For the NCAA’s two biggest sports it is the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times belong to college basketball as the March Madness basketball tournament has produced the greatest surprise Final Four in history. Blue bloods in Kentucky and UConn. A Hoosiers’ sequel for last year’s runner-up, Butler. And VCU? So many people picked against them for even being in the tournament, much less being at the Final 4. It is theoretically possible that the difference between the NCAA Champion and the NIT Champion was a bracket buster game between VCU and Wichita State about a month ago, where VCU won the game on two free throws in the final seconds. Wichita State plays for the NIT Title tomorrow night, while VCU has a good shot at winning the National Title next Monday night. Some people think that this is not the right way to crown a champion of College Sports, but it’s not going away anytime soon. As this year proves, anyone has a chance to win the title once they get in. The mid-major programs get a chance to compete with the big boys on the court. It’s still so popular, CBS recently joined in a deal with TNT, TBS, and TruTV to maintain the rights to the title into the next decade. Starting in 2016, TBS will replace CBS as the TV Home to the Final Four, and CBS was OK with it.
The worst of times belong to College Football. Within the last decade, several elite College Football Programs have undergone serious investigations, even those who have won National Championships (the most recent examples are National Champion Auburn with their star player, Cam Newton and others, and Big 10 Champion Ohio State, whose mess is so ugly that the whispers of Death Penalty have begun to creep up in the discussion). Now comes word that the BCS Bowls themselves have been the source of major corruption, as the Fiesta Bowl has basically admitted to a corrupt CEO getting perks no ordinary citizen would get. The BCS Bowls are raking in monster cash, while even the big Schools like Ohio State are losing money going to these bowls. And don’t think that the Fiesta Bowl is the only Bowl guilty of getting major money at the expense of Schools losing money. No wonder the BCS Mafia don’t want a playoff. It would damage the money-making shakedown these big wigs have invented and almost no one outside of 16 Big NCAA Schools like. It is the worst time for College Football to go through these problems as it appears that College Football maybe the only major football that is played this season.
Clearly the Fiesta Bowl must be punished in order to keep the scam that is the BCS going. It is likely the Cotton Bowl will be the beneficiary of the Fiesta Bowl’s fall, ironic considering that the Fiesta Bowl basically snatched the Cotton Bowl’s birthright to host a National Title Game over 15 years ago. But it makes the situation even worse, because it trades one corrupt CEO for Jerry Jones and his Super Palace. Not exactly what the NCAA had in mind.
It may take a even bigger scandal to force the Football Bowl Subdivision into a Playoff, something which the powers that be do not want. But that’s assuming there are people of honor, not super-greedy people who want to keep the shell game going. Meanwhile, College Basketball should benefit from an unavoidable NBA shutdown that is coming. Next year, the Blue Bloods will be back and could produce a super NCAA Tournament. I’m looking forward to College Basketball next season and will enjoy the Final Four this weekend.
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