Welcome to BCS High

32 bowls sure seems like a lot.

It’s basically the same number of students as you might kind, as say, in a high school, especially if said high school is a large public one where education takes a backburner to football and the average SAT is about an 870 on the old scale. Each bowl, like each student, is unique, but comparable. Here now is each and every bowl and the kid from your high school you knew:

Poinsettia: Slutty but ugly chick. She’s first to give out the HJ’s your freshman year or sooner, and you know you can easily get your first bit of satisfaction from her, but despite this, you know you shouldn’t because the only reason you would is because it’d be first. You know you could do better.

Las Vegas: Awkward looking kid who doesn’t belong. BYU fans in Vegas are like sticking UNLV’s hoops team in the Salt Lake bracket. It’s just a misfitting situation not benefiting anyone, just like the foreign exchange student who doesn’t speak English in the FUBU sweatshirt.

New Orleans: Fat ugly girl with the cleft lip. You can’t look at her, she’s so ugly, you want her to go away, and you wish she didn’t exist; yet she does.

Papajohns.com: The kid you don’t know anything about but don’t really care about either. Maybe this kid never says anything, maybe he reads Kurt Vonnegut books all through lunch at a table by himself. He seems harmless, but he also seems like you don’t know where he lives, what his real name is, or anything about what he does after school ends. He’s there, but who cares?

New Mexico: The obviously introverted kid. He keeps to himself, stays at home all the time, and nobody outside his family gives even the slightest crap about him. Kind of like how only New Mexico Lobos fans care about the New Mexico bowl, so it’s lucky the Lobos are in it…

Armed Forces, GMAC, and Motor City: The losers who have some sort of kinship because of how loserly they are. You know the type; they’re similar in some freakish way, and hang out all the time, but no cool kid will ever even acknowledge them or give a care about seeing them ever.


Hawaii: The kind of hot foreign girl who doesn’t talk to anybody. Sure, she’s kind of cute, and she lives in a nice area, but she keeps herself down and doesn’t dress nearly hot enough to really want to get to know her. She’s also really introverted too and likes to stay within her family, just like how Hawaii seems to always end up in this bowl year after year.



Emerald: The kid who used to be really cool but then got fat and stupid by 8th grade and everybody stopped being his friend. Everybody used to think this kid was cool, but then it became obvious he was overrated and all his success was built on his former glory days, in this case 3rd grade when he had all the coolest toys. Now he’s a shell of himself and nobody who’s anybody acknowledges ever liking him. Hello, FSU (and to a lesser extent, UCLA).

Independence: The kid somebody’s friends with who shows up at parties but no one really wants there. I mean, he’s OK, but would the world go on without him? Hell yeah it would. Does Alabama really want to go to Shreveport? Eh, no.

Holiday: The ridiculously underrated girl. She’s hot, and smart, but unfortunately for her, too smart. She consistently outperforms some of the cool girls, is kind of rich and lives in a nice area, but she’s just not able to bring in the football stars. She does get noticed once she hits the Ivy League, however and then all the guys in high school realize how much they screwed up.

Texas: The chick who somehow gets herself between two guys who used to be best friends. Hello NFL Network and cable providers everywhere. This girl isn’t really that hot, but somehow got stumbled into every girl’s dream where two hot guys are fighting over her like there’s no tomorrow. Maybe her family won the lotto or something, but it is what it is.

Music City, Sun, Liberty: The third tier kids who show up together as a group at parties, bring some weed, but otherwise, no one cares that they’re there. You know the types, they’re usually entertaining for a few minutes when they show up at parties, and you talk about something, but then you go back to doing keg stands with your real friends. It’s like, if I didn’t have New Year’s Eve off from work, would I care about the Sun Bowl? No, no I would not.

Insight, Champs Sports, MPC Computers: Another group of weirdos nobody acknowledges. They’re like the Armed Forces, GMAC, and Motor City weirdos, but they play Dungeons & Dragons at lunch instead of Magic: the Gathering. In the case of the bowls themselves, they just happen to be later in the schedule, but just as meaningless in the bowl social strata.

Meineke: The kid you know is going into the military from day one. He shows up in a ripped Stone Cold Steve Austin shirt and fatigues with a flattop haircut his first day of freshman year and from then on just calls the football players jackasses and quits the wrestling team because the coach doesn’t “get him.” He just wants to go kill him some al-Qaeda. Kind of like how this bowl has a hankering for some Naval Academy every year.

Alamo, Chick-Fil-A: The otherwise cool kids with some critical defect. They could be just as cool as the cool kids, really, but they have some issue, like, they dress slightly off, or have no sense of humor, or are secretly poor, just SOMETHING that keeps them from the top echelon of popularity. They’d like to be there, and everybody seems to pretty much like being with them, but there’s just that something missing right now.

Outback, Cotton, Gator, Capital One: the kids who think they’re totally awesome, and the really cool kids hang out with them at all times, but then make fun of behind their backs. Just like how Steve Spurrier used to say about the bka Citrus (now Capital One) Bowl, “You can’t spell citrus without UT (Tennessee)” as a dig against the bowl the SEC’s #2 team went to. Everybody below them would die to hang out with these guys, but the truly elite just mock them.

Rose, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar: The elite. These guys are the coolest kids, but they’re still at the beck and call of their leader, the BCS Championship. Picture Lacey Chabert and the other girl in “Mean Girls.” (What? It was on Saturday night at the party I was at, sue me). A lot of people are content just to be dating them (Wake, Louisville, Boise St.) while others REALLY wish they could be with the Rachel McAdams character, aka the Championship (see: Michigan, USC, OU, ND, LSU).

International: The kid in the trenchcoat you’re scared of and confused by. Who is this kid? Where did he come from? Why is he in the room with the rest of us? He sits in some far off corner, says nothing, but is there, almost as though he’s plotting some terrible plan to justify his dark, pointless existence. Just like a bowl in Toronto. In mid-January. After the BCS games are done.

The BCS Championship: The hottest chick everybody wants. Everybody, no matter how lowly or otherwise popular wants this girl (or guy, as the case may be). This bowl is the head cheerleader, starting QB, and lead singer all rolled into one. You HAVE to be cool with this bowl to be anybody. People fight over it, cry over it, heck, maybe even kill over it. It is the crème de la crème.

Put Big Mac in the HOF

Think back to 1994, specifically, August 1994. Baseball stopped. No World Series, no .400 average for Tony Gwynn, no playoffs in Montreal, no World Series for the Braves to lose in. Baseball ceased. Now, think to early September 1995. Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s “Iron man” record. Baseball modestly creeped back into national consciousness. Now, refer to the infamous and still referenced commercial featuring Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and their catchphrase “Chicks Dig the Longball.” What player most epitomized America’s infatuation with the longball in the late 90s? Certainly there’s only one answer to that: Big Mac, Mark McGwire.

The summer of 1998 was baseball’s resurgence. McGwire and Sosa captivated the country, cliché as it sounds. Only two games have been on FOX in primetime outside of the playoffs: Big Mac’s 62nd homer game and the first Sox-Yanks game in April, 2004. The chase to Maris was more “Wag the Dog” effective than anything President Clinton could’ve otherwise used to get the country’s attention off the whole Lewinsky thing. BIG MAC BROUGHT BASEBALL BACK. Look, we may have very well been duped (in fact, we likely were), but there is no Game of Shadows-esque rundown of McGwire’s doping schedule as there is Barry Bonds that tears him down and proves beyond doubt that he was a doper, and hence a cheater. Rather there is merely the scared testimony of a human in a suit before Congress one day 20 months ago.

But, in the end, so what if he did do steroids? Barry Bonds has been a cancer on the game; a plague everyone seems to just be waiting out before he goes away for good. He’s also considered a pretty huge jerk. None of these same things could ever have been said about McGwire before that fateful St. Patrick’s Day in 2005. Bonds may be a loving doting father for all any of us knows, but come on, McGwire and his son Matt were all over the news and pictures in 1998. People loved the guy, and baseball suddenly had that charm back on it for the first time since the strike occurred. Add into the mix the sunny Dominican slugger, Sammy Sosa, and this was a marketer’s dream.

However, in a way that Sosa continuously sullied his good deeds as his career wound down (the cork incident, injuries, infighting while with the Cubs, issues with the O’s), Big Mac retired gracefully once his bat speed and career were obviously over. Maybe there was a reason for this, but it’s possible the guy actually knew he was done (why this was the case may also be up for debate, of course). He hasn’t exactly been an ambassador for the game since retirement, and again, for all any of us can speculate, there may be a reason for that, but what isn’t up for speculation is that for one magic summer, this man was what brought eyes back to baseball and put people in seats. No one would even care about the hearings in Washington or that Jose Canseco wrote a book and is now up for election too if Big Mac hadn’t spent his 1998 summer sending balls all over parks with his son and a smile. Say what you will about how he may have done it, but you can’t tell me he didn’t make you care about baseball again and that you don’t still feel the way you did in 1993.

Go Home, Homers !

How many times have you sat down, hoping to be enlightened by the so-called "experts" of the sports world, only to be completely blown away by the sheer one-sidedness that they have towards their own alma mater or former employer? ESPN hires ex-players because they seem to make the most natural progression to the booth. But - as evidenced by former Hurricane WR Lamar "Don't Come Into The OB With That Weak Stuff" Thomas' comments during last month's Miami-FIU brawl - you can take the player out of the system, but can you take the system out of the player? From 10 to 1, here's the biggest homers in the sports world ...

10. Stuart Scott, University of North Carolina Tar Heels - The lazy-eyed wonder himself barely beats out Maryland's Scottie Van Pelt for SportsCenter anchor ACC pride. Scott makes the list simply because he cannot make it through a SportsCenter without letting you know if a Tar Heel did something big, and beats out Van Pelt because there's way more of a chance for Stu Scott to be calling a Vince Carter highlight than SVP calling a Steve Blake base-line jumper. Boo-yah!

Punishment: Scott should be forced to call a UNC football game twice a year. And get some friggin' surgery on that eye. Not even as punishment. Just so people can eat while he's on TV.

9. Shannon Sharpe, Denver Broncos - This guy has a head like Shrek, lips like a burnt Cher and the audacity to never pick against his former team, even when they're severly over-matched. He's the constant optimist for Jake Plummer, makes sure no one ever forgets he played with John Elway and loves Mike Shanahan more than Grandma Estel Shanahan does. I'm not sure if you can find the clip on Youtube or not, but I'm 99% sure that on last year's pre-Super Bowl coverage, when asked if Pittsburgh or Seattle would win, he picked Denver.

Punishment: Sharpe should have his eyes pried open a la "Clockwork Orange," be strapped down and forced to watch all of Jake Plummer's post-season games as a Bronco. And that weird Bronco hat should be surgically attached to his massive head.

8. Digger Phelps, University of Notre Dame Fightin' Irish - How can a college basketball analyst talk about a mid-level team so much? When he coached said mid-level team for 20+ years. He thinks they should be in the NCAA Tournament every year, despite not having a winning record or talented starting five. He wears their colors on most of his broadcasts - although he's since stopped so that he can match his freaking highlighters to his ties, a tip he got from watching too much "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

Punishment: Take away the highlighters, first of all, and then make him actually watch the Notre Dame teams play the Big East elite. But make sure you take away the highlighters. Please.

7. Rich Eisen, University of Michigan Wolverines - Don't have the NFL Network? Don't bother. It's basically Rich Eisen interviewing former Wolverines, or mocking former Notre Dame, Michigan St. or Ohio State players for not being Wolverines. He seems to be quiet at least once a year, though, and it's usually the week after Jim Tressel spanks Lloyd Carr.

Punishment: Since he's a regular on VH1's "I Love the 80's" and "I Love the 90's," he should be forced to come up with witty remarks about the 1993 NCAA Championship game. "Fab 5? Is that what Chris Webber got on his SATs?" Beat that, Michael Ian Black!

6. Howie Long, Oakland Raiders - Thank God Gruden left, because if Oakland had been good for much longer, FOX was going to have to ban Long from talking about the greatness of the Raiders. But even know, with his former team an embarrassment to its great history, Long still picks them to win games, and still thinks they have the pieces in place to win. The first five weeks of this season were surreal to watch on FOX's pre-game show, as Long thought first Aaron Brooks, and then Andrew Walter would bring the team victories. He loved the Art Shell hire, the only person on the planet to do so besides Shell himself - although that isn't even certain. Here's hoping the Raiders don't draft his son ...

Punishment: Stick him on the team right now. He'd probably kill himself or ask to be traded like every other smart player on that team ... That or put him and Tom Jackson in the same room before a Raiders v. Broncos game, surrounded by blunt objects.

5. TIE Peter Gammons, Boston Red Sox AND Dick Vitale, Duke University Blue Devils - Two of the most respected professionals in their field, each one absolutely oozes allegiance to a team despite their consumate "professionalism." Gammons got his career started in Boston covering the Sox, and praises everything they do. He grew up a Sox fan, and despite his fantastic coverage of professional baseball, he tends to lean a bit towards Boston in most of his critiques and predictions.

The same cannot be said about Dick Vitale.

Vitale has absolutely nothing to do with Duke. He didn't go there. He didn't coach there. He didn't grow up rooting for them. His parents didn't go there. His mother's maiden name isn't Krzyzewski. And yet every single thing he does, every prediction, every break-down, every praise ... Is directed at the Blue Devils program. He has an extreme bias for Duke, so much so that college coaches have even called him out for it. His favorite cartoon dog? MarmaDUKE. Favorite first person video game from the 90's? DUKE Nuke'em. His favorite position in a sovereignty? A DUKE.

Punishment: They're both too old to really do anything mean to. We'll make Gammons watch the Buckner play over and over, and ... Oh, just shoot Vitale in the head. Dipsy-doo-dunk-a-roo that, baby!

4. Kirk Herbstreit, THE Ohio State University - His dad was a captain for the Buckeyes. He was a captain for the Buckeyes. How can you impartially bestow "expert" knowledge of the game to us when you grew up hating some of the best teams, and then played against those programs yourself? Lee Corso needs to be medicated, but at least he doesn't always pick his Florida State Seminoles. Herbstreit defines the term "homer."

Punishment: Make his first-born son go to Michigan. And like it.

3. Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, St. Louis Cardinals - How can a broadcast team as different as this one both be Cardinals fans? McCarver is a legally retarded, and was a catcher for the Cardinals organization for most of his playing career. Buck, who was born and raised in St. Louis, by his father Jack - the legendary Cardinals announcer - began his own broadcasting career calling games for St. Louis' minor league team, the Redbirds. He then worked Cards games with his dad, before getting hired as a national broadcaster. So how do let these two in a booth together? During the World Series featuring the Cardinals??? I was waiting for Ozzie Smith to start doing the sideline report ...

Punishment: Aside from never being allowed to call a Cardinals game together again, both men should have the Cardinals logo tattooed on their foreheads and have their vocal cords pecked out by a few real cardinal birds.

2. Michael Irvin, University of Miami Hurricanes AND Dallas Cowboys - The only duel threat on this list, Irvin is an NFL analyst for ESPN that manages to defend both the Hurricanes and Cowboys on a weekly basis. Never before has a former player brought so little to the broadcasting world in terms of talent, and yet had so much to say, so poorly dressed. You'd think a born-again Christian cokehead would have more sense ...

Punishment: Make him wear a regular black suit, white dress shirt and solid tie. Every day.

1. Jay Bilas, Duke University Blue Devils - If you've ever heard Bilas call a Duke game for ESPN, or listened to him in the pre- or post-game coverage of one, you damned well know where he went to school and played his college ball. You can actually measure on his body how far up Mike Krzyzewski's ass he is. The guy was a four-year starter for Coach K, went to Duke Law school while serving as an assistant to Krzyzewski and cleaned his office twice a week, too. He has never picked against Duke on the air, wears a one-piece "Blue Devils" pajama outfit (with attached feet) to bed and has almost as much of Coach K's semen in him than Mrs. Krzyzewski (and Dick Vitale).


Punishment: Paint him up like a Cameron Crazy and force him to watch JJ Redick's tournament games versus Kansas in 2003 (2 for 16 shooting), UConn in 2004 (4 for 12), Michigan State in 2005 (4 for 14) and LSU in 2006 (3 for 18). And then sit down and listen to some of Redick's poetry, while watching a Duke football game.

*BP*