When Mark Buchholz's 54-yard field goal attempt fell short of the goalposts, every fan on the Heights erupted with glee. After years of missteps and catastrophes, Boston College is just one win away from taking the final step into football's elite. Yet every fan could not help but think about what might have been; a win over Florida State or Maryland in the previous two weeks would have left BC in position to reach the national title game with a bit of luck. What's done is done, though: No two-loss team has ever reached the BCS championship, and that trend won't be broken this year.
Since the creation of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, criticizing it has become as American as Thanksgiving, an annual right of passage for fans from Boston to Honolulu, a chance to prove ones' fandom. Four-team, eight-team, and sixteen-team playoffs have been proposed. The formula has been continuously changed in a vain attempt to prevent last season's problems from repeating. Every year, we all come away feeling like the Greek myth of Sisyphus who was never able to get the boulder to the top of the hill.
But I have finally done it. While watching the ACC's always inspirational commercials during the game regarding the conference's student-athletes preparing for the rest of their lives, it struck me that our athletes actually do that. So what if the Eagles won't win the BCS title? We are clearly the best college football team in America.
Let me explain. The NCAA is for student-athletes. It is not supposed to be a developmental league for the NFL. Yet that is exactly what it has become. Consider the graduation rates for the likely top five teams in this week's BCS. West Virginia sports a whopping 65 percent, followed by Missouri (60 percent), Kansas (56 percent), Ohio State (53 percent) and LSU (51 percent). Not one contender graduates even two-thirds of its football players. And let's not overlook the fact that many of the players who do graduate from these schools have majors in such strenuous fields as recreation management. The players don't represent their schools; they often live in separate residence halls and take separate classes (in subjects like football and "fundamentals of football," both offered by Jim Tressel of Ohio State in his spare time).
2008 Woodie Awards
