Football And Basketball

So as the college football season comes down essentially to one semifinal game this Saturday and then one championship game 36 days later and as college basketball season has another endless and indistinguishable schedule of games every single day, TigerBlog was left with two thoughts.

The first one he'll get into now. The second one can wait.

The first point is that college football and college basketball are total opposites.

College football has a horrible postseason and an all-important regular season. College basketball has a horrible regular season and an all-important postseason.

The college football bowl season will be a study in irrelevance, except for the BCS title game, which will match Notre Dame against the winner of the Georgia-Alabama SEC championship game from this coming Saturday.

Of course, they'll wait nearly six weeks to play the game. And if it's Alabama-Notre Dame then other than fans of both teams, everyone else will be rooting for both teams to lose.

Again, TigerBlog isn't sure how Alabama is any more deserving than Oregon or Kansas State. At least Notre Dame is undefeated against a relatively tough schedule - but the Irish don't have to worry about a conference championship game either.

And every other bowl game? Boring. Unless you happen to be one of the schools involved.

How could anyone get excited about these games, knowing that they have no impact on any championship?

TigerBlog has said this before, but if you're going to have this system, at least play the BCS championship game first, not last.

And yes, a four-team playoff is on the way beginning next year, if TB is correct, and that'll be a little better. Still, that still leaves about 30 meaningless bowl games and a even more subjectivity in the selection process.

And six weeks off in between the end of the season and the playoffs. 

Now college basketball? That's a whole other story.

The over-saturation of college basketball on TV beginning in early November is nuts, with so many games on so many channels every night that they all begin to look the same.

In fact, to try to differentiate between these games, promoters and schools began to play in more and more exotic locations, which leads to either makeshift arenas that are either tiny or empty or places like battleships that are unplayable.

And it's not going to stop once league play begins. If anything, it'll get worse.

Every night will be a flood of games. Every game will look the same (unless it's Georgetown or someone like that).

And it'll all lead to conference tournaments, which will determine the NCAA rep for one-bid leagues and then the NCAA tournament, where teams like Georgetown will be more concerned with their draw than their seed and where essentially anything can happen.

Hey, if every conference wants a tournament, so be it. TB's biggest issue with college basketball is more the over-saturation one these days.

And then there's this: How many college basketball players can you name? How many players on Notre Dame and Alabama football can you name?

Anyway, all of this brings TB to his second thought.

In the Ivy League, life is of course much different.

There are 10 weeks of football, with no weeks off, and the champion does not go to the Division I-AA playoffs.

In basketball, there is no conference tournament.

TigerBlog would love to have seen Penn, as the Ivy champ, advance to the football playoffs. He hates the idea of a tournament in basketball.

So if he had to pick football champ to the playoffs and a basketball tournament or no postseason for football and no basketball tournament, which would he pick?

He'd probably go with the status quo of no playoffs and no tournament.

He also thinks he's probably way in the majority of Ivy League fans.