any team takes the field, and as much as people would have you believe otherwise, the human polls are the basis for the BCS. The computers calculate strength of schedule based on perceived strength of teams...from human polls.

Let's look at a couple of teams from this year's preseason top 25. Georgia was the #1 team in the country based on a bowl win over an over matched Hawaii team and a large number of returning starters. Other overrated teams included Clemson, Auburn and Missouri who all had impressive bowl showings all ended up in the preseason top 12. What can you look forward to next year? Notre Dame as a preseason top 10 team. Save us.

I already flip-flopped on the BCS didn't I? Good. I hate it even more today.