BCS Bowl Madness

Unbeaten TCU likely won't have a chance on the playing field to make its case for being the best football team in the land this year. Even though no team TCU has faced this year has been able to stop them, the BCS powers-that-be have, using polls and computers to decide that TCU doesn't even belong in the so-called national championship game.

After the jump, more craziness of college football.

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This year, the Rose Bowl, the "Granddaddy of Them All" that since forever has paired off the champions of the PAC 10 and Big Ten conferences will (probably) feature undefeated TCU, the school from Fort Worth ("Where the West Begins") that's now a member of the Big East conference, whereas the champion of the Big East, 7-4 Connecticut, not 11-0 TCU, will (probably) be going to the Fiesta Bowl. While 7-4 Connecticut gets a top-tier BCS bowl, a team with a stellar record, 11-1 Big Ten conference co-champion Michigan State, will probably end up in a second-tier bowl like the Capital One Bowl in Orlando.

Crazy? Sure. But the university presidents of the six BCS conferences like things just the way they are. So don't expect change to come from them.

Meanwhile, the championship game of the Big 12 conference (with ten teams) will feature Nebraska, now a member of the Big Ten conference (with twelve teams). And the TicketCity Bowl will be played in the Cotton Bowl while the Cotton Bowl will be played in Cowboys Stadium. Crazy? Sure.

The craziness that is college football may soon collide with the craziness that is Tea Party Washington. Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), the less-government-the-better, hands-off-business, deregulation-is-good, let's-apologize-to-BP staunch conservative wants to use his possible new position as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to get government's hands into the business of college football. If he gets the position, he'll likely hold hearings on the BCS. It's not like the country has higher priority problems with unemployment or energy independence that might be more productive uses of the committee's time, right? It's all freaking insane, I tell you.

Meanwhile, TCU's opponent in the Rose Bowl will be the University of Wisconsin. 11-1. Conference co-champions. Big Ten. Rose Bowl. The only bit of tradition, the only thing that makes a lick of sense in this topsy-turvy season. Go, Badgers!