If you weren't watching the Notre Dame/Stanford game last night, you really missed out. It should have been a blowout. It almost had not occurred to me that Notre Dame might not win. Yet with less than a minute remaining, Notre Dame was down 31-30. We scored a touchdown and made a 2-point conversion to bring it up to 38-31, which ended up being the final score. It was a little too exciting a game for my taste, but fun to watch.
Because of this win, Notre Dame is now eligible for a BCS bowl. They haven't officially gotten a bowl yet, but they almost certainly will get picked--humans, rather than computers, make the decision, and Notre Dame has huge appeal because of its national appeal and its comeback-from-10-years-of-sucking story.
I'm not even going to try to explain the system of BCS standings--if you want to know a little more, look here; if you want to know a lot more, look here. Basically, the system is supposed to put the 8 top college football teams in four postseason BCS bowl games, one of which will determine the national championship. The way teams are picked for the bowls is convoluted and bizarre and leads to a lot of whining about who "deserves" to go. If we really cared about deserving, we'd have a playoff system. The BCS rewards a combination of athletic accomplishment and general team appeal. Deal with it.
Go Irish!
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2 comments:
Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name,
Send the volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky,
What tho the odds be great or small
Old Notre Dame will win over all,
While her loyal sons are marching Onward to Victory.
Whoo-hoo!!
One-Take, say, sports -- that's another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because...it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance...That keeps them from worrying about...things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about....
You know, I remember in high school...I...asked myself...why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? ....I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn't mean any -- it doesn't make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements -- in fact, it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that's why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.
Two-Noam Chomsky is a douche.
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