Thankfully, the single greatest abomination possible in Western civilization has been brought to a close with the end of the Subway Series. We'll ignore for a second the fact that it produced the worst possible result-a Yankees victory.
Given some free time, and being a whiny Duke student, I have turned my attention to other things that are bothering me.
The fact that our University believes you can celebrate a drinking holiday without alcohol bothers me.
Futures pricing and the fact that Professor Connel Fullenkamp did not wear a bow tie yesterday bother me.
But alas I am a sports writer, so while they'll give me the space to rant about anything even remotely related to athletics, I can't talk about the above issues. Thus, we will discuss something related to sports that I find disturbing-the BCS.
If you have no idea what the BCS is, but have read this far, you might as well keep going, because I'll explain it to you.
The Bowl Coalition Series refers to an agreement among the major Bowls wherein the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the BCS standings will meet every year so that America can receive the unadulterated joy that is a National Championship game. This I have no problem with, especially since they have the decency not to play the game Jan. 1 so that my hangover is gone by kickoff.
Like everyone but Don King, I have an attachment to an undisputed champion. You should too, because even if you don't give a damn about football, no one wants to listen to college coaches play the "my team is better than your team game." It wastes time on SportsCenter.
I didn't like having to watch Miami and Washington do it in 1992, because Miami was better. And I didn't like watching Michigan and Nebraska do it in 1996, because Nebraska was better.
But after all those years of darkness, salvation came in the form of the BCS.
In its first two years of existence, the BCS has performed beautifully.
But there is a problem with the system, and there is some chance that we will see it rear its ugly head this season.
The BCS determines rankings using a number of variables. It takes the average of the two polls you have heard of, the AP and the Coaches poll. This is a good idea. It takes into consideration strength of schedule. This might not be necessary since the polls do it anyway, but it is not a bad idea. Then it adds one point for each loss, this produces no surprising results.
So what is my problem, and why are you still reading you may ask?
The answer is the computer rankings and this is less boring than class.
On top of the other variables, the BCS takes into consideration the rankings produced by eight computer polls. Here is the problem. These computer polls have this nasty tendency to produce some idiotic rankings.
Here's what I don't like, those computer rankings each have a formula to produce the poll. Almost all of them use different numbers for the same variables, and consequently get different, yet equally stupid, results.
I may not be a smart man, but any poll that tells you that Oregon is better than Florida State is wrong, and it borders on insanity.
Moreover, any poll that fails to recognize that late-season victories are more important was created by someone who doesn't know anything about college football.
Finally, any poll that thinks TCU is No. 2 was probably designed by two Horned Frogs fans sitting around drinking Lone Star and debating whether Sam Houston or Tom Landry was the most important man who ever lived.
The results produced by computer rankings are inconsistent with what any rational person believes. Yet the above are only a few of the numerous examples of idiotic rankings that exist within the computer polls.
In the past two years, such stupidity has not proven to be a significant problem. Thus far, we have had two championship games with teams everyone has regarded as the correct two. But things aren't looking so good right now.
The top five in the BCS are Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Nebraska and Miami. The more reasonable AP/Coaches combo has Oklahoma., Virginia Tech, Miami, FSU and a tie between Nebraska and Florida.
Here is the problem. If Oklahoma and Virginia Tech keep winning, we're fine. But if Miami wins Saturday's game against Virginia Tech, we've got trouble.
Virginia Tech is not ranked well by those computer morons, so Miami won't move up much by winning. This leaves the possibility that if Florida State beats Florida, the Seminoles will go to the Orange Bowl to play Oklahoma. Believe me-I just wasted a lot of time playing with the numbers.
The Hurricanes would also be frozen out if both FSU and Nebraska were to win the remainder of their games.
Who cares you ask?
Don't give me that, you're still reading.
This may seem trivial, but if the Hurricanes beats Virginia Tech, they deserve to play for all the marbles. They already beat Florida State. If they win out, and FSU and the Cornhuskers run the table, I have no objection to letting strength of schedule break a tie in the polls and decide who gets the second slot.
I just don't think we should risk letting people who couldn't hack it at Compaq decide which teams play for the national championship.
But I could just be whiny.
UPON FURTHER REVIEW is a weekly column written by a sports columnist. It appears every Wednesday.
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