A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
The BCS bowl games are coming up after the New Year’s Day NFL games Sunday, with the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl Monday, the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday, the Orange Bowl and on Wednesday and then the BCS National Championship Game the following Monday, January 9th.
Here is a quick preview of the BCS bowl games with picks and current point spreads.
College football bowl games start this Saturday, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Even with all the controversy (I don’t like BCS system either) I still love the experience of hanging out with family and watching teams duke it out for bragging rights. It’s also a great look into how potential high draft picks perform in high pressure/high stakes games.
Are there bowl games that are going to be more entertaining than others? Of course, but I really recommend you to try to watch as many of them as possible.
Every season in college football there is always a strong demand for a playoff, and this year it might be one of the strongest ever.
There is no debate that LSU should be playing in the national championship game because they played an extremely difficult schedule and went undefeated. The team that LSU is going to play, however, is creating quite a controversy.
Many people (including myself) feel that Alabama should not get another shot at a team that already defeated them for a possible national championship. Oklahoma State has a real argument that they did not get a fair shake from the current BCS system and that they should be the 1-loss team playing for the title.
If college football had a playoff this is how it might look this season. [Read more...]
As a rule, I normally stay away from the BCS bitching.
I, like most – would like to see some sort of playoff system in place. Taking the current four BCS games and making them National Championship quarterfinals (in the end adding two games to the season) to me seems like a logical solution.
To the naked eye, Alabama does appear to be the second-best team in college football, but thanks to one distracted night in Ames, IA a few weeks back, Oklahoma State will never have a chance to prove the case that they were more deserving of the #2 seat.
But college football is spectacular as it is: only 14 precious Saturdays with an entire menu of games available on television (no Sunday Ticket package needed) and mind-boggling finishes the norm on a weekly basis. Sadly, it is all over except the 35 bowl games, then nearly eight long months before the madness returns.
But there is one injustice in the BCS (besides continuing to give the Big East an automatic bid) that indeed will happen and must be pointed out.
Why are the Michigan Wolverines likely headed for the Sugar Bowl while the Michigan State Spartans are headed for the Outback (literally)?
In these finals hours before all the ballots are cast for the polls that will determine which team finishes second in the final BCS standings and gets the opportunity to face LSU in January 9′s National Championship Game, I figured I’d make a last-minute case for Oklahoma State, whom I feel deserves that #2 spot.
A friend of mine passed along this note to me yesterday, but I forgot to post about it. Seeing as how the Big Ten Championship Game is tomorrow though, I figured I better get something out now or else I’d have forever kept this useful information from all of the loyal Naptown denizens who frequent MSF.
Let’s all pretend for a moment that college football is about more than pageantry, tradition, and money.
Let’s pretend that the BCS system was created in order to determine the best team in the country.
I know…it’s quite a leap…but try and follow me along on this extended hypothetical.
If the BCS is supposed to pit the two best teams in the nation against each other in the national championship game, then this year, it will have worked if LSU and Alabama end up meeting to decide the BCS National Championship.
Congratulations to the British Columbia Lions, who defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 34-23 in front of a crowd of 54,000 to win the 99th Grey Cup. I’m not sure that Vancouver deserves nice things, considering how the city responded to losing the Stanley Cup, but I can’t imagine that Winnipeg is too torn up about the loss. After all, the Jets are back!
Anyway, here’s what we learned this weekend:
Happy Muppets week.
Last week, I was critical of the Disney Channel Original Movie Geek Charming. A few hours after the article posted, I got an e-mail notification that someone named Robin Palmer was following me on Twitter. It turns out that Robin Palmer wrote the novel, Geek Charming, on which the movie was based.
So now I feel bad. For what it’s worth, my wife, Ashlee, enjoyed Geek Charming and was upset that I panned it.
Anyway. Here’s what we learned this weekend.
After 5 days of serious discussions about what has happened off the field in State College, Pennsylvania, it was nice to have two full days of actual games to take our minds off of more serious matters.
This week, I explain how a 1- or 2-loss team from a non-AQ league could realistically clinch a BCS bowl bid, why Oregon is more deserving than Alabama of a rematch with LSU, and why Major League Soccer needs to shift its schedule or risk losing casual fans.
But first things first.
In this episode of the Away From the Action Podcast, I talk to Drew Lange about the Jerry Sandusky scandal and how much blame should fall on Joe Paterno, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux nickname controversy and recent actions taken by North Dakota’s governor and legislature, the BCS, the FCS playoff experience, and much more.
(And as usual, I find a way to bring up the Evansville Purple Aces.)
Earlier this week the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran an article about the debate over whether the loser of tomorrow’s #1-versus-#2 LSU-Alabama game deserves a spot in the BCS National Championship Game. Yesterday the Chicago Sun-Times ran a similar article.
Neither article endorses the idea of a championship rematch, but both articles (along with several others) serve to legitimize the debate. Clay Travis, of Outkick the Coverage and 104.5 in Nashville, has been an outspoken advocate of a title-game rematch on his radio show and on Twitter. (He’s certain that Oklahoma State will lose to Oklahoma, clearing a path for Saturday’s loser.)
Exhausted as I am by the hype surrounding the LSU-Alabama game, I understand where rematch proponents are coming from, even if I don’t agree.
The Sports Muse is a contributor to Midwest Sports Fans. He has lived in Minneapolis and Austin, but has become a traitor and moved back to the East Coast. He can be found on twitter @TheSportsMuse, and begs you to follow him so that he can break 100 soon.
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Last night’s BCS Championship Game (since they evidently won’t let the winner play TCU) crystallized why it is that we all watch so much sports: because you never know when you are going to see something great or memorable. Either a team or an individual performs at such a high and unexpected level that it makes what you are witnessing remarkable. And you never forget it, or where you were when you saw it. This is the modern day version of what my parents told me about things like Kennedy being shot, putting a man on the moon, or the Beatles first going on the Ed Sullivan Show (yes, the same Beatles who my 10-year old insists are not as talented or as famous as Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga).
Don’t get me wrong. Last night’s game was not great in the usual sense. It was sloppy. Both teams made lots of mistakes and showed the rust of what seemed like a 17-week layoff. But in the end, those last five minutes…what an exciting ending.
The Ohio State University has never played the Arkansas Razorbacks. So the most telling all-time record might be the Buckeyes 0-9 record versus any SEC opponent in their bowl game history. The last two of which were BCS Championship game blowout losses to Florida and LSU.
The Razorbacks are in the midst of an 8-game win streak with their only losses this season coming to SEC top dogs Alabama and Auburn. Besides a night game loss in Madison, Ohio State plowed through the Big Ten once again to gain a share of their sixth straight Big Ten title.
So what is going to happen when these two programs collide in what is sure to be an exciting game? Let’s look at the game data:
