Overmatched 'Cats Prove Not Ready For Prime Time

I heard some of my friends brag about Cincinnati, and I even pinned an article about the Bearcats on a corkboard in my home office. Yeah, I listened; I just didn't pay serious attention to the overloaded lies that trumpeted the quality of the UC football program.

You see, I'm a realist. I know verbal dung when I hear it.

No, I am not a UC-hater, although it might sound as if I am. I will admit I'm biased toward the Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC. I wouldn't mind, however, one or two of their powerhouse teams losing in bowl games this season to teams from lesser conferences. But these days the teams in those elite conferences seem to win with unexpected ease.

They are leaving the landscape littered with wannabes -- pretenders to spots in big bowls. Teams like Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State can whine about the unfairness of not getting their due, but their worthiness took a 51-24 trouncing in the Sugar Bowl. To give one minute's thought to Cincinnati as a legitimate threat to beat anybody ranked in the Top 5 is to waste 60 seconds. 

The Bearcats get no respect for the same reason Mark Sanford and Paris Hilton get none: They've done nothing to earn respect. Only a "certified" fool disputes a point as obvious as this.

But fools are everywhere among us in college sports. They are like crabgrass: sprouting up wherever an open plot of dirt shows itself. They let their partisan leanings blind them from this immutable truth: Talent wins.

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