The BCS is a form of dementia. Some voters in the Harris Poll admitted they had never seen Utah play before the Utes' win over Alabama. And, unlike sportswriters, who vote only in the AP poll that doesn't coun
Posted: Wednesday, January 7, 2009 12:00 am
A study in Australia showed that sarcasm is a useful tool to diagnose frontotemporal dementia.
Yeah, right.
And many logic professors use the BCS as an example of proper reasoning.
Did Texas just win the NCAA football semifinal over Ohio State with the Quan Crosby touchdown in the last seconds? And what’s with the cotton balls with marijuana plants all over the Ohio State helmets?
Should Texas get to play Utah? Does that winner then get to play the winner of the Oklahoma-Florida game?
No. Wait, that would take kids out of school too much. That’s why we can have a “national” championship on a Thursday night more than a week into January.
The BCS is a form of dementia.
Some voters in the Harris Poll admitted they had never seen Utah play before the Utes’ win over Alabama. And, unlike sportswriters, who vote only in the AP poll that doesn’t count in the BCS, the Harris voters do count in the BCS polls.
That’s not dementia, that’s crazy.
College football is great to watch, but impossible to understand.
Consider that seven Maryland football starters had to sit out the first half of the Humanitarian Bowl for missing curfew. What could have been going on in Boise, Idaho, that would keep you out of bed in the team hotel?
OK. You probably passed the dementia test.
There were other recent studies that are worthy of your attention.
The British Medical Journal noted that golfers who use titanium-faced drivers should wear ear plugs because the noise created by a Ping G10, for instance, reaches an ear-damaging 130 decibels.
Another British study showed that 10 percent of 2,000 16- to 25-year-olds believe their life is meaningless and 14 percent felt “life had no purpose.”
That’s easy to understand … they don’t pick up the ball when they play “football,” in England.
Remember, you soccer fans, demented folks don’t detect humor in sarcasm.
Another study of U.S. high school students showed 80 percent watched TV yesterday, 50 percent played computer games and 10 percent read something.
That means 90 percent won’t get any of this, so to start a conversation with a high school kid you can cite any of this information and the kid will be amazed. (Or not.)
While we’re on the subject of sports and science, an engineer has found a way to get rid of the “upon further review,” and “it depends on the spot,” that refs and announcers repeat endlessly on football broadcasts.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported that Priya Narasimhan, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, has an even better solution.
She and her students put sensing devices in players gloves and the football to determine if a pass hit the ground first and whether a player had control of the ball before going out of bounds or out of the back of the end zone.
Be aware that Narasimhan became a Steelers fan after moving to Pittsburgh years ago. She developed a system that still needs work.
But just think, no more of the drama of the chain gang running across the field and players skipping over the chains. No more refs holding up two fingers to show the first-down effort was 2 inches short.
Why, this could help those depressed British kids get a better outlook on life and get U.S. high school students to start reading again.
And one of those brilliant young minds could then explain the BCS system to me.
Reach Ken Hambleton at 473-7313 or khambleton@journalstar.com.