New Year's Day in America is typically reserved for three things: hangovers, local government reorganizations, and college football bowl games. All three traditions are deeply ingrained in our society, though the first two have fallen somewhat out of fashion, at least in terms of public esteem - getting shitfaced and voting no longer being haute rigeur, even if both continue on in somewhat furtive fashion. College bowl season, however, is still something we are (somewhat) happily force-fed by an unholy union of sports media with little else in the way of meaningful holiday season content, corporate conglomerates that have staked millions in sponsorship lucre on the value of being associated with some good ole Mom-and-Apple Pie Americana, and the NCAA, whose member schools rake in mega bucks from the 30+ "bowls" played between the Poinsettia on Dec. 20 and the BCS Championship on Jan. 7.
Oh yes, though bowl games might traditionally be associated with Jan. 1, relatively few are actually played on New Year's - a handful of stalwarts known by their sponsor-less names: the (AT&T) Cotton, the (Allstate) Sugar, the (Konica Minolta) Gator, the Rose (tastefully presented by Citi). The Outback and the Capital One Bowls have altogether surrendered any pretensions to being anything more than 3 and 1/2 hour commercials for their title sponsors. Five more bowl games remain yet to be played: three Bowl Championship Series-affiliated games (the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the FedEx Orange Bowl, and the Allstate BCS National Championship Game) and two less illustrious match-ups (the Rutgers-infused, tellingly-sponsor-less International Bowl, and the GMAC Bowl). The remainder of the games were already pumpkins by the time midnight struck on the 31st, a hodgepodge of "championships" that presented us with such stellar contests as 6-6 Alabama vs. 6-6 Colorado (the PetroSun Independence Bowl), 6-6 Nevada vs. 8-4 New Mexico (the...New Mexico Bowl), and 7-5 Georgia Tech vs. 8-4 Fresno State (the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl). Basically, if you were .500 and had a fanbase that was at all ambulatory (and could conceivably get worked up over the Cowpat Tulip Bowl title), you were going bowling.
As for the quote-unquote "real" games, yesterday's action gave you three duds and one pretty decent game, provided that you cared one lick about whether or not Lloyd Carr could end Michigan's bowl-skid against a marquee opponents, the Florida Gators. He did, with embattled UM QB Chad Henne outplaying Heisman-winning counterpart Tim Tebow to spirit the Wolverines to a 41-35 victory in the Capital One Bowl. (I'm excluding the Gator Bowl, in which Texas Tech racked up 17 points in the final four minutes, including a last-second field goal, to come from behind to clip Virginia 31-28, because no one who didn't go to either school could conceivably give a good goddamn about it.)
The Rose Bowl, grand old dame of the bowl scene, elected to persevere with her traditional Pac 10 vs. Big Ten match-up, precluding the possibility of an interesting game, like Georgia vs. USC. Since Big Ten champ Ohio State was already spoken for by the BCS title game, the Rose Bowl settled for runner-up Illinois, who had turned things around with a not-exactly-imagination grabbing 9-3 season. USC promptly set about torching the waaaay overmatched Illini 49-17. thus insuring that America could switch over to the Honeymooners marathon at half-time, guilt-free.
The day's other BCS-affiliated game was another laugh-gasm, with the Georgia Bulldogs emphatically deflowering Hawaii's perfect season with a 41-10 beatdown in the Sugar Bowl. Last year, Boise State, another WAC (Western Athletic Conference) team, pulled off a massive upset of Big 12 superpower Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, prompting murmurs that perhaps the big conference-"mid-major" conference divide had finally been bridged. Hawaii, emerging from said WAC undefeated and with a circus-style offense led by Heisman candidate Colt Brennan, had entertained national title game aspirations (not unreasonably, as virtually every "qualified" team in the nation has slipped on two or three banana peels this season); in the end though, they looked happy to be staying in New Orleans, getting free iPods and watches or whatever swag Allstate coughed up, and playing on New Year's in a nationally-televised honest-to-God BCS game. Georgia, not merely happy to be in the Sugar Bowl, and not eager to be this year's Oklahoma, took Brennan and Hawaii into the alley and mugged the Rainbow Warriors, thus preserving the SEC's self-image as the only real superpower conference in college football.
Finally, an old standby, the un-BCS affiliated Cotton Bowl: Missouri vs. Arkansas. The Cotton presented an interesting match-up: Missouri was at one point the no. 1 team in the land, yakking away a shot at the national title by losing to Oklahoma a second time in the Big Twelve championship a mere week after dethroning undefeated Kansas (the Jayhawks inexplicably got a BCS invite to the Orange Bowl out of the whole deal); Arkansas defeated BCS title game participant LSU in the final game of the regular season in a stunning-OT upset (LSU benefited from Missouri's subsequent defeat, as well as West Virginia's brain-fart at home against a hapless Pitt squad). Missouri was arguably the more aggrieved party of the two, and played like it, hammering Arkansas 38-7. Undoubtedly this performance will hold them in good stead with the AP voters, whose poll is unaffiliated with the BCS system; the BCS having produced a turkey of a title game this year (LSU with two losses, and a one-loss Ohio State team from a weak Big Ten) leaves an opening for the AP to split the crown, as they did in '04 by anointing USC over BCS champ LSU.
Indeed, a number of teams will be hoping for the AP to play spoiler: along with Missouri, USC and Georgia have credible pretensions to the number 1 ranking; USC and Missouri if LSU wins, and Georgia if Ohio State proves victorious. Indeed, there are a riot of scenarios, dependent upon the outcomes of the remaining two BCS games (Oklahoma vs. West Virginia tonight in the Fiesta, and Kansas vs. Virginia Tech tomorrow in the Orange) and the circumstances/margin of victory in the BCS title game, that could justify a number 1 vote for a plethora of one and two loss teams: the aforementioned USC, Missouri, and Georgia joined by Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Kansas could all make reasonable cases, given favorable circumstances. Certainly, a definitive smack down by either LSU or Ohio State would give either team an almost-insuperable edge with all but the most intransigent AP voters. Yet a "blooper bowl" scenario (dud game, sloppy play, low score) could sufficiently scramble the picture to produce co-champions and controversy.
So, among the things we've learned:
- It's time for a playoff system: there's no reason the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly 1-A) can't follow the template of the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly 1-AA) and adopt an seeded tournament. An eight or sixteen team field could be created, and the bowl framework could be co-opted: the more games played, the more lucrative sponsorship opportunities, and the greater opportunity for mid and low-tier bowls to move up a notch in relevance. Frankly, though purists and traditionalists argue that bowl culture and the attendant rah-rah pomp and circumstance is a central part of major college football, it's hard to see the rational behind such soulless abominations...er, celebrations of spirit and competition as the Chick-Fil-A Bowl or the Brut Sun Bowl; if anything, the existence of the One-Bowl-to-Rule-Them-All BCS championship game obviates all the other games, including those with reasonably storied traditions. A playoff could preserve and expand upon their relevance (and worth). The three remaining counterarguments to a playoff also ring hollow: academics-wise, big-time football programs boast horrific graduation rates already; big football schools have rabid followings that will gladly turn up in force to see one or two additional meaningful games per year; time-wise, the NCAA Men's Baskeball Tournament takes place over the course of a month - there's no reason a football tournament couldn't occur within the same time frame. All in all, I imagine a playoff system will eventually be implemented with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, only to take on a "why didn't we think of this before?" cast as the cash rolls in and the problems predicted by doomsayers fail to materialize.
- Fox Sports is ill-equipped to broadcast BCS games. The network presently holds the contract to show the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls, plus the BCS National Championship game (the Rose Bowl is currently under contract with ABC); to my knowledge, it broadcasts no other college football games during the year save the Cotton Bowl. This disconnect manifests itself in Fox's production values, which seem cobbled together from its ongoing experiences as a chief broadcasting partner of the NFL and Major League Baseball. The leaden, Bruckheimer-esque flourishes might be fitting for professional gladiatorial competition, but they create a sepulcherial atmosphere around college football, bleaching out any semblance of an amateur spirit or campus vibe. Rather than show actual real-life marching bands, cheerleaders, or fans, Fox opens with a computer animation of creepily doll-like blank faced facsimiles shambling towards an Albert Speer-influenced set of arches, hoping to claim some hideous bauble that, I suppose, passes for a trophy (one wonders if this is not intended as a subtly incisive critique of America's institutions of higher education - just replace the tchochke with a mid-five figure salary and a condominium). Contrast this with ESPN's Game Day, which, though in and of itself is also a soulless corporate money-sucking enterprise, at least plays its role in the farce that is college athletics with aplomb, visiting campuses, highlighting genuine student-fans, and donning absurd mascot gear. ESPN understands that atmosphere and sentiment are what separates college football from just being the NFL's farm system; Fox dispenses with that illusion entirely, conducting a show with all the charm of a paid-programming gambling tips hot-line infomercial.
- On a related note, how ridiculous was that Colt Brennan apologia segment? Set to the strains of some overblown instrumental pomp undoubtedly lifted straight from the Armageddon soundtrack (I half-expected Colt to don a space helmet halfway through), the piece consisted of the UH quarterback pacing around some pictureseque Hawaiian rain forest, while in voice-over performing a half-assed act of contrition over a 2004 incident when, while enrolled at Colorado, he allegedly broke into a female student's room, exposing himself and fondling her; Brennan eventually pleaded guilty to burglary and trespassing, with a conviction for unlawful sexual contact vacated for lack of evidence. Of course, the mea culpa was conducted in the most ambiguous terms - I had to look on Wikipedia to find out what he actually did. Such patent insincerity begs the question of why Fox felt the need to do the featurette in the first place; I guess a) they had time they needed to fill in order to justify the extravagance of a 45 minute pregame for the basically meaningless Sugar Bowl, and b) a prior sexual assault rap passes for a "challenge" to be "overcome" nowadays. Anyway, Georgia's defense spent most of the game breaking through Brennan's offensive line and assaulting him, so justice was, in a sense, served.
- Boise State's miraculous victory last year notwithstanding, a tangible gulf between the BCS conferences (the Big East, Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big Twelve, and Pac-10) and the non-BCS conferences remains. Hawaii went 12-0 in the regular season playing in the WAC, besting along the way Louisiana Tech, San Jose State, Fresno State, the aforementioned Boise State, hanging on 35-28 in a big non-conference finale against the Washington Huskies. Upon encountering an actual upper echelon team, Hawaii became smudge on Georgia's windshield. In a way, the BCS was done both a disservice and a huge favor by the Rose Bowl. Sure, as I mentioned, the USC-Georgia pairing would have been a better game, but Illinois-Hawaii would also have worked out as well, giving both those feel-good teams a fair crack at a BCS win. The downside would have been that, if Hawaii won, and the BCS title game turned out to be a dog, a fair amount of controversy could have erupted over whether or not the nation's only undefeated team, sitting at 13-0 after winning a BCS bowl, deserved to be considered a true no. 1. Hawaii, having turned out to be a dog against the Dawgs, expertly defused that potential cherry bomb.
