2006 College Football Season

Well, the college football season is almost over, and two things stand out. First, the BCS is still stupid. Second, university presidents have officially sold their souls to college football. When Oklahoma lost to Oregon on a bad call, the president of Oklahoma demanded that the NCAA officially nullify the result. Imagine this: The president of Oklahoma’s premier state institution of higher learning demanding that the student athletes at Oregon be denied their victory because of a bad call by an official. I hardly know where to begin, other than to say that if one of Oklahoma’s players made such a demand I would call it childish. That the president should get involved at all is odd. That he should make such a demand borders on the absurd and probably marks the end of the university system in the USA as we previously understood it.

College football has outgrown colleges and universities. Chances are, Oklahoma’s football coach is the highest paid employee at the University of Oklahoma. He and his coaching staff are probably paid more than the math or theater department. Remind me again of the university’s priorities? Would the Oklahoma president have gone on national TV to dress down a local theater company that preferred an Oklahoma State student for the role of Juliet to a University of Oklahoma student?

When Florida meets Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game, we ought rightly wonder, if those university presidents were forced to choose between the football program and the History department, which would they choose? I know. I am an idiot. Nobody thinks they would choose History.