So I've been figuring that with all this talk of a selection committee to chose the participants of the four-team playoff that is still unnamed, that it was time for me to throw my hat in the ring. As evidenced by the list of qualifications below, I am more than experienced enough and easily bribed morally upstanding to do the job.
My extensive list of qualifications:
- First, I am a college grad (B.A. UofM '07). But it gets better. It's a degree in history and philosophy. I know, right? It's almost too perfect. Try to tell me that there are two more important qualities out there to a group of administrators that make their living by making involved, seemingly non-sensical arguments that test the boundaries of logic and reason and adhere to past traditions and historical trends from a century ago, and I will call you a liar. Good day, sir.
- I watch a lot of college football. A LOT. Like to the point where you might consider it a problem. Ever find yourself searching BTN and ESPNU for an old Indiana game at four in the morning because you just need a fix in late May? You don/t know the depths of my addiction.
- I write an interactive weblog, On the World Wide Web. The kids these days call it a blog, its really catching on. So there you go crusty conference admins, I can bring you the support of young people everywhere. Its that easy. I'm like the Obama of the internet.
- I'll only guarantee Michigan a spot in the playoff if they are in the top-25. Sorry Brady, you're going to have to win more than seven games to get on my good side.
- Like I said before, I'm a blogger, so I have a lot of free time.
- My allegiance can easily be bought. Wait, I shouldn't have said that out loud?
- Finally, the best reason to hire me...
...I'm not the Harris poll.
On second thought, I might put that last part on my actual resume.
Links:
Playoffs killed the BCS, but will embrace BCS-style rankings
According to Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, the as yet unmanned selection committee charged with choosing teams for a four-team playoff beginning in 2014 will pick up where the BCS left off by publishing weekly rankings over the second half of the regular season. Like the rest of the details surrounding the playoff, criteria for the rankings is TBD – one more battle for conference commissioners to fight amongst themselves – but Swarbrick told the South Bend Tribune Wednesday that there is a consensus to create some degree of transparency: "We didn't want the top four teams to just come out of the blue at the end of the season."
This makes sense. There needs to be some sort of poll, it needs to be a second-half-of-the-season kind of thing, and it needs to be transparent. Also, NO HARRIS POLL. Easy enough, eh?
Federally-Mandated Playoff Opinion Post
Those events devolved the BCS formula into the poll troika that has clattered along the last half-dozen years or so. You know, this one:
THE USA TODAY MASSIVE CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLL: In which football coaches vote for teams they haven't seen play to determine whether their school will acquire prestige.
THE HARRIS "YEAH WE'RE SURPRISED THEY'RE NOT DEAD EITHER" POLL: In which 90-year-old men in suspenders keep voting for Bowdoin.
THE COMPUTER AMALGAMATION: In which computers are blindfolded, told every game ends 1-0 to the victor, and are asked to stop hitting themselves.
Brian pretty much nails why the old BCS formula was a terrible, terrible bane on college football's existence in just three short blurbs. Check out the rest of his playoff opinions, because, well, its mgoblog and that's what you do, you read it.
Corwin Brown, former Notre Dame Fighting Irish assistant, pleads guilty in standoff - The strange saga of Corwin Brown is winding down.
Gerry Sandusky Is Not Jerry Sandusky (Or: Why The Internet Is Just The Worst Sometimes) - Twitter is an amazing tool for following information in real-time and interacting with people all over the world. It is also unfettered access to make crude jokes and hateful remarks about people you don't know and clearly don't understand. Like alcohol, guns, and fireworks, use Twitter responsibly. Please.
BLACK HEART GOLD PODCAST 80: SOUTHERN FRIED - I have seen the end of the wave of Call Me Maybe parodies, and it is the BHGP podcast theme song. Maximum comedy has been achieved. Time to put Carly Rae Jepsen on a burning raft and bury her at sea.
2012 Purdue Football Preview: You Are Not In Control
You, the fan, are absolutely not in control. That goes without saying. Your satisfaction level is going to be determined as much by the family (and school, and region) into which you were born and by the decision-making ability of the really rich people that run your chosen (born) school's athletic department. If you were born in Boise, into a family full of University of Idaho grads, you probably haven't had a very satisfactory college football life. But if you were born in Tuscaloosa, to a doctor screaming "ROLL TIDE!" you probably think you are entitled to nothing but the most immense football satisfaction.
Bill Connelly on why being a college football fan is so depressing, and, um, a little bit about Purdue's 2012 chances. The two may or may not be related.