BCS craziness

Three things I ran across.

BCS Tickets Available, But Prices May Bowl You Over

Hundreds of tickets remain available through online brokers for the Bowl Championship Series title game in Miami, with prices ranging from $578 to $3,685 on three Web sites surveyed this afternoon.

From the St. Petersburg Times via AP

Utah’s attorney general is investigating the Bowl Championship Series for a possible violation of federal antitrust laws after an undefeated Utes team was left out of the national title game for the second time in five years.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff contends the BCS unfairly puts schools like Utah, which is a member of a conference without an automatic bid to the lucrative bowl games, at a competitive and financial disadvantage.

What puts schools like Utah at a disadvantage is playing in a conference that includes football stalwarts like UNLV, SD State, and Wyoming.

Nice to see the Utah AG has this time on his hands.

Not technically over the BCS, but it’s close enough.

Logan Tebow Bradley was born Tuesday morning at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater.

His father, Tom Bradley, is a big fan of the Florida Gators. He told WTSP-TV he wanted to honor the quarterback and decided to give his newborn son the middle name Tebow. Plus, he said, it could be a sign of a third national championship for the team.[Emphasis mine]

At least it’s his middle name.

Filed under: College, Football, Government inefficiency, Sports , Bowl Championship Series, government waste, Oklahoma University, University of Florida, Utah

My first poll

Now I wonder if I can put it on the sidebar.

Filed under: College, Football, Sports , Champs Sports Bowl, Florida State, NCAA football, poll, Wisconsin

Ground rule first down?

Will USF Bulls hit a catwalk during a St. Petersburg Bowl punt?

Bulls fans, don’t worry: There should be no ground-rule doubles Saturday, no foul balls or bad caroms off the catwalks at Tropicana Field.

Rays officials say they don’t expect any issues with footballs hitting the four concentric rings above the playing field during the inaugural St. Petersburg Bowl between USF and Memphis.

What a relief.

Filed under: College, Football, Sports , College football, Sports, St. Petersburg Bowl, Tropicana Field

Quote of the Day 5/1/08

Yeah, it’s early. But I think someone nicknamed parc0023 hit the nail on the head with a comment on the NCAA not changing the BCS,

Nobody wants to see the National Championship decided on the field anyway.

‘Zactly.

(a tip of the conservative cap to my buddy Chris at TWSB)

Filed under: College, Football, Quote of the day, Sports , BCS, Quote of the day

NCAA postseason

Two stories here. First the NCAA will add apair of bowl games.

The NCAA announced Wednesday that its Postseason Football Licensing Subcommittee had given the OK to 34 bowls this season – two more than last season.

The new games are the Congressional Bowl in Washington, D.C., and the St. Petersburg Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla. The subcommittee did nix one bowl, the proposed Rocky Mountain Bowl in Salt Lake City.

The St. Petersburg Bowl. What an imaginative name. Couldn’t they get Tropicana to sponsor that, too?

Then BCS officials reject a playoff proposal.

Even a four-game playoff scenario was too much for the BCS.

Bowl Championship Series officials rejected a plan Wednesday to turn the much-criticized system for deciding a national champ into a four-team playoff, starting in the 2010 season.

The BCS format will remain the same until at least the 2014 season.

Great. We won’t know who is truly the college champion for six years.

And I do hope we have disputed games every year for the next six.

Filed under: College, Football, Sports , BCS, college football playoffs, Congressional Bowl, NCAA football, St. Petersburg Bowl

Not another bowl game!

Trop could host newest bowl game

[The St. Petersburg] bowl would pit the Big East against Conference USA, and Wednesday brought new details, such as $30 tickets. (The Outback Bowl, with higher-level teams, charges $65). Tropicana would be configured with the field running from home plate to rightfield with seating for as many as 44,000.

Wonder what will happen if a punt hits the catwalks?

But wait, there’s more.

The St. Petersburg Bowl isn’t the only potential addition as proposals will be heard Wednesday in South Florida from the Congressional Bowl, which would pit Navy against an ACC team in Nationals Park in Washington, and the Rocky Mountain Bowl, featuring teams from the Mountain West and Western Athletic in Salt Lake City. Only St. Petersburg’s would be produced by ESPN.

Three more bowls. Great.

Filed under: College, Football, Sports , bowl games, Congressional Bowl, NCAA football, Rocky Mountain Bowl, St. Petersburg Bowl, Tropicana Field

BCS Championship Game

As Brian Fraley asks, who besides fans of OSU and LSU care about this game?

Well, OK, I sorta care because I’m in four picking contests.

The Dummocrats have one. I’m third (sorry I can’t link to the Yahoo game) and don’t expect to move more than one up or a couple down. There I picked OSU over LSU 45-43. In Triple overtime, of course, because that’s the only way LSU loses.

In the JSOnline game I picked OSU over LSU 24-21, because I need to catch-up, and I see most people are voting LSU. I am 20 of 31 picking, with 30 points (BCS bowl games count 6 points each).

Same in the WISN game. I’m also 20 of 31 with 30 points. I picked OSU 24-23.

In my other game, I’m also third (again a Yahoo game) with no expectations of moving up or down very much, at the moment. I’m 23 of 31 in that game. I picked LSU 35-24, which is really how I think the game will wind up.

The BCS still sucks and should be replaced.

Filed under: College, Football, Sports , BCS, College, Football, Louisiana State, NCAA, Ohio State

FSU expected to be without 36 players

From Rivals.com,

Thirty-six Florida State players won’t be going to the Dec. 31 Music City Bowl against Kentucky because of an academic cheating scandal, other violations of team rules or injuries.

Twenty-five of them, of course, were disqualified because of a large cheating scandal at the university.

Filed under: College, Football, Sports , bowl games, Florida State, NCAA football

Was Georgia snubbed?

If you read sports blogs or sports pundits, you’ll find out that if you have 10 people, there will be 12 opinions. So here’s mine.

The final rankings pretty much followed  conventional wisdom rather than any relationship to previous rankings. There was a reason the voters ranked LSU below both Virginia Tech and Georgia last week; a reason that didn’t carry over to this week. A normal ranking would have been what I expected it would have been as seen here. I had not included LSU in the list because it was showing what the ratings should be after the three results I wanted to see.

Georgia, although it has the same record as LSU and about the same schedule strength (something not accounted for in the BCS formula, although evident in the computer ratings and voters’ minds), didn’t win its conference. There is no prerequisite for a team to win the conference title, as pointed out repeatedly by Georgia coach Mark Richt, but the voters clearly thought so, and to some extent, so did the computers.

Again the whole thing screams for a playoff system. I doubt it will ever happen, though. Why?

Money.

As usual.

Oh, well, it gives us something to blog about and argue about in bars.

Filed under: College, Football , BCS, championship, College football, NCAA

Because I despise the BCS

Here is my ideal pre-bowl results:

Pittsburgh upsets West Virginia

Oklahoma beats Missouri

Tennessee beats LSU

This might give the following top 5 in the BCS:

1. Ohio State
2. Georgia
3. Kansas
4. Virginia Tech
5. Missouri

The best thing? Georgia goes to the championship game WITHOUT WINNING IT’S CONFERENCE!

Oh the delicious possibility.

Filed under: College, Football , Bowl Championship Series, NCAA football