Football rant

Okay, so anybody who follows college football at all knows the common college football rant - bowl games are terrible, we need a playoff system, etc. So I clearly don't need to say much about that. I'll probably still say something about it anyway.

Let's start with the Heisman. This is the award for "The Most Outstanding College Football Player" each year, according to the Heisman site. Most of my life, I've thought that this meant "the best college football player". It wasn't till I came to college that I realized that they really did mean 'outstanding', in that the player's popularity is just as important as his ability. The player must follow the following steps in order to become a winner:

1. Play in the quarterback or runningback position. There has been a whopping 1 exception to this in the past 16 years. Go back a bit further, you'll find 3 exceptions in the past 38 years. One can only assume from this that either the most talented players do not play in other positions, or that the system does not know how to pick the truly most talented player.

2. Play on a well recognized team. In most cases the team also has to do well that year. The Heisman is a team effort, and the winners aren't kidding when they say in the acceptance speech that they thank their teams for 'supporting' them... they should probably say "I'd like to thank my team for winning me this trophy, with my help of course."

3. Do a decent job in the first 6-7 games, enough to get recognized early, but do your best job in the last 3-4 games. Remember, just like with the polls, people who decide things have very short memories. You might have been the MVP of the nation in the first 6 games, but if you don't outshine the others in the last 4 games - especially in the game right before the Heisman is decided - you may as well have been sitting on the bench the first 6 games.

4. Be exciting! This is why quarterbacks and runningbacks are always winning. No one's going to vote for the guy who created the hole for the runningback to run through every single down. Remember, the camera follows the guy with the ball! If you aren't near him all the time, you can count yourself out.

So there we go, 4 qualifications for the Heisman trophy winner. "Outstanding" has a new definition.

Next up: The Rose Bowl. Great tradition, wonderful parade, lots of fun, and a home game for the Pac-10. How wonderful! This might shock you, but USC has been to the rose bowl 33 times, and won 23 of those games. Both UCLA and Stanford are 12-5 in the rose bowl (Stanford also has a tie). Cal is 8-2-1. Sure, they might have been the better teams in most of those games, but um... isn't it a home game for those teams? If I were on a California/USC/UCLA team that won the rose bowl, I would feel like I cheated a little. Like somebody removed all of the pinky toes of the other team before the game started. I mean, if I were a USC fan in 2006, I would have been embarrassed. Not only did you lose "the grandaddy of them all" bowl, you lost at home in a close game. For shame.

"The National Championship Game"

This incredible game, brought to you by: Hank, the magical robot computer that tells us who the best teams are each year. He whips out his mighty playoffometer and mentally simulates each possible game in his mind, then gives us the results, and makes us play to be the "best" team in the nation.

Hank has determined that teams in certain conferences cannot possibly be the best teams. In elementary school we were all told that if we give 100%, and do the best we possibly can, we will be rewarded. Thing is, Hank never went to elementary school. Teams who give 100%... well they can be ranked 6 and 9 while the big boys play for the real prize.

No, I'm not saying that Utah and Boise State should be 1 and 2, and I'm not saying they would beat any or all of the other teams in the top 10, but um... Hank, can you tell me what they can do to be #1? Perhaps they should consider winning games they aren't playing? Here, I'll give them one of BYU's wins that meant nothing... "And the score is BYU 41, San Diego State 12, with Utah coming out the winner!" There we go, BYU still has 9 wins, and Utah gets a thirteenth, pushing them up a few points in Hank's magical mind.

Sigh.

There we go. I feel better now.

-Tim