I WENT 10-1 AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID T-SHIRT

This is from the Associated Press's story on the screw job Cal received at the hands of the BCS:

"And while the Longhorns' good fortune will be sure to cause some arguing about an already controversial system, a Texas-Michigan matchup on New Year's Day is one college football purists will appreciate.
Michigan (842) and Texas (786) rank No. 1 and No. 4 respectively, among the winningest programs in college football history and boast of deep and proud traditions."

Um, OK.

And while we're on the subject of crap, I will now print that story out and take a dump on it.

In short, that's basically why Texas is going to the Rose Bowl this season while Cal plays in some glorified exhibition game nobody cares about. The Holiday Bowl, I think. Either that or the Cialis Bowl. Whatever, it's the same thing. A team that's been ranked No. 4 in the country for almost all of November and December is going to the Cialis Bowl.

A lot of you who are reading this are probably as angry and confused as I am about this BCS nonsense, and the more I think about it the more it doesn't add up for me. I’ve been nursing a bottle of Chivas for the last couple of hours, pondering the meaning of my life and asking my wall why watching Cal in the Rose Bowl couldn’t be a part of it. And in the end, I came to the conclusion that none of this would have happened if Bush hadn’t won the election.

Don't laugh. This is YOUR life that's being violated. Bush is in the White House. Bush was the former governor of Texas. Texas is going to the Rose Bowl. These things don't just happen out of nowhere, folks.

(If you're an ardent Bush supporter, please know that the above was simply a joke. And please don't kill me.)

But let’s stop for a moment and ask ourselves what the real surprise here is -- that Cal got shafted, or that it even seemed possible this week that, when given a choice, voters would go with Cal over a college football mecca like UT. Seriously, how confident were you that this would happen? What were the odds? And would you have bet it?

If you said yes, do me and the rest of the Cal faithful a favor and answer this question, and then see if the pieces fit:

Why isn't J.J. Arrington getting more serious consideration for the Heisman Trophy? Why isn’t anyone writing cover stories on his amazing season? Why doesn't anyone know that Arrington leads the country in rushing yards, with 1845? Why is Cedric Benson, a player Arrington crushes in yards per carry, 7.0 to 5.8, getting more props, pub, and love from sportswriters and supposed experts of college football?

It's simple, isn't it? Because Arrington plays for Cal-Berkeley, a team the majority of BCS voters would readily admit they never saw play this season, whereas Benson plays for Texas, a team that "boasts of deep and proud traditions."

In other words, Arrington won’t win the Heisman this year because he plays for Cal. And Cal won't go to the Rose Bowl this year because it doesn't play in Texas.

You know it, I know it, the American people know it, we all know it. After all, the stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas! I don't know what that has to do with anything, but hell, it sure brings out the "college football purist" in you, don't it!

Well..... here's the thing. I might’ve stood pat with that explanation five years ago, when stating, "I play football for Cal," was tantamount to, "I tap dance for food," except this year Cal isn't some Mickey Mouse team that frolics around on a grass field with other Mickey Mouse teams on Saturday afternoon. Cal plays for a major conference, the Pac-10, whose teams may not "boast of deep and proud traditions" but does happen to boast three teams ranked in the top 25 this year. It doesn't play Eastern Tennessee or Savannah St. or Mcneese St. every week. It plays good teams, it beat good teams, and Arrington gave those good teams savage beatings week after week, every week.

If you can remember back in October -- and it seems the BCS voters are incapable of extending their memory beyond last week -- Cal took the No. 1-ranked team in the country to the brink of defeat, on that team's home turf, and essentially outplayed that team before succumbing by six due to special teams errors.
Cal is the only team in the country that ranks in the top six in both offense and defense. Cal has victories of 42, 27, 42, 17, 38, 27, 30, 35, and 10 points, and didn't need a dubious pass interference call against Kansas in order to achieve any of those wins, thank you.

And beyond all of that, Cal is the No. 4-ranked team in the country.

Kiss my fat ass if you're not impressed by that. That voters could be so uninformed about the fourth best team in the nation, and a player who destroyed his opponents while playing for the fourth best team in the nation, is a freakin insult. It's a travesty, is what it is. I'm willing to bet that in the history of NCAA football, no team that was ranked this high has ever been treated this poorly. No fourth-ranked team has ever been shoved into a “who-the-hell-gives-a-crap” consolation match like the Hollywood Bowl, or whatever it‘s called, while lesser teams dance on the big stage. I'd look it up to make sure, but I'm too drunk with misery to care.

(By the way, what in the world is Pittsburgh doing in the Fiesta Bowl? And Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl? And Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl? And, yes, WHAT THE HELL IS MICHIGAN DOING IN THE ROSE BOWL? You’re telling me they’re more deserving of a major bowl bid than the No. 4 team in the country? I mean fine, I understand some teams had automatic bowl bids -- it's stupid, but that's the way it was laid out at the beginning of the season -- and I can live with Cal not going to the Rose Bowl, you know, so long as we get a real bowl game. But give us the Cotton Bowl, then, or the Sugar Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl. We at least deserve that much, don't we? We're ranked friggin' No. 4 in the country. And they're sending us to the Halloween Bowl? Please. We're Rick James, bitch.)

My question for the BCS is this: If it was so unimpressed by Cal's performance against Southern Mississippi -- unimpressed enough that it felt the need to drop Cal in the rankings -- what did it find that was so impressive about Texas? Was it the 22-20 win against Arkansas? Or the 28-20 win over Missouri? Or maybe it was the 27-23 win over Kansas? The ESPN announcers spent the entire Southern Mississippi game urinating on Cal -- why didn’t they do the same for Texas’s barely adequate victories? They're acting as if those games took place in the industrial age -- they took place a few weeks ago, people, as in THIS season. Because they didn’t happen in the last game of the regular season, doesn’t, and shouldn’t, mean that they didn’t happen at all. Besides, it's not like Texas's last game of the season evoked memories of human vs. ant.

Back to Michigan for a second. I mean we're sitting here debating whether Cal or Texas is more deserving of a Rose Bowl berth, when in fact it's Michigan's presence in the game that really sucks female back-fat. What I mean is, fine, let the BCS give Texas the Rose Bowl if it has some secret contractual obligations it has to fulfill with the Big 12 or if it honestly believes Texas did enough to leapfrog Cal in the standings -- but in what way does Michigan deserve a Rose Bowl berth more than Cal does? Why not just have Cal and Texas go to the Rose Bowl, then, and send Michigan to that Whatsitcalled Bowl? Doesn't that make sense?

Um, oh yeah -- Michigan had an automatic bid.

Do we have any volunteers to take a crap on that?

So that's the explanation we have to live with despite the fact Cal had a better season than both Texas and Michigan. And yes, we did have a better season. Even the BCS attested to this before last week, when it apparently saw something in Texas that was SO utterly convincing. Maybe if this system put more weight on pitting the best teams together in its top bowl games instead of appeasing “college football purists” and schools with “deep and proud traditions,” it would’ve gotten this one right.