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Jan

6

College football has its problems…

By Matt Wilson | Filed Under Miscellaneous 

Here we go. The attorney general of Utah is investigating the BCS for violation of antitrust laws because the University of Utah isn’t playing for the national title.

After the Utes smacked down Alabama so harshly last weekend, you knew this was coming. CBS’s Gregg Doyel, God bless him, tried to make the argument that Utah’s Sugar Bowl win was over a Bama team that was missing its best player and didn’t care. But while Doyel usually brings the heat with his arguments, this one is still a little cold.

Utah went 13-0 and beat the Tide, ranked No. 1 for much of the year. The Utes also won at Michigan (but then again, who didn’t? HEY-O!). Maybe they’d get smacked around by Florida or Oklahoma. But they should at least get the chance to prove it on the field.

I’ll say it again: The only playoff system that makes sense is taking the winners of every conference and five at-large teams. Don’t come to me about “making the bowls a part of the playoffs.” No. They’re outdated. They’re old. They don’t work anymore. It’s time for a playoff.

• On another, more disturbing, note, Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong says racism plays a big factor in why more African Americans don’t get chances to be Division I head football coaches.

But it’s not necessarily their own race that’s the problem. It’s the race of their wives. Strong, whose wife is white, says that big-time college administrators are wary of hiring coaches that have interracial marriages.

Strong told the Associated Press he was a candidate at a ‘Southern school’ in recent years and didn’t get the job and he suspects it’s because of his marriage.

“Everybody always said I didn’t get that job because my wife is white,” Strong told the AP. “If you think about it, a coach is standing up there representing the university. If you’re not strong enough to look through that [interracial marriage], then you have an issue.”

I’m going to take a page out of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update here: Really? In the 21st century this is an issue? Really? Hey, I’m not even going to get high-minded about this right now (even though I probably should). Shouldn’t you hire the guy that going to win you games?

I realize the SEC fans I know are of a slightly more educated bent, but of the ones I talk to, they wouldn’t care if the coach’s wife had two heads and was from Mars as long as they won the SEC championship and played for the national title.

After an emotionally devastating loss to a huge conference rival, does anybody really say, “Sure, we lost to (Hated Team X) today, but at least our coach is married to someone of his own race. At least that’s something.”

Can’t we move past this stuff and get back to turning our universities into football factories? Please?

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