Ah Can't Stands It No Mo
>> Tuesday
I tried. I really tried. But I just don't care about the Bowl Season, much less some arbitrary "Bowl Bash" put on by Fox. Outside of the BCS National Championship Game, I really don't care who wins any of the bowls. I really don't even care if Notre Dame gets pasted tomorrow night (but it will still be fun to watch). Even watching Boise State beat Oklahoma was entertaining, but the question still nagged, "So what?" The Boise State-Oklahoma game was the only one of the BCS Bowls with any trace of meaning. At least that's what I gathered. The FOX commentators only mentioned "David vs. Goliath" and "Can Boise State win one for the little guys/prove they belong/run with the big boys?" every few minutes during the pre-game. And then they did. Boise State won a great victory for the small schools.
But what do they get for it? Money? Ha. The players won't see a dime of it. Bragging rights? I get bragging rights when I beat my friends in poker (which happens about as often as Boise State wins a BCS Bowl). What's that worth? Why does that warrant national television?
It just seems so...anticlimactic. Like someone hitting the game-winning shot at the buzzer of the NBA All-Star Game. Entertaining? Sure. Meaningful? Hell no.
College football has hit its heights in popularity in part because the regular season is so meaningful. The average teams scrap to get to 6 wins to be bowl-eligible. The good teams fight for bright lights and big-money BCS paydays. The nation's elite have to win every week, or else a shot at the National Title will likely vaporize. The whole season is to see who fills those Title Game, BCS, and Bowl slots. Once they do...who cares besides the fans of those specific teams? What's left to play for?
Conference bragging rights? Are there really conference bragging rights on the line between the ACC and the WAC? (MPC Computers Bowl) I mean, who started the argument that would necessitate some of even the more reputable second-tier bowl games?
[YCS Masterpiece Theater Setting: An olde tavern in the American Southeast, let's say just outside of Jacksonville, FL.]
(A fight breaks out between rival patrons)
Bartender: Easy thar boys, whyz youzall fightin'??!?!?
Billy Joe: Billy Ray here's cry-zie!
Billy Ray: NO! Youz the cry-zie one here Billy Joe!
Bartender: OK, what's the problem?
Billy Ray: Well Billy Joe har thinks that the third place team from the ACC could beat a team from the Big East, Big 12, or Notre Dame! The no-good-yella-bellied varmint!
Billy Joe: Billy Ray thinks that the Big East, Big 12, or Notre Dame team would win! He's lost his marbles! He lower than a snake's testicles!
Bartender: Alright, hold on. There's no way you two can settle this here contest unless you play 'em on the field. Tell you what, I'll get on the telly-phone with ma great uncle Cyrus (He's a millionaire you know) and we'll send out some invee-tations, and we'z gonna play this here game over in that swamp patch by downtown. We'll call it...the Gator Bowl!
Billy Joe: That's cray-zee talk! We'd lose a fortune. Better charge admission, and get Toyota to splurge for the naming rights.
[end scene]
And that's for one of the better non-BCS bowls. What about the lesser bowls? Are the members of the South Florida football team really going to wistfully look back, grandchildren on knee, glass of scotch in hand in front of the fire, and tell them of the glory days of 2006 when they finished 4th in the Big East, then went on to beat East Carolina in the Papajohns.com Bowl? Will they tell how they scored a spectacular touchdown to the cheers of roughly half the crowd in a half-filled stadium in Birmingham, Alabama? Not likely. Even the University likely won't profit much from the $300,000 payday that bowl brings, especially if they have to split the proceeds among the other Big East Conference members. Perhaps even including schools like YCS's own Marquette, who don't even HAVE a football team! SUCK-ERS! Free money!
Despite the glitz and prestige of Bowl Season, let's be honest with ourselves. All Bowl Season does (outside of the BCS Title Game), is to provide some after-holiday-dinner entertainment, make some corporations and investors a little bit wealthier than they were before, give the student-athletes one more game to play to either showcase their skills or get hurt, and maybe settle a few bar bets like the YCS Masterpiece Theatre scene described above. But even this could be made into a national event if all the Bowls were relatively on the same day, a veritable orgy of football, like it was when most of the bowls took place on or in the immediate vicinity of January 1.
But no. More and more meaningless bar-bet-bowls sprung up, and eventually, Bowl Games (aka College Football Christmas) became Bowl Season (aka College Football Kwanzaa), stretched out over countless days, and with little importance attached to it.
YCS readers and staff know about my support for a 16-team playoff. It comes down to the uncertainty of knockout play that makes American sports so exciting. Even the little guy (aka 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers, aka 1985 Villanova) can win it all. 2006 Boise State went undefeated. Say what you will about their strength of schedule, but Boise State just went undefeated and won't even merit any consideration for the National title.
If their basketball team did that, they'd get a second round matchup with some other juggernaut, and perhaps a certain pasting, but then Cinderella would get to dance a little longer. In Bowl Season, no dice. In the Broncos' case, Cinderella makes it to midnight, kisses fair prince, is on top of the world, only to be told, "Look, there's this other girl Jenny...and...umm...well...it's kinda getting serious...God, this was such a mistake...so....BYE!"
Sure, there will be arguments about the "tradition of the bowls," but I ask, what tradition? There are no more conference tie-ins, so Indiana farm boys don't dream about making it to sunny Pasadena, and young men on the plains of West Texas don't dream about making it to the Cotton Bowl anymore. The Bowl games have simply become neutral site venues a la the NCAA tournament already. The difference being that March Madness actually decides something after 3 weeks of play. The infrastructure is already in place with regular neutral sites with open dates in January. Just pull the trigger.
And do it quickly, because it won't be long before Billy Ray and Billy Joe start arguing over whether Tostitos Fiesta Bowl Champion Boise State could have taken a second-round matchup with Capital One Bowl Champion Wisconsin on a neutral field....well, at least sooner than it will take Oregon State's players to start showing off their "John Hancock/Wells Fargo/Vitalis/Brut Sun Bowl Champions" rings.
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14 comments:
Geez, you compliment a guy on his playoff proposal, and he hangs on to it like a man sleeping with his MP3 player in the YMCA gym.
Sport IS entertainment.
One more time: For the people not directly involved in the games, SPORT IS ENTERTAINMENT.
Sure, you have the movie-made true stories like "Miracle" and "Remember the Titans" where winning and losing mean a little bit more than winning and losing.
But tell me Mike, what are sports supposed to be to the fan other than entertainment? All a playoff system does is provide more games, with more drama, bigger potential upsets, and thus more entertainment.
I mean, does the success of the Packers really directly affect my life in any way? Hell no. But I have emotionally invested myself in the team (and many others) because I enjoy the highs and lows that cheering for a sports team brings.
There are a lot of good arguments for a college playoff. This is not one of them.
You bring up a good point, that of sport being a venue for entertainment, which I think is a topic untouched so far here on YCS, or in our dirthole apartment last year.
However, I disagree with what it sounds like is your conclusion. If sport is only entertainment, then sport is in the same vein as professional wrestling (Sorry Zuch), a Hollywood movie, or any ballet, a set of players on a stage performing. OK fine, there's no script (no matter how hard some commentators try) so I guess it would be more like an evening at the improv or karaoke night.
While sports are entertaining (and have since turned into an industry where people spend their recreational dollars), at their core, sports are different from these above examples in that they are contests to determine supremacy. This goes from the Olympics all the way down to the annual family Turkey Bowl football games. Athletes and teams square off on the field in direct competition with each other to determine who is best.
Think about it this way. Plays and movies and other "entertainment" probably wouldn't exist if nobody came to watch, but sport and competition, albeit in a vastly different form, would still exist (the turkey bowl example) even if nobody came to watch. I mean, people played football before the stadiums were built, right?
Leagues built for entertainment never took off (the NASL, the XFL, Slamball, etc.), whereas leagues that featured genuine, meaningful competition (MLB, NFL, NBA, NCAA tournament) thrived and succeeded.
With that distinction between entertainment and competition made, it appears that there is something to sport besides entertainment, and that is direct, meaningful competition.
As such, when meaningless competition comes along, no matter how entertaining it may be, on another level, any victory by a team seems hollow.
That's my complaint with Bowl Season. Bowl Season is a tournament without a bracket. Despite there being 10 teams in the Bowl Championship Series, only two will merit consideration for the championship. It would be like holding the baseball playoffs, but only the team with the best regular season record in each league could make the World Series and play for the title. What's the point of even playing the other series in that structure?
Now on your point, if the point of Bowl season is to entertain, and be a showcase for the fans (much like an All-Star Game),then I would think that having the elite teams of Cincinnati (7-5, 5th place in Big East) and Western Michigan (8-4, 3rd in MAC) play each other doesn't fit into that same vein as a "showcase of the best." With nothing significant to play for (Other than "2007 International Bowl Champions"), most College Bowl games take on the feeling of the Pro Bowl rather than the Super Bowl, as a glorified exhibition game.
The XFL just never got a fair shake.
But yeah, for once I'm with Sever. The entertainment value of sports directly draws from its connection to some meaningful reward to be gained. Hence, we generally get more entertainment out of a well-played 5-2 World Series game than a ten-inning 3-2 contest in June. (Keep in mind, I mean the entirity of the game, not just the finish.)
I know this isn't argument and just my perception, but for me, watching a bowl game does feel more like watching an All-Star game than watching a playoff game. I think sports fans truly enjoy seeing every team except one finish the season with their heads hung. College football robs us of this by putting on these sham exhibitions.
Okay, maybe my concluding point wasn't as clear as it could have been.
Sports are purely entertainment for the fans, but definitely not the players. As much as I love watching a good game of football or basketball, I would much rather be playing a competitive game than watching one. This is what seperates sports from the other entertainment venues: sports are the first form (and probably the only true form) of reality TV.
...which generally makes sports MORE ENTERTAINING TO WATCH than the other examples Mike gave.
I agree that sports, at their core, determine supremacy, but how does that translate to the fan? When the Packers whooped the Bears last week did it make Bechtel and I better than all you Bears fans? (The answer is no, we were already better than you, for so many other reasons).
I guess my overall point is that watching a sporting event, or following a professional team, is no more than entertainment. But playing on a team, at a professional, high school or backyard level, is much more than entertainment. Of course, I fully back a playoff system, because higher stakes and bigger upsets make the games more entertaining to watch.
Now, Mike, you say, "when meaningless competition comes along, no matter how entertaining it may be, on another level, any victory by a team seems hollow."
While I also would like to see Boise State play next week, in no way do I see their victory (or Wisconsin's, or TCU's, or San Jose State's) as hollow.
I agree that a playoff system would heighten the stakes, and thus make a great game like the Fiesta Bowl that much better. But ultimately, to us the fans, all professional games are essentially meangingless, other than the emotional investment we have in certain teams, and our love for competition and sport.
Whether the Chargers win the Super Bowl in a blowout, or the Giants make a miraculous run and win on a last-second hail mary, our lives will not change. But we as sports fans would much rather see the latter happen, because it's more entertaining, because we love a good story, because we love to see good guys like Tiki Barber or Jerome Bettis end their careers fairy-book style.
What most fans are looking for in sports is a real-life movie. Everyone wants to see stories like Hoosiers and We Are Marshall and Rudy, where the good guys beat the bad guys, or the good guys overcome tremendous odds. That's why figures like Bobby Knight, Allen Iverson and T.O. rub a lot of people the wrong way, because they remind us that sports are not as well-scripted as we would like them to be.
Okay, I'm going to stop rambling now. We need to all get drunk together and discuss this, because Mike's right, somehow this never came up at The Establishment.
Good discussion.
For Pat and anyone else who completely missed the point. My point wasn't that the games weren't entertaining. In fact, I recall saying that watching the games could be entertaining several times. My point is that they're an anticlimactic end to the season.
Now, in order... My suggestion for a 16-team playoff is based off the NCAA tournament model for every other team sport the NCAA sponsors. Conference champions get automatic bids (11 D-1A conferences) and 5 at-larges (which is actually a smaller percentage of at-larges than basketball). A knockout tournament works for more or less every other NCAA sport. Why not football? And don't give me "That's the way it's always been done" because that's more often than not the dumbest reason to justify anything.
Also, I think it's comparing apples to moon rocks when comparing the regular season for the NBA to the regular season for college football. They're two completely different animals. In the NBA, everyone plays each other and at the beginning of the season, all 30 teams have a chance to win the title. In college football, you're locked into your conference for most of your schedule, and the conferences don't shuffle their membership that often.
Likewise, non-conference games are booked years in advance, so the team you sign the contract with may not be the team you play a few years later. ie) Notre Dame playing a shit North Carolina team this season. when UNC was a bowl team several years ago.
That's why I can't buy the "Well they're from a weak conference" argument, because Boise State was from a shit conference, ran the table, and beat Oklahoma. And don't give me "They only won by 1 point," because a one-point victory over South Carolina didn't seem to hurt Florida's chances for getting into the title game. What do the Broncos need to do? Beat everyone by 50 every game?
Bottom line is, if you are not from a BCS conference or Notre Dame, you have no chance from the beginning of the season to get into the National Championship Game. Therefore, at the beginning of the season, only 66 teams have a shot at the title. 53 teams start the season with no chance. 45% of the teams participating have NO SHOT. Say what you will about teams from smaller conferences, but you don't know until you play on the field.
As for conference tie-ins, you missed my point again. For 50 years, the Big 10 Champion met the Pac-10 Champ in the Rose Bowl. Can you please tell me at what hotel in Pasadena this year's Big Ten Champ (Ohio State) is staying at?
And Bowl season is NOT a tournament without a bracket!!! The winner of the Ohio State - Florida game is the Champ, without question.
Come on Pat. If you're going to argue, at least pick an argument that isn't built on sand like this one. Bowl Season IS a tournament without a bracket. I'll retract that claim if you can tell me who the winners of the other 31 bowls play in the second round. Of course the BCS title game determines a champion, but what about everyone else?
The winner of the Ohio State-Florida game is the unquestioned champ IF THE BUCKEYES WIN. If Florida wins, you can bet there will be people that consider Boise State (the only undefeated team in the country) to be the champs.
There is rarely a "Champ, without question." College Football is the only major sport to ever have "Co-Champions." Lame.
Yeah, in rare form, I'm way more with Sever than with Pat or Nate.
Nate--I don't think you can separate the fans' entertainment from the competetive aspect. We don't just enjoy sports because it's fun to take in the drama of other people competing. We also project our own competetive instincts onto the action, regardless of whether we have any control over the outcome (which we don't unless you count your 1/x,000th of the crowd noise when you're watching a game live). And vice versa--the athletes' competitive and emotions project onto us, and we feel them--particularly those of the athletes we've randomly allied ourselves with.
Maybe we're saying the same thing, but I'm just not taking it in. Basically, what I'm getting from you is that the tangible differences between high-stakes competition and low-stakes competition (e.g. harder hits, guys laying out more, Adam Morrison crying) are the only things that make higher stakes more enjoyable. I think they're more entertaining simply for knowledge that the players care more, whether this manifests itself tangibly or not.
And Pat--I'm more toward your side in saying that a four-team playoff is probably more reasonable than a 16-team, which might get too inclusive and unnecessarily long. But yeah, like Mike said, the argument is that the non-BCS Championship Bowls are lame exhibitions. In fact, you're basically arguing for this point in saying that, essentially, they're less important than the regular season games. To me, that says "exhibition."
Also, what in blazes is this:
"You look at the regular season as being just a regular season. That might be true for the NBA, NFL, and especially NCAA basketball."
Why would you attatch the "especially" to NCAA basketball? I could see if you were refering to a super small conference where the conference tourney essentially makes or breaks your season. But other than that, every single regular season game is scrutinized and directly determines postseason participation and matchups.
And this:
"Otherwise you make the regular season into college basketball where Marquette, whom got pasted by some bum-fuck team from who the hell cares, a chance at being National Champs."
First, it's crazy to evaluate any team on its single worst game. Also, Are you implying that the system is more flawed on the premise that teams with one or two glaring blemishes in outlier games can still win it all? That's wacky. (And while I'm being a jerk, it's "who got pasted.")
Pat: Boise State and the earlier Utah team DID win all their games. They did everything they could possibly do, and were still not awarded with a national championship.
As for the one and two-loss teams that would play in a playoff, think about the NFL. Two points: (1) There has only been one undefeated team, but there have been many dominant teams that just had one or two bad games. (2) You have teams like the Peyton Mannings that dominate the regular season every year, but come playoff time are simply outplayed by multiple-loss teams.
Vinnie: I think we kind of are saying the same thing, because I agree the fans project their own competitive nature into the players, but I still see it as entertainment, the same way that we project our own emotions onto movie charachters.
The one thing that really seperates sports from other forms of entertainment is that no one, not even the entertainers, knows what's going to happen. The pure unpredictability of sports is what makes them so great, but in the end, I still think they're just a great form of entertainment.
Also, one final point to Pat: In order for a one or two-loss team to be crowned champions, they have to EARN it by beating the best teams in the country. You tell it like every team in the playoffs are thrown in a hat, and one of them is picked out.
Yeah, I mean, consider the NFL, a situation with vastly more parody among its top eight or twelve or sixteen or any number of teams. Granted, consistency of play (in terms of a team fulfilling its abilities in a given game or series of games) is better among NFL teams than it is among college kids. But still, what 10-6 or 9-7 teams can you remember (or look up, something I'm too lazy to do) that made or won the Super Bowl.
The Cards in MLB were a weird case this year, but keep in mind that they still had to qualify by being one of the four best teams in their league of sixteen teams of professionally-paid talent.
Pat, you're right. A 10-3 team doesn't deserve to be National Champions. However, a 10-3 team who in all likelyhood would get a crap draw and have to beat 4 of the best teams in the country at neutral sites would I think merit consideration.
Likewise as Nate and Vinnie said, if such a 10-3 team is so average and undeserving, and one of the "better teams" that would "mop the floor with them" can't beat them on a neutral site, then what does that say about the certainty of such claims? Exactly. They're claims. You can "have an argument" all you want, but no one knows for sure until they meet on the field. If championships were based on who "would win" then let's not even hold the games. Let's just measure the games by who has the biggest athletic budget, or the O-Line's cumulative weight, or some other arbitrarily picked indicator of why a team SHOULD win besides points scored on the field.
Your whole comment post here has enough mistakes and holes to drive a whole fleet of trucks through.
Like your negligence of the fact that if your example of a 10-3 team managed to win its way into the final, they would be 13-3 with an incredibly awesome strength of schedule.
Your belief that one or two-loss teams are out is de jure instead of de facto. The National Champion OFTEN has an undefeated record or one small blemish. This does not mean that a perfect record is a REQUIREMENT to be National Champion.
Like the fact that a 16-team playoff would have 15 games, not 16.
Let's just examine how fair this doctrine of "lose and you're out" or "the regular season is the playoffs" is, even to teams in big conferences.
Keeping the ratios the same, with a two-loss football team being barred from the conceptual "NCAA Football National Title Tournament" because they don't deserve a shot at the title is the same as a 5-loss NCAA basketball team not having a shot (assuming a 12 game football season and a 30 game basketball season). By this ratio, last year's NCAA tournament would have only had 8 teams compete (although Pat might be quick to discount 28-2 George Washington, 26-4 Bucknell, 30-3 Memphis, and 27-3 Gonzaga because they're from "weaker conferences" and Duke and UConn would "Mop the floor with them" and that "Only Villanova and Ohio State would have an argument to be there") Under Pat's standards on who "deserves to play" for a National Title, Last year's #3 Seed in the NCAA Tournament and eventual champion,
27-6 Florida, would have been in the NIT.
Pat, between playing a perfect season, and being a barely-.500 team in the World Series, there surely has to be SOME sort of happy, fair, medium.
And you're right. I wouldn't call myself a purist either. I'm calling for a playoff and saying that most of the bowls are largely irrelevant. That's more or less the purest example of the opposite of a purist in this case.
The playoffs for college football start in September and everyone knows that. If you want a shot for the title, win your games, its that simple.
Perhaps you'd like to explain this axiom that everyone knows to the Boise State football team?
Number of comments it took before Sever broke out the legal terms: 14
I just wanted to note that for the records.
Get ready for more come August.
You're still ducking the fact that from the beginning of the season, 45% of the teams in college football have no chance whatsoever to even make it to that game.
If the Steelers and Cardinals are examples of how often this phenomenon would occur, perhaps we should just get rid of playoffs altogether..in every sport!
I'm going to remember these lines of comments in May if a low-seeded team advances into the later rounds of the NHL playoffs, and you come on here talking about how "There's nothing better than playoff hockey," or if a huge upset goes down in the NCAA tourney and we're all talking about how exciting March Madness is.
That's the whole point of a playoff. Sometimes the lower seeds win.
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