Start of conference schedule means less boring matchups

atching.
Last week, college football provided some actual competitive action to us channel-clickers who become bored the second a powerhouse goes up two touchdowns against a no-name school only Lee Corso has heard of.
There was Georgia and South Carolina playing a close game for a full 60 minutes in a contest decided by one touchdown. There was Auburn and Mississippi State putting up the coolest final score possible with the Tigers squeaking out a 3-2 victory. There was Fresno State finding every possible way to blow golden opportunities as they fell to Wisconsin by a one-field-goal margin.
Maybe the season has finally begun?
Wait, Utah tallied a 48-point victory. We’re not fully done with cupcake season yet.
For the glass-half-full types, real football season is drawing closer. The conferences are finally beginning to play opponents on their level — namely, the ones in their conference.
Not all of the conference games are entertaining — based on UCLA’s 59-point loss last week, Arizona shouldn’t have much trouble in their Pac-10 game — but at least they’re on the same playing field. These are the games we want to see. Not Tennessee-UAB.
Two of last week’s memorable games were matchups from the SEC, college football’s best conference, and it will provide three more quality matchups this week (No. 4 Florida-Tennessee, No. 6 LSU-No. 10 Auburn, No. 9 Alabama-Arkansas). The ACC will offer two conference matchups while the Pac-10 will play one.
(In fairness, tonight’s Colorado-West Virginia game will be the third Big 12-Big East game this week.)
The other three major conferences haven’t played many conference games thus far, waiting until next week to start actual competition that doesn’t result in 39-point routs like Florida State against Chattanooga. Take a guess who won.
When a team from one of the six BCS conferences goes up against the bottom-dwellers of the mid-majors, fans leave around second quarter. Imagine if the San Antonio Spurs played the Austin Toros. Not much difference from Saturday’s Texas-Rice game.
The BCS process has already determined that the mid-majors are in a lower league than the big six. Even if one of them goes undefeated, they’re not even getting a chance at the national title. (Please refer to Hawaii and Boise State.)
If they’re in such different classes, why play each other? Why make fans sit through Nebraska’s 55-14 blowout of New Mexico State of the WAC? Or Oklahoma State’s 41-point victory over Missouri State of the MVC?
(Oklahoma State paid $300,000 to Missouri State for their game, and the Huskers paid $825,000. That might be the answer.)
Hopefully, with the help of the SEC games this week, fans will survive the lopsided box scores and make it to next week. Both the Big Ten and the Big East begin conference play while the Pac-10 and the ACC offer three decent matchups each.
The end to matchups that pit Kansas against Sam Houston is near. Just one more week, fans, and you can get back to enjoying football without having to Google the opponent.

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Verify you are human:

Enter the characters in the image above: