Saturday, September 25, 2010

Week 3 Picks and a Ban of BCS Activity

Okay, I’m going to beat everyone to the punch this week. I’ve always had a tendency to do things early. I make Christmas lists in July and I start listening to Christmas music in October (but those are understandable because Christmas is awesome.) I pick NFL and NBA games the day the schedules come out and I plan almost everything ahead of time (but that’s acceptable because much like Christmas, NFL and NBA are awesome). It’s just a habit. So like usual, I’m going to make an argument way earlier than most will… You ready? The BCS is stupid and the fact that there is no post season tournament in college football is absolutely idiotic! There I said it, and I said it 7 weeks earlier than anyone else was going to say it. Why wait until Boise St and TCU are both 9-0 and are getting no consideration for a BCS Championship berth to start this argument? Give me one good reason why there shouldn’t be a college football postseason tournament… Don’t worry I’ll wait. Don’t bring up money either because common fans don’t care about the money that everyone involved in BCS is making. Don’t cry to me that the players will miss school. Like their school work matters that much anyways. And don’t say they will be playing too many games. A lot of these players will soon be playing a 16 game NFL season, so they could get used to it. Just like me, you probably want a College Football Tournament. I have figured out exactly how this will work, and I would love to share with you. Note to Readers: any potential/future conference changes are not going to be taken into account. I don't want to give myself a headache.

We are going to use the AP and Coaches polls to determine which teams we take into the end of the year tournament, which will appropriately be called “The Tournament Everybody Has Wanted for Years.” The winner of every former “BCS conference” will not get an automatic spot. If one conference doesn’t have one of the 16 best teams in the country, then they are not going to be in the tournament. We will take the top 16 teams from the combination of the AP and Coaches polls and make a 1-16 tournament bracket. That settles that.

My tournament will start on the 1st weekend in December and will conclude on New Years Day. The games in each round will be played at the following sites:
1st round- Holiday Bowl, Music City Bowl, Alamo Bowl, Outback Bowl, Insight Bowl, Independence Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl, Liberty Bowl
Quarterfinals- Capital One Bowl, Gator Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl
Semi-Finals- Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl
Championship- Rose Bowl

So why am I doing this? It’s the best way to prove who the best team is, it gives teams who wouldn’t have a shot at a title a shot, and it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining. Plus, we get the same amount of games, but the games are higher quality. The remaining bowl games that aren’t involved in the tournament will still be played with the same conference affiliations as usual, they will just be played with better teams. Better teams= more entertaining and watchable games= the Holiday Bowl getting a higher attendance and television draw than normal because it’s a first round game of a postseason tournament rather than the host of the third best team in the Pac-10 and fifth best team of the Big 12. So let’s take a look at what this would look like as of right now. And another note to the reader, from now on when I do bowl projections I will do it in this format. I am banning any type of BCS activity from this point on in my blog. For any teams that have the same combined ranking (ranks in the polls adds up to the same amount), their ranking will be decided by which team is currently of highest rank in their conference.

1st Round:
Holiday Bowl- 1. Alabama vs. 16. Auburn
Music City Bowl- 8. Florida vs. 9. Oklahoma
Alamo Bowl- 5. Oregon vs. 12. Utah
Outback Bowl- 4. TCU vs. 13. LSU
Insight Bowl- 6. Texas vs. 11. Wisconsin
Independence Bowl- 3. Boise St. vs. 14. South Carolina
Chick-Fil-A Bowl- 7. Nebraska vs. 10. Arkansas
Liberty Bowl- 2. Ohio St. vs. 15. Arizona

The Capital One Bowl will be the host of the 1/16 vs. 8/9 matchup. The Gator Bowl will be the host of the 5/12 vs. 4/13 matchup. The Cotton bowl will feature the winners of the 6/11 and 3/14 games. And the Fiesta Bowl will be the host of the 7/10 vs. 2/15 matchup. In the semi-finals, The Orange Bowl will feature the semi-final of the upper half of the bracket and The Sugar Bowl will feature the semi-final of the bottom half of the bracket. The Rose Bowl game will be the Championship.

I’m still waiting to hear why this isn’t the best idea that ever happened to college football. I’m pretty sure I will be waiting for quite a while.
Onto the picks, where last week I finished 7-3 picking college football and 10-6 picking NFL. Oddly enough, that’s the same overall record from week 1. So through two weeks, I am 15-5 picking college football, 19-13 picking NFL, which equals 34-18 overall. Something of note though, on Yahoo Sports I am 36-21 picking college games against the spread, which has landed me in the 98th percentile and 1,029th in the country. Yeah, that’s pretty good. Week 3 picks ladies and gentlemen:

College Football
Georgia Tech over NC State
Boston College over Virginia Tech
Alabama over Arkansas
Stanford over Notre Dame
Nevada over BYU
Mississippi St. over Georgia
Fresno St. over Ole Miss
South Carolina over Auburn
Boise St. over Oregon St.
LSU over West Virginia

NFL
Tennessee over New York Giants
Pittsburgh over Tampa Bay (Hell yea, Chuck Batch is going to pick up the win)
Cincinnati over Carolina
Baltimore over Cleveland
Houston over Dallas
Kansas City over San Francisco
Minnesota over Detroit
New England over Buffalo
New Orleans over Atlanta
Washington over St. Louis
Philadelphia over Jacksonville
Oakland over Arizona
San Diego over Seattle
Indianapolis over Denver
Miami over New York Jets
Chicago over Green Bay (I’ve got to support my Bears!)

Back in a week folks! Remember, no more BCS in my blog and rid the BCS of your life too!