Let the debate soon be over. Hopefully the BCS will end soon as well.
By this evening, the Commercial Bowl Series... I mean College Bowl series will be finalized by a computer, a few chimpminks, a wad of chewing gum (Big League Chew), the newly tragic friendship of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, and a patridge in a pear tree. As a result, Notre Dame will go to a major bowl (enojy that Mr. P-Duck), schools will recieve millions of dollars in money that may go to research or to athletic departments, football players (as oppossed to students) will play another game and their semester, which began in July, will end in January (as a bonus, some of those students may even have attended and passed a class), and, by the way, there will be no idea who really is the National Champion under the College Bowl Series for the 8th straight year.
Who should play in the big game? Ohio State and Michigan or Ohio State and Florida? What about Ohio State and Boise State, two undefeated teams? Ohio State and Michigan most likely are the two best teams in the country-- but there is no way to know without engaging in academic abstract theory (Maybe post-colonialism will help us think this through). Yet, according to The Washington Post, Urban Meyer-- the Coach of Florida-- believes that a major injustice would occur if Michigan played Ohio State again:
"I think that'd be unfair to Ohio State, and I think it'd be unfair to the country. Just don't believe that's the right thing to do. You're going to tell Ohio State they have to go beat the same team twice, which is extremely difficult? If that does happen, all the [university] presidents need to get together immediately and put together a playoff system. I mean like now, January or whenever, to get that done."
The response from Michigan Coach, Lloyd Carr, in The Washington Post:
"I hope that the voters will not penalize our team because we didn't play the last two weeks. I don't want to get into a campaign. That's not what's best for the game. The BCS is set in order to put the two best teams together in the championship games. We all have our views."
Again, who should play? The team who played in extra games and may be #2 in the country because everyone above them loses or the team that went into Ohio State and lost by three because of the mistakes that they made? Is this a major injustice if Florida does not play Ohio State? Is it unfair to the country? Will millions of College students refuse to read in protest if Michigan plays Ohio State again? Will we threaten the legitimacy of the conferences if Michigan, which lost their conference wins the naitonal championship? Is there any reason why division one college football does not have a playoff system; division three uses a playoff format (and, as an extra FYI-- my undergrad school is in the final four for the first time ever.) These seem to be questions only academics could decide. I am happy Lloyd Carr and Urban Meyer could enlighten us.
Since the desire for academic life will not increase at the university level, we might as well fix the college bowl series problem. Academics do not really matter with the majority of college football players-- why not have an elaborate playoff system to appease the corporate world, which in turn, would finally tell us who is number one in the country. That is what matters. Is there any reason why division one college football does not have a playoff system; division three uses a playoff format (and, as an extra FYI-- my undergrad school is in the final four for the first time ever.)
University Presidents-- listen to Urban Meyer, the football coach. You need to sit down and rethink the college football championship this week. Because, clearly, the role of the university is to determine who is and who is not the national champion. By not doing this, you are perpetuating an injustice throughout division one football. If there is no letigimacy in the college football bowl series, there is no legitimacy for the University.
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