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A Holiday Vision

In an ideal universe, the college football schedule for this Saturday or the Saturday after that (I'm flexible) would look like this.

No. 16 Rutgers vs. No. 1 Ohio State
No. 9 Auburn vs. No. 8 Boise State
No. 12 Arkansas vs. No. 5 USC
No. 13 West Virginia vs. No. 4 LSU
No. 14 Wake Forest vs. No. 3 Michigan
No. 11 Notre Dame vs. No. 6 Louisville
No. 10 Oklahoma vs. No. 7 Wisconsin
No. 15 Virginia Tech vs. No. 2 Florida.

Those would be the seedings for the first round of the NCAA Division I-A football tournament based on the final BCS standings of the 2006 season. Take a look at those games, which are just the first rounders. Aren't they better and more intriguing matchups than those provided by the bowl system, which is every bit as fraudulent at boxing's rating and scheduling process?

And that's just the first round, which we'll dump on various minor "Your Ad Here Bowl" sites. By the quarters and semis, held at bigger bowl sites, there are fatal barroom arguments in every city in America, and Las Vegas sports books have called out the National Guard to deal with the crush of bettors. Ratings for the first championship game, held the Saturday night of Super Bowl bye week, will be the highest ever for an American sports event.

There's no segment of American life as venal as the higher education industry. That's what drives me mad about college football. Can't the powers-that-be see their already lucrative sport is sitting atop a veritable Saudi Arabia that'll gush portraits of Benjamin Franklin instead of light sweet crude?

There's one hopeful sign for plain old football fans. Fox bought the rights to all the BCS except the Rose Bowl. Rupert Murdoch has not ignored too many cash pools in his career.

posted by Michael Gee @ 9:33 AM