National Championship Hysteria

          The bowl season has been in full swing. Innumerable games before very empty stadiums. To promote tourism. To enrich the coffers of the groups sponsoring or owning the rights to the games themselves. Fueled nicely via corporate sponsors and the almighty television revenue. So that the winner can crow about being a victor at a mediocre 7-6 while some teams actually have losing records before the contest and then lose again? At least classes are, for the most part not impacted, unless of course you look into the early bowls where I guess the student-athletes on scholarship have enough academic moxie and intellectual fortitude to weather practicing and playing during final exams.

          These are some of the reasons why I have hardly watched any bowls during the current season. But now we are in the heart of the bowl frenzy, where the traditional "big" bowls with the really good teams are playing. New Year's Day used to be the sine qua non regarding bowl games. If you played in the Orange, Cotton, Sugar or Rose Bowl, you had made it to the great stage, representing your conference and your alma mater. Then it would be up to a bunch of writers or some coaches who used Sports Information Directors to vote for them and arbitrarily select a National Champion.

          This unscientific method morphed into much more as conferences expanded and the number of bowl games with their monetary payouts correspondingly increased. In many instances the money, whether shared withing the conference or disproportionately given to the bowl team itself, was the ingredient needed to put a bloated athletic budget into the black for another year.

          Thus, from multiple perspectives, bowl games were a veritable cash cow for those who reaped the benefits. At least at the higher level bowls. Many other programs floundered in the red going to a low to mid-level bowl for the status that it derived to loyal patron alumni and to the recruits who are needed every year to sate the thirst for success.

          Make absolutely no mistake--college football, and to some extent, college basketball is big business. With the resultant clamor over having a true national champion rather than a mythical one, yet keeping the enhanced bowl structure in place so that more than half of the Football Bowl Subdivision membership is active in December and January in a dome or a "warmer" weather site, there appeared to be a windfall of immense proportions out there.

          A National Championship playoff. It would settle all of the debates on the field. Once and for all. And with the networks blessing, everyone would get far richer.

          With much fanfare and a lot of negotiations among the "power" conferences who dominate the landscape of big time football and led to the flurry of conference realignments and additions, a committee was developed to use a formula and vote, at meaningful periods leading up to the designation of four teams worthy of playing for the title.

          So we have the playoffs. Rotating among the bigger bowls to satiate their desire to continue to host really important games, here we are this New year's Eve with two National semi-final games.

         What do I think of all of this? I think it is contrived and the whole bowl system is contrived. Sure, the Committee ranks teams below the top four so as to "fairly" stock the other games. Big deal. Those games are all show and have very little meaning other than aesthetically and, of course, financially.

         I look at the systems in place for The Football Championship Subdivision, Divisions II and III along with every other sport that the NCAA sponsors. They work just fine. I still don't understand, absent my jaundiced view that the present bowl structure requires its red meat to sustain itself, why we, as fans continue to pander to this fraudulent way of reaching a winner.

        It would be far better to drop the number of games played by FBS teams to permit 16 teams to participate in a true National Championship. Without a committee using formulas to make their picks for the Final Four. That Committee, if still in existence, could rank the Top 16 teams for the Championship and THEN rate the teams accordingly from whatever sources or tie ins that have been negotiated so that the games can be continued.If the lower bowls needed to be perpetuated, they could still utilize teams that did not win or finish second in their conference. Should a couple of the lesser bowls fall to the wayside, it would still be a far better tournament and reward for those schools who truly merit another game or games to proudly reach a worthy conclusion to their seasons.

        Until then, I guess that I am stuck watching the games tonight when I get back from dinner. Maybe the Final will be captivating. Not quite as meaningful as the NCAA basketball tournament or any other championship. It's certainly not the Super Bowl either. Tell that to the fans, players and media. I wish them well in this charade.

       Cha-ching.