Before the Oregon Ducks kick off their home football games, the University of Oregon’s marching band riles up the crowd with its rendition of “Now We Are Free,” the theme from the Gladiator soundtrack.
After the first four BCS bowl games of 2012, perhaps that’s the theme the Bowl Championship Series should take up.
Gladiator’s well known quote, “Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?”, can be used as the calling card.
The Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl and the Sugar Bowl have given us two overtime games and two better-than-a-point-a-minute shootouts.
The Orange Bowl, conversely, gave us 103 points – 70 of those from one team.
Oregon’s De’Anthony Thomas showed us what speed and versatility look like during the Rose Bowl.
Chip Kelly, Darron Thomas and LaMichael James showed us the different faces – and leaps – of joy and relief.
Stanford’s Jordan Williamson and Virginia Tech’s Justin Myer showed us how painful it can be to have to rely on field goals instead of touchdowns.
West Virginia showed us that second quarters can decide entire games.
While it remains to be seen what’s in store for the Cotton Bowl and the National Championship Game, the BCS has certainly been entertaining this far. The matchmakers should be applauded for leveling the playing field on game day and creating dramatic finishes in three out of the first four games. (If your quarterback is completing 75 percent of his passes, you’re in good shape).
But is that really what the BCS is supposed to do?
Entering bowl season, one of the biggest gripes was about the rematch of LSU-Alabama in the title game. Some think there are no two teams more deserving. Others think a championship game should never be a rematch.
So far, the instant gratification of watching these emotional roller coasters of games has created a mirage that says the bowl game big shots have selected the proper pairs of teams.
If the BCS’s job is to entertain – which the folks broadcasting the games at ESPN no doubt feel it is – then they could not have done a better job.
But if their job is to crown a deserving national champion – which the majority of football fans in America and even the American president Barack Obama believe – they are not doing their job.
Despite the excitement created by the BCS games of 2012, the system is still flawed. There still needs to be a better way of crowning a champion.
Whether that comes by way of a country with four super conferences, a plus-one system or even an eight-team playoff, it will be better than what we’ve got.
More games between high-caliber teams means even more excitement for us couch campers to digest. Once the current BCS system goes by the wayside, college football fans – and not just Duck fans – truly will be able to identify with the theme from Gladiator.
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