A Bielema Dig?

I believe Bret Bielema, head coach of the University of Wisconsin football team took a dig at his critics today. Not to a reporter, but on the field of play.

Last week Wisconsin rolled Indiana by a score of 83-20, and many national media pundits were up in arms about that score. Many complained that Wisconsin still passed the ball in the fourth quarter, with a huge lead. They didn't mention it was 3rd and 4th string players still scoring on Indiana, only that Wisconsin kept scoring. Evidently the players were supposed to take a knee after any gain of more than 2 yards to give Indiana the ball back.

This week Bielema took a shot at them by calling 29 straight running plays in the second half against Michigan (31 if the victory formation is counted). They still scored four more times, with only 1 pass in the half. The message was pretty simple, run, pass, whatever, the defense has to stop us, and they haven't been able to lately.

Bielema would have been justified throwing this week, Michigan was making a run and got to within 2 scores a couple of times. They continually stacked the box with nine men. They still ran, and still scored.

LSU, Stanford, TCU and Boise State will all be looking at the films from the last two games; those are the most likely opponents for Wisconsin come bowl time. My guess would be each will hope one of the others gets to play the Badgers.

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BCS A Shambles, Time for a Playoff?

The Bowl Championship Series is now officially lying on the ground in pieces, shattered by a year where #1 and #2 were beaten an unprecidented number of times.

Last year at least there was one "BCS Conference" school that was unbeaten, and another with one close loss to a good team. This year there is no unbeaten school in the six conferences that make up the BCS. Only the WAC's Hawaii Warriors are still standing, at 12-0 after beating Washington last night. #1 Missouri got pounded by Oklahoma, #2 West Virginia let Pitt beat them.

Logically, #3, Ohio State, and #4, Georgia should now play the BCS Title Game, right? Except Georgia not only didn't win their conference (the SEC), they didn't win their division in the SEC, Tennessee did, and they were beaten by a 2 loss team, LSU, yesterday. How can you put a non conference winner with 2 losses in the title game?

Kansas might be a good choice, but they also didn't win their conference, though their only loss was to (former) #1 Missouri. Oklahoma won the Big 12, but they lost twice, to Colorado and Texas Tech, two unranked teams.

That takes you down to Virginia Tech, also with two losses, but at least a conference title. And both losses were to teams ranked number 2 at the time. However, one of them is to LSU, who says they should be in with two losses.

This screams for an 8 team play off system, not a bunch of writers and coaches trying to decide who should be in the one "championship game" using a system that intentionally keeps the only undefeated team out of it.

Put Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Kansas, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech and Hawaii into a 3 week playoff and find out who the real winner is. The "lower" divisions of college football do it quite successfully every year, why can't the Bowl Subdivision (former 1-A) schools do it?

Oh, wait, I forgot, MONEY, that's why. The sponsors of the 5 bowl games and BCS Championship game wouldn't be happy about it. Never mind the fact that the games might be more meaningful than they will be this year, it's all about the green backs.

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