They're playing the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) title game tonight between THE Ohio State University (for some reason, you gotta say the "THE" when talking about Ohio State and pronounce it with the long "e".) and Florida, and save for an extra letter, a more aptly named championship game there has never been. BS, indeed. I'm watching as they rev up the hype machine on the game in their pre-game show. doing the whole storied-history-great-players-tradition-up-the-ying-yang-frenzied-crowd-annoyingly-perky-cheerleaders-of-the-male-and-female-variety-and-the-painted-faced-morons-whose-entire-vocabulary-seems-to-consist-of-"We're-Number-One!"-and-extending-one-finger-as-if-to-say-"See?-This-is-a-'one',-which-is-us...". It's all that pomp and circumstance college-y crap that only really matters if you actually went to the schools in question.
But even with all of that superficial crap, the thing that pisses me off the most about college football and the championship game in general is that, in actuality, it mean nothing. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. Hundreds of schools play an entire season and it all comes down to a vote, a bunch of fat sportswriters or a bunch of fat coaches, depending on which poll you hold dearest. It's the most ridiculous, anti-climactic event in sports, and I've seen Wrestlemania IV!
Before anyone accuses me of not understanding the college game or how the entire Rube Goldberg system of the BCS, just know that I wrote sports for a big city newspaper for about eight years. I've been to college game, I've been to the Super Bowl, I've been to a baseball All-Star game and see three of the Chicago Bulls six NBA championships. I've seen some of our greatest athletes butt nekkid, so don't tell me I don't know sports inside and out (so to speak). But this college football, ahem, championship is a load of crap. Excuse me, THE crap.
I cannot, in all of my years displaying an interest in sports, seen ONE college football season end without WEEKS of controversy. OK, there may have been one or two season where the champ went through the season in such a dominating fashion and landed atop both polls (It used to be the UPI and AP polls for the two respective news services) that no one could say squat about their not deserving the title.
But other than those blips on the radar? A lot of blah blah blahing about who had the stronger schedule, who got cheated, who got slighted because they play in a weaker conference. I mean, who the fuck needs that? Why would a fan invest their time, their effort and their SOUL into a sport whose outcome is only slightly less debated that a presidential election? What's the fucking point? You fucking VOTE for who the best team is? They don't have to run through the gauntlet and play the next best team with an undefeated record?
I mean, if the New York Yankees go undefeated for an entire season and the San Diego Padres do likewise, what sense would it make to let the St. Louis Cardinals play in the World Series just because they only lost one game but were a "stronger" team? They'd be pouring Starbucks by the gallon into the San Diego harbor in protest... or something, I dunno. No other sports winds up a season like this. Hell, even college basketball manages to whittle down a field of 62 teams to one final champion. Are they always the best team in the land? Hell no. But for that year, that tournament, they beat whomever was thrown into their path, head to head, mano y mano (or in the case of the women's tournament (wo-mano y wo-mano) with no real controversy, save for a questionable call or two. But college football? Oh, nooooo, we're SPECIAL! We're too GOOD for regular old playoffs and having a REAL champion, we like to stick our fucking finger in a fucking pie, pull out a fucking plum and name THAT as the college football champion.
Sorry if I seem anal retentive on this (and I'm NOT) but even Miss America pageants have a more accurate title selection process ("So now, between Miss Utah and Miss West Virginia, the 2007 Miss American winner is... this woman over here in the third row! Get up here, beeyotch!").
Anyway...
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