the tindog coffeehouse

I’m still a Texas Longhorns fan. I want to be perfectly clear about that.

But it’s becoming harder every year.

This year’s Thanksgiving game between Texas and TCU was one that I had been salivating over for a year, ever since Texas A&M bolted for the SEC and the Horned Frogs were finally allowed to sit at the adult table with the rest of their former SWC brethren. Texas needed someone to fill their annual Turkey Day game, and since most of the 2012 schedule had already been filled, it was easiest just to stick TCU in that slot. Few expected that to be a permanent new tradition, but as both a Texas fan and TCU fan, I was happy for what I got.

I wondered at the time, though, who I would root for. With the Horns and Frogs in different conferences, I rarely had to choose; I could root for both equally since they rarely played each other. With them both in the Big 12, however, I would have to decide a preference. By the beginning of the year, I knew that preference would be the Frogs.

The funny thing is, though, that preference would’ve been there regardless of the Big 12 realignment.

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“If you woke up the morning and felt differently,” tweeted ESPN, “that’s because college football is back.”

That’s right kids. The long drought is finally over. Basketball season? Ancient history. The Olympics? A distant memory. Baseball? A mere distraction. This, ladies and gentlemen, is all that matters every Saturday from now through January 7th. May the odds be ever in your favor.

So where do we stand on opening day of the 2012 college football season? Well, for one, the BCS is officially on deathwatch, with its demise expected in 2014. And then there’s the whole Penn State thing (whose punishment wasn’t nearly severe enough, in my opinion). And Ohio State is also banned from a bowl game this year. And finally there’ve been a few conference changes. (Yes, of course I’m talking about the University of North Texas joining Conference USA.)

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I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, home of Buddy Holly, cotton, and endless miles of flat dirt. Which means I also grew up as a Texas Tech fan. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to the Tech games with my grandparents. My Papa would always wear his red and black cowboy boots, and I’d cross my fingers and hope the Saddle Tramps would throw a little red football my way. Then when it got cold, we’d huddle under a blanket and drink hot chocolate out of a Thermos and ooh and ahh over the Goin’ Band from Raiderland. On a field trip once, we got to run out onto the field at Jones Stadium, and it was like a dream come true.

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I just fixed the college football conference realignment mess.

You’re welcome.

Actually, to be fair most of the work was already done. TCU is already set to move the Big East next year, Texas A&M is still hoping to go to the SEC, and today the ACC officially announced that Pitt and Syracuse are moving over from the Big East. The rest is just details.

Under my plan, the six BCS automatic qualifying conferences are reduced to five, each with 14 teams. Yes, I know people keep talking about 16-team superconferences, but my plan gives you six extra teams, and if nothing else, I’m all about extra value.

So here goes:

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How many teams does the Big 12 Conference have to lose before it stops being the Big “12″? And when exactly is it no longer considered “Big”? We may find out pretty soon now that Texas A&M has officially declared they’re packing up their marbles and leaving the Big 12 for a shot at the bottom of the SEC.

The Aggies apparently weren’t too keen on their intrastate rival Longhorns getting their own television network, despite the fact that the Longhorn Network will be available to exactly seven households in America, none of which are in Austin. But logic has never been A&M’s strong suit, so they’ve chosen to abandon 100+ years of tradition and possibly as much as $30 million in exit fees in hopes that the SEC will let them in to their exclusive club. Yeah, good luck with that. Let’s see, how many Big 12 football titles has A&M won? How many BCS games have they gone to? How many National Championships have they won since the rise of the BCS? Zero. And yet they really expect to do better against the likes of Auburn, Florida, Alabama, and LSU?

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Here we go again.

Every year before, during, and after college football season, the anti-BCS crowd (which is legion) trots out to exclaim how evil the Bowl Championship Series is and how only a true playoff system would right its many wrongs. All in the name of fairness, they cry. And I suppose I’m a member of that crowd, having written at length about the current system’s lack of fairness and underlying motive to generate as much money as possible (see here, here, here, here, here, aaand… here).

But I don’t think anyone outside of BCS corporate headquarters really questions the unfair nature of the current bowl system. I mean, all anyone has to do is look at this year’s season to see that using polls and computers to choose a national champion is a joke. Auburn, Oregon, and TCU all finished the regular season undefeated, yet TCU was shut out of a chance to play for the title. Why? Because the voters and computers decided it was so.

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