Dec. 7, 2007 | The Clarion
Sports
Basketball back in Brevard!
Page 7
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Photo by J. Billingsley
Photo by J. Billingsley
Above: (Right) Freshman guard Jermichael Tanner knifes through the Tusculum defense during the
first half of Saturday's 75-64 loss to Tusculum. The game was the home opener for the Tornados, who
were led by Jonathan Whitson's 21 points.
(Left) Senior forward l-iolly Krogman fights with a Tusculum defender during Saturday's women's bas
ketball game. The BC women's team fell to Tusculum by a final score of 81-52, evening BC's record
out to 3-3 on the young season.
Bowl system gives fans mythical champ
by Joseph Chilton
Managing Editor
The regular season has been
completed, the conference
champions have been
crowned, and in the next month
two of the nation’s best college
football teams are going lay it
all on the line in order to bring
home what every American boy
dreams of helping his
university win: the San Diego
County Credit Union Poinsettia
Bowl.
I hope that I am not the only
sports fan that finds that
sentence frightening. The state
of college football in Division
I-A, or Football Bowl Sub-
Division, or Football
Bureaucracy Subdivision, or
whatever the NCAA terms it
has reached the point where
there can be no real champion,
just 32 teams who won their
bowl game arguing about who
is the best.
Every year fans are told that
the BCS formula has been
modified, that a real college
football champion will finally be
crowned. And every year the
infallible computer formula
seems to spit out a national
championship game match up
that is approved by
approximately the same
percentage of the American
populace as is Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This season the team that
heading into the final week of
the season was the
overwhelming favorite to finish
in the top spot of the BCS
standings, Missouri, failed to
secure a spot in one of the four
“prestigious” BCS bowl games.
At the same time, Hawaii went
undefeated but will be unable
to win the national title because
of the conference they play in
(so much for last year’s Boise
State team proving that the
underdog sometimes should
have been the favorite).
It is an interesting
coincidence that there are 64
teams playing in bowl games
this season, as that is the exact
number of teams in the NCAA
basketball tournament. While
a 64 team playoff is obviously
too long to advocate in
football, it only makes sense
for college football to follow
the lead every other sport that
NCAA sanctions and have an
official championship
tournament.
Ohio State and LSU will play
for the BCS championship this
season. But with the parity that
has occurred on gridirons
across the nation this year,
there is no way of knowing if
the wiimer of that game is tmly
the NCAA's best team. Any of
the 32 bowl wiimers could be
the best team in the country for
all we know, even the wiimer of
the PapaJohns.com bowl
(though I doubt it.).
This was a season that
featured South Florida,
Connecticut, Missouri, and
Kansas all seeming as if they
would rise out of historical
mediocrity and into the national
spotlight. In the end, though,
the BCS chose two pereimial
powers with debatable merits.
If this has taught us anything,
it is that it is impossible for a
computer to determine two
teams that are at such a higher
level than the rest of their
competition that a match
between the two will produce a
clear national champion. It has
taught us it is about time for
office pools to start up
featuring the NCAA football
bracket. But then again, that’s
what last year was supposed
to teach us.