Honestly, I thought the ultimate anti-BCS column would come from John Feinstein, but instead it belongs to his WaPo colleague, Sally Jenkins, who boldly takes the Lane Kiffin situation to a place no one had gone before.
… Kiffin is merely a product of the soured professional environment in which he came up. The BCS culture itself is fundamentally dishonest, a cartel of six major conferences and Notre Dame, ungoverned by the NCAA, that seeks to hoard $1 billion in bowl profits. How can we expect the competitors to be ethical? Or sensible?
That’s it – the BCS made Junior do it.
Maybe it’s time to abandon the debate. How do you even begin to respond to an argument like that? More to the point, why would you?
(h/t Team Speed Kills)
Get The Picture 
While waiting for Ari Fleisher’s emergency response team to counter-attack on behalf of The BCS even Ari has to give Sally credit for labeling Lane as the deadly new and improved version of Chucky. RIP Gruden.
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The ultimate ad hominem attack – Lane Kiffin!
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I like Sally Jenkins but I thought that column was weak and made no case for what she was arguing.
There are always a few douchebags in every profession and LK is one of them. Doesn’t matter where the money is coming from.
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I tried to read the column, but all I kept seeing was JOHN CALIPARI JOHN CALIPARI JOHN CALIPARI JOHN CALIPARI JOHN CALIPARI.
Thank goodness the playoff system of March Madness saves us from such nefarious mercenaries.
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Thats okay, the anti-playoff groups jump the shark every few years: 11-1 Southern Cal & 12-1 LSU…Undefeated Southern Cal & Undefeated Auburn & Undefeated Utah… 11-1 Florida & Undefeated Boise State…12-1 Florida & Undefeated Utah…Undefeated Alabama & Undefeated Boise State
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+1
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A second opinion on Sally Jenkins.
She’s ugly too!
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This is the natural result of giving the most entertaining sport the absolute worst joke of system for determining its champions.
When people’s bitterness reaches a nightmare level, they occasionally take things too far.
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I thought it was a great article. Everything she says about Kiffin is exactly true. The BCS system is fodder for the growth of new Kiffins. The BCS is all about money and nothing else. If they get a good bowl matchup for the MNC that is only an ancillary by-product.
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What’s March Madness about? Character building and academic development?
Mayor, please.
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At least they get a real champion.
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At least that’s an argument I can respect.
The greed? That’s a joke.
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OK. Maybe the BCS stuff was a little over the top. But I really loved the Kiffin stuff, hence my clouded judgment of the rest.
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“How do you even begin to respond to an argument like that? More to the point, why would you?”
In retrospect, you’re probably right. But at the time I felt like my intelligence had been personally insulted.
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I know what you mean. It’s not her first time at the dance writing something galactically stupid about the BCS.
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The BCS is all about money.
…….. so it all of college football basically.
Yes, there are some who play for the love of the sport. There may even be some people who coach purely for the love of the sport. But its a billion dollar industry.
So I never get bogged down in the “BCS is all about money blah blah” stuff. No kidding.
My take is that it is a crying shame that the best “professional” sport out there has the WORST post-season, and the WORST method of determining a “champion.”
That’s why I want an 8 team playoff. Ideally, I’d like to see some kind of realignment that left us with 8 power conferences in D1, and each conference champ went to the playoffs. If I can’t have that, then I’d want the champs of the 6 “BCS conferences”, and 2 at-large bids chosen by some kind of unholy, selection committee. Btw, I hate that. I’d rather be totally purist and have 8 conference champs.
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You mean that you want it to be the way high school football playoffs were 40 years ago in Georgia. Only conference champions. There’s a thought. Maybe the BCS schools can be AAAA and the Mountain West, WAC, C-USA and the MAC and others on that level can be AAA. We’ll let what used to be D-IAA be AA and D-II be A. Won’t that be sweet. What about those pesky independents, though?
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