Early Season BCS Results Are Crazypants

The BCS standings will not come out until October 19th. This is good, because it takes a certain amount of sampling and time to properly understand what teams aren’t just sandbagging their schedule with a slew of pay-for-play tomato cans, and which teams have, after an early tough slate, emerged as real viable contenders for the national title. Even after a full season, this is a dicey business, especially if you end up with more than one undefeated team or -- heaven forbid -- the Oklahoma/USC/Auburn fiasco from 2004. (Auburn fans just punched windshields out re-reading this. We accept your thanks, automotive glass retailers of America.)↵↵The current match-ups under any of the six computerized ranking systems right now are genuinely and thoroughly bananas. Bananas-ish. Bananafied. However you want to say it, if the season ended today, you’d have television execs leaping from open windows very far off the ground at the thought of the bowl schedule. Just a look at Dennis Massey’s early rankings alone is enough to make the hands quake:↵

↵↵BCS Title Game: USC-Utah. Such violence could not possibly be condoned by the FCC.↵

↵↵3 versus 4: Boise St-Wisconsin. Potatoes and cheese equals: The Au Gratin Bowl, brought to you by Ore-Ida.↵

↵↵5 versus 6: Georgia-Nebraska. Color coordination issues would be extreme, to say the least. “No, you wear the slightly lighter shade of red. We insist.”↵

↵↵7 versus 8: Wake Forest-Alabama. Actually, I’d watch this any day, because historical reputations aside, this presents a pretty good match-up. Remember: in any random order there’s something that makes sense.↵

↵↵So, as Chris Dufresne from the LA Times suggests, just look at them “for a laugh,” and avoid getting too worked up about them. I don’t want any television execs to suffer premature heart attacks based on this early, baseless speculation. Unless you’re planning to put Pam Ward on the title game or something, and if that’s true, then I’m mailing bacon-wrapped hot dogs to your house and canceling your gym memberships immediately, sports television mafiosos.↵

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