Understanding College Football

I like Barack Obama. I voted for Barack Obama, but Barack Obama doesn't know college football. When Barry said (I'm going to start pushing early for a simple way of differentiating between good Obama ideas and bad Obama ideas. Good Obama ideas will be prefaced with "Barrack Said" and bad Obama ideas will be profaced with "Barry said". Agreed? Good) "I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on (having a play-off)" he clearly demonstrated that he doesn't know many college football fans. BCS vs. Playoff has become the Astro Turf vs. Natural Grass of the new millennium.

If we really want to get serious about fixing, refining, or replacing the current system we need to first establish clearly the essence of College Football. The structure of college football should enhance that essence. A good way to to that is by identifying the things we like and dislike about the BCS, and then divining some general principals from that.

Good BCS

1) The Current bowl system provides enough rewards to keep all 120 teams motivated during the season. Under a playoff season there would be at most eight post-season playoff spots available, and only a small percentage of teams would have a chance at earning a playoff spot. So what would the other teams play for? There are currently 34 bowl games, which means there are 68 available post season spots, which is enough to keep all but the worst teams motivated through-out the season. Maybe the International Bowl doesn’t mean much to 118teams, but it means something to the two teams that are in it. Also, think about the economic benifett of 34 games, over the seven games we would have in a playoff system.

2) The BCS has preserved the importance of the conferences. Unlike all other major sports in the United States, college football is a regional sport. Those that point out the faults of the BCS conference fail to recognize this. Steve Spurrier once said he cares more about winning the SEC than the BCS. Spurrier was demonstrating one of the essential truths of College Football. National Championships are nice, but what drives the sport is a passion for being the biggest kid on the block, to be able to lord your supremacy over your friend sand neighbors. Who cares if your team is better than a team 1,000 miles away?


3) The BCS has also expanded the interest in regular season football. While Conferences still play prominent roles in the BCS, winning a conference championship only gets you into one of five games. To make the Championship Game a team has to out rank all by one other team. This encourages fans to not only watch their team, but to watch other teams in other conferences. This year a loss for Penn State was a victory for Florida and Texas. For that reason the national TV ratings for the College Football are up under the BCS system.


4) It does create a great game at the end of the season. Under the old system we never would have had Texas vs. USC, or Miami vs. Ohio St.

Bad BCS

1) The BCS is a compromise system that uses both polls and conference results to determine who plays in the big bowl games. This situation led to Oklahoma playing in the BCS championship game despite loosing to Nebraska in the Big 12Championship game in 2003. It’s not important if Oklahoma deserved to play in that game or not. In fact it’s impossible to determine objectively if Oklahoma deserved to be there because the standards used by the BCS system contradicted each other.

2) A lot of bowl games just don’t mean much to College Football as a whole.

3) The Polls are inadequate. The Polls currently used in the BCS don't have reasonable standards for membership and rules of conduct. Pollsters should have the knowledge and time to properly evaluate up to 120 teams every week, and procedures need to be in place to insure they are performing their job with a minimum level of competency and care.

4) Nobody understands the computer polls. When done correctly, advanced statistical models really do a good job of identifying a team’s quality; you just have to have the right statistics to do so. There is currently too much mistrust of the computer polls right now, because no one has taken the time to understand them and explain them to the coaches, media, and fans. Bye the way, shame on you Pete Carroll for not understanding the computers. You're college football coach, its part of your job!

5) The conference formats are not the same. The fact the conferences very greatly in quality and format makes it very difficult to compare teams who have not faced each other.

6) The BCS has two sometimes competing goals; one, to determine a champion, and two to put together a fiscally successful exhibition. Combining this with the bowl alliances creates some un-compelling match-ups.

Is there anything I missed? Is there anything to be added to "Good BCS" and "Bad BCS"

Labels; More to the point

It's better, but is it a little too obvious? Also, it's a little sloppy, I need to clean up those edges.

Labels

We brewed some beer this weekend, so we need labels. We also wanted to comemorate some personal family history. It's a work in progress.

A logo should be simple and legable, but not to literal, but it should have an "ah-ha" quality to it.

Is This Better?

I feel like this is an improvement over yesterdays image.

Medley

Below are a couple of Pictures I hope to turn into a series.

Medley #1

Medley #2

How To Hike When the no Ozone

The Crosswise appeals to the individual seeking long quite hikes among our world’s beauty without the danger of exposure to unchecked solar radiation and toxic off gassing of our now fragile environment. It allows those who seek adventure in the new world to do so in old world comfort.

The full-size, two-ton Toyota Crossway comes in three colors, Brushed Aluminum, Yellow Jacket, and Toupe. The Cab is essentially a large extended bubble with three view shields providing a near 360 degree view for its passenger.
The Crossway’s two C77 7.2L Caterpillar Diesel Engines provide enough horsepower to its patented dual tripod oildraulic propulsion system to transverse slopes as steep as seventy five degrees.

The uniquely stable dual tripod system allows three legs to hold the cab stable while the three legs of the second tripod reach forward. This moves the Crossway smoothly and securely over even the most rugged terrain.

It's the best way to enjoy the outdoors without being outdoors.

The Voices In My Head Are Now Talking Back!

I just received my first comment from someone who is not my wife, and that person claimed to be Jim Manzi!!! For those of you who are not regular readers, and evidently I now have regular readers, if you include my Jim and my wife, I quoted Jim Manzi in a post I published earlier today.

Apparently the Jim Manzi, of "an applied artificial intelligence software company", and a contributing editor to The National Review reads my Blog. Who knew? And he read a really long boring post. He must love Yellow Jacket Football and poorly rendered 3-D models as much as I do! We also share an almost crippling inability to spell.

Whoever it was, he/she is right, Manzi doesn't mention "vouchers", and was suggesting that some other vehicle for choice should be incorporated into the public school system as part of an overall plan to reinvigorate public education.

I apologize for misrepresenting Manzi's argument, but it should be considered when discussing how to improve public schools that there is a mechanisms for choice that already exist in the current system, and money and students are flowing to the better schools.

I'm now going to go home and pull out all my teeth so that Jim Manzi will no longer be able to broadcast directly into my head via the tiny speaker and antenna installed during my last dentist visit. New dental hygienist my butt. Then I'm going to hack into all my friends computers to insure this isn't a prank. Wait a second, lets reverse the order. Check with friends first, then pull teeth.