Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Of National Titles and Presidents

Last night there was a football game. Yawn. Ohio State and LSU played for the national championship, and well, not a lot of people cared.

I did not watch the game, but I did Google about the outcome this morning. I am guessing that the NCAA wants people to care enough to at least watch the game. Er, not sure that I am the typical football fan, but with such a big game, the people paying for the commercials probably want the occasional fan. They spend money, too.

Before the BCS fiasco of the last ten years, I actually watched some of the bowl games. I mean, Number 1 never played Number 2, but that did not seem to matter. It seemed like a number of the top teams played in the big bowls, and Number 3 could rise to the top spot if the top two spots faltered. And that happened more than once.

So before the BCS fixed things, there were more entertaining games.

And if you think about it, a bowl game is not a real good determiner of who is the better team. Each team is off for a month or more, preparing for the game. Before that, the games are spaced at weekly intervals. So perhaps the better prepared team normally wins the games. And you cannot look at which conferences win the most games, that does not necessarily mean that the conference is stronger. Sure, the SEC was something like 7-2, but a couple of the smaller conferences were 4-1 or 4-2. That does not mean the Mountain West is the second strongest conference of them all.

Name (Teams)/ Record
Atlantic Coast (8) 2-6
Big 12 (8) 5-3
Big East (5) 3-2
Big Ten (8) 3-5
Conference USA (6) 2-4
Independents (FBS) (1) 0-1
Mid-American (3) 0-3
Mountain West (5) 4-1
Pacific-10 (6) 4-2
Southeastern (9) 7-2
Sun Belt (1) 1-0
Western Athletic (4) 1-3

I just think that the bowl system is not the best system to crown a champion.

Similarly, we are currently looking at presidential primaries.

The primary system does not seem to be the best system to pick a democratic or republican presidential contender.

I mean, you have races, Iowa and New Hampshire, whose results affect the next contests. So people in Florida are affected by what blue-bloods in New Hampshire feel. And you know, both democrats and republicans seem to be different in different parts of the country.

For me, more of an independent, I get to choose from a real liberal (Dukakis) or an SOB conservative (Dole). Just seems the system doesn't really work to pick the best candidates, just the ones that take fewer chances (H. Clinton or Ohio State).

5 comments:

Advizor54 said...

I have to agree that the BCS and the Primary System are pretty bad ways to pick something as important as a football champion or a president.

For the BCS, the hypocrisy of stating that these are STUDENT athletes is astounding. Putting them in a Bowl +One situation wouldn't put any of them at any additional risk of not graduating. And, since most of them are barely eligible anyway, just let them play an extra week, set-up the #1 v #4 and #2 v #3 match-ups and let them play it out.


The presidential primaries are a little tougher to call. I really don't like the idea of an 18-month campaign. We should bar the candidates from declaring, or raising money until May, campaigning should be pushed back to June, give them one month to convince the states, run the primaries over the 4th of July weekend, and let the major parties go head-to-head from July to November.

After the two-day voting period (Saturday and Sunday) is over, the votes are counted, double-checked, and certified. No challenges are allowed.

The winner takes the presidency, and the loser is forced to work as the winner's personal slave for 1 year, and the loser's year is documented in a reality TV show.

It might not solve all of our problems, but the TV show would be entertaining and we wouldn't have to listen to TV ads for a year and a half.

Southern (in)Sanity said...

If you exclude the Mountain West, I would say the conference results do reflect conference strength for the most part.

Clearly, Ohio State and the Big 10 continue to be overmatched by the speed and talent of the other conferences (the Buckeyes have been pounded in the national championship game in back-to-back years now by an SEC school).

Advizor54 said...

So RWA, what are you saying about that Mountain West? That we are stronger, faster, better looking, and more wonderful than all of the other conferences?

Let's not forget that the UTES are 7-0 in in Bowl Games since 1999!


GO UTES!

Stacy The Peanut Queen said...

All I know is that my team is a bunch of cheaters...SUCH a let down for me...especially since my husband is a Gator fan. *sigh*

Leesa said...

advizor: I like challenges for president. Or at least the opportunity to do so. Oh, and the runner up being the "personal slave" was already tried. For the first election, Washington won and Adams was second. Thus Adams was the vice-president (sort of personal slave).

rwa: so the Big 12 is the second toughest conference?

advizor: Ohio State is 0-9 against SEC teams. And, who knows, the Mountain West may be the toughest conference.

stacey: at least your team is not GA Tech. They used to be decent. I long for decent.