football already

And to those of you who care, I found the case of NCAA scheduling contracts amusing. Especially when something weird happens like Michigan losing to a I-aa (I refuse to accept fake marketing labels, App St is a Division 2 team), at home.

The big schools in football essentially buy what are intended to be gimme wins to pad the records for championship/bowl money at the end of the year. In basketball I get enough data from the 30+ games teams play to throw out such "meaningless" games and more easily see which teams have real gaudy records against top competition. Football teams play maybe 2-3 meaningful games out of 12, with maybe a few decent games in conference play. So when one loses like this, I feel quite vindicated that I don't follow the fake championship series with nearly the vigor that the average American does. Give me a playoff system and I'll consider my attention with more division. I don't expect the system to create more even schedules, simply because that would close out the lesser teams to even playing real games. But at least a few more marquee games in the pre-conference arena. People complain about Notre Dame's schedule every year as being too hard but these same people whine that teams like Michigan schedule I-AA teams and directional Michigan schools that are supposed to be automatic wins. Somewhere in the middle the answer lies.