Rhino's Sports Pub and Bacon Bistro

“Sports is human life in microcosm.” — Howard Cosell.

This computer is used to surf the World Wide Intertubes and send silly emails to friends, not to determine which two lucky teams should be playing in this year’s Super Bowl.

That thought leads Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff to Topic A … Nothing in sports is more absurd than the Bowl Crushing System (BCS, for short). A hodge-podge of pollsters, coaches, guys who are good at math, computers and people who pick which team will win games based on the uniforms they like better determine which teams will, or won’t, play for a national championship. Another December has arrived carrying with it another BCS controversy. It’s almost as if the BCS is trying to raise a stink. This is good times for the folks out there who make a living talking endlessly about which teams do and/or do not deserve to be a part of the holy grail that is a BCS bowl game.

A playoff might be fun, the ticket-buying and team sweatshirt-sporting fans and some pundits suggest. But the bowls have traditions dating back hundreds of years or so, and, more importantly to some people who may and/or may not have the fans’ best interests in heart, corporate sponsorship tie-ins.

This leads Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff to Topic B … All other levels of college football have it right. Many a die-hard college football fan has stated that every game is a playoff in college football. Unless you’re a D-IAA, D-II or D-III team still currently playing football, you’re not in a playoff. Take that! You’ve just been dominated.

Let’s pick some winners …

Navy over Army (always an underrated highlight of the sporting year)

MAC Championship: No. 12 Ball State over Buffalo (not that this result should diminish the amazing season the Bulls have had)

C-USA Championship: Tulsa over East Carolina (remember when ECU was a potential BCS-buster?)

ACC Championship: No. 25 Virginia Tech over No. 17 Boston College (neither team deserves a BCS bowl spot)

SEC Championship: No. 4 Florida over No. 1 Alabama

Big 12 Championship: No. 2 Oklahoma over No. 20 Missouri (would prefer to see Texas here, but that’s just one blog’s opinion)

Upset pick of the week: Florida beating Alabama would constitute an “upset” of sorts based on those aforementioned rankings — and possibly by the oddsmakers, too — but the Gators are playing too well at the moment to pick against them.

And our totally random college football pick of the week: The road to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl is in the quarterfinals, and Greatest Pro Bowls of all time, and other stuff only has three teams left out of eight on its D-III college football tournament bracket … the two teams that participated in last year’s Stagg Bowl, Wisconsin-Whitewater and Mount Union, and Mary Hardin-Baylor.

Here are this week’s D-III quarterfinal picks …

Mount Union over Cortland State (FYI … Cortland State’s nickname is the Red Dragons, that’s pretty cool)

Franklin over Wheaton (Ill.)

Mary Hardin-Baylor over Washington and Jefferson

Wisconsin-Whitewater over Wartburg (hell hath no furry like a D-III quarterfinal at Perkins Stadium)

Next week, all picks will be for college football playoff games. Yes, playoffs!

Last week’s record: 5-2
Overall record: 58-33