Kaulapi World

Haven’t had much of a chance to comment on the status of the football teams that I follow, following one of the biggest hyped pro games tonight, maybe a brief post is due. Its a little past mid season for both college and pro, and two of the teams that I follow are undefeated, (Pats, Warriors) one with one loss (Packers) and the other still with a winning season at 7-3 (Badgers). Growing up I followed Hawaii for college ball, and thanks to my Dad’s loyal following from his time living in Boston, New England. Spending a collective 6 years of college and grad school in Madison I traded Hawaii to become a faithful Wisconsin fan, and to some extent started following Green Bay, but still considered the Patriots my pro team. Some people think its lame to have more than one college and pro team, but given all the miles I’ve had living in different parts, I think its more than justified. At least the teams are in different conferences, so they’ll rarely play each other except inter-conference play or in a bowl game.

The thing I get a kick out of is how people are quick to lob that comment about me being a bandwagon fan or something, since Boston seems to be having a lot of sports successes recently. Two world series, 3 Superbowl wins since 2000, and I guess the Red Sox and the Pats are challenging the Yankees for the most hated teams out there. Not too long ago one guy I talked to said that he didn’t believe me that I had been following the Patriots as long as I can remember, and that I remembered how much they used to suck so I’m just enjoying it while they are playing well. He said that he still didn’t believe me, and that every bandwagoner says that. I kind of sat there and stared at him, not really knowing what the point of the conversation was, or why I should even have to convince someone about something as stupid as fan loyalty to a team that happens to be having a good season. I suspect it had something to do with him being a Redskins fan.

With the mess of the BCS which relies on polls and perceptions of sports writers, both Wisconsin and Hawaii tend to get the short end of the stick as non-traditional powers. Granted this year hasn’t been the best for the Badgers, every year it seems like Wisconsin is considered overrated and as soon as they lose, the sports writers are dying for a reason to drop them in the polls. This week Wisconsin kept up with #1 Ohio State and actually lead until they imploded in the 4th quarter, which I think was better than anyone thought they could’ve done. Hawaii on the other hand usually has trouble getting ranked, and despite having an undefeated year so far this season, are being kept out of the top 14 BCS, mostly being dinged for not playing anyone good on their schedule, despite the fact that nobody seems to want to fly out and face Brennen and June Jone’s run and shoot offense. I remember all the years that Northwestern was ranked and even won a few big ten conference championships after breaking the smashmouth football tradition and going with a spread offense, but no one claiming that it was just a “system” therefore not legit, or worthy of national recognition.

One thing for sure, I think its time for a playoff system for college ball. Make teams qualify based on their records, and then fight out for wild card games, seeding in a 2-3 week tournament instead of bowl games that most people don’t even follow anyway if it isn’t on Jan 1, or the national championship. To make the season more doable, they could cancel the conference championships in favor of wild card spaces. They could even create a system to restore some of the traditional match ups, like keeping the Rose Bowl between the Big 10 and Pac 10 team that qualifies with a certain record.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 3:34 am and is filed under football, random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.