And one more thing …
In last week’s column, I announced my candidacy to be the Benevolent Dictator of College Football. You know, in case they are looking for one.
And while the primary purpose was to determine the appropriate playoff scenario each year — this season, we would have TCU playing at Oregon, with the winner meeting Auburn for the title at a neutral site — there would be a side benefit, as well.
As Benevolent Dictator of College Football, I also would be in charge of making the schedules each year.
No longer will Oregon insult its fans by making them pay to see New Mexico and Portland State in non-conference games. No longer will Oregon State meet TCU and Boise State on the road when both are ranked in the top six.
Instead, we’ll have reasonably equitable non-conference schedules in which Southeastern Conference teams occasionally will be required to cross the Mississippi River for games.
There. The Benevolent Dictator has spoken.
• • •
Brandon Roy is in the middle of a three-game hiatus because of the lingering pain in his knee, and you have to wonder when the Blazers will shut him down for the rest of the season.
You can talk about his $82 million contract or whether the Blazers are better without him or what the team should do about him, but the overriding emotion is empathy for Roy.
With Greg Oden, you can at least maintain a glimmer of hope that he someday will be healthy — if you’re prone to delusional optimism.
But with Roy, it’s clear that he never will be the same player he was. And that’s sad — for the fans, for the franchise, and most of all for Roy.
With the saga of Oden and now with Roy, a friend of mine provided the best analogy: It’s like when Lucy keeps holding the football and Charlie Brown keeps running up to kick it and … Lucy clubs him in the knee.
• • •
Which is more impressive: UCLA’s 88-game winning streak from 1971-74 in men’s basketball, or the streak of the UConn women, which can reach 88 with a win today?
I would argue in favor of UConn. The competitive level of women’s basketball these days is similar to men’s basketball in the 1970s — you have only a handful of schools capable of winning a national title.
But the Huskies have faced 16 teams ranked in the Top 10 and 25 in the Top 20 during their streak (not counting 11th-ranked Ohio State today), while UCLA played 12 and 18. And UConn has won 85 of its 87 games by double digits, while UCLA won 72 by at least 10 points.
OK, OK, that’s picking at nits. A winning streak of 87 or 88 games is remarkable by any measure.
• • •
Oregon is allotted 17,000 tickets for the BCS title game, while the Ducks have more than 40,000 season-ticket holders. There are other avenues for securing tickets, but if you wanted them through Oregon, you had to be a donor at a certain level.
This is logical, and I can’t fault the university. But it’s too bad that fans who made two bowl trips to Shreveport, La., and sat through a frigid Cotton Bowl, and weathered a dreadful 7-0 Civil War played in a monsoon, and suffered through season after season of pitiful football … it’s too bad those fans couldn’t be guaranteed tickets to the championship game.
