LITTLE ROCK — Survey says BCS bunch of baloney
If the NCAA thinks college football fans favor the BCS system over a playoff, Quinnipiac University says it’s fooling itself.
A national survey of 1,849 adults conducted by the Hamden, Conn., school showed that 63 percent favor getting rid of the current system, while 26 percent want to keep it. When asked how much they liked the bowl game process, the poll showed fans are mixed.
“College football fans are not in love with the current system in which two teams that play for the national championship are picked by computers, sportswriters and coaches,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Settle the question on the field, voters say more than two-to-one.”
Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, said a playoff system is easier said than done.
“It’s easy to support a hypothetical playoff on paper, but no one has come up with a viable way to actually create one without diminishing the value of the regular season and ending the bowl games as we know them,” he said. “Yes, a playoff could be created, but at a tremendous loss to the unique game that we love.” Yoo-hoo!
Mark Calcavecchia doesn’t pay much attention to life outside of golf.
He was at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am last February when he was told the story about a writer who inquired about Tiger Woods’ pro-am group and introduced himself to Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! The writer not only asked Yang what he did for a living, he followed up by asking what he did at Yahoo!
Calcavecchia smiled and looked away.
“I think I can top that one,” he said. “Jerry was my partner the last time I played here.”
Calcavecchia said he called his wife to tell her about meeting his amateur for the week.
His wife asked the name of the amateur.
“So I tell her, ‘Jerry Yang, he’s like the chairman or CEO or CFO or something like that ... of Yoohoo. You know, that chocolate drink? That’s one of my favorite drinks. I was thinking maybe he can get a couple of cases shipped to us.’ ” Word search
Few golf courses elicit such a wide range of descriptions like TPC Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship. Several players were asked this year to describe the course in one word. Padraig Harrington served up “exciting.” Tiger Woods opted for “tricky.” Paul Goydos called it “surprising.”
Geoff Ogilvy was stumped.
He is considered among the most eloquent players on the PGA Tour, someone who puts great thought into every answer and usually nails it. On this occasion, he couldn’t come up with the proper description.
Five days later, Ogilvy was headed for another middling result. He has never finished in the top 10 at The Players Championship, missing as many cuts as he has made. Walking off the 14th tee, Ogilvy saw the reporter who had asked him the question earlier in the week and called him over.
“Annoying,” he said, with no context, although it was quite clear what he meant.
Quote of the day
“They tell me I’m on vacation. The truth is,
I’m not having a lot of fun because I want to be on the field being part of the team.” Arkansas running back Michael Smith on being sidelined for the Liberty Bowl
Sports, Pages 24 on 12/30/2009