Jackson Jambalaya

LSU website And the Valley Shook took a few shots at the BCS that are right on the money. I thought it would be appropriate to post it today as today used to be my holy day of the year: Watch the minor bowls in the morning, the Rose and Fiesta in the afternoon, then the Orange and Sugar at night. Now they are completely screwed up. We have to watch each major bowl on a different night- as if most of us can take off three or four nights in a row during the week to watch football games. Then the match-ups suck: Virginia Tech v. Meechigan? Please. Arkansas would've sold the place out but noooooo.... we have a rule that prohibits the best teams from the same conference from being in the BCS if there are too many of them. Think of it as the BCS affirmative action plan, something liberals should love. Anyway, I digress. Here AVS goes:

"Conference titles used to matter. Teams used to schedule tough cross-regional games with frequency. Now, thanks to the BCS, they don't. The BCS claims to make the regular season more meaningful, but under the BCS, college football's regular season has become less meaningful. The quality of out of conference schedules have steadily declined under the BCS as teams have learned it is more important to not lose than to go out and prove your worth. The BCS has consistently rewarded teams, as it has this year, for avoiding tough games....

The biggest loser of the BCS era has arguably been the Orange Bowl, which has a litany of terrible games, thanks to its ACC tie-in. Hey, at least this game isn't Louisville v. Wake Forest again. But it's not just the matchups, it's the schedule. January 1 used to be my favorite holiday. You'd sit in front of the TV all day with your family and watch a cornucopia of college football. I'm okay with moving the title game to different day, but each BCS game? By stretching out the schedule like that, the juice has gone out of the non-title BCS games. Worse yet, it has ruined January 1st to such a point that hockey has moved in on college football's turf, and they schedule their showcase event on New Year's Day. That's right, the BCS is so stupid that it allowed college football to be outsmarted by the NHL. Let that sink in.

BCS rules prevent more than two schools from a conference going to the BCS bowls, which tied the Sugar Bowl's hands. The Sugar Bowl passed over teams ranked 6 through 9 to take a #11 vs. #13 matchup. By rule, the Sugar Bowl couldn't take Arkansas or South Carolina (or Georgia). So the Sugar Bowl reached out and picked Michigan, who didn't even make the Big Ten title game. Michigan St finished ahead of Michigan in the Big Ten and beat them head to head, and wasn't even allowed to be considered for the bowl by rule. Think about that, Michigan St was punished for having a BETTER SEASON than Michigan. Michigan demonstrated, on the field, that they were the inferior team to Michigan St, and because they missed the title game of their conference, the BCS rewarded them. The regular season, once again, didn't matter. More people would be making a stink about this if it, but this was, by far, the less objectionable selection...." Column