But I digress.

Since college football is so anticipated, it follows that the sport produces more off-season material than any other sport. And since we’re now into August, that mostly consists of predictions and prognostications for the upcoming season.

And despite the wide variety willing to put forth their opinion on the upcoming season, the predictions don’t vary all that much across the board. All the preseason rags seem to have the same Top 10, the same surprise picks, the same disappointment picks, the same “coaches on the hot seat” lists, the same breakout players and whatnot. Sure, there’ll be some minor disagreement, but it’s not like anyone predicted that Kansas would win 12 games last season, or Appalachian State would beat Michigan, or that the entire USC roster would get jock itch.

So what you’re left with is a bunch of magazines making the same predictions. And a bunch of them are going to be wrong. And you know they’re going to be wrong. And after awhile you get really, really sick of hearing them. Did you ever think “Gee, I wish the season would start so I could stop hearing how Notre Dame is a Top 25 team?”

Well, I have. And with that in mind, here’s my list of stories I’m thankful will go away the nanosecond these teams prove they aren’t up to the hype:

Pittsburgh as Top 25 team and Big East contender. Dear Lord, please keep me from barfing.

OK, I’m a Miami Dolphins diehard, so I have to admit I’m biased about this one. But anyone making this prediction is ignoring an awful lot of history that Dave Wannstedt couldn’t make an in-game adjustment if his life depended on it. Not to mention that he lost a lot of offensive line talent from last year’s team, which is kinda important if you strive to be a power running team. And Lord knows Wannstedt doesn’t know anything else.

There’s no denying Wannstedt has brought considerable talent to Pitt. But talent alone isn’t going to beat quality coaches like Schiano, Edsall, Kragthorpe (hey, he was great at Tulsa), Kelly, and of course Leavitt. Charlie Weis, Kirk Ferentz, and Turner Gill, who’s made progress at an awful Buffalo program, are also on the schedule. If anyone wants to wager that Pitt will go better than 3-5 in those games, I’m a taker. But hey, at least there’s Greg Robinson to keep Wannstupidt from being the worst coach in the Big East.

(PREDICTION: whichever coach loses the October 2 Pitt@Syracuse game will be the first major-conference firing of the season, on October 3.)

This is finally Clemson’s year in the ACC! This one’s real simple. When a team earns a reputation for being chokers, you don’t pick them until they don’t choke. I don’t care how much NFL talent Clemson has relative to the rest of the Asti and Cheese Conference, I’m not picking them for anything above a Peach Bowl loss until they actually do it once. (SEE ALSO: Chicago Cubs.)

Appalachian State-LSU. Nothing against Appalachian State, but it’s much harder to pull that kind of upset when everybody’s looking out for it. It’s also much harder to pull that kind of upset against a team that can actually counter your strengths, unlike Michigan last year. Appalachian looked faster, tougher and more composed than Michigan. That won’t be the case against LSU.

(PREDICTION: There will, however, be a noteworthy I-AA over I-A upset this year. But it won’t be Appalachian over LSU. If I have to pick one, I’ll say Delaware-Maryland.)

Florida Atlantic as rising power in Florida! Loud Howard’s done some fine things at FAU — a football team that draws about as many fans as a Winger/Warrant double-headliner concert — but Dennis Dodd’s “In: FAU; Out: Florida State” thing is way, way, way too much.

Let’s get some perspective. FAU’s win over a Big Ten team was nice, but Minnesota was historically awful last year. The bowl win was nice, but Memphis just plain sucked, and had already lost to two weaker Sun Belt teams. In fact, I argued at the time that FAU deserved a better bowl opponent. And yes, FAU played very well against USF.

But the Owls were rolled by Florida, Oklahoma State, and Kentucky. Florida I can forgive, but getting pounded by those two flaky teams is a bit much to overlook for a team with Top 25 aspirations. Win at Michigan State and we’ll talk.

Coaches on the hot seat! Tyrone Willingham! Greg Robinson! Mike Stoops! Wow, BCS coaches entering their third our later season who haven’t made a bowl game yet. Way to go out on a limb, poindexter.

Just once I’d like to see a preseason prognosticator anticipate the sort of panicky, too-soon firing that happens at 7-5 schools who think they should be 10-2 schools, and soon find themselves as 4-8 schools. Or even a slightly less obvious hot seat choice.

With that in mind, here are some more astute hot seat names:

Al Groh, Virginia. Last year was their best bowl trip in almost 20 years… but they won an awful lot of close games to get there. Like a reliever with a .260 BABIP, it’s hard to keep that up. And UVa started last season with a 23-3 home loss to Wyoming that left the fans booing. With Southern Cal, tough I-AA Richmond (another potential upset), and UConn to start this season, it may not be so easy to correct a bad start.

Dave Wannstedt, Pittsburgh. See above. If he can’t turn the preseason buzz into at least a bowl game, he’d better be gone. Then again, Pitt’s AD is the guy who hired and defended the execrable Bill Callahan at Nebraska.

Charlie Weis, Notre Dame. This may not be such an out-there pick on merit… but the university gave Weis a $30 million extension as a reward for a 5-2 start with the previous coach’s players, three seasons ago. It’d be awfully expensive to make Weis go away if the Irish stink it up like they did last year. They didn’t just lose, they looked totally incompetent. I’ve seen better coached teams in Pop Warner than I did in last year’s Georgia Tech opener.

Joe Glenn, Wyoming. Only one bowl trip in five years; Wyoming fans aspire to more. Glenn has been a fast winner at all his other stops, and one more non-bowl season may exhaust Wyo’s patience. Yeah, I know it’s non-BCS, but San Diego State’s Chuck Long is on everyone’s hot seat list, so I’m counting Glenn as a more subtle hot seat name.

Tim Brewster, Minnesota. It’s only his second year, but the Gophers better not suck as loudly as they did in ‘07 or someone else will be coaching his vaunted recruits. They fired Glen Mason, a proven winner at lower-tier programs like Minnesota, for a lot less.

Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt. I hate to say it, because he’s got such a thankless job — and he’s got this great Steve Martin look — but seven tantalizing bowl-less seasons might be enough for the ‘Dores to move on. Unless they beat Tennessee. Then it’s extension time, baby!

Sylvester Croom, Mississippi State. Finally made a bowl game in his fourth year, but his removal might look justified if he doesn’t follow it up with a second trip.

And finally, the most surprising fire of this season will be…

Joe Paterno or Bobby Bowden. Something’s got to give. Both schools have been spinning their wheels for awhile, and there’s little reason to believe they’ll be better this year. Both schools are also dealing with enough off-field ugliness that another 6-6, 3-5 season might be enough to convince these schools that it’s time to bury Caesar rather than praise him.

…sorry, I put it in the headline.

For all the “who are these nobodies?” articles that have appeared in the college football media, you’d think somebody would have noticed that the AAFL draft list is loaded with more freely-available 30-somethings than a speed-dating event in Largo. Look at some of the names on the Team Florida draft list:

1. Eric Kresser, QB, Florida/Marshall (age 35)
8. Willie Jackson, WR, Florida (turns 37 shortly after AAFL season ends)
10. Travis McGriff, WR, Florida (age 31)
13. Chris Doering, WR, Florida (turns 35 during the season)
14. Elijah Williams, DB, Florida (age 32)
15. Fred Weary, DB, Florida (turns 34 during the season)

I’d find more examples, including some non-Gators, but most of the players on the AAFL draft list weren’t even drafted by the NFL after their senior season. And I’m not digging through a dozen schools’ media guides to make the point.

Other names that’ll make you 30-to-35-year-olds dust off the beer bong: Eric Crouch; Tee Martin; Woodrow Dantzler; Peter Warrick; Purdue kicker Travis Dorsch; Clint Stoerner and Chrys Chukwuma of Arkansas; and that “He Hate Me” guy. Yes, folks, the XFL was seven years ago.

At least now we know why only two USF players were chosen. The football team’s not been around long enough to have any 35-year-old alumni. Except Ron Johnson. Now if he were playing, I might actually buy a ticket.

The daily banter of college football is chock full of phrases that are misused, overused, and generally useless. In hopes of making next season slightly less nausea-inducing, I hereby offer The Banished Words List For The 2008 College Football Season.

In no particular order:

RUN THE TABLE. For the love of God, Corso, find another way to say “Win the rest of your games.” And then use it sparingly. And change it after a year or two. And the rest of you idiots in Bristol, don’t use it just because Corso thought it up and it sounded cool.

PLAY ON SUNDAYS or PLAY AT THE NEXT LEVEL. Why can’t announcers in a college game say the letters N-F-L when it comes to a player that has pro potential? It’s what every college football player aspires to. The NCAA’s role as the NFL’s free farm system is acknowledged by all. Why the euphemism?

THEY DIDN’T WIN THEIR DIVISION. You heard this about Georgia and Kansas in 2006, and about Nebraska’s national title loser in 2001. You may be surprised to hear this, but these teams actually did win their division. I know this because I checked the standings, and they all had the best record in their division. The problem is that another team also had the best record, and these teams lost a tiebreaker which prevented them from playing in the conference championship game. These teams can call rightfully themselves “co-champions”; in fact, most conferences without divisions have by-laws that allow this. Problem is, only one team can play in the conference championship game, so being a co-division champion is pretty meaningless. Just another example of the “everything is a means to our end” mentality the BCS has wreaked upon college football; I’ll get to that in a bit.

Yes, I know the tiebreaker in question was a head-to-head matchup with the other team in the tie. Missouri beat Kansas, Tennessee beat Georgia, and Colorado beat Nebraska in 2001. But this isn’t the NFL, where everybody plays twice home-and-away. Mizzou-Kansas was a neutral site game, and the other two were road games. If we’re going to celebrate two-loss national champions, let’s not be so quick to rule a team out because they lost a road game to a team of equal strength.

RESTORING THE GLORY TO SMU. Every time this school hires a new coach, or loses slightly fewer games than they did the year before, we’re all treated to a puke-inducing We Are The 80s-esque recapitulation of SMU’s heady days of excess, downfall, and its desire to return to the lofty place it once held in college football. Here’s an example from just a couple days ago.

Folks, there’s no glory left for SMU to return to. SMU’s 20 years of post-death penalty failure have seen not only the have-have not world of the BCS, but go back far enough to include the dissolution of the Southwest Conference. The continents have shifted, and SMU is a melting ice floe adrift off Antarctica. I know SMU was huge in 1984, but so was Bananarama. It’s a lazy angle and it’s time to give it a rest. The 1990s and 2000s have shown that anybody can rise, anybody can fall, and it doesn’t take half as long as SMU has been floundering around.

SMU’s national relevance wasn’t killed by the death penalty; it died of old age. Let’s give it a dignified burial alongside tie games, Grantland Rice, the 10-game regular season, Notre Dame’s refusal to play bowl games, and Army and Navy as national powers. Then let’s update the thesaurus to include “SMU” as synonym for “Tulane” and get on with things.

GREAT FACILITIES. Saying your college has great athletic facilities is a little bit like saying your girlfriend has a vagina. Practically every major football school has now invested millions into extravagant athletic facilities. Nowadays it’s only relevant when your school doesn’t have such facilities. Like Hawaii, to give a recent example.

This is that college athletics “arms race” that inspires so much hand-wringing, but which nobody does anything about. If some school builds a locker room with solid gold toilet stalls, their rival’s going to have to build solid gold toilet stalls to stay even, and before long every school in America will have solid gold toilet stalls. And it’ll probably be Oklahoma State or Florida Atlantic that starts it. This is the sort of thing the NCAA ought to be policing, but they’re too busy going over Tim Tebow’s cell phone records.

CONTRACT EXTENSION. Like Will Smith’s police experience in Men In Black, contract extensions for college football head coaches mean precisely dick.

Here are some of the major coaches who were fired this past offseason, and the contract extensions they had recently been given:

Bill Callahan: three-year extension through 2011, received September 2007
Chan Gailey: automatic one-year extension for 2011, received after 2006 season
Ed Orgeron: two-year extension through 2010, received after 2006 season
Phil Bennett: one-year extension for 2009, received after 2005 season
Houston Nutt: one-year extension for the 2011 season, received in 2005
Bill Doba: five-year extension through 2010, received 2005
Karl Dorrell: two-year extension through 2010, received December 2004
So all seven of these guys got extensions for years they were not kept around for. Six of them were fired within two years of being extended. When a coach is fired with years left on his contract, schools have to pay the coach hundreds of thousands of dollars in buyouts. What brought on this madness?

I think it’s the belief that recruiting suffers if a head coach is on an expiring contract. The recruit-o-dorks have been pushing this idea for awhile, and America’s athletic directors seem to be buying it. A contract extension is no longer a sign that a school wants to keep a coach that is doing a good job. Like solid gold toilet stalls, expensive long-term extensions for mediocre coaches is the cost of doing business. It’s a sunk cost schools seem willing to accept to create the illusion of coaching stability. In fact, a lot of contracts have automatic one-year extensions, so the coach is always working on a four- or five-year deal. Chan Gailey’s contract with Georgia Tech seems to have been like that.

And if you’ll notice, schools don’t bat an eye when it comes to paying these buyouts. (Other than the Rich Rodriguez soap opera, but that’s clearly not about money.) Texas A&M gladly paid Dennis Franchione $4.4 million not to coach football when his secret newsletter fiasco gave them a legitimate reason to fire him.

BOWL-ELIGIBLE. The Lake Superior State list admonishes words that are “misused, overused, and generally useless.” This one is all three. It’s misused, because the chuckleheads at ESPN don’t know or care when being bowl-eligible actually matters; they just cheerily point out that Northwestern is now bowl-eligible, and never get around to explaining what bowl they went to. It’s useless because it provides no meaningful context: Ball State and LSU were both bowl eligible. And it’s overused.

The “celebrating mediocrity” angle gets worked a lot in the CFB press, so I won’t recover that ground. But consider this: “bowl eligible” has, quite sneakily, given us a one-size-fits-all level of success for everyone between 6-6 and 11-2. The powers-that-be spend so much time positioning the BCS as the gold standard that the rest of the bowls seem to have coagulated into a mishmash of merely above-average-ness, where there’s no difference between the Cotton Bowl and the PapaJohns.com bowl. Even New Year’s Day, which used to be the gold standard, is meaningless.

Which brings me to:

BCS. I’m sure you knew this one was coming. But it’s not for the reasons you think. Forget the national championship game, forget the formulas, forget the contrived controversy, forget all the normal reasons people hate the BCS. I want to talk about the more insidious damage the BCS has done to the sport of college football.

It all occurred to me at the end of the 2005 season. I was watching Penn State win the Big Ten by beating Michigan State in the final game of the regular season. The announcers of that game, and the talking heads in the studio shows later that night, all described the victory and its implications the exact same way: “Penn State is making its first ever trip to the BCS!” As if this were the first meaningful thing Penn State had ever accomplished. Not once did anybody point out that Penn State had won the Big Ten conference. Call me old-fashioned, but winning the conference used to mean something. In fact, it used to mean everything; a bowl game was just a reward for an excellent season. Now a conference championship is a meaningless preliminary phase, like winning the AFC Central.

That’s one way the BCS smears its salty Tostitos-sponsored feces all over college football: by making itself the only worthwhile objective in the sport. The devaluation of non-BCS bowl games, as discussed in the previous item, is another. Here’s a third:

One of the blog entries I want to do during the upcoming season is called “Time To Fail.” I’m going to record televised college football games and calculate how long it takes for the announcing team to say the letters B-C-S. I’m betting it’s not very long.

Why is the BCS the ubiquitous, unanimous, continual topic of conversation in college football? You can’t watch a quarter of a college football game without being reminded of it. Yes, I realize that the national championship and the major bowl games are the culmination of the season, just like the World Series is the culmination of the baseball season, or the Super Bowl is the culmination of the NFL season. But I can actually watch a fuckin’ MLB or NFL game without semi-hourly reminders on what the formula is, who the contenders are, the pundits’ opinions of the contenders, which upcoming games will determine it, why some people don’t like it, and the merits of alternative systems.

And some of these twits pimp the BCS like they get paid a nickel everytime they mention it. The ESPN Gameday hosts in particular sound like Billy Mays pitching a new miracle cleaner after doing a speedball.

Really, why do they have to talk about the BCS so goddamn much? There’s just not that much to know. There’s a complicated formula. Every week it spits out a set of rankings. We look at the rankings and make some educated guesses how the rankings might change after this week’s games. Rinse and repeat. You can cover the whole thing in two minutes.

As college football fans go, I’m a casual fan. I’m a proud alumni and I support the South Florida Bulls to the end, but I’m not a fanatic. I don’t break things when we lose. I simply enjoy the drama, excitement, tension, and camaraderie that is inherent to college football. I often watch games I have no personal rooting stake in, just because I enjoy seeing different fan bases and different parts of the country. And you know what? This fuckin’ BCS shit is just sucking the joy out of it. I can’t sit down and enjoy a televised college football game anymore, because the minute it gets interesting, Rain Man is going to show up and demand to talk about Judge Wopner for the seventh time today.

And if you think I’m exaggerating, consider this: one Tuesday night, I’m flipping channels and discovered a MAC game I didn’t know was on. At that moment, there was a player with a phone number tattooed on his arm, and a gigantic afro, with a tube in his belly like he was getting an ultrasound. Now, wouldn’t you like to know what the hell that was about? Me too. But I never found out, because the ESPN announcing crew used this injury time to have a six-minute discussion of the latest BCS rankings.

Have you ever known an Issues? A person with a pet cause who is incapable of having a conversation about anything else? Watching college football anymore is like being in a room full of these people. Some of them seem unaware that there’s an actual sporting event going on. Listening to them talk about college football is like going to a Bible Codes convention for obsessive-compulsives.

But at least, we may have discovered the real reason most of the chuckleheads at ESPN and other college football talking heads support the BCS: without it, they’d have to find something interesting to talk about.

Here is your assignment: pick two teams, any two teams, and reverse their bowl assignments. What I’m looking for the one swap that would yield the greatest overall improvement in bowl matchups. I don’t want to hear who you think should be in the national title game; I’m interested in all the bowls, from 1 to 32. Pick any two teams, flip them, and generate the best games.

Here are my ideas:

FLIP LOUISVILLE AND MEMPHIS.
Louisville faces Florida Atlantic in the New Orleans Bowl.
Memphis faces Purdue in men’s basketball.

Ball State and New Mexico get all the abuse from the Too-Many-Bowls crowd, but Memphis is probably the least-deserving bowl team this year. The Tigers’ power ranking has spent more time in the 80s than Gallagher, but thanks to Conference USA’s considerable skill at landing bowl contracts, the mighty Memphians clinched a guaranteed bowl game with one week left in the season. The teams they’ve beaten are a combined 26-57. And the teams they’ve lost to aren’t much better.

I also don’t like this matchup because I think champions of smaller conferences deserve a bowl game against “name” opponents. Much of the fun of the bowl season is seeing how conferences do against each other, and part of that is seeing how teams like FAU and Central Michigan do in against major-conference opposition in a neutral setting. This game does poorly on the rate “rank the bowls from 1 to 32″ lists, but FAU against 6-6 South Carolina or Iowa is interesting — just to see a seven-year-old program compares to somebody that’s been around for eons.

But I love the idea of Howard Schnellenberger coaching against the UofL program he helped build — a program in turmoil, whose fans will be demanding a good performance after a nightmare season. Especially after Bobby Petrino left the Atlanta Falcons for the University of Arkansas, and the things that were said about Petrino’s people management skills, and the state he left the Louisville program in.

FLIP UCLA and Purdue.
UCLA faces Central Michigan in Motor City Bowl.
Purdue faces BYU in Las Vegas Bowl.

As scheduled now, these two bowl games are the most unwanted sequels since Baby Geniuses 2. In the 2007 regular season, BYU beat UCLA, and Purdue beat CMU, without either game being interesting or even close. This flip gives each conference champion an interesting new opponent.

BYU-CMU in the Motor City and UCLA-Purdue in Vegas works too. The LDS church has a presence in Michigan, and UCLA-Purdue in Vegas might compel travelers and local fans in a way that dull regular-season rematches don’t.

FLIP ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN.
Illinois plays Florida in the Citrus Bowl.
Michigan plays USC in the Rose Bowl.

We all heard the speculation about a Ron Zook versus Florida bowl before the pairings were finalized. It was a good idea then, and it’s a good idea now. And Tim Tebow vs. Juice Williams makes for an exciting matchup.

As for the Rose Bowl… well, if they absolutely have to have to a Big Ten team, Michigan’s a more interesting foil to USC, and probably more capable of upsetting them. And I love the idea that a team could start its season with a loss to Appalachian State and end it with a win over USC. I can think of no more fitting conclusion to this season of chaos.

Which two teams’ bowl assignments would you flip, and why? State your case in the Comments section. Be creative!

When it’s all over the morning of January 2nd, as many as nine different teams could have a claim to the national championship — and as many as five bowl games could play a role in determining it.

It all starts in Pasadena, with the Grand-daddy Of Them All. For the 62nd consecutive year, the Rose Bowl will pair the champions of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten. In this year’s chapter, consensus #1 Ohio State (11-1) takes on #6 USC (10-2). The Trojans are back at full strength, humming on all cylinders, and eager to show the world that they’ve recovered from their embarrassing mid-season loss to Stanford.

Both Ohio State and USC feel that a victory in the Rose Bowl will give them a claim to the #1 spot in the land. However, in New Orleans, SEC champion and #2 team in the land LSU (11-2) will face the nation’s only unbeaten team, #10 Hawaii (12-0). Having moved up to #2 in the season-ending poll, the Bayou Bengals feel they can stake a claim for #1 with a win and a Buckeyes loss. Meanwhile, the Warriors feel that beating the Tigers in their own backyard — a task #5 Virginia Tech, #9 Florida, and #22 Auburn all failed at — gives Colt Brennan’s squad a legitimate claim to the national championship. A Hawaii win, combined with losses by Ohio State and Kansas, would leave Hawaii as the sole unbeaten team in the land — and no one-loss teams.

But not so fast, says the honorable representative from the great state of Oklahoma. The #3 Sooners (11-2), Big 12 champions, are headed to the Fiesta Bowl to face #11 Arizona State (10-2). The Sun Devils play in their hometown bowl for the first time in 25 years, and will pose a tough challenge for the men from Norman. Of all the two-loss teams, ASU is ranked the lowest, but their two losses might be the most forgivable: to Oregon and USC when both teams were playing at their peak. They also beat Colorado, a point Sooner fans traveling to Phoenix will no doubt be reminded of.

Can the Fiesta Bowl decide the national title? The Sooners think they’d have a case against two-loss Ohio State, USC, and LSU teams. At #11 and with a late loss to USC, Arizona State probably can’t get into the national discussion, but a win would cap their best season since Jake Plummer was at the controls.

And the fun doesn’t end there. The venerable Orange Bowl isn’t played in the venerable Orange Bowl anymore, but it’s still one of the big games in the New Year’s Day football gorgefest. In the only pairing of Top 5 teams, ACC champion #5 Virginia Tech (11-2) takes on #4 Georgia (10-2). Can the vaunted Hokie defense slow super-freshman Knowshown Moreno? How will Georgia handle speedy quarterback Tyrod Taylor?

It’s hard to concoct a scenario where the Virginia Tech-Georgia winner wins a national title. But each team in this game has one #1 vote in the AP Poll, and will likely end the season with more than that. The winner of this game will take votes away from the other candidates, and will definitely impact the national title race. A decisive Georgia victory over Virginia Tech could take votes away from #2 LSU, for example.

In other New Year’s Day bowl games, two conference runner-ups face off in Dallas as #7 Missouri (11-2) takes on #14 Boston College (10-3). Both teams have expressed their disappointment at not winning their league championship, but will still get to play in one of college football’s most historic and important bowl games. Fittingly, BC quarterback Matt Ryan gets to play his last college game in the same bowl where Doug Flutie played his.

Other New Year’s Day games include #9 Florida (9-3) taking on fired head coach Ron Zook and #13 Illinois (9-3) in the Citrus Bowl; Big Ten runner up Michigan (8-4) versus SEC runner up #18 Tennessee (9-4) in the Outback Bowl; and a battle of contrasting run offenses between methodical #8 Kansas (11-1) and potent but erratic #9 West Virginia (10-2). And would you believe Kansas thinks it can get into the national title discussion with a win?

And as the last days of 2007 tick away, college football fans will enjoy Cincinnati-Arkansas in the Independence Bowl, BYU-Texas in the Holiday Bowl, a wild west shootout between Boise State and Texas Tech in the Aloha Bowl, and a battle between small-conference champions Central Michigan and Florida Atlantic in the Motor City Bowl. Don’t laugh; non-bowl teams like Alabama, Colorado, California, and Oklahoma State would gladly trade places with the Owls and Chippewas.

Of course, some have questioned the inherent fairness of letting human polls decide national champions. Some have gone so far as to demand a fairer, more organized system. One idea involves a mathematical formula, based on human and computer polls that would pre-select two teams before the bowl season begins, and require them to play each other in a pre-designated national championship game. It is believed that this system will eliminate debates about the national championship, while preserving the tradition of bowl games and generating better matchups.

This blog will be devoted to in-depth discussion of the college football bowl system. Mostly, what a steaming pile of idiocy it all is.

Please read the Anti About Page to learn what we will not be discussing.

Coming soon: the blog’s first real entry, “Introduction to Bowl Logic.”