It's Oklahoma and Florida for the BCS Title—an imperfect end to a season when no football team was perfect. Except, you know, Utah and Boise State. But they don't really count. What with their small conferences and even smaller media markets and exposure. The BCS is fair and impartial. Except, you know, this is a business and there's money to be made. Otherwise how do you explain Boise State getting beat for the BCS out by a 10-2 Ohio State team whose best win all season is Michigan State. Second best? Northwestern. But, to be fair, no one cares about the vast majority of the bowl games this season. (College football bowl monopolizers, ESPN, excluded.) Yeah, Penn State-USC should be fun to watch. But, like every other game, it's meaningless. Thanks to the bowl drafting order of the BCS, we don't even get to see Texas play Alabama. Instead we get Utah-Alabama and Texas-Ohio State. And don't even get me started on Cincinnati-Virginia Tech. Just like it does every season the BCS conspires to make everyone feel a bit cheated. Sigh. On to the round-up.
1. Virginia Tech wins their second ACC title in a row over Boston College. Leading to this great celebration punch that we linked yesterday but you have to see it again.
Wouldn't this be a perfect move if you actually hated the coach? Wait for a big play, sidle up to him, and wreck him with a sideways punch while celebrating? No way he can call you on it. Especially if you were a fifth-year senior like Cory Holt, didn't have a single catch all season, and sort of regretted the fact that you never were used much on offense. I'm just sayin'.
2. Navy beat Army for the 7th consecutive time. Worse for Army, they've been outscored 274-71 during this string of losses. Last winter I visited West Point for a couple of days, attended classes, and hung around with some of the Army football team. They hate Navy. Beat Navy is spelled out on the bleachers surrounding their parade ground. Yeah, this one hurts. But not any more than the previous 6. It's a good thing Navy complained so much about Caleb Campbell getting to play in the NFL under a special exemption. They're clearly disadvantaged on the field.
3. Oklahoma destroyed Missouri 62-21. This was one of those games where your non die-hard college football fan is shocked it's taking place. Enter my wife. As Oklahoma scored to go up 38-7, she entered the room, looked up at the television and said, "Missouri? Why isn't Oklahoma playing Texas in the Big 12 Title game?"
4. Florida beat Alabama by double digits. Like they've beaten everyone else all season except for Ole Miss. That Ole Miss win over Florida is going to become one of the most difficult Aflac trivia questions at some point twenty years from now. Verne Lundquist will still be calling games for CBS at the age of 148.
If Tim Tebow beats Oklahoma to win his second national championship in three years there's no doubt he's the greatest player of the BCS era. But where does he rank in the past twenty-five years? That's roughly the amount of time I've been following college football and I feel comfortable saying he's the best player I've seen during that time frame. Who's better? A step further — is Tebow the greatest college football player of all-time? And if Tebow wins another national title, another Heisman Trophy, and he comes back for his senior season after spending another summer doing missionary work can we elect him to replace Florida's retiring Senator Mel Martinez (exempting him from the Senate age requirement of 30 in the process) and put him in charge of ending the recession instead? I'm halfway convinced that Tebow's anti-recession strategy of running up to bankers, pumping his arms wildly, and screaming would bring interest rates down, free up corporate lending, and restore consumer confidence.
5. Did anyone else notice Bob Davie sighing wistfully about how good looking the girls were during the Arizona-Arizona State game? This was part of his digression about why going to school in Arizona makes pretty good sense. I hate to say this, and this might mark me as a horrible person deserving of death, but Bob Davie is starting to grow on me as an announcer. (Which is completely different than Notre Dame fans—where Bob Davie is starting to grow on them as a coach.) Maybe it was the beers or the break in the action before the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight started, but I actually found myself thinking, "You know, Bob Davie's not that bad of a guy."
6. Admit it you giggled a bit when Gary Danielson kept calling Tebow the "snake-handler." That's okay, we all did. Is it time for CBS and ABC to employ a double-entendre guard to clear the analogies beforehand. Like, some random 8th grade boy hired to sit in the booth and tell them that "You can't say snake-handler. Go with scorpion wrestler instead." Especially after Musburger kept calling the Missouri defense Sam Bradford's "cock mitten."
7. Odds Percy Harvin sat out the SEC Championship Game just so he could stand on the sideline and show off his biceps? Gotta be like 50%. Every time the cameras cut to him, he was flexing. There's probably a decent chance he's going to be out for the BCS Title Game with bicep cramps.
8. How great was it that Dr. Pepper somehow got Gary Danielson and Verne Lundquist to do play-by-play during the $100,000 scholarship contest? In case you missed it two girls in matching black jeans and Dr. Pepper jerseys stood in front of giant Dr. Pepper cans and threw passes at a giant hole. The girl from Florida was actually pretty hot. At least she threw the footballs like she knew she was never going to have to work a day in her life. That didn't stop Danielson from exhorting: "She ran out of footballs!"
Musburger and Herbstreit may have also called the action in the Big 12 Title Game's version of this contest but, like everyone else, I'd already stopped watching by halftime. This was after Musburger gave a detailed story about his old buddies who used to work as rodeo clowns. Every time I hear Musburger tell his heartwarming stories I think he should be America's Secretary of State. Can't you just see him sitting down across from Ahmadinejad (without preconditions!) and saying, "Mahmoud, buddy, we can work this thing out. I know Pele. This one time Pele..."