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Put Up or Shut Up: Why College Football Fans Should Boycott The Bowls.

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If you love the BCS system just as it is then this article in not for you.

If you think that sports writers should be allowed to crown a champion based on an inaccurate and convoluted ranking system, then this article is not for you.

If you think sports champions should be crowned on the pages of Bleacher Report rather than on the field of play, then this article is not for you.

And if you're a fan of either team in the BCS "National Championship Game" that is so biased by their vicarious lust for self-esteem that you think that the BCS committee "got it right" this year, then this article is most certainly not for you.

Watch the game to your heart's content with my blessing as you've earned the right to enjoy what you endorse.

You aren't the hypocrites. We are.

The "we" I speak of are the 85% of college football fans that support some sort of playoff system for determining a national champion.

We are the people whom every year about this time flood the blogosphere with our whining, decrying the current system and enumerating our laundry list of complaints, and defending the teams that we feel were specifically wronged.

We are right of course, and there are so many good arguments to support our case.

In a system that relies heavily on strength of schedule for it's calculations of national title contenders, there's no way to truly know strength of schedule until the Bowls are done .  Sometimes they get it right, more often they get it wrong.

In a system that somehow justifies it's existence nearly solely on the Bowl revenue it creates, there is really no argument to be made that a playoff would somehow lessen the pot of gold.  If anything it would make it overfloweth.

The Bowls could be preserved within the format, and what's more, each one would be meaningful , which would elevate fan interest to a near frenzy. There's plenty of precedent to support this notion.

In a system that somehow pretends to suddenly care about it's athletes, claiming that they couldn't possibly take them away from school, they seem to forget that Bowl season is during Holiday break, and teams continue to practice for over an entire month during this time.  This also neglects the many fluff games and conference title games that have been added over the years during the semester .

These are just a few of arguments the playoff-favoring college football fans make.

We stomp, we yell, we argue, and complain.

We litter these pages with rants containing barbs at one another.

Is there anyone here that hasn't heard this one for example, "Do you now anything about football? " as if the accuser has the monopoly on the subject and if we added up all the people that have been accused of this nonsense it wouldn't constitute our entirety!

It is the worst fiasco of sports writing, pretending to know the outcome of games that were never played, and secure in our arrogance because they never will be.

We call it a farce and then...

...we watch all the games.

We do it because we love college football and the bowls undoubtedly produce intriguing match-ups, whether or not they are actually the correct match-ups.

We do it because the Bowls are an excuse to watch football for the hen-pecked husbands of the world, wrestling the remote away from the Lifetime Special: Burning Bed part 85 starring Melissa Gilbert.

And I'm not minimizing the throngs of women that support college football, just pointing out that you are more likely to have a spouse that likes it too.

If you are in a relationship with football-hater, have him read this article because I'm giving him a literary smack and a "man up!" right now.

We do it because it's an excuse to have a beer or two with our buddies in the middle of the work week, we do it because we can put off that new years resolution to lose a few pounds and instead scarf down a bag of Fritos, we do it because it just feels right and we've grown accustomed to our yearly routine.

This, of course, does nothing to advance our cause.

Because as we sit there on the couch, consuming the products advertised in the commercials, we're letting the NCAA completely off the hook.

Like the United Nations that might insist that North Korea allow inspection of their nuclear facilities but will only write a strongly worded letter to them voicing displeasure if they don't, our own protestation has no bite.

Yes, I'm comparing the NCAA to North Korea.

We already know that the NCAA cares little about its student athletes, lording over them with a heavy hand while exploiting them lucratively to line its own pockets, so why would we think that they give a damn about us?

They might count on us for their revenue stream, but they also know that we count on them , as they're the only game in town when it comes to the college football that we crave.

They're the pushers and we're the junkies.

But this year I've finally decided to take a stand.

This year I've decided enough is enough.

This year I'm not going to watch the title game.

Lord knows I want to, and Lord knows my hands are trembling with anticipated withdrawal even as I write.

I very badly want to watch the Alabama vs. Texas game as it should be a heavyweight slugfest, with two great programs going toe to toe.

But it's gotten to the point that I feel the NCAA has already sucked much of the fun out of the game, and I can't stand to be their punk anymore.

It's time for me to put up or shut up.

And I sure as hell don't plan on shutting up anytime soon!




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