Brats & Beer

LSU Making A Run For Roses?

Going into this college football season I was really hoping things might turn out differently. I thought that maybe this year, with the Rose Bowl unfettered by hosting the BCS National Championship game, that maybe we’d have a shot at a traditional Tournament of Roses bowl game between the Big 10 and the Pac 10. The fates, apparently, are not on my side in this.

The other day a TV station in Louisiana, acting on a tip from some unidentified committee member, reported that LSU is a lock for the Rose Bowl against either Michigan or USC. No offense to the good people in Baton Rouge, but WTF? Actually, screw Baton Rouge; the Tigers should not be playing in the Rose Bowl.

Can anyone tell me why LSU is ranked so high in the BCS? The Tigers are 10-2 on the season with losses to Florida (a dubious #4 in the BCS) and Auburn (#11), so they should be ranked No. 13 or 14. At best, LSU should be somewhere in the lower half of the Top 10 and they should not be considered a contender for the Rose Bowl.

That of course leads to the obvious question: Who should be playing in Pasadena this January? Not an easy answer this year.

With the real Big 10 champions going to play in Phoenix, Michigan clearly should be representing that conference in the game, having beaten Wisconsin (dammit). The Wolverines should not get a second shot at Ohio State because a) no one outside Ann Arbor would care, and b) the result would be the same as the last time.

USC appears destined to pollute the national championship waters for another year, as long as Pete Carroll’s charges don’t take a mighty stumble this weekend against UCLA, making Cal the obvious replacement choice for the Pac 10 representative. Except that Cal kinda sucks this year and is only ranked No. 18 in the BCS. That shouldn’t really matter, but I guess it does in this day and age.

Some say Notre Dame should get the bid to play in the Rose Bowl, but Touchdown Jesus is a rather poor substitute this year. Plus, the Fightin’ Irish already had their shot at the Wolverines and blew it, and just like Michigan and Ohio State, I don’t think a rematch would provide a different outcome.

Clearly, the only solution to this quandary is to revamp the process altogether. Since the big debate seems to center around who’s the true No. 2 team, let’s have USC and Michigan play the Rose Bowl and the winner gets to face the Buckeyes. That way we get a traditional match-up in Pasadena for the purists and something that resembles a playoff for the deconstructionalists. And think of the TV ratings, both for ABC and for FOX, and isn’t that what this whole system is designed to produce?