Ah, yes, I live in Oklahoma. And most of my co-workers are very much into college football. I, for one, enjoy watching the game, but don’t have a particular attachment to any team. But since most people I know do so, I tend to root for OU (I suppose then, if I have a bias in this article, it’s in favor of OU). So, anyway, naturally I’ve heard some of the recent debate/fiasco over the Big 12 method of deciding the division championship in the case of a round-robin three-way tie. I actually have a few comments on that method as opposed to the SEC method (eliminate third in the standing, then take the head-to-head winner of the other two) as I’ve listened to the discussions.

Problems with Elimate-the-Last method

My understanding of the SEC method may be incorrect, as I’m not interested enough in this thought problem to actually research it, so I’m examing what I understand to be the process (as noted parenthetically above). It has some problems.

1. The team that has the best (point wise) round-robin victory is very likely to lose the division championship, and the team with the least impressive point wise victory is likely to win. Because the team with the most significant loss (unless all games were pretty close) is probably going to be ranked third in the polls of those teams, and it’s likely that loss was to the top-ranked team. Guess who wins the division? The team not involved with the most lopsided game. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s likely.
2. A team is punished for winning a lopsided victory. Because the loser is of that game is likely the one to be elimated (in essence, this is just a different angle of considering point #1).
3. In a round-robin tie, there’s no way to logically use head-to-head victories as a metric. They’re all in the same boat. Eliminating a team using polls is not inherently different than choosing a winner based on polls (The poll voters essentially choose the winner in either case).

So, I think the SEC method is problematic, but what about the Big 12 method. Well, obviously, it’s not satisfactory to everyone. But at least it leaves the voters and computers trying to choose the best team of the three instead of the worst. The reality, though, is there’s just not enough games to come up with a non-controversial strategy. Some 120 teams with each team playing only 10% of the others. I imagine it’s simply not possible to effectively judge between them all. Even within a division, the teams play each other only once. There’s just enough games to ensure that every weakness will show up once, but not enough games to determine which weaknesses are general and which are one-time.

To me, the most sensible approach to a round-robin tie is point spread. Compare the margin of each team’s victory minus the margin of it’s defeat. After that, let the polls decide.

But, it must be acknowledged that determining clear champions in college football is a losing battle.

I sort of follow college football. I usually know who the top five teams in the country are and how the OU Sooners are doing. I also check out si.com or espn.com during the college football season to see what’s going on. And I enjoy watching the strategy during the games. But I’m not really up to “fan” status. I mean, strategy is great and all but you’re not going to see me freezing my rear off for four hours in the stands. Nuh-uh, son.

The point of the previous paragraph is that I don’t really know what I’m talking about here.

I have two complaints about college football. Well, I probably have more, but two I’m going to share. One is the “perfect season” ideal. For generally good teams, one loss in a season can be a big deal. As in, your hopes for the season are over. There’s probably no fix for that, but it just seems goofy to me, and detrimental to teaching the players life skills, or whatever the stated reason for collegiate athletics is these days.

My bigger complaint is the “excessive celebration” rules. I don’t know the history behind them. No doubt, there are at least some good and thought out historical reasons for such penalties. But I’m not going to check them right now. While there is a danger in not knowing history (the tendency to repeat the bad parts), there is also a danger in not examining something at its current state. For example, there are good historical reasons for why email sucks. It still sucks, and it needs to replaced, because the historical evolution of email, via each of its positive steps, produced a bad product.

NB: This is a rant. Grain of salt, please.

The problem I have is these guys get on the field in front of thousands of drunken people, under crazy pressure, making mistakes, getting booed and yelled at, not to mention their own self degradation, and then, finally all that practicing, all that work comes together and they make an amazing play, and by the rules of the game, they…smile…and, um, high five. Does nobody else think it a wee bit goofy that the fans at home with popcorn propped precariously on their laps celebrate more than the actual players? Cos, it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Let’s talk about self-esteem. Because I imagine that has more than necessary place in the argument against excessive celebration. Self-esteem and celebration of accomplishments are not separable. Yes, sometimes the celebration is very quiet, but let’s face it, the only things about football that could be described as quiet are celebration and the University of Nebraska’s ability to fire its dumb— coach.

Perhaps, though, the reason for the continuance of such anti-celebration tactics is the purity line. You know, “We must keep amateur sports pure”. This is the reason that teams lose their wins because a player got paid too much; meanwhile, the games are interrupted for commercials. To keep the game pure and non-commercialized, right?

Celebration likewise disrupts the purity of the game. To see this clearly, we must go back to the early days of American football. The game was invented as a practice of religious penance. A few folks in the village of G’nash were getting too prideful. So, the religious leaders invented a game that required dedication, training, effort, brute strength, and intelligence, so that when a player succeeded, he, she, or it would have every reason to be proud, but…here’s the catch…they had to content themselves with a head butt. Instant humility, baby.

What would I like to see instead? I don’t know. But I would like to see the “minimal celebration obsession” be at least re-evaluated, because I think it leaves out one of the best parts of any game: rejoicing for no “real life” reason.