JoBu's Fifth Annual Defense of the BCS

I'm no more tired of answering for college football's postseason than college basketball fans are tired of trying to change it.

See also:

First-Annual Defense of the BCS
Third-Annual Defense of the BCS
Fifth-Annual Defense of the BCS
Sixth-Annual Defense of the BCS

BULBOUS LETTER OF THE WEEK!

Why can't college football be settled through a playoff, like in college basketball? Why must every season end in debate? I wanna see the unproven get their time to be carried off the field, and give the little team a chance to make history rather than be shown up in a one-game mean-nothing playoff at the AT&T No One Cares Bowl, where the only thing on the line is which team gets free long distance after the game to phone their mothers and tell them they just finished 27th in the country.

—Blair L.

The NCAA tournament. Now there's a fiercely competitive model for postseason nirvana. Sixty-four—no, wait, sixty-five—teams subjectively chosen by a committee of partial university and conference officials assemble for three weeks to crown one of the consensus top two or three teams in the country No. 1 after pestering them with early-round games against craphole opponents. Oh, except every once and a while, a mighty mite who no one gave a chance overcomes impossible odds to claw its way to a second-round blowout loss at the hands of a reputable program.

NOT NOW, THEY DON'T

"[The BCS] is a faulty system, and we've got to [change it]. Nobody cares about West Coast football." —California QB Aaron Rodgers, whining

Every year around this time, I'm posed the same insipid question, and every year I'm forced to re-gift the previous year's response in shinier wrap, but the point is always the same: College football isn't for the reality-TV-absorbed, impetuous Sex and the City sports fan suffering attention deficit disorder. It's a sport that rewards teams and fans for an entire season of involvement, not the ready-to-eat instant gratification of a three-week roundball festival. The BCS is obviously not without its flaws, but it does preserve the sanctity of the regular season, defined as the union between a good start and a good finish to an 11-game schedule.

Here's a question for you: Who cares about college basketball the other four months of the season not represented by the tournament? Give up? No one. Not you, not Dickie V., and not half the teams that end up making the tourney, else they'd be handing in records better than .600. College football's regular season is its tournament, a 117-team elimination-style playoff in which every Saturday can have calamitous consequences for dozens of teams, reshaping the national championship picture on a weekly basis and rewarding teams that turn in complete campaigns, not just end-of-season hot streaks. Anyone think Clemson deserved to play for the national championship last year? Let me rephrase: Anyone with four functioning brain cells think Clemson deserved to play for the national championship last year?

ER, BUT…

"I thought it was a little classless how [Mack] Brown was begging for votes. You shouldn't have to complain about the BCS system…We're classier than that." —California QB Aaron Rodgers, telling that fucking whiner Aaron Rodgers what time it is

Meanwhile, the NCAA tournament is as exclusive as the Mississippi State admissions department: Last season's suckfest treated us to Eastern Washington (17–12), Alabama State (16–14), and my favorite, Florida A&M (14–16), which gained entry by way of a play-in game to determine the 64th team in the country. I'm guessing they didn't even bother calling their mothers to tell them that.

As for debate, that's what distinguishes college football from all other forms of organized athletics, engaging teams, fans, and media in a way wholly alien to every other sport. And, quite frankly, I'm weary of anti-college-football activists trying to take my sport away from me. This is how the game's been played for 70 years—if you don't like it, maybe you don't like college football.

See also:

First-Annual Defense of the BCS
Third-Annual Defense of the BCS
Sixth-Annual Defense of the BCS
Seventh-Annual Defense of the BCS