It’s been a rough two weeks for LSU fans. If you live in Louisiana, which I don’t, it’s been especially rough because of dealing with Gustav. I hope you have electricity. If you don’t, well, you’re not reading this. And you have more important things to worry about than LSU football.
But this has sucked as an LSU fan. The games were going to suck regardless, but the morning start didn’t even seem like a real game. Then, the Troy game got moved and I actually watched the rest of the college football slate, which was painfully awful. Watching your own team destroy some directional school is barely interesting, but watching someone else’s team do the same thing is spirit crushing. I love that college football is back, but the first two weeks is an endurance test. Things were so desperate, I actually attended an SMU game. I’m not proud of that.
LSU can’t come back soon enough. And while I am excited about the North Texas game, wherever it may be played, I’m more excited by the rest of the college football calendar. There’s some good games on the undercard (Fresno at Wisconsin, Kansas at USF, UCLA at BYU), but the marquee matchup is of course Ohio St at USC.
Now, I know a lot of LSU fans have a mild distaste for USC*, but I really don’t. OK, I don’t like them, but that’s part of my general hatred of all teams in every sport from New York and LA. But let’s be honest, USC is the premier program of this decade. And I love the fact they schedule big games like this every year, as does Ohio St. And spare me the “oh, the SEC is so tough” argument. Our OOC schedule is an embarrassment.
*Ed. Note – Which is to say, we hate their friggin’ guts
So why do teams play such lame OOC games? Simple. There’s almost no incentive to play games like this. Which makes me respect USC and OSU even more. But of all the reasons to hate the BCS, and they are plentiful, one of the biggest is the fact that it has absolutely destroyed the OOC schedule. Since the biggest penalty is for a loss, even more than for quality wins, it is a far better to play three cupcakes (or even better – three mediocre teams who will go 6-5 in the MAC) than to actually play a good team and risk the loss. The benefit of a quality win is not worth as much as the risk of a loss. So we get stuck with, well, LSU vs North Texas.
Meanwhile, USC fans get to watch their team play Ohio St. I’ll admit, I’m jealous. Then again, right now, I’ll take any LSU game, so I’m not going to complain too loudly.