The Rocket

Issue date: 11/9/07 Section: Opinion

I think it's about time for a sports column regarding the wacky events of the past few weeks. It's the college football season, and as many people know, I'm an avid football fan.

I don't fool around with the wussy Big East or the Big Ten, because I watch real football. I watch the Southeastern Conference. I'm an Auburn fan, and I'm an Alabama fan, and I watch a conference where almost every game is a real, legitimate match-up.

We saw a clash of SEC-West opponents this past Saturday. The LSU Tigers went up against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide's new coach, formerly coached at LSU and led them to the National Championship in 2003. Much media buzz surrounded the game due to the fact that Saban is now coaching LSU's rival.

The game was great, lower-ranked Alabama was taking it to LSU, and the game was going really well until the referees started reviewing every call.

Is it just me, or are referees paid to go out there and make calls correctly the first time? The use of instant replay has been going on in professional football for years, but is fairly new to the NCAA. It kind of ruins the raw, unpolished feel of college football. These people aren't getting paid in multi-million dollar contracts like the pros are, and this just isn't pro football, and should not be treated as such. Not to mention, calls are often reversed, making the game take so much longer than it should.

Maybe it's just that I'm sensitive, but I've been noticing that calls seem to go LSU's way when it comes down to it. Just because Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005 does not mean that LSU needs to be the darling of the SEC.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the referees are pulling for LSU because they want them to go to the National Championship instead of non-SEC teams like Arizona State and Oregon.

Look, I love the desert as much as anyone else, but the Sun Devils of Arizona State just haven't proven themselves, to me, to be worthy of the top 10 at this point. Regarding Oregon, everybody knows they hardly play any noteworthy football teams in terms of competition, and if anyone deserves to go to the National Championship, it's probably not them.

I like Oregon, though. They're underdogs, and they're the Mighty Ducks, but they certainly do not belong in the top three in the BCS rankings.

And has anyone heard anything out of Ohio State lately? They might be No. 1 in the polls, but they certainly don't get widespread news coverage.

They simply go along, leaving a trail of devastation in their path, but we're too busy focusing on how poorly Notre Dame is playing.

Early in the season, we were obsessed with Notre Dame. Their struggles continued through the first few weeks of the season, and the media would not stop talking about it. I'm just glad that we've all accepted that they're having an off year, and that we don't have to rub it in their faces every day.

The college football season so far has been wacky indeed, with plenty of top-10 teams being knocked off every week.

My teams might not be doing incredibly well, but the SEC is always a fun conference to watch.

Besides, if nothing else, it'll be an interesting round of bowls this season-except for that Chick-Fil-A Bowl-or the previously named Peach Bowl. I'm still mad about that name change, I guess I'm just stuck in my ways.

Lisbeth Wells-Pratt is a freshman creative writing major and a regular contributor to The Rocket.

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