A Painful Way To End

My heart ached for Texas last night.

Not necessarily because I wanted them to win (I did, though. I had them and the over last night in my picks pool), or because I think Nick Saban is a bit of an insufferable human being (I do), but because of the pain that their two quarterbacks went through.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports encapsulates their nights pretty well.

My heart hurt for the true freshman Garrett Gilbert, who at one point was 1-10 passing for -4 yards and two interceptions—one returned for a touchdown at the end of the half thanks to an absolutely boneheaded play call.

There is no way that kid went to bed on Wednesday night thinking he would play beyond handing the ball off to Tre Newton in garbage time in the fourth quarter of the game. Suddenly, he gets thrust upon the biggest stage in the world. Talk about an actor's nightmare.

The kid showed moxie last night in the second half. It looked like the game finally slowed down for him a bit and he almost led the Longhorns back. If he had done that, it would have been one of the most amazing performances I'd have ever seen.

My heart hurt more for Colt McCoy. He was a four year starter and in the program for five years. He got to see what Vince Young did in the 2006 title game and had a shot to do the same thing: lead his team to the national title against a media-crowned juggernaut.

He could have been the second NCAA quarterback to go 4-0 in bowl games, joining Pat White in that exclusive club.

The reason he returned this year, from what I could gather on my own, is to have been in a position to win the title after being a stupid tiebreaker away from having the chance last year.

And on the fifth play of the game, just like that, his game and career was over.

You never want to see someone's career end that way, and while McCoy will move on to bigger and better things, it still sucks to see him go out this way.

BCS Doomsday scenario

So last night's Fiesta Bowl was a solid defensive struggle, and Boise State came out victorious over TCU 17-10.

For some folks, the game was an absolute snoozer, although if Texas and Alabama play the exact same game, it is hailed as a great defensive struggle for the ages.

I still believe that neither school was really served by playing each other and could have made a greater case for inclusion if both had played automatic qualifying opponents (Iowa and Georgia Tech).

But I've been doing some thinking about the whole BCS mess as I do on an annual basis, and I've reached this conclusion:

Boise State continuing to go undefeated and winning BCS bowl games is not going to be enough to trigger armageddon for the BCS.

I think the circumstances were in place for it to happen this year, with 5 undefeated teams heading into the bowls.

But the teams that were undefeated were not the proper schools.

Let's play the scenario out from December 5th, but we'll swap out a couple of teams.

Heading into play that morning, we had six undefeated teams:

1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. Texas
4. Boise State
5. TCU
6. Cincinnati

Florida and Alabama were playing against each other in an elimination game, so obviously, we were left with five teams.

But what would have happened if we changed teams four, five and six so that the list of undefeated teams looked like this:

1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. Texas
4. Iowa
5. Ohio State
6. USC


Yes, the above scenario could be plausible some years. Remember, the Big Ten does not play a total round robin schedule, so the potential for two undefeated 12-0 teams is in play.

(I know, I know; Iowa and Ohio State played this year. Let's assume that they didn't.)

Florida and Alabama still play their steel cage death match in Atlanta and someone gets eliminated. Texas comes through unscathed, and let's say USC beats whomever they are playing by about a touchdown in a low scoring affair.

So you have the Big Ten co-champs and the Pac-10 champ left out in the cold, hoping for a split title care of the Associated Press—assuming that they don't lay an egg in the Rose Bowl.

Yeah, let's have that happen and see if the agitation for a playoff doesn't begin.

New Year's Resolution and a (slightly) new direction

A new year has dawned.

A new decade has arrived.

And it's time for a new direction here at Pigskin Punditry.

Ostensibly, I started this blog with the best of intentions and the hope that it would be a place where I would rant and rave about college football; the good, the bad and the in between.

Well, previously, that has not worked out the way I wanted it to. There have been obvious long gaps between posts (as the "Terrelle Pryor said what" post demonstrates) and the care and feeding of this blog has been wanting between my day job and other family commitments.

But it's time for a change, and the dawning of several new eras seems like the proper time to take advantage of those changes.

In this new year, I am still going to follow college football. I love the game, no matter how broken its post season is.

However, count on seeing more posts from other sports: We'll go basketball heavy in the winter and leading into the spring with March Madness and the NBA playoffs; baseball will dominate the summer with some golf and other big events taking over for a bit, too.

Late summer and early fall will be given over to college football with some NFL thrown in as well.
I also will try my hand at some video logs during the football season next year in a new segment that is tentatively titled "Inside the 20."

This site will continue to be a work in progress. I welcome any and all feedback either in comments here or by email at pigskinpundit@gmail.com, or by twitter @pigskinpundit.