Our friend Matthew Zemek at Collegefootballnews.com is apparently just as deflated as we are in regards to the state of college football's post-season:
My letter to Matt Zemek, (the same guy who wrote the "War and Peace" composition on the UGA TD celebration:
Hi Matt,
I consider you the voice of reason in this crazy world of college football. You showed me the utmost respect for my opposing view of the UGA celebration at the Cocktail party, and now I need some unbiased feedback from one of my favorite writers...
I just read Pete's take on the Les Miles soap opera. While I do not fault Kirk Herbstreit's reporting on this news, (from what my LSU sources tell me, it was a done deal) I do have a problem with the aftermath. Perhaps I am a bit biased, but I thought that LSU received a lot of love from ESPN after the events of Saturday night's upsets started to unfold. It was pretty much like, "sorry we screwed up with our premature report that your coach was going to Michigan, but we'll make it up to you". Not so long ago, (last year as a matter of fact) Herbstreit was campaigning for Michigan to get into the NC over Florida:
http://youtube.com:80/watch?v=BHkADG4UQjE
Michigan's conference championship was held when they played their last regular season game against the Buckeyes, and they lost! Here again, I had no problem with Kirk campaigning for Michigan last year. What I do have a problem with, however, is how Kirk and the other talking heads at ESPN really did a hammer job on Georgia because they did not win their conference.
Does UGA deserve a shot? Maybe, but I would have felt a bit of guilt had we been voted in the game. Don't get me wrong, there is really no single good answer as to who should be playing in the NC, but the way that ESPN promoted LSU, (at Georgia's expense) was disgusting to me. Essentially, the game that I love the most, is the only one in America that is settled by politics. There has to be a better way.
As a result of the final rankings, we also get some uninspiring BCS and other Bowl matchups. USC vs Illinois? - give me a break. Maybe the Fiesta and Orange will be somewhat entertaining, but as for the Sugar, I can tell you that while UGA has already sold out its allotment of tickets, I have talked to many big donors who are unhappy about this "nothing to gain" matchup, and are, therefore, not making the trip to New Orleans. Here's what should have been played in my opinion:
NC game: Ohio State vs Oklahoma (0 home losses and beat #1 in their title game)
Rose: UGA vs USC (battle of the 2 hottest teams)
Fiesta: Kansas/Missouri vs Arizona State
Orange: West Va vs Va Tech
Sugar: LSU vs Hawaii
And Matt's quick email response:
You're 1,000 percent correct, of course. (I assume you've read my 3-4 pieces cranked out in the past 14 hours...) These are awful matchups that insult our collective intelligence, the Fiesta Bowl excepted. The big problem with college football is that this sport's legendary unpredictability creates such abrupt shifts that the mainstream media outlets create a pack mentality when they respond to said shifts. It's virtually impossible to broadcast and maintain minority viewpoints in this sport/business, because it's so completely beholded to a few powerful interests. This is a fishbowl world where very little fresh, original thinking takes place; power brokers in college football are so narrow minded, it's staggering. Hello, Myles Brand. Where the ---- are you in all this? It's a dreary spectacle. The end of the season should always be a time of joy, as we look forward to awesome bowl matchups followed by a plus-one. Instead, we get crappy bowls followed by nothing... nothing but hypocrisy, shallowness, and greed that isn't complemented by creativity. (If you're going to be greedy, at least be smart and innovative in the process so that others benefit from your greed; in college football, the greedy ones don't share the wealth with others.) Hang in there. Maybe we'll get a plus-one in 10 years, after Mike Slive continues to deeply investigate and seriously ponder how to... gasp!... stage one lousy football game on the second Saturday of January at 8pm in a warm-weather city. (How hard can it be?) I'm venting too much, I know. I'll stop. *sigh* The more this happens in CFB, the worse I feel with each passing year. Grown people being dumb is never easy to tolerate. Matt
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