There's an old saying in sportswriting: "There's no better way to frame an argument than a bad pun."
Don't believe me? Woody Paige. QED.
And so we get the Leastern Conference of the No Balls Association and the NFC Beast of the No Fun League.
But there's no bigger inspiration for sportswriters' clever wordplay than the BCS.
Bowl Catastrophe Series!
Big Controversy System!
Bane of College Sports!
The first BCS standings of the year come out Monday, beginning an eight-week stretch in which it will be at the center of every college football argument. We'll talk about schedule strength, margin of victory and whether the ACC will break its own record and send the worst team to ever play in a BCS game (current champion: No. 22 Florida State in 2005).
I realize that in criticizing the BCS, I'm venturing onto a limb even Gene Forrester couldn't jounce me off (it's "A Separate Peace," people). We've reached the point where the only people who argue in favor of the BCS are contrarians who do so "ironically."
But the BCS is more than just a flawed system that mangles an attempted compromise between the traditional bowl system and one that establishes a clear champion.
The BCS undermines the basic premise of sport itself.
You see, there's one goal in sports: to win. Sports only have the meaning we ascribe them; hence, the illogical idea of preseason exhibition games that don't count. And winning, as Vince Lombardi somewhat tautologically reminded us, is the only thing we care about.
College football isn't tee ball, where every game ends in a tie and we all go out for ice cream afterward. (Although again, maybe this explains why Duke was so out of shape under Ted Roof. "Let's stick to the medium sundaes this week, boys! Miami's up next!") Nobody really cares about the exercise, the fun or the team bonding that occurs on the gridiron or the diamond.
We love sports like football because they offer us simple closure. At the end of the day, one team quantitatively wins. This isn't gymnastics or figure skating, where execution and aesthetics get equal play on a subjective scorecard.
So why should a season have a different outcome than an individual game?
Everyone knows the most efficient and effective way of determining the best team is a playoff system. That's why every major sport, even golf, ends its season with playoffs. Man, every minor sport has playoffs, dating back to my third-grade intramural basketball league. I've been to week-long camps that had playoffs.
Instead, college football has the BCS, which introduces the French judge to football's calculated dichotomy of winning and losing.
By the end of the season, it becomes less about your record and more about who you've beaten and by how much. Subjectivity reigns supreme-a problem exacerbated by the uneven schedules that allow mediocre teams (Go Buckeyes!) to look more impressive than they actually are.
Worse yet, college football creates a postseason whose excitement is inversely related to that of the regular season. Think about it: The best championship games have occurred when No. 1 and No. 2 were clear-cut all season long with little shakeup (Texas-USC in 2006, Ohio State-Miami in 2002). And the best regular seasons end anticlimactically and often controversially.
(Quiz: what was the score of last year's title game? Better yet, who played?)
Trusting the BCS has become as scary a proposition as trusting the Mets' bullpen with a lead in September. Even when it works, it's usually coincidental.
But we'll stubbornly place our faith in it once again this fall, hoping it somehow overcomes its inherent deficiencies. And when the Blue Devils are snubbed by the BCS for the 12th straight year, we'll at least know who to blame.
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