College Football's Great European Awakening

I love the anarchy that occurs in the BCS year in and year out. It makes me so happy that something so dysfunctional continues to exist--and makes money. There's more drama in a college football season than on an entire season of "The Hills"--and that's saying something. The cries for a playoff in NCAA Division I football (or the "FBS" as it is referred to now) continue to pile-up from every yuppy blogger and hubristic sports journalist to even our own president-elect. The proposal to scrap the current bowl system in favor of an eight team play-off seems simple enough, right? A way to fairly determine college football's rightful champion of champions?

I say to hell with that idea. Let's really light this whole bag of shit on fire. Let's set up college football based on a ten-tiered league designed after my professional sports league of choice, the Barclays English Premier League, professional soccer's best league. 

Instead of using the polls to determine whom our eight team playoff will consist of, let's make instead ten divisions within the FBS of twelve teams. There will be no championships, the only games that matter are the regular season games that each team plays against the eleven other teams in its own division. If you finish in 11th or 12th place, you are relegated (or, in American terms, dropped) to the division below you. The team with the best record at the end of the day wins the championship in the top division. Teams finishing in first and second place in the lower divisions are then promoted to the division above them. The goal is to fight and stay in the top division or to work one's program up to that plateau. 

Scrap the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-10, Big 12 and whatever other mid-major conference consists within the current FBS realm. These divisions will be national, giving premier match-ups to the college football fan week in and week out.

For instance, a weekend could include such games in the top division like Georgia-USC, Ohio State-Texas, and Oklahoma-Florida. This is a college football fan's wet dream, the black tar heroin to the college football junkie. Weak non-conference schedules? That bullshit excuse can finally be thrown out.

What about money? What about rivalries? What about the American way of blowing things out of proportion and then making money off it?

I'm sorry to break it to you, folks, but the current system just isn't cutting it. A playoff would not solve anything either. And money can be made just as easily by promoting such high-profile match-ups. Hell, sell advertising rights on the damn jerseys. The NCAA does just about everything else now to blur the line between miserly capitalism and student athletics. 

And who needs a rivalry when you're fighting for survival every week? The drama of a rivalry is injected for each and every game, multiplied by ten.

The Europeans have it right when they design every league after a table system, letting the regular season determine the champion. It rewards the team that plays the best when it matters the most: the regular season.

Book of Chuck

Here's a quick hypertext link binge for all who enjoy basking in what I call the "Book of Chuck."

Does Chuck Klosterman's Opinion Really Matter?

Thom Yorke: Music-Industry Prophet?

A Brief History of the 21st Century

Enjoy.

All of these stories have been written by Chuck Klosterman and have appeared in various issues of Esquire.

Everything In Its Right Place

It's very, very weird how time just seems to fly by. It's a cliché saying, but it's unbelievably true. Just a second ago, it felt like I was just getting down to Athens, and now, within the next three weeks, I'll be leaving for a month and a half to aimlessly and methodically work my life away in my hometown. 

I think in the two months that I've been down here for my freshman quarter in Athens, I have written two papers for a grand total of two and a half pages (and all in Spanish). While I'm not necessarily celebrating my lack of writing on subjects that I'll more than likely forget, I really came into college thinking that I'd develop carpel tunnel by mid-October. As of November 2nd, my right hand is still working.

However, during my blog posts, I think I've spent three-fourths of my writing time listening to Radiohead in order to inspire each and every one of my posts. I don't know why I choose listening to Radiohead over, say, Jay-Z to write these posts (or any writing for that matter), but I feel there is something inherently embedded in Radiohead's work that translates to intellectual writing. It's sort of like Red Bull for the brain.

For most, it's hard to study--albeit write--while listening to music, but Radiohead possess this ethereal ability to tap into the deepest cavities of my writing lobe. Maybe it's the fact that Kid A listens like a concept album about human cloning and materialism, or OK Computer arouses thoughts of our society being completely run by computers. "Fitter, Happier" creeps me the hell out, but I'm sure that was Thom Yorke and co.'s intended idea about living, breathing technology.

For me, the best music isn't necessarily the music that gets you pumped up nor makes you mindlessly want to dance around and watch "The Hills" incessantly; the best music has substance, it inspires thoughts, ideas, and grandeur. Music with a message takes the medium to its desired heights: as a way of communicating ingenious ideas.

Chuck Klosterman has already hit on this, but I wanted to further it. Radiohead possess the aforementioned quality. They sound like an audible George Orwell novel (Hail to the Thief essentially is) and they help me to create my most studious work. 

As the end of "The Tourist" begins to unwind, I think it would be apt to stop. Because when Thom Yorke says, "idiot, slow down, slow down," I probably should.