Clarion Content

This weekend is a perfect exemplar of the good and the bad of college football. In Durham, North Carolina, the staff of the Clarion Content is hanging on breathlessly hoping that somehow, some way the Duke Blue Devils can pull out a road upset against the all-world athletes of Miami of Florida. Were Duke able to pull off the win, they would remain bowl eligible going into their final game of the season against Wake Forest.

This is the good. The argument is that every game matters. Michigan versus Ohio State today, records aside, the game still has serious bragging rights at stake. Just because coach Rich Rodriguez is a trainwreck at Michigan does not make the game less valuable to the Big Blue alumni. You think Ohio State's fans want to win any less just because Michigan is terrible? The fact that Michigan is about to complete it's first back to back sub .500 seasons in more than 40 years would just make it all the more frustrating for Buckeye backers were their team to lose.

Despite our interest here in Duke, and the great rivalry game the midwest, or even other matches of consequence like North Carolina vying for bowl seedings versus Boston College in Chestnut Hill, or Arizona and Oregon meeting in a PAC-10 match-up, there is a problem. It does not infect the great PA battle between Lafayette and Leigh, which has the Lafayette Leopards hoping for a big win to secure an at-large bid into the Division I-AA, playoffs. And there it is! The geniuses that run the BCS refuse to allow any semblance of on the field battle for the national championship of Division I.

This beauty contest/gymnastics/figure skating method of voting for the best team rather than deciding it on the field incentivizes awfulness. This weak, whoops, week, #1 Florida is playing Florida International of the Sun Belt Conference. #2 Alamaba is playing Chattanooga of the Southern Conference. As of this moment they lead by a combined 80 to 3. Cupcakes for all! Even Texas with a potentially more legitimate opponent from the Big 12, has lucked into, the 1 up and 5 down in conference, Kansas Jayhawks. There is but a single match-up of top 25 teams, the Stanford-Cal game. This is the bad of college football. And its pretty putrid, because...

The faux national championship is securely in the hands of the judges. Boise State and TCU may be preemptively ruled out. Sorry. The winner of SEC conference title game is guaranteed a spot, allegedly. Cincinnati is be punished for being from the least favored of eligible conferences. Who is the best team? How would anyone know?

The Clarion Content would love to watch the coaching savvy of Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson in an eight team playoff. Too bad.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, sports, Sports Economics