College Football 2009: What a Bummer

Well, the 2009 college football regular season is over.  For the most part in went out like the whole season in general went...mostly dull.  There was very little drama to accompany it.  Overall this year in college football was downright boring.  After about week 6 the teams were 1-6 were set in.  Sure they may have swapped positions within themselves but there were no major upsets or anything to get too riled up about.

What were the two " defining" upsets in college football this year?  To put it bluntly there weren't any.  Washington beating USC looked huge at the beginning of the year but USC would go on to get routed like 3 more times by the end of the season.  Clearly USC was vastly overrated at the beginning of the year with their freshman starting quarterback.  Also South Carolina beating Ole Miss looked big at the time, but Ole Miss proved to be overrated as well.  In retrospect those upsets don't look so big in the end.

The two "BCS busters" (TCU and Boise St.) both went undefeated, though they didn't really bust anything because they got pigeonholed playing each other in the Fiesta Bowl.  Oklahoma lost all hope when Sam Bradford got injured the first game of the season against BYU.  That pretty much ended any drama in the Big 12 race.  Iowa started off (inexplicably) undefeated but they were almost universally acknowledged as frauds and ended up losing 2 games.  They lost the Big 10 to Ohio St.  The fact that both of those 2 loss Big 10 teams went to BCS bowls is a testament to how weak this year was in college football.

This is the first time I can remember that college football didn't have one team that was just a cut above everyone else.  Much like their professional counterparts the top college teams all seemed flawed and beatable.  I mean can anyone remember such weak and less intimidating teams at the top.  Seriously I can't remember any top teams being so close to defeat so often.  It seemed like every week that Florida walked a tightrope.  Texas was often in close games throughout the first 2 or 3 quarters, only to pull away at the end.  Alabama came within a few miracle plays and shady officiating calls of being upset.  What makes it worse is that every week people were predicting these things to happen almost like it was foreordained to happen that way.  I believe it was Jesse Palmer that had Washington beating USC like it was no big deal or something.  Boring.  Even the upsets were boring.

Even the University of Cincinnati looked weak and beatable.  Even the good teams in bad conferences had to hold on for dear life.  Boise St. for the most part won going away, but the team that consistently dominated was TCU.  Sure they played bad teams, but they did what good teams are supposed to do when they play bad teams: dominated from start to finish.

Now we come to the BCS National "Championship", or the "Whew, we did just enough to not blow it and get here" Bowl.  Texas' 2009 motto should be " The Texas Longhorns we did just enough."  For their part Alabama's motto should be " The Alabama Crimson Tide, we held on just long enough."  And this should be our "championship" game? 

Honestly who did Texas beat to get to the point where they were a lock to get to the "championship?"  Oklahoma was down and out because their Heisman winner got hurt the first game of the year, and Oklahoma State was without their stud receiver Dez Bryant.  They struggled in games they should have won walking away and had the aid of some questionable officiating at the end of their conference title game.  Honestly, what is Texas' M.O.?  They don't run well and they don't play great defense.  They basically hang their hats on Colt "I do just enough to elbow into Heisman contention" McCoy. 

And really what has Colt McCoy done this year to distinguish himself from other players to derserve all of this Heisman love?  Really if he wins it it will be a career achievement award.  His numbers were pretty pedesterian if we're talking Heisman.  More on that in a minute.

And if you think of it, outside of  Florida who did Alabama beat?  You can say LSU, but then we're talking about the same LSU team that struggled against Washington and Louisiana Tech right?  LSU lost to the two good teams they played all year. (Florida and Alabama)  Alabama needed some questionable officiating and a lot of luck to beat Tennessee. And barely escaped Auburn with a win.  I will admit that of the two, Alabama has impressed me a whole lot more than Texas.  I do have a problem with Alabama's Heisman candidate Mark Ingram.  I mean he had 1500 yards and 15 touchdowns and after the SEC title game he seems like the lock to win it. 

Really 1500 yards and 15 touchdowns and that's supposed to be the runaway Heisman winner?  Yeah, he was money against Florida but what about against Auburn?  By the end of the year he had slowed way down and his numbers are pedestrian if we are talking Heisman.  And we are. 

The larger problem, and the reason McCoy and Ingram are the front runners is somewhere along the line people decided the Heisman is supposed to be the best player on the best team.  Wrong.  The Heisman is supposed to be the most outstanding player in college football that year.  I certainly wouldn't say that McCoy or Ingram were the most outstanding players of 2009.  Outstanding?  Sure, not the most outstanding however.  For my money give me Toby Gerhart and his 1700+ yards and 27 total touchdowns. (26 running and 1 passing)  I mean Colt McCoy had 30 total touchdowns, but he's a quarterback, he can throw for and run for a ton of scores.  Gerhart had 26 touchdowns, are you kidding me?  That is money.  He had more yards and almost double the touchdowns of Ingram. 

Or, my personal favorite for the Heisman and the man I would give my vote to, Ndamukon Suh from Nebraska and his 12 sacks and 19 tackles for a loss.  He was a monster against Texas and almost singlehandedly de-horned the Longhorns and did us all a favor by adding some life and drama to this season. Instead we got what we all pretty much predicted at the beginning of the year.  Blah.  We should have skipped the season and just had Alabama and Florida play to decide who played against Texas.  Wake me when it's all over.

These are all reason we need a play off in college football.  Three undefeated teams will be denied the chance to prove they are the best teams in the country while under-deserving Texas gets to skip off to Pasadena.  I don't even think Texas is the best horned team in their state, that is TCU. I am sure TCU would like a chance to knock off their arrogant in state big brothers.  The same way South Florida knocked Florida St. from the trinity of Florida colleges.  In fact I have Texas ranked behind Alabama, TCU and Cincinnati.

I mean this year we could get an ounce of drama in this dull, lifeless year of college football with a playoff system.  We would have 5 undefeated teams and three deserving wildcards play it out in an 8 team tourney.  It's way more fair than what we have now.  Now we have a travesty of justice.

We could have an exciting match up in the National Championship at the end of of a three game tourney.  I mean TCU and Alabama would be fascinating in my mind.  In my mind TCU is the second best team in the nation, and they are being deprived the opportunity to play with the best.  They didn't even get the dignity of playing Florida in the Sugar Bowl, they got stuck playing Boise St. in the "We got SCREWED!" Bowl a.k.a the Fiesta Bowl. 

We could have a real deserving, best player in college football, wow look at his numbers Heisman winner like Toby Gerhart or Ndamukong Suh.

These things never work out in our favor, you know what we will get instead?  Colt McCoy or Mark Ingram will win the Heisman, and another SEC team will roll big against an overmatched Big 12/10 school.(Can we just merge them into the Big 22? I mean they are both full of mediocre middle of the road schools outside of 2 or 3 schools)  Ho hum, color me dissatisfied.  This could have been such a great year with such an intriguing Heisman race.  The only two players who actually distinguished themselves with great play will get jobbed and the award will go to one of two players who failed to really distinguish themselves other than being the best player on the best team.

So wake me up after the more complete, well balanced SEC team that runs and plays excellent defense gets done dismantling the one dimensional Big 22 school that doesn't run or play any defense.