Five Things I Hate About College Football

[dlgood]

Watching the Kentucky-Louisville game, I've reminded of some things I do really dislike about college football. In the absence of finishing my solicited lists of five I figured I'd add a list of my own.

Five things I hate about College Football:

1. Cupcake non-conference games. Kudos to Vandy and Cal for being willing to go play at Michigan and Tennessee, even though they'd lost. I am seriously annoyed that Maryland has gone with cake for yet another season. Home games this month against William & Mary, Middle Tennesse State, and Florida International. (What, the Culinary Institute was unavailable?)
   
   They aren't going to be useful competition for the players. They aren't going to be entertaining to watch. They won't add any value or cache to the program. And they don't even have good storylines or local flavor, as Maryland-Navy did last year.
   
   When you have a long season, as college basketball does - such season opening stretches are perfectly acceptable if you've got one or two legit games as well. In football - you only have four open dates on the schedule. Making three of them home cucpakes is a travesty.
   
   
2. Hideous Uniforms. Louisville's black jerseys are actually not so bad. But if your school mascot are "The Cardinals" you need to be wearing red. At least you aren't Syracuse Ugly. Or Oregon.
   
   
3. Lou Holtz. I hate Lou Holtz. Faux-folksiness out of a guy who's always run very shady programs, most which go on probation as soon as he leaves (for things he did). Oh, and stop mumbling.
   
   
4. Season Ending Injuries. While it's true that they get scholarships many of them couldn't otherwise earn, college football players do not get paid. (Unless they go to Oklahoma or USC) I hate seeing a guy have his year ended in September - as happened for Clemson's Anthony Waters and Michael Bush of Louisville.
   
   BCS Does anyone not hate the Bowl Champonship Series? Given that all of College Football's teams cannot possibly play each other, or even more than one or two common opponents - there pretty much would have to be a playoff in order to have anything resembling a consensus champion. In the absence of that, I'd rather see the old school bowl system, with traditional conference champion matchups - with all of the attendant hullaballoo then the sad attempt to have both (and getting neither) that is the BCS.