Academics and College Football, a match made in Hell

The new pre-season poll came out for college football and a few things jumped out at me right away aside from the obvious fact that USC is one of the best college football programs ever.

1. College football preseason rankings are a very stupid idea
Although they get us talking we have to really wonder how much good are they? The teams in the bottom half of the list are probably going to be out of the ranking in the first three weeks. Besides, how can you rank teams you've never seen play? These teams schedule cream puffs the first four games to pad their win/loss record so much so that it would make Tim Donaghy question their integrity. For example, in 2006, Florida, the national champion, was ranked #8, plus Iowa, Oregon, Tennesse, Penn State, and Alabama all falling out of the top 25 at the end of the season. By the way, Oregon State, Hawai'i, Brigham Young, and Boston College all found their way into the top 25. Football is just one of those sports that has to be decided on the field. The best these pre-season rankings do is stir up discussion from nerds who post onto their daily blog and eat Cheetos. I, on the other hand, am eating Flaming Hot Cheetos so I can't be lumped into that category.

2. The Pac-10 should be called the Whack-10
Never have I seen a more ridiculously storied conference do so poorly depsite being ranked so high every year. With the exception of USC, no other Pac-10 program has a shot at finishing in the top 15. Looking at last year's final poll I saw that only USC finished even in the top 20!! There's an easy explanation for this too. Most schools that are west of Colorado like all the Pac-10 schools reside are so unbelievably hippie that nobody can really takes sports that seriously. You can't blame the pac-10 entirely though. Look at the cities these schools are in....Los Angeles (too cool to even say the word cool), Eugene Oregon (hippie central), Seattle (I'm too sophisticated for football), Berkeley, California (football? I've got a protest to go to), Stanford, California (screw football, I'm going to be a Senator), Tucson (speed limits don't exceed 15 MPH), and Tempe (I think I'll cut my lunch break to four hours today). I have a special hatred for Tempe because I work just outside of there and I'm telling you that the number of jobless used-to-be college students is astonishing. I've never seen a Target be so crowded at 11:30 on a Wednesday. Anyway, football doesn't take precedence at these schools like it does in other places. I also blame it on the fact that the Pac-10 teams are placed in very big cities with lot more going on than football (Seattle, Los Angeles, Tempe, and Berkley (Bay area)). I've been to the bay area, Los Angeles, and live near Tempe and let me tell you, college football is like #5 on the list of fun things to do. Aside from that, as soon as these Pac-10 schools unchain themselves from the tree they're trying to save they'll have competitive football teams.

3. "Me no like skool, me like foosball."-Mongo
What I'm getting at here is that the best football powers typically have the worst academic standards. This isn't to say that football players are dumb. In fact 100% of the players in the NFL have at least three years of college experience with many of which having stayed to obtain their degree. This is in addition to all of the head coaches and assistants having their Bachelor's and/or Master's degrees as well because of the requirements to coach college football which is the stepping stone to the NFL. With that said, some of the top football schools have some of the most lax academic standards and there are several reasons why. The first reason is because anybody can recruit smart offensive players. The players that score the highest on the Wonderlic test at the NFL combine go in this order 1. Offensive Tackle, 2. Quarterback, 3. Offensive Gaurd, 4. Running Back. All offensive players. Recruiting good defensive players into college is more challenging. This tells me that defensive players are just dumber. It's difficult to convince a smart person to tackle someone that may have 4 inches and 30 pounds on them and enjoy it. Plus, defense has always won championships. It's an unusual situation that appears to college football programs. They need certain academic standards, but they also need "Mongo to run through a wall for them." If you look at each of the conferences and who is typically at the top take a look at their academic standards and their standards for admission. Stanford in the Pac-10, horrible program, great academics. Ohio State in the Big 10, great program, you could get in having done your SAT in crayon. The fate for Stanford goes the same for Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Duke, and Notre Dame. This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Ned Flanders says "Heaven is easier to get into than Arizona State!." Just thought of that.....

All that aside, I love college football and right now the Sun Devils are at training camp preparing for another mediocre year in a terrible conference. A-S-U! A-S-U!