College football said good-bye for a while last night with a BCS title game that very few people -- outside of Alabama fans and field goal enthusiasts -- found overly compelling. Somehow, some way, a 1 vs. 2 matchup made us want to fall asleep faster than a three bloody Mary brunch. In case you missed the past few weeks, here is a quick summary of the college bowl season: *Alabama defeated LSU 21-0 on Monday. (Obligatory praise for Alabama defense). OK, now can we all start talking about the NFL playoffs again? Seriously, why college football insists on playing its biggest game of the year immediately after the NFL playoffs start is beyond us. This game should be played the previous Thursday. That said, while a schedule switch would keep more people engaged with college football, it wouldn't have improved the aesthetic quality of the title game. LSU players should get Ambien decals to put on their helmets for sleep-inducing offensive plays, much as Buckeyes players get those little leaves. That said, LSU did defeat Alabama earlier this year. So the tiebreaker to settle the championship really should be a great game. What's that?
*The third-place game (AKA the Fiesta Bowl) was wildly entertaining, though the aforementioned kicking enthusiasts had plenty of cringe-worthy moments courtesy of Stanford's poor kicker. Still, Oklahoma State prevailed to win the coveted third-place battle. The Cowboys finished with one loss, just like Alabama and LSU, but those are the breaks, right?
*The fifth-place game (AKA the Rose Bowl) was also wildly entertaining. It also ended with the Badgers' third heartbreaking loss of the season. Seriously, those were Vikings/Gophers-esque finishes for Wisconsin and free agent quarterback Russell Wilson, who is (honestly) one of the best college QBs we have seen in quite some time. How the Badgers (seriously) didn't run the table and get a shot at a national title this year is beyond us.
*After that, it gets kind of confusing. Four of the five teams that finished ranked between 5 and 9 in the final AP poll didn't play in a BCS bowl game. So it's hard to award a true seventh place, but maybe it goes to Arkansas for its victory over Kansas State in the non-BCS Cotton Bowl? Michigan and West Virginia might have something to say about that after winning the Sugar and Orange, respectively, but we can't just hand out these trophies to everyone.
*In all, the Big Ten went 4-6 in bowl play. That's not awful. What is awful? Ten out of 12 teams in the conference went to a bowl game (83 percent), and your Gophers were among the dreaded 17 percent (with Indiana) who didn't.
*There were 35 total bowl games and 70 bowl teams (58 percent of the 120 FBS teams went to a bowl game). A total of 1,921 points were scored in bowl games this season. That's about 27.4 per team and about 55 per game.
