To clarify Kyle a little further, both West Virginia and Georgia Tech were a part of the original CFA organization so it isn’t a surprise that both ended up winning the national championship in the early part of the CFA era. But like most things in college football, the royalty that certain teams bring to the table always seems to rise through, creating its own power vacuum.

Stewart Mandel was on the right track with his four tier assessment in organizing the programs based on history and tradition. The reason college football will not move forward in terms of a playoff is the people who truly run college football…Chuck Neinas, the conference commissioners, bowl CFO’s and the networks are in cahoots with the Royalty teams like Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, LSU, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, USC and UCLA…who are always in the premier high income bowl games even though their records don’t always indicate that they are deserving.

I disagree with Kyle’s assessment in terms of the CFA causing all boats to rise because they CFA’s objective has suppressed more teams than it has helped. The CFA fell apart because the greedy power structure of the elite programs soon began to cannibalize themselves as the powers schools among the 63 original CFA schools turned their backs on the tradition starved programs like BYU, West Virginia or Georgia Tech when Notre Dame signed their historic television contract and the SEC ventured out on their own with their own deal with CBS. This essentially created the super-conference movement and it didn’t take long for the television and bowl executives to figure out how to lock in the power programs in the premier bowl games, irregardless of the fact that they didn’t always deserve to be there.

Cable television caused the proliferation of games and along with the 85 scholarship rule (which truly precipitated the rise of the non-BCS) and the CFA organization as a whole, and more importantly the alliances that were created from this movement, has suppressed the game from moving forward more than it has helped the overall cause. The reason the game doesn’t move forward in terms of solving the BCS Controversy is the fact that 95% of the people who were involved within the CFA uprising are now the key people who are profiting from the system…the bowl executives, conference commissioners and television CFO’s.

So while the CFA did start the proliferation of games we now witness every Thursday, Friday, Saturday (and even Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday) you cannot give this organization the true credit behind the parity we are now witnessing. Just another example of the riddle wrapped inside the enigma that throws people off of the true trail of power in college football.

1. http://www.dawgsports.com/story/2008/1/13/232631/251
2. http://bcsbusters.wordpress.com/
3. http://www.dawgsports.com/comments/2008/1/11/235726/505/2#2

Hopefully, that will work better. My bad.

BCSBusters’s point (which I apologize for oversimplifying; his argument is a well-researched and thoroughly articulated one, to which I cannot do adequate justice here) is that college football’s haves possess an unfair advantage over the sport’s have-nots, whether those have-nots are non-B.C.S. conference teams like Boise State or are less heralded B.C.S. conference teams like Rutgers. BCSBusters noted that the historic major conferences banded together in the 1970s and formed the C.F.A. to keep out the mid-majors and, to a lesser extent, the Pac-10, which was tied historically to the Rose Bowl.

Beckett929, I apologize if my reference to Boise State and West Virginia came across incorrectly as a joke. You are quite right that those teams have gone a combined 3-0 in B.C.S. games, which was part of my point that, although the C.F.A. was not designed to benefit teams like the Broncos or the Mountaineers (with which most college football fans in the Southeast and Midwest were unfamiliar until recently), the increased exposure such teams have garnered as a fringe benefit of the boom in the number of televised games has brought them to prominence, as well.

Beckett929’s subsequent point that West Virginia played for a national title in 1988 and that Georgia Tech shared a national title in 1990 is well-taken and I regret that I did not mention those facts, which support the argument I made in response to BCSBusters; namely, that quality teams with less familiar pedigrees are getting a greater share of the attention they deserve than commonly is believed. As I argued, times have changed, rapidly and for the better, when we can see the likes of Louisville (which, as gosouthgohard correctly pointed out, now is a B.C.S. conference team) and Boise State now playing in major bowl games. After all, as recently as 2004, an undefeated B.S.U. squad and a once-beaten U. of L. team were squaring off in the Liberty Bowl.

In short, beckett929 and gosouthgohard both make valid points, and I apologize if my intention (which was to credit Boise State and West Virginia, not to demean them) was not clear from the paragraph Orson quoted. I greatly appreciate marcillac’s praise and both 7-5’s and andrew’s support.

Joshua, I appreciate your constructive criticism. I freely admit (and this comment confirms) that Orson was correct when characterizing me as college football’s most verbose blogger. In my defense, I have tried to mix it up a little bit, both by bringing in a less wordy co-author and by trying to include some shorter, one-shot postings, and I try to inject both brevity and wit into the captions of the pictures with which I try to break up lengthy text.

Nevertheless, I accept Joshua’s critique in the spirit in which it was intended and, as always, I will endeavor to do better. (Bear in mind, though, that, as a lawyer, I belong to a profession that describes a 10,000-word document with the term “brief.”) On a more personal note, I congratulate Joshua’s Bayou Bengals on their 2007 national championship and I look forward to what promises to be an excellent game between Georgia and L.S.U. next fall.

Finally, and most importantly, the one point upon which we all may agree is the observation with which Joshua began his comment: “SMQ far and away.” I don’t like losing to anyone, but the correctness of Joshua’s position cannot be gainsaid: Sunday Morning Quarterback is both a gentleman and a scholar. Orson is correct that he is, by a wide margin, the blogosphere’s finest writer and no one deserved this award as much as he did. If given the choice between reading me and reading SMQ, I’d pick SMQ, too.

My congratulations go out to Sunday Morning Quarterback on claiming an honor he absolutely earned. Here’s to SMQ, a nice guy who finished first.

I kinda understand that point… but WVU played for a national title before ESPN became a major player, and was shutout of one after and undefeated season a few years later… and GT won a national title in that same time frame… I’m not arguing the logic so much as I am the fact that they picked really really bad examples to try to prove a point

the point is not to identify the conferences to which these teams are aligned, but rather the relative places compared to the so-called BCS powers these teams hold (or held, as the case may be). while WVU and GT are in BCS conferences, they were not always taken seriously and were lacking in national exposure. the case for Boise State and others of their ilk (Fresno State, Utah, Hawaii, etc) is more obvious, being relatively obscure teams from relatively obscure conferences.

Dawgsports is not that good. Others do more with less. Brevity, soul of wit….

jon,

“She Said, She Said” was a fine example of Ringo’s chops too.

Ringo’s drumming on “Rain” is my favorite, but he’s pretty killer on “Good Morning” from Sgt Pepper.

Oh, and “Helter Skelter,” doye