Rotting Citrus Matter? E.T. You have a new enemy

[Brad]

or at least another **** unfunny stupid journalist to educate...

'Varmints' could mess up BCS party

By ART THIEL ::knighted:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

My new favorite team in college football is the University of South Florida. Despite the fact I had to look up its location and league (Tampa; Conference USA), I'm a big fan of the Rotting Citrus Matter, or whatever the team calls itself.

If USF (4-6) beats Big East Conference quarter-champion Pittsburgh (7-3) Saturday in a game postponed by hurricane, the league's automatic entry into the Bowl Championship Series will fall to Syracuse, which only last week became bowl-eligible with a 6-5 record.

That tepid season will be rewarded with a bowl payday of about $14 million.

Thank you, BCS.

Just when big-time college football couldn't get loopier, a way is at hand to make the sport look as regal as Tom Arnold on crack.

I know, I know. Beating up on the BCS nearly has as much tradition as Christmas. But it's a lot more fun, it's free, and every season something different goes wrong a new way.

How can a fan not love the Ford Pinto of American sports?

This season's perversion centers on the fact that among the four so-called mid-major conferences -- Mountain West, Western Athletic, Mid-American and Conference USA -- there are not one but two unbeaten teams, Utah and Boise State, both 11-0. Neither team, nor the four conferences, was originally guaranteed one of the eight places in the BCS games.

Among the major conferences, there remain three unbeatens -- USC of the Pac-10, Oklahoma of the Big 12 and Auburn of the Southeastern. While all three have games Saturday, the trio is favored.

If five unblemished teams are left, that will be way too many for the BCS to also squeeze in competitive justice. That makes for the BCS' worst nightmare since it marched in unilaterally and occupied the bowl scene in 1998.

If that isn't enough, one of the six BCS conferences, the Big East, has been decimated by defections. Its two football powers, Miami and Virginia Tech, left the conference after last season for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Big East this season is a skeletal seven-team union that ended in a four-way tie for the title, with Boston College and West Virginia joining Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Since tiebreakers favor Syracuse, Pitt has to beat South Florida, a school whose football program goes all the way back to 1997, to gain the conference's BCS berth.

So if the Rotting Citrus Matter upsets Pitt to advance Syracuse, the BCS will be forced to admit a varmint to the party. Even if Pitt advances, the BCS ladies will still be upon chairs, hoisting hemlines and screeching, "Eeek!"

Only yesterday did Pitt make its first seasonal appearance in the polls, 19th among the writers and 21st with the coaches. Even if a win Saturday engenders a Pitt climb in the polls, an 8-3 team that lost to Syracuse, Nebraska and Connecticut is not supposed to be taking money from teams with zero, one or two losses.

But because the BCS is locked into a format and commitments that have everything to do with money and nothing to do with football reality, there are no options.

As it stands this week, the third undefeated team among the majors, Auburn, will be hosed, as will a 10-1 team such as Texas, which won't even make the BCS field. If Utah ends up playing Syracuse or Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl, even a win won't help legitimize Utah's record or conference.

So if given a choice among the systems in Ohio, Ukraine or the BCS for picking winners, I'm going with my boys in Kiev. When in doubt about a vote, go old Soviet.

In fairness, the BCS had no control over the demise of the Big East. Nor did it have influence regarding the preseason polls that put USC and Oklahoma 1-2, from where they ran their respective tables, locking out Auburn and its unexpected 11-0 record.

But that's the point -- no entity has control over anything in college football. The BCS is an independent business with no formal tie with the NCAA or its individual schools. The bowls are independent contractors loosely affiliated with one another.

All three enterprises fiercely lust for fans' money, but can't keep out of each other's way, much in the fashion of the old "Three Stooges" hospital episode in which a simultaneous page went out for Dr. Larry, Dr. Moe and Dr. Curly.

Patients and gurneys were everywhere.

The only way to make order from this chaos is employing the same method used by all other Division 1-A sports, as well as Division II and III football -- a playoff system. Be it four, eight or 16 teams, it is the only solution, has been the only solution and will be the only solution, forever and ever, amen.

But year after year, the university presidents resist, trotting out the same tired arguments, citing lengthening the football calendar, jeopardizing the student-athletes' time in class, and over-commercialization.

They skirt acknowledging that those horses left the collegiate barn 20 years ago when the schools voted to continue expanding of the men's basketball tournament to its current 64 teams. Paring down that field requires the month of March. While some university presidents shake their heads, those gestures never happen when it comes to accepting tournament revenue.

The charade of football and men's basketball players as students has long been over among the athletes. Another game or two for a handful of schools will do nothing to jeopardize either the universities' diploma mill or the athletes' general welfare.

The one thing playoffs do is draw more money to the entertainment colossus that big-time college sports have become. We know what the industry is; we're just quibbling over price.

The fact that the college football season annually and uniquely ends in confusion does have some appeal. As an occasional advocate of anarchy, the lack of resolution provides a mess that all sports columnists should savor as a target-rich environment.

Which is why I'm a big fan of the Rotting Citrus Matter. A win by South Florida Saturday will inspire so much agitation and confusion in the sporting citizenry that my boys in Kiev will have to be imported to supervise the bowl season of American higher education.

P-I columnist Art Thiel can be reached at 206-448-8135 or artthiel@seattlepi.com

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Help this guy....

[E.T.]

Well . . . he may not like me ... but he'll learn to LOVE me !

8)

[sdgukhsdgl]

i thought this was about UCF's stadium....

lame attempt at humor, sad people like that are actually given columns to write

[Apis Bull]

I guess since Washington sucked this year, he has nothing better to write about.

[bullwark]

I e-mailed this piece of Rotting Fecal Matter a piece of my mind! >

[BullDoug]

A win by USM over CA and a win by Auburn throws more monkey wrenches than USF's possible win.  It would bring Boise State into the BCS.  BTW with the WAC, CUSA & MWC champs ranked higher in the BCS than both the BEs & the ACCs champs, does that mean they are better conferences?

[dabull80]

I guess what I don't understand is why he has to take such a negative shot at us.  What did we ever do to him ?

[bullwark]

Hey E.T. have you spoken with this A$$ Clown. I have left him a a voice message and sent an e-mail and have not heard from him, have you had any luck?