Learn how to argue!

Despite my devastating critique of their twisted logic that concluded that Cal's loss in the Holiday Bowl proved that the BCS somehow "got it right," espn.com still had the audacity to post a similar headline (story here) after Texas won the Rose Bowl on Saturday. They didn't actually add "In your face, SRAM!" at the end of it, but they may as well have. It's hard not to take it personally.

Obviously, the same arguments as set out in my previous post apply here. The media continues to ignore the flawed and corrupt process that produced these matchups, the ends don't justify the means, etc.

However, if we are to use their logic, then we have to ask, where are the "Pittsburgh Proves Big East Doesn't Belong" headlines? Not a real respectable showing in the Fiesta Bowl for the Beasts o' the East, was it? And if you say that, well, Utah was just that good, then why aren't they playing for the national championship? Or at the very least in the Sugar Bowl? The fact is, if you accept the existence of the BCS, there is still an elephant in the living room that the establishment press continues to ignore, which is the embarrassing weakness of the Big East. There is essentially no argument for the inclusion of that conference over the WAC or the MWC other than its geographic proximity to the Good Ol' Boys club.

Sporting News similarly afflicted

I was listening to a "senior NFL reporter" being interviewed on Sporting News radio yesterday concerning the upcoming playoffs (proving that yes, I occasionally get my sports news from a source other than ESPN). The whole conversation was a painful recitation of Conventional Wisdom, including such stunning insights and predictions as "Indianapolis will bounce back and should win pretty easily next week against Denver" and "the Vikings defense will have a hard time stopping Favre and Green." An extended theme of the conversation was, of course, the weakness of the NFC, and how utterly painful it will be to watch not one but two NFC West teams play for at least two of the playoff weeks, as if we were being forced to watch a couple of Pop Warner teams duke it out (actually, guys, Seattle is 9-7, and it's really not that uncommon for a 9-7 team to make the playoffs).

But my point in bringing this mind-numbing conversation up is that the "senior writer" (sorry, no idea who it was--no one you've heard of, I'm sure) seized the opportunity to criticize the NFL's "ridiculous" system of awarding the top 4 seeds to the division winners, regardless of the records of the wild-card teams. Mr. Senior Writer went on at some length about how stupid it was that a team like Seattle should thus be rewarded with home-field advantage in the first round despite sneaking into the playoffs, blah blah blah.

Now, the obvious counterargument here is that this year the two NFC wild-card teams are both 8-8, and, well, somebody has to play at home in the first round. But the thing that bugs me more than the existence of an obvious counterargument is the fact that the guy didn't even really make an argument for his contention in the first place. He essentially made an assertion and expected it to be accepted as obviously correct. I think that it's a reasonable argument to make, but my point is, you have to actually make the argument! And the argument, in particular, would have to address the erosion of integrity in the divisional system.

Since that last sentence didn't actually mean anything, let me explain. In other words, it has to mean something to be in a division--otherwise, let's just have two 16-team conferences. So you play each team in your division twice. If you're in a particularly hard division, you're at an unfair disadvantage in competing for playoff spots for your conference, so you should be rewarded accordingly if you win your division. If you're in a weak division, then maybe you get an unfair advantage, but them's the breaks. Over time, thanks to the draft system and salary cap, imbalances across division and conferences ought to correct themselves.

As I said, I think that one could argue against this. But the guy didn't make the argument. He didn't address essentially the one objection that any intelligent person would have to his proposal. This, of course, isn't an exceptional example; it happens every day. And it bugs the heck out of me that reporters continually say things like that without making a proper argument.