Trilogy Tuesday is getting closer by the minute!!! So here we go again with my latest Lord of the Rings tribute. Remember… there may be spoilers below if you haven’t read the book!

Copyright Violation of the Day:
Courtesy of TheOneRing.net…

Pippin looks into the Palantir, and screams in agony as Sauron questions him.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… the BirdCam!

Since it wasn’t announced in an auto-posted breaking-news alert, Andrew has demanded that I start a post on the Supreme Court’s decision upholding “the most important provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act of 2002″ (according to the Washington Post). I am inclined to accede to this demand, lest my college-football and Lord of the Rings posts become flooded with off-topic comments. :) So, here you go, Andrew & co. … comment away!

Finally… a playoff!

All right, inspiration has struck, so here we go…

PARENTAL ADVISORY: Off-color jokes within!

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ONE WEEK TILL TRILOGY TUESDAY!!!

That’s right — almost exactly seven days (168 hours) from now, Becky and I will be sitting in a movie theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico, me in my Nazgul costume (and her looking like a normal person), watching the opening scenes of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

This will be the climax of roughly 12 hours in the theater, starting at 2:00 PM with the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition and continuing around 6:00 PM with the Two Towers Extended Edition. Finally, at 10:00 PM, the third movie of the greatest theatrical trilogy ever made (take that, George Lucas!) will begin to unfold before our eager (and probably very tired) eyes. Oh, the excitement!

Anyway, in recognition of this one-week-to-go milestone, and in keeping with the tradition of my “Tribute to Michigan” week (which, by the way, I now totally denounce, and, uh, deny ever happened — BEAT THE WOLVERINES!), I am kicking off a week of daily Tolkien-related posts. That’s right, it’s BrendanLoy.com’s very own LOTR Hype Machine!

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People keep saying how USC still has a shot at winning the national championship, but it will be tainted because they aren’t playing in the Sugar Bowl for the BCS “national championship.” My response to that is: BcS.

If No. 1 USC handles No. 4 Michigan, which has the talent to play with anyone in the nation, and No. 3 Oklahoma squeaks past No. 2 LSU. How can anyone in the nation take the coach’s poll seriously when the coaches will immediately, without a vote, give their title to the winner of the Sugar Bowl even though they already agreed that USC was No. 1?

The impartial AP voters, who didn’t sell their souls to the devil (the BCS), will obviously vote USC No. 1 if the Trojans win. The coaches? Oh they would vote USC No. 1 as well, except for the fact that they can’t vote for No. 1. The American Football Coaches Association has agreed to give its national title to the winner of the BCS title game. That agreement will go against the wishes of close to 60-percent of the coaches who have USC ranked No. 1.

So while USC might technically win a split-national championship with a Rose Bowl win, they would really be the undisputed national champion if the coaches were allowed to vote in their final poll.

“Had Hawaii won, USC’s sos would have been 1.28, and they would have edged out LSU, 5.95 to 5.99.” –Rich Tellshow

So I guess we weren’t crazy to stay up and watch that game, after all. I should paid a little more attention, drank a little less beer, and have rooted a little harder. :) After the Notre Dame loss and the LSU win, I thought the Sugar Bowl was already lost by that point.

Damn you, Boise State! Damn you to hell… or the PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl.

Of course, it isn’t just the Hawaii-BSU game that made the difference. “USC’s SOS drops to 1.28 if Auburn, BYU, Hawaii, or ND had won one more game,” Tellshow writes.

In the wake of this past weekend’s BCS meltdown, the conventional wisdom seems to be that a USC victory in the Rose Bowl, and the likely resulting split championship, will create unstoppable momentum for an “extra game” at the end of the bowls, to determine the champion once and for all.

But is anyone looking at how such a solution would actually play out? Let’s run some scenarios here.

#1 USC vs. #4 Michigan and #2 LSU vs. #3 Oklahoma is so perfect a Final Four, it’s tempting to see a championship game between the winners as a panacea that would finally fix college football’s broken system. But there are several problems with this so-called solution.

First off, it wouldn’t work so neatly in most years. The BCS is not going to create a system that automatically matches up the top four teams in two BCS “semifinal” bowls every year. Although it happens to work perfectly this year with the Big 10 and Pac 10 champs both in the Top 4, doing this on an annual basis would mean further upsetting conference tie-ins, which the bowls, in particular that big bowl out in Pasadena, would never agree to.

Instead, the extra-game solution would likely mean returning to the old conference tie-ins for the big four bowls, with the BCS formula being used to select the two at-large teams (or three, if the Big East is voted off the island). Then the winners of the four bowls would be reshuffled and reseeded, based on the formula, and the top two would be selected to play in the title game.

Although such a system would work if it were in place this year, it’s extremely easy to envision a situaton where it would solve nothing. For example, let’s imagine that Oklahoma’s one loss had come in a regular-season game, but they had recovered and won the Big 12 title. Based on conference tie-ins, that means Oklahoma would be playing in the Fiesta Bowl, LSU in the Sugar Bowl, and USC in the Rose Bowl. If all three teams were to win their respective bowl games, we’d have the same exact situation that we do now — we’d just have it a month later. The computers would match up LSU and Oklahoma, and the Rose Bowl champion Trojans would be left home, without even a competing quasi-title-game to play in.

But forget that scenario for the moment — let’s look at the bowls we do have this year, and imagine tacking on an extra game at the end of those. Obviously, if the Trojans win the Rose Bowl, this would be the ideal solution: USC vs. the LSU/Oklahoma winner is everyone’s dream title game.

But what if (heaven forbid) Michigan wins?

Well, we could still have a championship game between the lone remaining one-loss team (LSU or Oklahoma) and the king of the two-loss teams (Michigan), right? Not so fast. If #7 Ohio State wins the Fiesta Bowl, they’d be 11-2 just like Michigan. And whoever wins the Orange Bowl between #9 Florida state and #10 Miami would be 11-2 as well… and they’re a conference champ, to boot. Why should they be left out?

And what about the highly ranked two-loss teams who didn’t quite make the BCS cut? If we’re going to reseed the teams anyway, surely we should consider #5 Texas (11-2 if they win the Holiday Bowl) and #6 Tennessee (11-2 if they win the Peach Bowl)!

Now, I realize Andrew will say that we should have the extra game only if it’s needed, and if there’s only one team with one loss, then it’s not needed — the Sugar Bowl winner is the national champ. But somebody’s gotta win the Fort Worth Bowl between #18 Boise State (12-1) and #19 TCU (11-1)… and what if #14 Miami of Ohio trounces Louisville in the GMAC Bowl and finishes 13-1? Even if you’re basing your arguments purely on the number of losses, you still have a problem.

You can make all sorts of arguments for or against any of these teams, of course, but the point is, adding an “extra game” does not prevent the sort of nightmarish legitimacy problem that we are seeing this year. It just delays it by a month. Instead of Trojans and Tigers and Sooners (oh my!) all feeling that they are worthy, you could have Wolverines and Buckeyes and Seminoles/Hurricanes and Longhorns and Vols and RedHawks and Broncos/Frogs all feeling that they are worthy. Wow, what an improvement!! :)

Still don’t believe me that this system could create serious problems? Here’s a scenario for you: Imagine if Ohio State were to win the Fiesta Bowl and then, on the basis of its strong SOS and computer ratings, leapfrog Michigan — which, of course, defeated the Buckeyes in November — for the #2 spot in the post-bowl BCS standings. Then the two-loss, #4-or-5-ranked Buckeyes would play the one-loss, #1-ranked Sugar Bowl winner for the championship, and #2-ranked Michigan would be left home… hoping for a Buckeye loss so they can win a split championship!!!

It isn’t just that it could happen… it’s that it would happen. Maybe not between UM and OSU, but sometime, sooner or later, in some nightmarish combination. Just as this year’s BCS doomsday scenario was inevitably going to happen eventually, so would a similar nightmare in the “new” BCS. As long as you’re using computers and polls to pick your #1 and #2 teams, you’re going to have the ever-present potential of a very serious legitimacy gap.

If you were using computers and polls to pick, say, the Top 8 teams, and then letting those teams play it out on the field, the debate between #8 and #9 would create a more acceptable level of controversy — similar to all the Selection Sunday “bubble” talk in NCAA basketball — which would mostly die down by the time the title game comes around. (A rallying cry of “We’re the REAL #8 team!” doesn’t really have that much force.) But as long as the BCS, or any subjective system for that matter, is trying to decide between #2 and #3, there is the inevitability of crippling controversy. Remember Nebraska vs. Colorado vs. Oregon in 2001-02? Remember Florida State vs. Miami in 2000-01? C’mon people, these are not isolated occurances! And playing a bunch of extra games (the bowls) before trying to make the same sort of apples-to-oranges comparison simply doesn’t solve anything.

The only real solution to this mess is a playoff, or a modified playoff that preserves the bowl system like the one I proposed a few weeks ago. But if we’re going to cling to the status quo, the only reasonable compromise solution is for the college-football gods to create not just one extra game, but a three-game mini-tournament after the BCS bowls. Make the Sugar, Rose, Fiesta and Orange bowls the quarterfinals in a national playoff. Reseed the winners into a pair of mid-January semifinals, and then play the championship game the week before the Super Bowl.

Granted, this would still leave the Texases and Tennessees of the world out in the cold, but hey, that’s what they get for not winning their conference championships. (Now, I have a harder time justifying leaving out the Miami of Ohios and Boise States. But that’s another discussion for another day.)

In such a system, the controversy over selection would be contained to the point of entry into the eight-team tournament, rather than the point of selection of championship-game participants. Once the Top 8 are chosen (well, the Top 5 conference champs — we all know the Big East is toast — plus the Top 3 at-large teams), there’d be no more debate, just games. By the time the eight participants finish playing it out on the field, we would mostly forget about whatever controversy might have arisen earlier, and the champion would at least feel more legitimate. And that is a good start.

How would it look? Let’s see…

Kansas State blows out overrated Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. USC defeats Michigan in the Rose Bowl. LSU beats Florida State in the Sugar Bowl. (Hopefully the selection committee would have the good sense to avoid matching up #2 vs. #3 in the first round if they can help it, so I’m assuming a slightly altered set of matchups.) Oklahoma destroys Miami in the Orange Bowl.

The teams are then reseeded: Oklahoma #1, LSU #2, USC #3, Kansas State #4. The Sooners exact revenge on the Wildcats in a semifinal rematch of their Big 12 title-game meeting, and the Trojans put the LSU faithful to shame by smothering the Tigers. And we finally get the championship game everyone has wanted for the past two seasons: “#3″ USC vs. “#1″ Oklahoma. And best of all, they weren’t “selected” or “chosen” to be there. They earned it.

And of course, the “#3″ Trojans win, and prove that they’re #1, which everyone with half a brain knew all along. :)

Wouldn’t that be something?

We’re home! Our newly acquired parakeets, Ozzie and Harriet, have been introduced to their new home. Alas, I’m afraid the cats are going to give them a heart attack!! As alluded to in Sasha’s latest cat-blog post, the cats (particularly Sasha and Toby) have shown great interest in attempting to get inside the cage. Hopefully they will eventually figure out that the birds are friends, not food, but only time will tell.

Photos, and perhaps videos, of the cat vs. bird encounters will be posted when I have a chance. For now, I need to get ready for bed — must leave for work at 6:15 AM!

Yahoo! Sports’ women’s basketball homepage declares: “Bad day for the Trojans. First the BCS snubs the men’s football team. Then the women’s hoops team lets a chance to make a national splash slip through its fingers.”

Funny… I was thinking it was a good day for the Trojans. First the football team officially becomes #1 in the nation. Then the women’s hoops team plays a very good game and gets itself noticed nationally by almost beating a top-ranked team with a 72-game regular-season winning streak.

Oh, well, I guess I’m an eternal optimist. Anyway, here is the AP article on UConn’s 72-69 win over USC. See below or click here for my audio-blog call of the game’s final play.

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