Slow progress is still progress

 I see people on social media sites complaining about the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers  minor bowls against middle of the road teams and say that P.J. Fleck doesn't deserve the credit he gets after leading them to their NINTH consecutive victory.

Would you prefer that they NOT play bowl games and maybe only win two or three games a year?!?!

Yes, they've got a long way to go to get up to the national level with the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State, but do you really wanna deal with those headaches that come with being the big dogs?

I know Michigan and Ohio State have won the last two NCAA "national championships".  And the hill got MUCH steeper when Oregon and USC joined the Big Ten.

For now, I'm good with no longer being the punching bags, the laughing stocks, or the runts of the litter.  People have to give them a *LITTLE* respect, and those iotas are much greater than zero.

Can Minnesota do better?  Yes, they could.  It's gonna take time.  And I've got plenty of patience.  Gopher football season is no longer the "wait until hockey starts" transition period between the start of the school year and the puck drops at Mariucci and Ridder Arenas.  It means something now.  I'll gladly take that.

It take time to become golden.  But compared to what they were in the days before they started rowing the boat?  I'll gladly be not shit...

Row the boat, Ski-U-Mah, and Go Gophers.

You're all a bunch of Nazi, conformist cheerleaders...

I don't know how all you people can watch college football AND criticize the BCS system. Pick one or the other.

You hypocrites sicken me...

FIX IT!! DO IT!!

BCS: Bullshit "Championship" System. Broken Clusterfuck System. Bowl Catastrophe System. Get the picture?

Nearly everyone I know and listen to agrees. The system we use to determine who plays for the national championship of college football is crap.

And yes, I've complained about this before. There was USC getting snuffed in 2003 after going undefeated, but the Sugar Bowl picked one-loss Oklahoma to play LSU for the title. Playing as the Golden Gophers in Super Play Action Football on my SNES. Agreeing with ESPN's Rick Reilly that the true national champion for the 2008 season should be the University of Utah, last year's only undefeated team after it was all said and done.

"OK, Paul, let's see YOU come up with a better system..." I thought you'd never ask!!

Obvious solution: a playoff. Every other sport, at every other level in the NCAA, uses a playoff and bracket system to deliver two teams to a true national championship game. Do you know who awards the championships for Division I-A football? The Associated Press and the American Football Coaches Association. A news agency and a couple handfuls of college coaches. You know who should be deciding it? The kids on the field busting their asses to win! There is no official NCAA Division I-A champion, but there are for Divisions I-AA, II, and III.

And just think, what an honor it would be to be able to claim to be the FIRST NCAA Champion? You don't think a Michigan or Texas or USC or Florida wouldn't want that? I know I would. That'd be huge!! The recruits you would bring in, the annuls of history you'd be included in, the press, the exposure, the stardom. Who wouldn't want that?

We can still keep the BCS Standings, but let's use them in the same way college basketball uses RPI to seed the bracket. March Madness generates buzz after Selection Sunday about teams that maybe don't deserve to be in and those who should be but aren't. You'd get about the same amount of discussion after the NCAA football tourney is filled out.

"But what about the traditional bowl system? Some of those games have been around for decades! You're not going to throw away all that history, are you?" Of course not. Teams that get knocked out the playoffs can still go to bowl games.

I've got two ways the playoff can be done:

Solution A: Ten teams. Automatic bids given to the six BCS conferences. Four at-large bids based on BCS rankings. Teams seeded 1-6 get first round byes. 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9, winners play the 2 and 1 seeds, respectively. Four rounds, with a bye week between the semifinals and championship game. As teams are knocked out, they receive invites to their traditional bowls. In this situation, your bowls are Rose, Fiesta, Cotton (the next most prestigious bowl after the current BCS 4, IMO), Sugar, and Orange. The championship game rotates between those five.

For 2009, your ten teams in the playoffs would be the top 10 from the BCS standings, seeded as follows (highest to lowest): Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, TCU, Florida, Boise State, Oregon, Ohio State, Georgia Tech, and Iowa. First round is Oregon against Iowa and Ohio State versus Georgia Tech. Winners of those games face Texas and Alabama, respectively. The other two quarterfinals have Cincinnati/Boise St. and TCU/Florida.

Side note: if the BCS conferences wanted to cheat and only give the first through sixth seeds to their conference champions, Nos. 3-9 would be Oregon, Ohio St., Georgia Tech, TCU, Florida, Boise State. It'd be dirty, but I might be able to live with that.

Solution B: Sixteen teams. Automatic bids are given to ALL 11 Division I-A conference champions. Five at-large bids and overall seeding are again determined by BCS standings. The national champion game is a separate game from the rest of the bowls, but rotates between multiple locations (as is the current practice).

This year, in addition to the top ten teams in the BCS standings making the playoffs (as described above), the 16-team field would include the next top three, Virginia Tech, LSU, and Penn State, in addition to conference champions East Carolina (Conference USA), Central Michigan (MAC), and Troy (Sun Belt). Those three teams would be ranked 14-16, in some order (none were included in the top 25 in the BCS). Again, traditional bowl invites are handed out as teams are eliminated.

In both scenarios, traditional bowls are played during the bye week between the final two rounds. You also give teams from the non-BCS conferences a shot at the championship, which has been a real issue over the last 5 years with the success of teams like Boise State, Utah, TCU, and Hawai'i.

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I'd also like to propose the additional changes to college football in general:

1. The Big Ten either plays a full conference schedule or split into two divisions. Just like every other BCS conference. Currently, Big Ten teams only play eight intra-conference games a year. Either way, this would eliminate the possibility of a shared conference championship between two teams who'd go undefeated.

Yes, I am aware that the Big Ten has 11 teams, and would therefore have unbalanced divisions (6 and 5). However, the Mid-American Conference has 7 and 6 for their divisions, so it wouldn't be unprecedented. I propose a Big Ten East with Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, and Penn State and a Big Ten West with Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Northwestern. If you absolutely need a 12th team, try to get Norte Dame and put them out West.

This would also remove another pet peeve of mine caused by Big Ten football. Their football season pretty much ends the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Mostly everyone else is still playing into the first week of December (mostly just conference championship games).

2. Regular season runs from the first Saturday in September until the first Saturday in December. That last week is reserved for conference championships, or for those conferences without divisions, finishing a full conference schedule. That's 14 weeks of games, with 1-2 off weeks for each team. Playoffs start the following weekend and run through the rest of the year. Bowl games for teams that did not make the playoffs begin the same week the second round is played. Bowl games for eliminated teams do not begin until January 1st. The National Championship game is the last game of the season.

3. No bowl games for any team that does not win at least 8 games or is not a conference champion. Sorry Wyoming, Southern Miss., SMU, Marshall, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Georgia, Army/UCLA (one of them would otherwise be in the EagleBank Bowl), Bowling Green, Idaho, Air Force, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa St., Tennessee, Auburn, Florida St., South Florida, Northern Illinois, UConn, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Michigan St. You'd be staying home this year. Since it'd be an uneven 23 teams, an eight-win team would also lose a bowl bid.

That would leave you with 44 eligible teams and 22 bowls. I'd still say that's too many. Cut it down even further. If you get rid off all the eight-win teams this year, you're left with 28 teams for 14 games. I'd be fine with 15-20 bowls. But no more than 20. Ever. Get rid of the newer ones and just keep those that have been around longer.

4. No more cupcakes!! Limit each team to one (1) Division I-AA opponent per season. Sure, App. State's upset of Michigan in the Big House in 2007 was awesome, but that's not happening ever again. This would also help whittle down the number of bowl-eligible teams by making them schedule tougher opponents.

5. I strongly suggest that Notre Dame joins a conference. Sure they can stay independent, but it may help them rebuild their program to be able to win a conference championship and make the playoffs. In my opinion, the Irish have fallen from the top ranks of college football since that 1993 loss to Boston College, one week after beating Florida State in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup. They've only won two of the eleven bowl games they appeared in since then (1994 Cotton and 2008 Hawai'i). They don't have to join a conference, but I'd recommend the Big Ten or Big East.

That pretty much covers everything that I think is wrong with college football. Love it? Hate it? I'd like to hear what you think.

Until then, just turn those bowl games off and watch something else. That'll teach 'em to fix it. Maybe if we act like we don't care, they will fix it...

UN-DEE-FEET-ED!!

Rick is right.

Your true national champions for 2008? The U of U. Thirteen wins. No losses.

Give them the damn trophy already. They earned it.

Seven best football movies EVER!!

In alphabetical order:

• Jerry Maguire
  
• The Longest Yard (original version)
  
• Necessary Roughness
  
• The Program
  
• The Replacements
  
• Varsity Blues
  
• The Waterboy
  

Why I don't care anymore

Usually when I'm helping a customer at work for a prolonged period of time, they'll pop the following question on me:

"Where did you go to school at?"

And I answer. Which leads to a long-winded explanation about how I dislike my alma mater, North Dakota State University.

Two things led me to choosing to go there nearly 10 years ago:
1. Being a North Dakota resident, I got in-state tuition. Not that it was much of a discount. Maybe a couple hundred per semester.
2. This was the clincher. The Bison. My mom also went to NDSU, so I took this side in the near-daily debates in junior high about which team was better, the Bison or the Sioux (in-state rival University of North Dakota).

Unfortunately, after I gradumatated, they made many changes that I disagreed with. The forced resignation of the head of the Computer Science department and subsequent installation of a puppet leader. Turning Churchill Field into a parking lot for heavy machinery while the Memorial Union was expanded. The reorganization of ITS (which lead to the termination of a good acquaintence of mine). Announcing an addition to the Wellness Center 10 minutes after it opened. It just isn't the same school that I was excited to start at in the fall of 1999. Maybe growing up took a little shine off the apple. I could concede that.

The killer though? NDSU deciding to move to Division I athletics.

What the hell were they thinking? Did they have such a hard-on for the increased revenues that they just had to pop that cherry as soon as humanly possible?

I think the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, proved my point with his October 11th mailbag. He had gotten an e-mail from a friend, describing what a Colorado/Arizona NLCS meant. I quote, "I'm convinced that sports is all about history. If there's history, it's interesting. If not, who cares?"

This is EXACTLY why I don't care any more.

In 1999, the North Central Conference consisted of Northern Colorado, Nebraska-Omaha, South Dakota, South Dakota State, St. Cloud State, Minnesota State Mankato, Augustana, Morningside, North Dakota State, and North Dakota. A very strong conference, capable of generating two to three teams every year to seriously compete for the Division II Football Championship. And no school in that conference had generated more D-II football champions (8) than the Bison. Every year, there were three things you wanted to see as a Bison fan: undefeated season, national championship, and a win against the Sioux.

Heck, even a 1-10 season could have been considered a partial success if that one and only win would have been against UND. As I am fond of saying, "Without villians, there'd be no heroes." NDSU moving to Division I meant that there would be no more Bison/Sioux matchups for the Nickel Trophy (mostly because UND pussed out, but NDSU could have stayed D-II). After more than 100 contests, both regular season and playoffs, there'd be nothing to look forward to every fall (since NDSU could not qualify for the I-AA playoffs due to reclassification).

And North Dakota State at Minnesota IS NOT an acceptable substitute. Why? Again, the history. This week's matchup in the Twin Cities is only the second ever meeting between these two teams. The only people who truly care about the outcome of this game (that won't actually be playing it) are the gomers in North Dakota who are looking for a big upset and the national spotlight. Not going to happen. The Gophers are not on par with the Wolverines. Not now, maybe not ever. ESPN will not sit up and take notice if the Bison knock off the Gophers in the Metrodome.

And it's just not football either. The women's basketball team, which would draw more fans per night then the men's team, was a national D2 powerhouse. 5 titles in 6 years in the early-to-mid 90's. Now? You really think they have a chance against Tennessee? Connecticut? I thought so.

Other teams were on the rise too. The men's basketball was just getting their act together. Now they just have to settle for a lifetime of upsets over teams like Wisconsin and Marquette. Track and field was always strong. I think there are a few individual national champions in there. Women's soccer and men's baseball were also starting to gather steam. Now none of them will ever bring home gold.

The last real tie I had with the school was the NDSU Hockey Club. There had always been talk of starting a hockey program at NDSU. I always thought it could work. They wanted to top-down the effort. A vote to build a stadium for a team that didn't exist. Then someone realized it would have to be bottom-up effort. Start with a competitive club team. Play other club teams. Gradually build up the interest. Problem is, for some reason, people in Fargo don't care about hockey players over the age of 14 (and in some cases, 18). There's a reason one Junior team has left and another one might be on the way out. Title IX didn't help either. Appearently, you have to add both a mens team and womens team, or neither.

Unfortunately, after a couple of seasons, someone dropped the ball. I don't know what happened last year, but no one called me to help out. No one updated the web site. If you don't care, then we don't care.

So, what now? Nothing. It's over. We're through. I just don't care anymore.

Rock and a hard place

Hypothetical situation...

You're the No. 3 Division I-A Football team in the nation (sorry, I will never accept the new NCAA Football Bowl and Championship Subdivision monikers). You went 11-0 and won your conference championship. The No. 1 and 2 teams also went 11-0 and won their conferences as well. It's bowl season. Here are your options:

-- Accept the traditional bowl invitation and play the No. 2 team.
-- Accept the invitation to another equally prestigious bowl to play the No. 1 team.

You can't play both. And either way, the highest you'd move is No. 2. What the hell do you do?

Freakin' NCAA.

Why does God do such things to us?

Let's review happened with last year's BCS fiasco...

The University of Southern California Trojans defeat the Michigan Wolverines 28-14 in the Rose Bowl. In one of the fiercest rivalries in college football, Michigan beats the Ohio State University Buckeyes 35-21. In the Fiesta Bowl, Ohio State takes out the Big 12 Champion Kansas State Wildcats 35-28. Despite being routed in the Big 12 Championship Game by the Wildcats 35-7, the University of Oklahoma Sooners go to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans for the National Championship game. The Louisiana State University Tigers beats Oklahoma 21-14.

If Oklahoma had won the Sugar Bowl, it would have set up the following...

USC > Michigan > OSU > KSU > Oklahoma > LSU

...with the greater than symbol ">" showing the winner of the respective matchup (i.e. USC beat Michigan, so USC > Michigan).

USC should have went to the Sugar Bowl and played LSU, instead of Oklahoma.

This is one of the many reasons college football needs a playoff system.