Hit By a Pitch

I was afraid this day would come — the day I seriously start to lose interest in college football. Sure, I’m down right now because my Hawkeyes lost to Iowa State, which is inexcusable but totally what happens when your offensive line consists of toddlers who couldn’t win a game of red rover. As the seconds ran out on that game, I realized that it was all over for the season. Maybe if they’re lucky, they’ll get to the Flavorless Salsa with Gross Chunks of Tomato Chip and Dip Bowl sponsored by the new gross cheese thing from Taco Bell, where hopefully the refs won’t completely screw them over like they did in the 2006 Outback Bowl.

In college football, if you want to play for the “national championship” or in a bowl game that actually means something, you can’t lose more than what, one game all season? That sucks.

Because the Hawks aren’t ranked and I don’t still live in an apartment a few blocks off campus, I can’t even see them on TV most of the time. I get games like USC at Nebraska, which is great, because I totally want to watch some guys I don’t care about score 900 points against a team from a state with a panhandle.

So many college games feature one team being completely dismantled by another team. I don’t find it remotely entertaining to watch anybody win games by a million points all the time — it’s like when I watch ESPN and see the women’s college basketball scores at the bottom of the screen, and it’s always 57-18 or some shit. That’s not interesting and nobody wants to see it. Last week’s Michigan-Notre Dame game, which was nationally televised (why?) ended with a 38-0 score. Unless you’re sitting in The Big House after drinking for hours, there is no reason to watch this crap.

My main problems with college football are:

• there are too many teams
• there is too much emphasis on tradition
• rankings are subjective and pointless.

I won’t suggest getting rid of teams, but I think I’m in favor of giving up the quest for an NCAA football national championship. There’s no way to put together something that even comes close to the awesomeness of NCAA hoops, which features, hands down, the best tournament in sports. Why not just have conference tournaments and leave it at that? I’d rather watch Big 10 teams battle it out than pretend to give a shit about the SEC or the Pac 10. Nobody is satisfied with the way the “national championship” is awarded now (except fans of the team that wins), so we’re not really losing anything.

Next, let’s get over the tradition. I don’t care that Notre Dame used to be good — they were good at one time, so we’re supposed to give a shit and want to watch their loser asses get pounded on national TV. I’m supposed to care about teams from the south where people yell a bunch of shit that doesn’t make sense, like “Roll Tide” and “War Eagle” — WTF is that? Aside from the fact that I think Florida’s frumpy alligator is cute as hell, I don’t care to figure out how Florida differs from Florida State. Florida is hot and humid and full of old people and had that one basketball guy who I think is with the Bulls now, and I just don’t care.

Don’t even get me started on the rankings. When I want to pretend it’s interesting to give a shit about what some bitches think about who should be number one and who should be sent home broken hearted, I have a few beers and watch America’s Next Top Model. I think Tyra should have bangs, and I think NCAA football needs to get over itself and cater to fans who like their team, but don’t have 100 extra hours a week to spend following teams from all over the country.

In my dream world, you’d be able to order a la carte cable coverage of your team and its conference. Even though I live in Colorado, I could order up Iowa coverage, including all games and local news about the team. That would be sweet, even if they lose to Wisconsin this week. As luck would have it, my local ABC affiliate is showing that game instead of that west coast matchup I don’t care about, where one team will score 82 and the other will score 13.

Go Hawks. It’s up to you to restore my faith in college football.