Joey Harvey is a junior majoring in communication. He can be contacted at [email protected].What’s right with college football these days? There’s not much of an answer to give, as we’re seeing upset after upset totally ruin the system this year. It was only one season ago that the undefeated Ohio State and the undefeated Michigan, being ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, had to play each other in the regular season, perhaps ruining the system then.
But when you talk about ruining the system, this season has been unprecedented, and I don’t really need to explain the details. Any even-remote college football fan is aware of what’s gone on this season with the Top 25 rankings, the BCS and so on.
And we can thank Appalachian State for starting it all.But instead of bashing the college football ranking system of the day, like many others have before me, I am going to offer you a fresher alternative of a read, and will pose to you a question to ponder: what would other areas of life look like if they were organized like college football? Let’s discuss.
1. Classes
As it turns out, performance in past classes would actually be more important than performance in current classes. As long as you have a solid history of being a good student (USC, LSU, Ohio State), if you at least semi-succeed in the current classes you’re in, the professors will like you more and rank you higher in your class. Once you build up a classroom dynasty for yourself, you should be set for the semesters to come, as professors will begin class with a favoring prejudgment of you. Be careful of one bad grade, though, as one mishap will send you to the lower-middle or the bottom of the class.
2. Dating
The good-looking guys get all the girls. This is a given. There’s not much of a chance out there for the guys who don’t already have a reputation built up, but there’s a chance nonetheless. Every once in a while an ugly nerd (South Florida, Boston College) lands a hot chick, but one screw-up and that’ll most likely be the last chance the nerd gets, no matter how nice a guy he is. The better-looking, better-known guys are just liked more by all the ladies, and the ladies hope the studs succeed and do well, so that the world will work better together in harmony.
3. Church
We’ll start publicly awarding the person (the Heisman) who sins the least and does the most “good deeds” in each year. But that person will more than likely have to stand out from the crowd by a great deal, and will also have to be part of one of the best churches around. The person will need to be quite evangelistic in his/her nature, as defense only just won’t cut it. Everyone knows that offensive church members are better church members, anyway. However, sadly enough, simply winning the award won’t guarantee one getting selected in the first round of God’s draft. Oh yeah, and the preacher can’t win. The preacher is kind of like the coach, and we all know that the coach never wins.
4. Friends
Your friends will determine who you are and how you’re viewed by others. If you have weak friends (MAC, Conference USA), you’re going to be seen as a weaker person, no matter strong of a person you rank as among your friends. But, assuming you hang around really strong friends (SEC, Pac-10, Big 12), no matter how weak you might be among your friends, you’ll still be considered a strong person. Most of the time, the stronger circles win, and its members often become angry when a person from a weak clique is liked by the population. Of course, there’s always the loner who everyone makes fun of, too (Notre Dame).
As you can see, I think this proves why the college football system is bogus. It can be dangerous and downright lethal to take aspects of the sport and apply them to other areas of life. Something has to be changed.