Fiesta Poorly Played, Overcommercialized

To a world wider than suburban Rocky Top, the sorting out of the college football championship may seem not quite as compelling as a cleared parking space, yet Tennessee and Florida State went ahead and settled the question anyhow, long after most had lost interest in why it was asked.

Tennessee removed whatever doubt endured in the long vacancy between the bowl-slapping of Kansas State and the kickoff of the Greater Tostitos (Salsa Extra) Fiesta Bowl with a 23-16 victory Monday night.

In an arena festooned for the glory of the snack nacho, on a temperate night lit by shameless, tasteless and relentless commerce, in a football game pretending to be more than network programming, student/slash/athletes paid back their books and tuition by enriching strangers.

This is what the Bowl Championship Series is designed to do, while incidentally establishing the best college football team in the land, though there may be a few left in Ohio who will never be convinced.

I lean that way myself and would take Ohio State over either of these teams and give the points. Come to think of it, I’ll take Ron Dayne against either of these teams and let the rest of Wisconsin stay home.

Well, all that sort of debate is over, thanks to the energies and self-interest of the Bowl Championship Series.

Tennessee is No. 1 and Florida State is an afterthought.

The BCS will take credit for producing a single, unanimous, pastel-hued national college football champion; there is no question that Tennessee would have been as much under any system, including meenie, minee and moe.

Any season that produces a single, bowl-winning, undefeated major college team, not including Tulane or places where cosmetics is a declared major, does not need a formula, merely a notary.

So all the twists and teases of the first BCS season were so much pointless twaddle, hype and spice to the obvious, misleading upon reflection and dispensable upon projection, except for breaking a few hearts in Manhattan, Kan.

By the time the big BCS finish came along, it seemed not so much an identification of the best, but survival of the vaguest.

Tennessee dared anyone to pay attention to a team that had used all of Peyton Manning it was allowed to.

Not only were there no Heisman candidates for the marquee, there wasn’t any room on the marquee in any case, all the room being taken by a four-story banner boosting corn chips.

The recognizable stars of the affair were two pass catchers, neither with a reliable pass thrower. So whatever Peerless Price of Tennessee or Peter Warrick of Florida State managed to achieve, it was all to their credit. And each managed distinguishing moments, Price taking in a 72-yard pass to set up Tennessee’s first touchdown (though if he were really Peerless, he would not have been run down from behind) and his 79-yard touchdown reception gave Tennessee a 20-9 lead. Warrick returned a punt 51 yards to set up an FSU field goal.

As sometimes happens in these things, the two teams seemed to bring out the worst in each other rather than the best. The game was careless and sloppy, full of penalties and mistakes, setting a very low bar for the next one.