You Gotta Love It
Posted December 2, 2007, 10:07 PM ET

Watching the craziest college football regular season of all time unfold, with the top two teams losing on Saturday night was awesome. Before Championship Saturday, I was coming to grips with the fact that we could be watching Missouri and West Virginia in the national title game.

It seemed like we were destined this season to have an off-beat, bizarre title game, given all the improbable upsets this year. It started with App State winning in the Big House, throw in the fact that Top 5 teams were beaten 13 times this year by unranked teams, and it seemed like Mizzou and West "By God" Virginia would be the fitting end in N'awlins.

I love college football, and I despise the Bowl Championship Series....give me a playoff, like the boys produce in Division 1-AA (or as the purists call it, "Football Championship Subdivision") and life would be perfect. Can you imagine how great a college football playoff with the big-boys would be this year? It would dwarf March Madness.

As I was sitting at home on Saturday night and watching the improbable Pittsburgh upset of West Virginia and Missouri being manhandled by Oklahoma, I couldn't help but laugh at the complete mess that is known as the BCS.

In all my years of watching football, I've never seen anything like the past few weeks in the college game. Nobody was safe, unless you were sitting at home like Ohio State and watching every team choke their guts out. After all the carnage, we're left with Ohio State and LSU...Big Ten and SEC in the national title game. Who would have thunk it?

Both teams lost late, and it looked like they had blown golden opportunities to win the national title....but this season has been wacky. As I have stated many times on radio, television and in print...the more college football I watch, the dumber I get.

Instead of Missouri and West Virginia...we now have a game that has some juice. The Buckeyes get a chance to redeem themselves from not only last year's title game, but they have a chance to erase a myth, rumor and 600-pound nightmare better known as the Southeastern Conference.

You see, the Buckeyes have some very impressive records and accomplishments in their storied program. They also have a giant "O", as in "O"hio against the SEC in postseason play. The Buckeyes are "O" for life against the SEC in bowl games. The SEC has dotted the "i" for the Buckeyes in "ass-kicked".

Eight games, eight losses. It doesn't matter if it's a national championship game against Florida, or back-to-back bowl losses to South Carolina, somewhere during the holidays in the Sunshine state. When the Buckeyes see a team from the SEC in the postseason, they are dead meat.

Buckeye fans hate it...but they don't have a leg to stand on. The only way to end the discussion and the jokes from the Southern Fried Football™ fans is to finally step up and beat 'em. There is no question that the Buckeyes have the "due-factor" against the SEC, but they will have to earn it by beating LSU in their backyard in N'awlins.

While we wait on the matchup on January 7th in the Superdome, there are other BCS matchups that left me disappointed.

The Orange Bowl has the ACC Champion Virginia Tech Hokies taking on Kansas....Huh? How in the world did the Jayhawks get invited? They played nobody with their 11-1 record...just check out their strength of schedule (109 out of 119 teams). They didn't play Oklahoma, but they did play Missouri and lost to them. How did Missouri go from being #1 to out of the BCS over the weekend? I would have loved to see a Virginia Tech matchup with West Virginia.

There is some history, some nastiness between the schools and the fans, and that game would have been a natural. Perhaps the ACC had some input to make sure there wasn't a showdown between those programs that basically cancelled their yearly gathering due to the intensity.

Instead of heading to Miami, the boys from Morgantown head to the Fiesta Bowl, to play impressive Oklahoma. Some folks believe OU should be playing in the national title....if not for a late-season loss in Lubbock, the Sooners would be in the big game. But there are a half-dozen teams that could make the same claim.

The Fiesta Bowl will be entertaining...assuming that West Virginia and Rich Rodriquez can shake off the disappointment of choking all over themselves against Pitt in the Backyard Brawl.

The Sugar Bowl has Georgia against Hawaii....the game is a mere appetizer before the main event a few days later between LSU and Ohio State. By the way, some Georgia fans will complain that they are the hottest team in America and they should have been playing the Buckeyes....that's nonsense. The Dawgs have been impressive since getting bombed in Knoxville on October 6th, but if you can't win your side of the division, much less your own conference title...then you have no business playing for the big cheese.

The Rose Bowl has Southern Cal....what else is new? The Trojans have now won their league and are playing in a BCS bowl game for the sixth straight season. The blowhards in Pasadena are so hell-bent on a Pac 10 / Big Ten game, that they invited over-matched Illinois. Ron Zook vs. Pete Carroll....what a waste. I'd rather see Illinois and the Fighting Zooks against Urban Meyer and the Gators...but let the blue-hairs in Pasadena have their traditional matchup.

There are 32 bowl games, and that's about 25 too many. There are some interesting matchups this side of the BCS. I'm curious to see what Florida does with Michigan. It's Lloyd Carr's last game, and I'm afraid if Michigan had trouble with App State and Oregon's spread offenses, they should really enjoy what Tebow and Co. can put on you.

The other Big Ten / SEC matchup has Wisconsin and Tennessee. The Vols are notorious for stinking it up in the postseason under Phil Fulmer. I'm not sure how good Wisconsin is this year, but they have been pretty consistent in the postseason - which is more than I can say for Tennessee. The Vols were sleepwalking last year, when Penn State out-coached and out-hit the Vols in the Outback....we'll see if Tennessee comes to play this year.

The ACC /SEC matchup in the Chic-Fil-A Bowl is another fascinating one...Auburn and Clemson. This might be the toughest ticket of any bowl game this side of the national title game in New Orleans. Both teams were on the fringe of huge seasons, and they both closed their respective seasons with wins over their arch-rivals. The winner of this game will have a ton of momentum heading into 2008. For Tommy Bowden, it's a chance to collect ten wins in 2007 - and with 18 starters back next season, the Tigers again have a chance to win a big game that has eluded them under his tenure.

So, in closing, we all agree that the BCS continues to suck, but there are enough interesting matchups this holiday bowl season to keep us happy....and one of these days we'll have what we really want....a true national championship playoff.