Florida State Wins The National Championship or, The BCS is Dead and Buried

By Justin Cates

The final five BCS football games were all wonderful.

This season's games were exciting, evenly matched and generally without controversy. The national championship game between Florida State and Auburn was for my money the best championship of the entire BCS system—save for the first three quarters of the title game in 2000.

For the most part, the results of the BCS actually turned out to be the "right" ones pretty much every time. There was some healthy debate regarding the participants on occasion, but almost every national champion crowned under the system was considered the best team in college football.

But that's all no more.

Now we can all look forward to a future where we sit in our post-apocalyptic bunkers regaling the youth with tales of this antiquated system.

"When I was growing up computers decided the national champion in football."

"You mean like Skynet?"

"No, no. This was back before the machines became self-aware. Humans fed a bunch of data into a formula we created and the machines spat out the two teams allowed to play for the championship."

"So the computers didn't even design the formula?"

"Nah. Actually, most of the data we used was based on subjective human observations too. It was really one of the last times we controlled the machines..."

"This is a bad story Grandpa. Tell us again about telephones that plugged into the wall!"

Pictured: A visual approximation of the BCS computers.

Right. Where were we? Ah yes, FOOTBALL! 'MURICA! CHAMPIONS!

Some general thoughts about game:

Florida State is here to stay. I knew he could recruit, but now we know Jimbo Fisher is a full-on football coach which is scary. He also seems pretty classy and humble.

Even seeing him cowed by old age, I still had an uncontrollable desire to punch Bobby Bowden in the neck. I hope he spends his days sitting on a fishing boat staring wistfully into the distance muttering "dadgummit" under his breath.

Brent Musberger gets worse with each passing moment.

I'm sure there was a time before I was born when Musberger was cogent and delivered crisp calls without fawning over hot coeds in the stands or accidentally announcing himself as Kirk Herbstreit.

That being said, I want him gone before he does to Kirk what Tim McCarver did to Joe Buck. This can't end well.

ESPN kept billing their "mega-cast" as some revolution in broadcasting. I found it annoying as it really just amounted to dozens of their analysts—some of whom have no particular football expertise—clogging their various platforms with half-cocked observations and hooting and hollering. I did all that on my own thank you kindly.

On the bright side for ESPN, Nick Saban was terrific and Tim Tebow was actually pretty tolerable.

Both were impressive in their game predictions with Tebow calling for a 35-31 FSU win and Saban saying Auburn would need to score 35 points to win. Bravo gents.

Florida State's win ties a nice bow on this college football season and now we can all look forward to the new college football playoff.

Anticipation is one thing but please, pace yourselves friends! There's still 233 days until the opening game between Ole Miss and Boise State.

Irish Eyes Are Smiling at a Possible National Championship

Notre Dame's 22-13 victory over rival USC Saturday gave the Irish the jeweled shillelagh trophy as well as a berth in the BCS national championship game in Miami on January 7.

Despite not having starting quarterback Matt Barkley, the Trojans gave a decent effort behind a solid first career start from redshirt freshman Max Wittek.

The Irish were led by Theo Riddick who rushed for 146 yards and a touchdown to pace an Irish offense otherwise consisting of five Kyle Brindza field goals.

It was a big test passed for a Notre Dame team that has been tested primarily by its own shortcomings.

The much vaunted schedule strength has been simply good with the only real highlights being impressive road wins against USC and Oklahoma and a nice home win against Stanford.

The good thing for Irish fans is they don't have to worry about any of that now.

Now, they simply wait for the SEC to sort itself out to find an opponent for the biggest ND game in two decades.

My gut tells me that it will be Alabama facing the Irish. Despite tripping up against Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M, Alabama is still the most ruthlessly efficient team in the country.

Of course that's all simply conjecture.

I'll wait until things officially unfold next weekend to start analyzing a match up, which will give me plenty to fill the outrageous time left until the national championship is formally settled.

It will be 43 days since the Irish have played football when they tee it up in Miami and 36 days for their SEC opponent [I originally had these numbers wrong because apparently I can't count].

Lots and lots of dead air in other words.

I'll begin filling it by adding that sometime in the second quarter Saturday, I decided that Everett Golson is probably my favorite college football player currently.

People love to talk about Manti Te'o—and rightfully so—but the Notre Dame defense is good enough that without him, they would still be a top ten unit.

Without Golson, the Irish might have only won seven or eight games.

Aside from the fact his athleticism brings an element of unpredictability that defenses can't do much about, Everett has grown as a passer. He throws a nice, accurate, catchable ball and he rarely panics in the pocket.

I also love the way he whips his passes. In other words, his throwing motion is delightful and generates great power.

I'm not sure how he'll fare against a defense like Alabama's or Georgia's, but it sure will be exciting.

So once again, enjoy yourselves Irish fans. Toast the victories and now you can start imagining what it will be like to redecorate in South Bend.

For once though don't use gold, go for crystal.