Sports II
posted in General |SPORTS II
The University of California Golden Bears will not be going to the Rose Bowl. Instead they will travel to a second tier Bowl, the Holiday Bowl, in San Diego to play a 4 time loser, Texas Tech. Through a highly suspect ranking system Cal was downgraded at the last minute so that The Univerity of Texas Longhorns will go to Pasadena and play in the much more prestigious Rose Bowl. The season records of Cal and Texas were the same.
There are three parts to the ranking of Colllege football teams – a computer analysis, a poll of college football coaches, and a poll of sportswriters. After the final game of the season (Cal won and Texas did not play), several sportwriters changed their votes and placed Texas ahead of Cal in the rankings. Some of the changed rankings came from Texas newspaper writers (surprise?). In addition to the big bucks involved, Cal fans and their team felt cheated out of the season long goal of playing in the Rose Bowl. Hard to blame them.
I guess we can be generous and say that no ranking system is perfect and subjective judgments are made from week to week. But the appalling part of this last minute switch to leapfrog Texas over Cal was the active public campaigning by Texas Coach Mack Brown who solicited both writers and coaches to change their votes to advance the cause of Texas – specifically at the expense of Cal. That doesn't say much for sportsmanship, to say nothing of the impartiality of the ranking system and the selection of Bowl participants.
Brown's tactics were below the belt and should not have been rewarded. I hope Michigan cleans their clock on New Year's Day.