Hey, it's always football season at FanHouse. Welcome to "Greetings From Flyover Country," a new weekly feature that will keep you up to date on Big Ten, Big 12, and MAC football. We'll also cover any Midwestern stories which have national repercussions, along with rounding up the week's arrests and suspensions.We start this week with a decision bound to have people from San Ysidro to Bangor scratching their heads. Please give a moment's thought to the worst aspect of the last postseason. While the Big 12 championship was settled on the field, the Big 12 South championship wasn't. Instead, the conference gave the division title to Oklahoma, because they use the BCS rankings as a tiebreaker.
You remember how dumb you thought that was. You think, "Surely no other conference would be so stupid as to allow the BCS poll to pick a champion." You are about to see how wrong you are.
Apparently the Big Ten doesn't think it's hated enough already, because they've just decided to use the BCS rankings as their final tiebreaker for a conference title.
Note that word "final." Head-to-head record still remains as the first tiebreaker, as it should. The second tiebreaker used to be the last gasp of the Division I-AA Football Championship Subdivision Tomato Can Rule, wherein the team who played the fewest FCS opponents would get the nod. Apparently, though, that tiebreaker has been tossed out too, which has probably made athletic directors in the Missouri Valley and Great West conferences very happy indeed.
So now tiebreaker No. 2 is overall winning percentage, followed by "last team to get a BCS bid stays home," and then, finally, BCS rankings. It seems to me that the likelihood of this ever being invoked rounds down to zero.
More troubling is the elimination of the FCS tiebreaker. It's no secret that I think good football teams have no business ever playing against lower-division squads,Appalachian State notwithstanding. I don't think much of value comes from these games, other than the crowd-pleasing W and the chance to give some of the second- and third-string players meaningful playing time. Competition creates competitors. How many times have we seen an untested Big Ten team puke all over the field turf in October and November? Or, even worse, how many times have we seen a .500 team from any BCS conference become "bowl-eligible" on the backs of the Nebraska States and Alabama Techs of the world?
Okay, it's not fair to say the games aren't good for anything. They're very good for the FCS schools, who usually get a big fat check that doesn't bounce. And fans like victories. Still, for us fans, the only value college football actually has is entertainment value, so I hope you'll pardon me if I believe that a 24-20 squeaker against a non-BCS conference team is more fun than a 66-3 blowout of a school that was playing Division II ball four seasons ago.
AROUND THE LEAGUES
Big Ten: Indiana moves quarterback Kellen Lewis to wide receiver in reaction to the Hoosiers' terrible basketball season, which was so bad people might start to notice IU has a football team ... From the "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" department: Ohio State may use the Wildcat formation to take advantage of Terrelle Pryor, because nobody will expect any shenanigans involving Pryor, right? ... Minnesota running back Duane Bennett returns from a torn ACL to take part in spring practice while the rest of the team tries to figure out what "spring" is.Big 12: Iowa State to install spread offense ... In other news, Iowa State to install offense ...Snowstorm cancels spring practice in Lawrence; Taco Bell drive-thru personnel reminded not to forget the chalupa ... ESPN blogger says Baylor is the only school in South division whose "marquee sport" is not football ... Also claims water is wet, feet are useful, and John Belushi wasn't really a samurai.
MAC: Miami drops game with Colorado, setting off a massive ten-team non-conference scheduling debacle...Toledo takes Miami's spot, gets CU in Toledo this season, hopesDan Hawkins is the Rich Rodriguez of the Rockies ... Circle it: Temple at Akron on ESPNU, Friday, November 13.
AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' ... Or Maybe They Are
Arrested: Iowa DE Adrian Clayborn, for allegedly assaulting an the Iowa City cab driver.
Suspended: Kansas WR Dezmon Briscoe and DT Jamal Green for the ever-classic "undisclosed violation of team rules."
Demoted: Texas Tech WR Edward Britton, for ripping the thin veneer of normalcy which covers big-time college football academic reasons.
