Ye college football gods, what has your once-glorious world come to? Surely, Paul “Zeus” Bryant, you are trying to send us signs of an imminent apocalypse. Have my eyes deceived me or is it really true that Oklahoma, Texas and Florida all fell out of the top five in the Associated Press poll?
Tell me it is nothing but a cruel joke that all three kings were violently dethroned by unranked, simple-minded plebeian squads in a single week’s time! And what kind of sadist now resides in your heavenly kingdom when he decides to add insult to this most painful injury by permitting the unrefined likes of South Florida, Boston College and Kentucky to enter the cultivated nobility class of Division I? Is it Bo “Hades” Schembechler? For it is his Wolverines that remain amiss from the public consciousness. This is insane! Absolute blasphemy, I say!
As if I needed any more reason to throw myself off a cliff or sip from the cup of bitter hemlock, the images of joyful bacchanals held at campuses in Cincinnati, Hawaii and Missouri have been burned permanently into my brain, the wounds festering because the legions from Alabama, Miami (Fla.) and Tennessee have fallen from the ranks of the elite. Are these, in fact, wretched omens? Have the augerers found something in the entrails of these slaughtered teams? Sadly, it seems so.
Yet, a glimmer of light continues to rise in the West as the sun’s traditional course has suddenly been altered to set in the dark and barren East.
A single horse, a Trojan one, has emerged once again from just over the horizon carrying with him a high-octane running game, a Heisman candidate at quarterback and a swarming set of defensive backs. Undefeated and increasingly dominant, he brings with him the prospect of hope – that the landscape of college football has not been forever and irreversibly changed. Collegiate pigskin royalty hailing from every corner of the country, from Paterno in College Park, Pa., to Bowden in Tallahassee, Fla., are holding lengthy audiences with the Prince from Troy, Pete Carroll. But even in this prayerful reflection a lone tear can be seen streaming from the left side of each cheek.
The tear symbolizes the quiet recognition that although the surviving potentates believe that this mortal god, the one they call Hercules (“Pete” for short), is the only czar capable of re-establishing the rule of the aged aristocracy, they also realize that proletarian parity has forced the football bourgeoisie to abdicate its crown and give way to more poor, unpolished programs. Thus, no longer will the Ohio States, LSUs, and Nebraskas hold a monopoly on bowl bids. New, inexperienced leaders like Rutgers and Arizona State will find ways and means to usurp portions of power.
A dark horse – like the legendary Bronco from Boise State – now rides side-by-side to the Trojans’ horse.
Which one will prevail? Only time will tell. For now, the common man (or fan) most suffer through more “insanity survival Saturdays” as this pauper-induced anarchy swallows more and more of our divine imperials.
Hold your ground, loyalists.
Light a candle. Make a sacrifice. Ignite some incense. Initiate a chant.
For if the Bronco beats the Trojan Horse, all could be lost for the holy sovereignty of the BCS.
Assistant sports editor Matthew Murray is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at [email protected].
