Please Send Help, I Miss the BCS

I knew 2020 was a weird year. I didn’t realize it was “I miss the BCS” weird.

The recently concluded college football season was easily the worst of my entire life. My favorite sport was completely exposed in every possible way by COVID. While other sports made drastic changes to its schedule or procedures or formats, college football tried to plow through, and the result was a disaster.

From uneven schedules to different COVID protocols by conference to a staggering number of cases and cancelled games, college football could not stop from punching itself in the face repeatedly.

It culminated with a postseason that had many crying “Uncle!” for it to end. We had a 2–8 SEC team initially make a bowl game over an 9–2 Army team. We had multiple bowl games canceled. We had a playoff that featured more blowouts. We had undefeated Group of Five teams smeared by the old boys’ club known as the college football playoff committee.

Ultimately, the bow on this awful season was another Alabama blowout in a title game as America decided to watch something else. The ratings for the title game were the worst in decades — pre-dating the College Football Playoff. As the final whistle blew in Miami, the common thought was, “Thank God that’s over” unless you live in Alabama.