It's more than pageantry and tradition, rabid alums and bitter rivals. My love of the game rests solidly on the fact that every game matters.
Wins and losses. Suit up, line up, show us what you've got -- and next week, show us again.
Every game matters.Enter the BCS, that lame expression of the human quest for certainty. Launched in 1998 to address the ritual hand-wringing surrounding the national championship, it's rarely worked as intended -- and it'll fail miserably again this season.
For evidence, look no further than the Texas-Oklahoma-Texas Tech mess in the Big 12. So is it time to trash a clearly dysfunctional system and replace it with some sort of playoff scheme?
Absolutely not.
I'm all for disbanding the BCS -- and I say that even though it gave my Buckeyes the chance to upset consensus favorite Miami in the 2003 championship game -- but I also accept that no playoff scheme will eliminate controversy. What's more, I'm here to suggest that doubt is good for the sport.
Football is a game played by humans, coached and officiated by humans, judged and attended by humans -- and wherever we humans go, controversy follows. Trying to reduce the result to scientific certainty is a fool's errand.
In the world of sport, big-time college football is uncertainty's last stand. We cheer, we care, we hang by the scoreboard because every game is either a stepping-stone or a potential knockout punch.Win now, because tomorrow may never come. Week by uncertain week, the excitement builds.
When a 41-point underdog upsets the top-ranked team in October, it matters. When a feisty I-AA squad pulls off an impossible August win in The Big House, it matters. When a bunch of Ducks unexpectedly sticks a thorn into the Beavers' post-season plans, it matters.
From my seat in the bleachers, I maintain that uncertainty is absolutely essential to the passion of college football. Imprisoning joy in a formulaic cage may be human nature, but it's beyond me.
