Parity
Posted in Sports by RB on September 30th, 2007 par·i·ty - noun - the quality or state of being equal or equivalent
This is the kind of season where the laundry-loving sports writers bemoan that the “powerhouse” teams are all “rebuilding” or that talent is “watered down.” After all, how else can they explain that so many teams that have been heralded as the best in the nation have been upset? It’s the kind of weekend in the kind of year that drives sports “experts” nuts.
Let’s face it - Division 1A (or wait, what do they call it now, BCS Division A) football is now almost as level a playing field as the NFL, and that’s without a bunch of gurus spending the off season figuring out how to tweak the schedule so the tough teams beat each other up while pitting the losers against each other so as to give the appearance of parity. Unfortunately this real parity still doesn’t help the little schools. The traditional powerhouses get voted to the top spots at the beginning of the season, and once a school is voted to a top spot they don’t lose it unless they lose regardless of how bad they play in their wins. And if a powerhouse loses a single game they’re barely penalized, but it’s going to be interesting to see how far #10 Rutgers falls after their first loss of the year this week.
And as long as I’m celebrating a weekend where my number one and number three favorite teams (GT and AU; whoever was playing UGA lost this weekend) I may as well look forward to the stupidity that is the BCS. This season has shown that not only does every 1A have a chance to beat the other, but a few 1AA teams have that chance, too. And if that’s the case, then why the hell is a computer using data from a bunch of blowhard writers figuring out which two teams should get to play for the national championship. Division 1A football is the only NCAA sport at any level which does not use a playoff system of some sort to determine its champion. Of course, I’m not a professional jock sniffer, so what do I know?
