The 2009-2010 2nd Annual December Delirium

I know that you’ve all been anxiously awaiting the 2nd annual December Delirium – a fully functional and highly effective NCAA college football playoff proposal. This year, it has become even more appropriate to have December Delirium since we have 5 unbeaten teams all vying for that coveted BCS National Championship game. It’s rather obvious that all 5 didn’t get the nod, and it’s been hotly debated as to who should and should not have been given the championship game berths.

On a quick sidebar, it seems like everything in college football this year was hotly debated. The winner of the Heisman Trophy – Mark Ingram of Alabama – wasn’t even the best running back in the pack. But, he does play for one of those national championship playing teams, so I guess that was enough rationale for people to select him for the Heisman Trophy. Fortunately, we’ll see if the real Mark Ingram is the one that showed up against Florida – or the one that didn’t show up against Auburn. And it won’t come easy against the Texas defense. It seems to me that the last time Texas won the National Championship, their quarterback (Vince Young) finished second in the Heisman voting, being beaten out by running back Reggie Bush. Will Colt McCoy deliver the same message? As Yogi Berra might say, it’s deja vu all over again.

But … back to the discussion at hand – the 2009 December Delirium bracket buster show!

So here are this year’s top 16 teams. Remember, all conference winners get an automatic bid. There are 5 “at large” teams, selected based on the highest computer-ranked teams that did not win a conference. All 16 teams are seeded based on computer rankings, and no human polls take part in the mix (we don’t need no stinking humans, we’ve got data!). Computer rankings are listed in parentheses:

ACC: Georgia Tech (8)

Big 12: Texas (3)

Big East: Cincinnati (2)

Big Ten: Ohio State (12)

Conference USA: East Carolina (32)

MAC: Central Michigan (29)

Mountain West: TCU (5)

PAC-10: Oregon (7)

SEC: Alabama (1)

Sun Belt: Troy (32)

WAC: Boise State (6)

At-Large: Florida (4), LSU (9), Iowa (10), Virginia Tech (11), Miami (13)

Amazingly enough, this manages to accrue the top 13 teams in the country based on all the things important to the computers – things like strength of schedule, margin of victory – you know, the hard data of course. No human input, and we still get the top 13 teams! First and second round matches would have been played before the Christmas break. Here are the games based on the seeding:

Alabama (1) vs. Troy (16)

Georgia Tech (8) vs. LSU (9)

TCU (5) vs. Ohio State (12)

Florida (4) vs. Miami (13)

Boise State (6) vs. Virginia Tech (11)

Texas (3) vs. Central Michigan (14)

Oregon (7) vs. Iowa (10)

Cincinnati (2) vs. East Carolina (15)

Now tell me that there is a game in that mix that wouldn’t attract huge national interest. At least the average attendance of each of these games would be higher than the current bowl schedule. Have you looked at the stands at most of the current games? BCS, advertisers, take note! And for those that aren’t in the final 16 – get back to school and pass some exams. We’ve got to get those graduation rates up.

And as for the image, perhaps the “Jumping Brain" could be the next National Championship trophy? Mount it appropriately and it does bear a resemblance to the Waterford crystal currently in use. Of course, the brain symbolism is significant as this is the only intelligent way to find a real national champion!

In my next December Delirium post, we’ll ponder the real-world performances of these teams during the bowl season, and play the teams off to establish the 2nd annual December Delirium winner!

Photo credits: “lapolab”, csulb gal