College Football Put-on

We begin this morning with a bit of welcome news in these parts, and that welcome news is THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET GAME IS BACK ON AGAIN!

OK, so it's not. OK, so we're big liars, here at the Blob. 

But the Bucket game was back on again for awhile, and now it's off again, so who knows? It's not like it couldn't happen, college football being the bollixed-up mess it is in this Year of the Bastard Plague.

You've got some teams playing five games and some teams playing 11 games, and other teams playing any number of games between. And there aren't any rules anymore, unless you count the rule that says Thou Shalt Protect Our Teams With Really Ginormous National Followings, Because God Knows We've Gotta Recoup Our Losses From This Bollixed-Up Mess Somehow.

And so, in the Big Ten, at first you had to play a certain number of games and then you didn't.  And over the ACC, the pashas decided Notre Dame and Clemson needn't finish out the regular season, because they'd already locked up spots in the conference championship game.

In other words: We don't want you guys to jack around and lose that last regular season game, and it's a weird year, anyway, so guess what? We'll just make those games disappear! Poof! Covid, baby!

All of this, oddly, has provided a bit of cover for the College Football Playoff folks, who have been even more blatant about brand-naming than usual. It's not so much the top four that's the problem; it's pretty hard to argue with Alabama-Notre Dame-Clemson-Ohio State. But if you're undefeated Cincinnati or even more undefeated Coastal Carolina (8-0 vs. 11-0), forget about it. 

Cincy sits behind one-loss Texas A&M, two-loss Iowa State, two-loss Florida and two-loss Georgia in the College Football Put-on polls. Coastal Carolina is a distant 12th. And Indiana, because its name is Indiana and not, you know, Texas A&M or Florida or Georgia or two-loss Oklahoma, checks in at 11th, behind all of the aforementioned. 

This despite its ranking of 7th in all the other polls. This despite the fact its only loss is by a touchdown, on the road, to No. 4 Ohio State.

Florida, meanwhile, just got knocked off at home by 4-5 LSU. Georgia lost by 17 to 'Bama and by 16 to Florida. And Oklahoma lost to Iowa State and 4-6 Kansas State.

So, there it is, as Emperor Joseph II was fond of saying in "Amadeus." Brand names win again. We can only hope now that 11th in the College Football Put-on will be enough to land IU in a New Year's Day bowl. 

But, again, it's the Year of the B.P. So maybe they wind up getting thoroughly hosed, and land in some Radial Tire/Moving Van/Root Vegetable bowl, with some 4-6 Big 12 lame-o as the opponent.

A sham end to a sham year, that would be. So count on it, probably.