I'm tired of the health insurance reform debates. I'm done with discussing Global Warming for now. Snow-pocolypse '09 no longer holds my interest. I don't even want to make fun of Chuck Grassley's sweaters. I think Barack Obama is doing a fine job, but he should have been helping with the August push back against the teabaggers. That argument is irrelevant to me right now.
I'm even weary with waging war on Christmas.
But I don't feel like arguing those things tonight.
Let's talk sports.
First, foremost and most importantly: Congratulations to the Penn State women's Volleyball team.
That makes 102 straight wins and three national titles. Streaks like that are unheard of. To make it even better, only 12 of those games went past three sets.
But you probably haven't heard.
The testosterone-fueled ESPN culture is so focused on the fast pace of men's sports that women's sports is overlooked. Too often, the men's team is considered the team at the school and the women's team is the other team. Case in point: there is a poster at my school advertising the home basketball games. Naturally, the men's games are listed on top. Whatever. Someone has to be listed first. What really irritated me, though, is that it is more expensive for the public to attend a men's game than a women's game.
And consider this: around March Madness, does the women's tourney get the press? Nope. They are an afterthought. Sure the women don't have the exciting slam dunks and showboating, but these women work just as hard as the men for less than one-tenth of the recognition.
That's why I am a fan of women's sports.
Moving on...
We have a college football champion. Villanova beat Montana 23-21 in a fun FCS final. To get there, 'Nova put together a 14-1 record, including an opening day win against Temple, one of the FBS hottest teams. (Congrats to Temple, too, who ripped off nine straight wins and are heading to their first bowl game since 1979.)
So this brings up a legitimate question. Why don't we have a FBS playoff. For as good as they appear to be, I really won't consider the winner of Texas-Alabama to be the National Champions. That is not their fault. Instead, it is the corporate interest mentality that tells us only teams from six of the 13 major conferences are "good enough" to play for the title. More realistically, there is a mentality that "no one" is interested in a TCU-Alabama match up and the game won't make any money.
Screw that.
Let's have a playoff. (Congress is on the job, by the way.) The eight best teams would play 13 games, four of those would play 14 games, and the objectively two best teams would have 15 games. And these games would be played between semesters. Keep the minor bowls for the other teams, but change some of the major bowls into the playoff games. (Note: conference playoff games would add yet another game to some schedules.)
Here's the BCS top eight at the end of this year:
1 Alabama 13-0
2 Texas 13-0
3 Cincinnati 12-0
4 TCU 12-0
5 Florida 12-1
6 Boise State 13-0
7 Oregon 10-2
8 Ohio State 10-2
So instead of the current bowl schedule with its silly conference tie-ins and corporate sponsorships, we could have a bowl line up that looks like this:
Alabama vs. Ohio State
Texas vs. Oregon
Cincinnati vs. Boise State
TCU v. Florida
Now that's exiting. What we currently have is TCU and BSU paired up in the Fiesta Bowl like the step children that the adults don't want around. I'm watching and so should you, despite this story alleging that Bowl employees may have made illegal political donations.
IMHO: Alabama deserves to be there, but the wrong Texas team is playing for the title. Also, considering their body of work over the past few seasons, Boise State is getting jobbed yet again and they should get a shot at the title.
What recourse do the Broncos have? Maybe they should join the Pac 10. BSU and perhaps Hawai'i, Utah, or Idaho would be great additions to the conference.
And speaking of expansions, the Big 10 is alsolooking to add another school to get to 12 members and hold a conference playoff in football. (To non-sports fans, that statement does indeed make sense. There have been 11 members of the Big Ten since 1993 when Penn State joined.)
Some potential big-time targets for expansion include Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Iowa State, Nebraska and Notre Dame. There are some other potential schools that would not add much to football or media markets, but might make some sense including Buffalo, Rutgers, Temple, Ohio U., Miami of Ohio, MCU, EMU, WMU, Northern Illinois, and perhaps South Dakota State if they want to move up a division. Of course, football is only one part of the consideration and academics need to trump all others.
So far, Pitt's basketball coach is not on board saying that the Big East is so great for basketball that no members would bolt. Meanwhile, the governor of Missouri thinks UM should consider the move. Missouri does play in the perennially rotten Big 12 North and might consider such a move.
Personally, I would like to see either Pitt or Notre Dame join, but ND has turned down the offer before and Pitt seems loyal to the Big East.
In other football news, thoughts and prayers to the family of Chad Henry. Chad Ochocinco decided it would be too much of a distraction to wear Henry's number 15 today. Nice gesture, but it became a distraction.
Meanwhile, the Bengal's opponent for today, San Diego,backed into a playoff game when three other teams got beat. San Diego is winning late and a win clinches the AFC West, though Villanova might be able to win that division.
Finally, a University of Minnesota basketball player announced that he would be leaving the school. Apparently he made the announcement on YouTube, but I couldn't find it.
I've got the end of the Eagles-49ers game. What's on your mind this evening?
Update: Pittsburgh just beat Green Bay. According to Fox Sports, the final of 37-36 has never happened in the NFL before.