A Vote for USC Is a Vote for Change - Russakoff Rules - Comcast.net Sports

America, we have sat through season upon season of corruption, tyranny, and illegitimate champions. Many are convinced that such uncertainty is our fate. Many believe we can't change the greed and exploitation that has taken over college football.

I'm here to tell you: Yes we can.

All it's going to take is the faith and commitment of a few voters.

I don’t have a vote in the AP Top 25 poll for college football. But I have a request for all that do:

Vote USC No. 1

…or Utah

…or Texas.

Just don’t vote for the winner of Florida-Oklahoma. Doing so endorsees all that is wrong with college football.

The BCS is a joke. I know it. You know it. Rachel Glandorf knows it. (How in the world did Colt McCoy pull that?)

No sport crowns its champion with voters and computers…unless you consider figure skating a sport. And I know you don't. I certainly don’t.

No matter what the computers tell us, we all know the winner of this “championship” game is no more of a champion than USC or Texas or Utah. Hell, even Vito knows it.

We all know it, and the conference bigwigs don’t care that we know it. They make money this way…and that’s all that matters.

The only way to exact change is to hit these guys in the pocketbook. We need to make this “BCS Championship Game” completely irrelevant. And the way to do that is for you AP writers to NOT make the BCS Championship winner No. 1.

Think about it. If the BCS Championship Game consistently fails to give us the AP champion, how much longer will it really matter? And if it doesn’t matter, how many people are going to keep watching it? And if people stop watching it, what company in its right mind is going to pay top-dollar to advertise for it.

It’s all about the money for these guys…so let’s take their money. Yes we can.

We’re already tipping that way. I’ve never spoken to so many people—so many college football fans—who don’t care about the BCS Championship Game. Universally, they all believe Oklahoma-Florida will be a great football game…and universally, they all could care less about watching it.

The murkiness of the ’08 season has made a consensus No. 1 impossible under the current system. Oklahoma-Florida will be a great game, but it won’t answer the question we all want answered. It won’t tell us who the best team in the country is.

Putting the Oklahoma-Florida winner atop the AP poll, however, props up this asinine system and gives it a modicum of legitimacy it doesn’t deserve.

AP voters have a chance…a rare chance…to help change this sport for the better. A vote for the Oklahoma-Florida winner is a vote of confidence for the current system. A vote for USC, Utah, or Texas is a vote for change.

Stand up and vote for change, writers.

There are those who say the system will never change. Doubters doomed to believe that things can never get better.

But where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words...

Yes, we can (get a college football playoff).

Yes we can, sports fans.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

Should the winner of Florida-Oklahoma be ranked No. 1? If there was a playoff, who would win it? Will college football ever have an eight-team playoff? Sound off here.



Message Edited by Lee_Russakoff on 01-08-2009 02:18 PM