Friday, July 25, 2014

Playoff Jockeying Begins

When the four-team playoff system to determine the college football national champion was established there were plenty of folks predicting two spots for the SEC and two spots for everyone else (little guys need not apply). Of course the season(s) will have to play out but the rest of college football cannot let the SEC be considered so much better than everyone else that its top two teams--heck even three teams--get to play for the national championship--even though we just had that happen three years ago. The key is to continue to offset the excellent job the SEC does promoting itself so that it is no longer given that the cream of the SEC is much better than champions from other conferences. The conference that has done the most to disrupt this notion, beyond what Florida State did on the football field last year, is the Big 12 and the Big 12 program that has been the most vocal is Oklahoma. One year ago OU coach Bob Stoops began the offensive by questioning just how good the SEC was when its bottom teams seem to stink year in and year out. Stoops blamed the writers for believing SEC "propaganda." Although he was correct the media just threw his argument back in his face as sour grapes. Stoops got the last laugh when his Sooners easily won the Sugar Bowl against favored Alabama this past January. then after Alabama coach Nick Saban attributed his team's performance in that game to not being up for a bowl game that did not have national championship implications, Stoops correctly ripped his counterpart for a lame excuse. And lame it was. But, again, these tit-for-tat quotes mean so much more than uncovering motive for a bowl game from last season. It is all about jockeying for the four spots in the playoff. The problem with this system or any system is that the top college football teams play different schedules. So computer numbers can only give us a portion of the picture. And so voters rely on their eyes but that is flawed as no voter can watch every game. How many Auburn games did experts watch last season? They were not expected to compete for a title so you can excuse folks for skipping games 1-3 (wins over Washington State, Arkansas State and Mississippi State). They lost game four by 14 to LSU and so after watching that game you could again excuse voters from watching Auburn's wins over Mississippi and Western Carolina. You get where I am going with this. Since it will be difficult to choose the four teams on years when we do not have four clear cut best teams--that is every year in college football history--the teams and conferences need to win the propaganda war now even before the season starts. And Alabama, who has enjoyed its recent status as king, needs to get the Sugar Bowl defeat out of the picture while OU must do the opposite. And every conference not named the SEC must promote itself better. And of course win on the field consistently through the season.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Boys Acting Badly

Well it is that time of the year again. No, not the opening of camps although that is coming soon for college football. It is the time for summer arrests and suspensions and we are getting word of more each day. While I am not condoning the bad behavior and feel that scholarship athletes--or scholarship band members--should be held at a higher standard and if they commit serious crimes then they should be punished swiftly, I do feel that we should put the seemingly large number of recent arrests in context. There are a lot of college football players. And while not every arrest makes the paper, nor even every crime leads to an arrest, the reality is that a very small number of college football players break the law. Punish them but do not point fingers at the sport. One of the most recent star players to be accused of a crime is TCU defensive end Devonte Fields, who has been suspended from the Horned Frogs after his ex-girlfriend accused him of punching her in the face and pointing a gun at her. That is serious and comes seven months after fields was involved in an altercation with armed men. There is something wrong here and TCU must do the right thing. This program has made great strides over the past decade and a half but has stumbled of late with a number of players arrested for their involvement in a drug selling operation and other players getting in trouble. And with the team trying to rebound from a 4-8 season we have this situation. But despite the pressure to not do so, coach Gary Patterson must punish his best player if he is indeed guilty. There is no way to get around that as the country needs to see that TCU players are held accountable for their actions.