After signing a contract extension through 2016 (4 years after the end of the world), TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson took an opportunity to dote on the evil empire- the BCS.

Here’s Patterson on the BCS (and imagine him holding a fistful of cash in one hand and a chili dog in the other):

Is it easier to win one game for a championship? Or to have to win four?” Patterson asked. “If you have a playoff, you practice and get on a plane and play. And if you lose, it’s over. If you go to a bowl game, you’re there seven days and the kids can enjoy a place and get rewarded.

Patterson spews part of the BCS fight song- the false notion that it’s an either/or proposition with the bowls and a championship game. To refute his noise, I’ll set the record straight:

*8-team playoff with the lower-seeded team playing at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team
*Losers of round one still go to a bowl game as a consolation prize
*4 winners move on and play in one of two National Semifinals that make use of two of the existing BCS bowls on a rotating basis. All four teams get still get the “bowl” experience with the SWAG, the pomp and circumstance, and the trim.
*Winners play in the D-I National Championship two weeks after semifinals.

What went unsaid from Coach Patterson was that he’s perfectly happy to collect a fat BCS payday for his conference with the potential of back-dooring into the national championship and he knows damn well his team, as good as it is, would be a severe longshot to make it through a playoff.

Cash and a fear of change are the cold hard reality of the BCS. As close as Patterson came to a real moment of honesty, he stopped short and cowardly hid behind the company line. I’d love to hear from TCU’s players to see if they share his same sentiments.

You’re welcome.

Swill merchant Dennis Dodd from CBSSports.com is at it again. His latest blast praises the BCS, an act that should be met by public stoning in the streets.

A principal theme of his is that simply getting the undefeated teams into BCS bowls is success for college football. I don’t know what bizzaro world Dodd lives in but that type of ignorant logic belongs nowhere near college football.

Here’s an excerpt from his ill-conceived etude in crap minor titled “For all its flaws, BCS walking the right path”:

Whoever thought we’d be turning to the BCS for clarity and hope? But here we are. The Bowl Championship Series, by dumb luck more than master plan, has worked this season. For the second time in the BCS era, it’s possible there could be five undefeated teams at the end of the season (Alabama/Florida, Texas, TCU, Boise State and Cincinnati). For the first time, all of them would be playing in BCS bowls.

Complete and utter filth. You sir Mr. Dodd are part of the problem. Read the full article here.

Stop me if you’ve heard that one before. More dissension in the BCS, this time from Texas Coach Mack Brown. In his weekly press conference Mack dropped the following:

“…I still don’t like the way it’s set up because I don’t think we should have non-BCS schools, I think it’s demeaning to those schools that are playing really well.”

Not to take his quote unfairly out of context, here’s the video clip from that conference:

I interpret his comments to mean non-BCS schools don’t belong in the BCS championship game, a sentiment I agree with. I have no problem with non-BCS schools taking two at-large spots, particularly in a year like this, but promoting the notion of keeping them out of the championship game encourages dischord which is the only way a playoff is ever going to happen.

The frequent argument by non-BCS supporters is that Boise State or TCU or Utah would perform just as well or nearly as well in BCS conferences as the front-runners. I like to flip that argument around. What is a far greater certainty is that Alabama or Florida or Texas would go undefeated against Boise State’s schedule.

Ask yourself how Alabama, Florida or Texas would do against the following teams (and assume your home turf is the same color as your home jerseys):

7-2 Oregon
1-9 Miami University
@ 6-3 Fresno State
@ 4-5 Bowling Green
5-4 UC Davis
@ 4-5 Tulsa
@ 3-6 Hawaii
1-7 San Jose State
@ 3-6 Louisiana Tech

It’s a very silly discussion when you put it in that frame of reference. Is Boise State good? Sure. Is TCU good? Sure are. Very good. To leave our college football’s championship game to the nuances of computers and poll weightings is just stupid, and the BCS powers deserve any dissent that comes their way. Thanks Mack for representin’.

You’re welcome.

Entered into evidence as exhibit 7,544 as proof that human polls in college football are suckish, I present to you the 2009 Iowa Hawkeyes.

Iowa is 4-0 and ranked 17th in the latest Coaches poll just released today. Sounds reasonable enough- after all, this is the same Iowa team that squeaked by with a one point victory over I-AA Northern Iowa in game one. That’s pretty sketchy. We can’t have a team like that in the top ten. Notice the irony that I’m actually giving the coaches credit for knowing that Iowa snuck by a I-AA team in game one, when in reality if pressed, my guess is less than 20% would know that.

It turns out though that the I-AA Northern Iowa team is actually pretty decent so far with a 3-1 record. It also turns out that Iowa State and Arizona, both teams Iowa beat, are both 3-1. In fact- every team that Iowa has beaten so far is 3-1. I’m sure the coaches know that already though so I’m not really dropping any knowledge on them.

Let’s take a look at some of the other data points just for fun- I’m sure the coaches know something I don’t.

Sagarin for example. The Sagarin rankings are a BCS component and helpful in these circumstances. Actually, that doesn’t help at all because Iowa is 5th in the Sagarin rankings. We better throw that figure out all together because his computer model is obviously flawed.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the coaches poll, shall we?

There are three schools ahead of Iowa that are from “non-BCS-automatically-qualifying-schools”- Houston, TCU and Boise State. Those teams can play some pretty serious football so no worries there. Plus- we’ve kept them down for a couple of years so they deserve a little fluffing.

There are seven teams ranked ahead of Iowa that have a loss. Georgia lost to Oklahoma State and Oklahoma State lost to Houston and all those teams are ahead of Iowa so that makes sense. If you’re high maybe.

And at #13; who’s at #13 in the coaches poll? Why, it’s Penn State. That’s odd. The very same team that undefeated Iowa just beat in State College at night, in the middle of a driving rain storm, with a white out no less. The lion roar, and the old guy, and the creamery, and Paternoville. They beat all that. Couldn’t be. There must be a reason for all of that to be four spots ahead of Iowa.

Turns out what really happened is that Iowa wasn’t ranked last week, and the coaches (or the S.I.D.’s) can’t be wrong, so they can’t take a team from outside the top 25 one week to inside the top 10 the next. That just wouldn’t be right.

Just like ranking an undefeated team behind the one-loss team it just beat at their place and behind six other one-loss teams and behind three non-BCS-automatically-qualifying-schools. Oh, that just doesn’t seem right either. How ever will we solve this dilemma?

Oh, I know. Let’s have a playoff bitches. Settle it on the field. What a novel idea.

You’re welcome.

The list of items to blog about from the Thursday AP article regarding college football’s coaches poll going covert in 2010 is vast. The change happening in 2010 is that the final Coaches’ poll will be secret- that is to say that we won’t get a chance to see the coaches’ final ballot as we do today.

The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) asked Gallup to study the poll and make recommendations about how to make it more credible and accurate. This alone provides further proof that it’s not that the powers in college football don’t care about fixing the game, it’s that they have no f-ing idea what the problems really are.

Never mind that coaches will be the first to admit that they don’t regularly watch games of teams in their own conference unless they’re playing them the following week, let alone games of other teams out of conference that are top-25 caliber. Never mind that little detail, instead, let’s hire Gallup to look at the “figures”.

I imagine a room full of old white guys and the conversation going a lil’ something like this:

Thurston: “My great great grandson tells me our poll isn’t on the up-and-up.”

Winthorp: “Here, here. Whiskey Sours for all!”

Here’s a modern day re-creation between me and a buddy of mine of that same meeting as we’re driving down the street (the car is a metaphor for college football):

Me: “Bro- the number 5 button on my car stereo presets is busted.”

Bro: (catches on fire)

By all means AFCA, go ahead and cloak the final coaches’ poll in a shroud of darkness; that oughta right the ship. Morons.

Other recommendations by Gallup include looking into reducing the poll to 10 or 15 teams plus eliminating the pre-season poll. Any amount over $1 that the AFCA paid for the study should be classified as a “financial gift” for tax purposes. What a waste of time and money.

Putting a bow on the entire ridiculous exercise was Michigan Coach Rich Rodriguez. When asked about the change, Rich Rod responded:

“By keeping things confidential, I think there will be less hidden agendas.”

First of all RR- it’s fewer hidden agendas, not less hidden agendas. Secondly, by keeping the votes confidential it increases the chances for hidden agendas, not decreases it.

All of this is precisely why nothing gets fixed in college football and why I’m half a step from declaring my allegiance for the NFL- free agency, primadonna players, useless pre-season games, sucky overtime rules all be damned.

You’re welcome.

Cash and Flowers (aka “the San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl”)
Boise State vs. TCU / San Diego, CA / December 23rd, 8pm / ESPN

There isn’t a lot to look forward to in terms of college football prior to January 1, but this is a good game to watch. Boise State is undefeated; TCU has two losses- one to Oklahoma and one to undefeated Utah. Boise State is 12th in scoring offense and 3rd in scoring defense; TCU is 20th in scoring offense and 2nd in scoring defense. It’s the #1 team in the WAC vs. the #2 team in the Mountain West. TCU’s favored by 2.5 and I like them to win.

The Free Trip to Hawaii for a Team That Doesn’t Deserve to go to Hawaii Bowl (aka “the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl”)
Notre Dame vs. Hawaii / Honolulu / December 24th, 8pm / ESPN

Gut check time I suppose for Notre Dame. A win provides some degree of momentum to next year; a loss provides further momentum to the “fire Charlie Weis”-ers. Hawaii put up a pretty good fight against Cincinnati in their final game of the season (lost 29-24), but otherwise has been a pretty big disappointment. Notre Dame is the 4th of the 6-6 teams and is favored by 1 over Hawaii in what amounts to a home game for the Rainbow Warriors.

More installments to follow…

Anti-playoff hacks whine about preserving the sanctity of the bowls. Precious time-honored bowls like the “MajicJack St. Petersburg Bowl” or the “Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl” for which as late as Wednesday, reports indicated a grand total of 24 tickets had been sold between the two schools participating.

As has been tradition here, we bring you very little useful information for most of the games that don’t matter, and loads of analysis on the later games that do matter. Our aim here is to provide the who, what, and where and perhaps a glimmer of promise as to why you might want to watch.

Without further ado…

The T.A.R.P. Bowl, Pt. 1 (aka the “Eaglebank Bowl”)
Navy vs. Wake Forest / Washington, D.C. / December 20th, 11 am / ESPN

There’s not much compelling here other than it’s the first bowl game, it’s a re-match (Navy won the first meeting), the wishbone is both old and new, and I’m hoping that the ACC goes down in flames to create a diversion away from the Big Ten. Wake Forest is favored by 3.

The New Mexico Bowl (aka the “New Mexico Bowl”)
Fresno State vs. Colorado State / Albuquerque, NM / December 20th, 2:30 pm / ESPN

I can’t think of one good reason to watch this game, other than to get another good look at Pat Hill’s mustache, which is spectacular. This is the first of six games featuring 6-6 teams. Whoopeeeeee! Fresno State is favored by 3.

The Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl, only played in St. Petersburg, and sponsored by Magicjack.com Bowl (aka the “Magicjack St. Petersburg Bowl”)
South Florida vs. Memphis / St. Petersburg, FL / December 20th, 4:30 pm / The Deuce

I love a good home game that doubles as a bowl game. The rule for the inaugural St. Petersburg Bowl states “When either (USF or Central Florida) finishes out of the top three or four in its league, St. Petersburg would be a potential bowl destination.” Well, whaddya know, South Florida meets such requirements this year. South Florida matches up against the second of the 6-6 teams, this one being Conference USA rep Memphis. South Florida is favored by 13.

The Tuitama Redemption Bowl (aka the “Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl”)
BYU vs. Arizona / Las Vegas, NV / December 20th, 8:00 pm / ESPN

The first bowl that merits watching provides another Mountain West vs. Pac-10 matchup. BYU is a very solid team and has beaten both Washington and UCLA this year. They’ll try for a third Pac-10 win, this time over disappointing Arizona. It’s one last chance for Arizona QB Willie Tuitama to redeem what could have been a banner season for the Wildcats. Tuitama has 15 touchdowns vs. 3 interceptions in the Wildcats’ seven wins. In their five losses, he’s got a ratio of 6 touchdowns against 5 interceptions. He’ll need the former and not the latter in order to beat BYU. Arizona is favored by 3.

The Third Time’s the Charm Bowl (aka the “R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl”)
Troy vs. Southern Miss / New Orleans, LA / December 21st, 8:15 pm / ESPN

The Troy Trojans are 0-2 in Louisiana this year with losses to LSU and Louisiana-Monroe. They’ll take a third shot at Louisiana’s surrogate team, Southern Miss. Southern Miss is the third of the 6-6 teams. That’s about all that’s worth mentioning. Troy is favored by 4 points.

More installments to follow…

Meet the face of the enemy- Oklahoma University President David Boren. One of the many university presidents standing in opposition to a playoff in college football. Boren was quoted today in an AP report spouting off incoherently about this and that. And like many other university presidents before him, he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

Among the many things that Boren said was this gem:

“First of all, I’d say we didn’t determine the rules, the rules were determined before I became president of the university, before Bob Stoops became our coach, before the current commissioner of the Big 12 became the commissioner. The rules were all set up before, so you live by the rules.”

Congratulations Oklahoma- I’m sure that’s the type of un-progressive thinking you want running your flagship university. And quite a work ethic he’s displaying- secondarily admitting that the system is screwed up but that he’s just not that motivated to fix it.

He continued…

“I think we are an academic institution, and you have to weigh the disruption of the academic program and you also have to be fair to other sports,” he said. “Football dominates for so long, for so many weeks, it really also takes away from the emphasis on other sports.”

Glad to know he’s got the moron president talking points. Funny, I didn’t hear anything about the “disruption of the academic program” when an additional game was added to the regular season. And regarding football taking away from other sports- lets get something straight- football pays for most of the other sports. Without football, the other sports are barely intramural. According to Oklahoma’s own athletic budget, football generates 70% of the revenue while only creating 30% of the expense.

To add insult to his mis-speaking, he said:

“The polls and computers are always going to lead to disputed outcomes,” he said. “You can argue all these things from different points of view.”

Which is precisely why we need a playoff Mr. Boren. Because polls and computers will always lead to disputed outcomes. And that is the most damning of all- he recites the root cause of why the current system fails and he doesn’t even realize it. And to he and all his like-minded peers- thanks for continuing to line your pockets and mar the greatest sport on the planet.

Should Ohio State get a BCS nod when bowls are announced Sunday, and it looks like they will, their likely opponent as of today would be Texas. That in and of itself presents significant challenges but also has larger ramifications on the Big Ten as a whole.

For Ohio State, the national reputation is somewhere between Paris Hilton and Paula Abdul these days (you decide which is worse). With consecutive losses in the national championship game and a high profile loss to USC this year, the Buckeyes need some redemption in their bowl game to repair their rep. Incidentally, it’s funny how reputations work- Oklahoma has lost consecutive Fiesta Bowls and four of their last five bowl games and yet they still walk on water. But I digress…

There are a few teams Ohio State doesn’t want to play in a bowl game, and Texas is one of them. Texas has a Heisman-caliber quarterback, veteran line and wide receivers, run-stopping defense, and a secondary that’s questionable but won’t be tested. Add to that the outside shot for Texas to get the AP national championship and that’s a recipe for another unhappy Columbus winter.

Worse than that are the potential implications for the entire Big Ten. Ohio State into the BCS moves each Big Ten team up a bowl and that doesn’t look like it’s going to end well. Obviously subject to change but for your consideration are the Big Ten bowl pairings with Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.

By my estimation the Big Ten will likely go 0-5 with 2 “push” games. That means 2-5 or 3-4 is best case scenario; it could be as bad as 0-7. Even the most ardent Big Ten supporter would have to agree that the conference would be underdogs according to Vegas in most of those matchups.

Now consider what would happen if Ohio State didn’t make the BCS and instead played Georgia in the Citrus Bowl (Capital One Bowl):

In this scenario I think the Big Ten would be looking at 1-3 with 3 pushes. I know that doesn’t sound great, but I’m looking for baby steps here. That at least leaves the possibility of a 4-3 or dare I say 5 wins and 2 losses.

I also like a potential matchup with Georgia much better than Texas. Ohio State tends to match up much better with one-back teams vs. teams with multiple backs. Knowshon Moreno is obviously one hell of a running back, but he was held under a hundred yards five times this season and I think Ohio State could get close to that. Ohio State has a very good secondary which should be able to hold up to the pressure of Matthew Stafford and the talented Georgia Wide Receivers (namely MoMass and A.J. Green). Georgia also hasn’t gotten a lot of pressure on opposing quarterbacks this year, which plays into Ohio State’s favor since the O-line needs all the help they can get.

The games will be announced this Sunday so time will tell. The Fiesta Bowl knows Ohio State fans travel very well, as good as any other team in the nation, and at the end of it all, college football is about money. I don’t think it would be too bad though for the Buckeyes to get one more snub this year and take a chance on a little lower profile game- for the good of their psyche and the good of the conference.

You’re welcome.

In a system as systematically flawed as the BCS, a fair outcome isn’t possible, but the computers finally put a bullet into Mack Brown and the Texas Longhorns. It wasn’t unassisted, as the coaches’ poll had Oklahoma ahead of Texas also; that in combination with the margin in the computers put the Sooners into Big XII Championship game and, assuming they beat Missouri, into the National Championship. Texas…..not so much.

Perhaps Mack Brown shouldn’t have shelved the starters with 12:22 left in the 4th quarter up 42-3 on Texas A&M. Maybe 60+ on the helpless Aggies would have improved the coaches’ opinions of Texas. Instead, despite Texas beating Oklahoma head-to-head on a neutral field by 10 points, the computers, enough Harris voters, and coaches felt compelled or mathematically driven to put the Sooners ahead.

The implications reach further than just the Big XII title game. It’s a foregone conclusion that the national championship game will feature the Big XII champ and the SEC champ. So by exclusion in the Big XII title game, Texas is likely out of the national title picture as well, despite beating both teams that are playing in the Big XII championship game.

Regarding the rest of the BCS, wouldn’t it be poetic if, upon beating Alabama, Florida still wasn’t able to jump Texas in the BCS. Right now Florida stands 4th in the BCS, and a pretty healthy margin behind #3 Texas. They’re a consensus 4th in both human polls and 6th in the computers. It’s expected that should they be 1st in both human polls and perhaps 4th or 5th in the computers, Florida would be #2.

Assuming Florida does beat Alabama and Oklahoma beats Missouri Saturday, here’s the mess we’ll be left with: Florida, Alabama, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Penn State and USC all with one loss. Plus Utah, Boise State and Ball State sitting as undefeated mid-majors. If plucking two teams out of that quagmire helps you sleep at night- good for you. But a whole bunch of teams are getting screwed next Sunday when the bowl pairings are officially announced.

Here’s a video that’s comically appropriate for the mess we’re forced to be in thanks to the money-driven university Presidents:

You’re welcome.

If you think you know which two teams are the best in the Big XII South, let alone the country, you’re a liar. With Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech, there are now three teams in the south that are 10-1 and 6-1 in conference. See if you can make sense out of this:

October 11: Texas beats Oklahoma at a neutral site by 10
October 24: Texas beats Oklahoma State by 4 in Austin
November 1: Texas Tech beats Texas by 6 in Lubbock
November 8: Texas Tech beats Oklahoma State by 36 in Lubbock
November 22: Oklahoma beats Texas Tech by 44 in Norman
November 29: Oklahoma will play Oklahoma State in Stillwater

And that’s all just in the freaking Big XII South. If you put a gun to my head and said “pick the best two teams in the South”, I’d change my shorts and say “Texas and Oklahoma”.

If you forced me to pick the best team in the Big XII South, I’d say “do you mean best team right now, or best body of work? Shall I consider all 2008 historical implications and data available or shall I use the oft ‘who’s hottest right now’ because that would lead to two different conclusions, and since Texas didn’t play this weekend, they can’t possibly be that hot, I mean they were chilling in their dorm rooms watching a team they beat destroy a team they lost to….

I hate the BCS. Down with the BCS and the politically corrupt University Presidents who force it down our throats.

One thing for sure is that one of these three teams isn’t going to go BCS bowling. Now, the stated mission of the BCS isn’t to get the best teams to play each other in bowl games, but even with full acknowledgment of that, it doesn’t feel right that one of these guys will be replaced by Cincinnati or Virginia Tech.

And that only scratches the surface. Between Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Florida, USC, Alabama, Penn State, and a non-BCS flavor of the year, would you bet with complete certainty your entire government bailout check on one of them to win a tournament? I would- it’s free money anyways, but still, would be a hard exercise.

Dear Mr. President Elect,

Red Renee.

You’re welcome.