Thank you very much for exemplifying all that is wrong with college football. The Gator Bowl on New Year’s Day in Jacksonville is for the number 2 ACC team and the number 2 Big East team, unless the powers that be don’t like the number 2 team and want to dick them over for a suckier team like Virginia Tech.
The worst part about all this is that it’s totally within the system. As long as Virginia Tech didn’t have more than 2 more losses than Syracuse, they could be in this bowl as the third place team in the conference, even though doing so is utter bullshit.
Syracuse beat Virginia Tech. Pittsburgh (who underachieved all year) blew out Virginia Tech. Syracuse blew out Pittsburgh. And once Miami blows VATech out, maybe finally the idiots that vote in the polls will rank Syracuse ahead of them.
So, Gator Bowl, for proving you care not one iota about the quality of the teams that play in your game, fuck you. And even though few teams irk me more than Florida State, I hope they win this sorry game by 60 points and it’s at least 35-0 by halftime so no one watches it on TV and the ratings suck.
Meanwhile I will enjoy watching Syracuse pummel some overmatched foe (5th place from the Big XII I think) in the Insight.com Bowl. I wish I was making that name up, but I’m not.
Anyway, I am a Texas fan so I really have nothing to complain about right now. Far as I’m concerned, the harmonic alignment of the planets is all pointing to Texas playing in the Rose Bowl in January. OU losing to OSU? Must be santeria…
It’s all about money. Fewer Syracuse fans make the drive than VA tech. VA Tech has the name recognition probably cause of Michael Vick. I agree it sucks, but nothing was done when #4 Kansas State played in the Alamo Bowl a few years ago, so enjoy watching a boring A&M team, a spastic Texas Tech team, or the Iowa State team that I always forget actually plays in the Big XII. I sympathize, really I do.
Maryland alumnus here. While I’d like to say I feel for you and write a long sympathetic post, I’m so happy with Maryland I’m sittin’ on an enormous chubby and can hardly get around it to type!
To be fair, a lot of people (myself included) thought that KSU was way over-rated because of the weak schedule they played during the '98 season. Kansas State did nothing to dispel that notion, losing to Purdue in the Alamo Bowl. I realize that playing as the #4 Big 12 team was something of a let-down for a team that was hoping for a BCS bid, but their “we wuz robbed” argument looked pretty weak when they couldn’t take care of business at the Alamo.
This statement isn’t intended to imply anything about the 2001 Syracuse team.