College Football Is A Farce

Big news on the college pigskin circuit! The mighty Michigan Wolverines had a disastrous opening and dropped all the way out of The Associated Press Top 25. Boo fucking hoo. Somehow, it is thought that it is actual news that a team fell from No. 5 to being unranked.

Football at the collegiate level is just a small step above high school football, just with better uniforms and bigger stadiums. Out of thousands of high schools come enough players to fill a couple hundred ball teams, who duke it out in so many leagues that the only way to know all the names is to see which “Girls Of The ______” Playboy has coaxed into nudity. College basketball is equally ridiculous, but at least they have the tournament to pick their top team. Football has the retarded AP rankings.

Sportswriters across the nation pick their top 25 teams after the results of the weekend games, and from that aggregate, you have your rankings. Jason Franchuk from the Provo Daily Herald, Dave Rahme at the Syracuse Post-Standard, Mitch Vingle of the Charleston Gazette – that’s whose opinion is determining ratings and rankings. Yes, opinion.

Opinions that call Appalachian State's 34-32 upset of Michigan “stunning” and USC’s 38-10 victory over Idaho “lackluster”, yet placing the Trojans at the top with 59 of 65 number one votes and knocking the Wolverines out of the list. Since it’s only opinion, why bother having Division I-A teams in the Bowl Subdivision play I-AA teams in the Championship Subdivision. Appalachian State can’t crack the poll, can’t qualify for ranking, yet still plays teams from other, higher divisions. Ringers in the mix? Let me know the next time the Yankees play the AAA team out of Tulsa and miss the playoffs, because that would make as much sense.

Michigan’s fall, in spite of 16th place votes like the one from Wayne Phillips of The Greenville Sun. just doesn’t matter in the arbitrary world of opinion. They’ll be back in the top 25 next week, and maybe even back towards the top of enough voters get a boner for the team.

"I still think Michigan has a good football team," he said. "I think they're worthy of being ranked. They may prove me wrong." Phillips also said he gave Michigan some leeway because he's familiar with Appalachian State, the two-time defending I-AA champions.

"They're a pretty darn good football team," he said. "If Michigan had lost to some of the other patsies some of the big teams played I could see dropping them out."

Gee, how scientific.

In a league where there are weekly blowouts by more than 30 points, all wins and losses are not equal, and that undermines the game and the sport. The Bowl Championship System fucks up the title game match ups under the same stupid principle, and while they took the AP rankings out of it, the equally suspect Harris Interactive College Poll fails to the same effect. There are either wins or loses in sports, and the team with the most wins is the best team – not some bullshit touchy-feely list by guys who watch a lot of SportsCenter and have two columns width in the local rag. Sports are not, and should never be subjective, but the polling system makes sure that stats, points, and victories are merely guidelines for fellas to decide who to crush on for the season. And for that, college football will always be as meaningless as the masturbatory fantasy sports leagues that so many of the same fanboys engage in.