NCAA cheats UNH

Well, that time of year is upon us, college sports fans, the 16 team bracket to determine the NCAA Division I-AA National Champion in football has been announced. (NOTE: The 11 rogue conferences who choose to play in 30-odd bowl games like the CapitalOne Bowl, GMAC Bowl, and Continental Tire Bowl do not compete for an NCAA championship, they have chosen to sell themselves for sponsorship dollars and for a non-NCAA title which is voted upon rather than played for.)

As signified in the note above, I feel that a 4-week tournament is a far superior way to determine the true national champion. Unfortuneately, because the NCAA gets shafted on the Bowl money, they have decided to tweak the I-AA field to make it more profitable. What they do for the 8 first week games, is give 4 home games to the top 4 ranked teams, and 4 home games to the 4 most profitable teams. Enter the victim: the University of New Hampshire Wildcats. The Wildcats, in the top 4 in many of the computer rankings, boasting a 9-2 record, 7-0 on the road, an Atlantic-10 North divisional championship, wins over defending national champion Delaware and I-A member Rutgers, were conspicuously absent from the top 4. At that point, remaining home games go to traditional powers who believe they deserve annual home games (including the Delaware team that UNH themselves crushed on the road). Because road teams are determined in the name of reducing travel and avoiding 1st round conference matchups, UNH can pack its bags for Statesboro, Georgia, to play #4 Georgia Southern University. This means that in the name of a cash grab, the NCAA is pitting 2 of the top 5 schools against each other in round 1. The saddest part, this format is still more legitimate than the NCAA I-A Bowl Championship Series format.

(HEY I-A! How's being forced to put a 2 loss Michigan, and a schedule strength weak and 2 loss Boston College in 'Championship Series' Bowls looking? How's this one, what if Iowa State beats Oklahoma? You'll be forced to take them too! Wow, that means shafting undefeated Utah! What a public relations killer! That's OK though, since you've already decided to shaft undefeated Boise State! How is this format supposed to be better at picking a champion than the past, when you have all but assured that there will be 2 or 3 or 4 undefeated teams when the bowls are over?)