Going Bowling

I just entered my bowl picks for the upcoming college football bowl season. I love the bowl season. Frankly, I just love college football. Some years, I think I actually look forward to New Years Day football almost more than I look forward to Christmas. (And given how many blog posts I’ve written about Christmas lately, you have to have at least some idea of how much that means I like football. I also bought a fancy TV this year to be certain to enjoy the games in the highest-possible picture quality, and, in the days before the birth of the Big Ten network, I was a faithful subscriber of ESPN College Football Game Plan. Oh, and I used to have a splitter on my cable so that I could watch two games at once. The only thing better than fall and the smell of football in the air was the chance to watch my team prove itself on the national stage in the year’s BCS game.

I miss those days.

This time around feels terribly different, however. First, I know far less about the match-ups this year than I have in years past, and I find that terribly depressing. I just reviewed the list of teams, and I haven’t really heard of half of them. I suppose there is an argument that NCAA Division I football has achieved some degree of parity, thereby relegating some of the “big name” teams to mediocrity. Or maybe it’s just that some of the big name teams stunk it up this year. Either way, there are some newcomers to the scene.

Second, I haven’t watched nearly as many games as I did last year, and certainly not as many as I did the year before. I used to stay up to watch College Gameday Final, and could tell you which team had a dark horse running back that would give their opponent fits come bowl time. Now I’m lucky if I can tell you which sideline Erin Andrews visited on any given Saturday afternoon. I’m out of the loop. I feel as though the season flew past without me, and looking at that bowl pool only cemented that belief in my mind. Trying to assign confidence values to my picks seems laughable given my complete lack of awareness this year.

Third, I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to watch half of these games. As I’ve bemoaned before, I’ve lost all ability to plan ahead in my life. Work is known to throw me for a loop as late as 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Not one to turn away from responsibility, I’m already preparing myself to have to stay late at the office despite wanting to watch my team. So I guess there is a piece of me that is trying not to get too excited for the games so as to not end up disappointed when that time comes.

But most importantly, I think I’m annoyed because I’m missing out on the great dialogue surrounding the fate of the BCS. I think the lack of high-profile match-ups is only going to exacerbate the discussion about the need for a college football playoff. When there’s talk of finding antitrust violations in the BCS, you have to know there’s something wrong. When Obama is taking about “fixing” the BCS, there’s gotta be a chance for change, right? My fiancé has crafted a plan to fix the system. My best friend has drafted a 10 page paper proposing a full-scale overhaul of the conference and rankings systems. I used to be able to criticize such proposals and offer educated, well-argued critiques and suggestions for improvement. I used to pride myself on being one of few girls who understood the intricacies of the diverse stakeholder interests at play. Now, I’m just overworked.