From Bowl Madness to Poll Madness...with March Madness Soon to Follow

30-some-odd bowl games up....30-some-odd bowl games down.  The college football season is complete with the Alabama Crimson Tide begin crowned national champions.  A perfect 14 - 0 season.  BTW, has Nick Saban smiled yet?  Just wondering.

With completion of the season comes the final rankings.  The polls.  Those random rankings based on people's opinions....educated or otherwise.  I wonder if some of those pollsters think, "Hey, they're the Chippewas....that's kind of cool....ok, number 23...there."

The polls are a funny thing....

I look up and down the poll and I see Central Michigan at 23 (speaking of the Chippewas). I think to myself, is C. Michigan better then Oklahoma. I also think to myself, if I asked pollsters face-to-face to pick one: Oklahoma or Central Michigan, I wonder how many with a straight face would pick Central Michigan.

Now C. Mich. had a good year. 12 - 2 by most standards is great, especially when you take into consideration the power schedule C. Mich. played. Seriously. Taking the field against perennial powers such as Alcorn St., Akron, Toledo, Ball St. and No. Illinois would bolster anyones ranking. That's a freakin' murderers row! I'm not sure how they survived! Now on the other hand, anyone who would schedule Texas, BYU, Nebraska, Miami & Texas Tech is just looking for an easy way out.

OK, I realize, when you're Oklahoma there's really not much difference between 23, 24, 25...or 26 and above for that matter. When you're Oklahoma and in those spots it represents you didn't have the kind of season to which you're accustomed. But having said that and taking into consideration the kind of adversity this team faced this year I would've liked to have seen them crack the top 25.....for their own morale purposes.

I realize the polls are incredibly imperfect...

...but this poll is saying that C. Mich. is the 23rd best team in the country....better than Oklahoma, OSU, Auburn, Georgia, Arkansas and so on and so forth. I'm pretty sure you put anyone of these teams in that schedule and...well, you get the idea...

 

So with the wrap on the college football season and poll madness it's on to March Madness....a sport that actually crowns it's champion on the court rather than in the polls!

2010

So what's it going to be?

How are you going to say it?

Is it 2-thousand-10 or 20-10?

Think back more than a decade ago...did you ever say 1-thousand-9-hundred-95?  Of course not!  That takes entirely too long.  You'd be weird.  It was 19-95...for that matter it was 19-64, 19-75 and so on and so forth.

Not that I was alive and can recall but listening to people who make reference to the years more than 100 ago describe them as 'aught-8'...you know, "back in 'aught-8'"...it was 19-aught-8.  It wasn't 1-thousand-9-hundred and 8.  Heck it was even 19-08 before it was that long, drawn out version.


But for some reason most of us described the past decade as '2-thousand-1,2,3,4...and so on....not 20-01, 02, 03...etc, etc.  I wonder why.

If for no other reason it's nice to be in another decade.  It takes entirely too long to say '2-thousand-10' as opposed to '20-10'.  

I'm happy about that....I wonder what I'll do with all that extra time?