Things I Like: 24

This Sunday begins a new season of the Fox television program "24". I started watching this show during its 5th season and have been hooked since. The four hour season premier that begins Sunday night is especially important to the fans of the show, since last year's entire season was canceled due to the Hollywood writer's strike. I can't wait.

This morning, NPR's Morning Edition aired an interview with the Kiefer Suthlerland, who plays the Jack Bauer, the show's protagonist.

Here's the trailer:

College Football Playoffs?

Some thoughts on college football as I watch the BCS National Championship game...

It seems that at this time of year there's always a lot of talk about the need for a playoff system in college football. I know that I'm in the minority here, but I don't think it's a good idea. Or, to be more accurate, I don't think it's something that can happen, so we might as well stop wasting our time talking about it every year. Here's why:

Bowl games are important for building programs. The purpose of a playoff system would be to choose a champion from the top four or eight teams. But what would a playoff system do for the other programs? What happens to the team that has a breakout year and manages to win 7 or 8 games for the first time in decades? The current bowl system provides incentives and rewards, while a playoff system would simply place that team in a large group with the "also rans". A bowl game for this team provides national exposure and a chance to build fan and alumni support. It's a chance to cash in on merchandise sales and put a feather in their cap for recruiting purposes. And it's a chance to give the underclassmen a few more weeks of experience in preparation for next year. Under a playoff system, these benefits would be reserved for only a small number of teams each year.

So let's say that the bowls are left in place and some sort of an "and 1" situation is set up. Under this scenario, teams 1-4 would play in two of the BCS games, and the winners of those two games would play for the national championship. There are, however, a few problems with this. Most importantly, how do you decide who the best 4 teams are? If the final BCS rankings from this season were used, Oklahoma would play Alabama and Florida would play Texas, with the winners playing for the title. Guess who's on the outside looking in? The number 5 and 6 teams are USC and Utah, respectively. I don't think there's a college football fan in the nation that wouldn't agree that they should probably have a shot in a playoff situation.

The second problem with an "and 1" scenario is that it would be a step backwards in several regards. One reason cited for adding the national championship game as a 5th BCS game was to allow more teams the opportunity to play in one of them. Under the current system, a strong team from a "mid-major" conference can look forward to the possibility of a BCS bowl berth. In a 4 team playoff, that possibility all but vanishes. Especially if the champions of the major conferences continue to be given automatic berths. In addition to this, does it really make sense to ask a team to spend all of December prepping for their semifinal bowl game, and then give them a week or less to prep for the national championship? And will the teams that advance to the final game get a second BCS-level payout? And how will teams sell tickets to the BCS games if a large number of their fans decide to hold out on the chance that their team will play for a title the next week?

Another option would be to add two more bowl games (Probably Cotton and either Capital One or Chik-fil-A). Now you've got 7 games and can have an 8 team payout. This, however, doesn't solve any of the problems that we had in the "and-1" scenario. In fact, it compounds the problems of concentrating the payouts and prestige among fewer teams, and trying to prepare for, travel to, and sell tickets to, up to three games in a couple of weeks. Sure, more teams are in the BCS, but only because you've added two more games. And you've STILL got fewer teams in than you do under the current system. For this situation to work, you would also have to completely scrap conference tie-ins and automatic bids. Oh, and there's always going to be a #9 team that doesn't get in. This year, that team is Boise State. What's the purpose of a playoff if one of the undefeated teams doesn't get in?

Please don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying that there aren't problems with the BCS system. I'm not saying that I'm happy with the way things are. But it would be inappropriate to talk about a playoff system as some sort of magic bullet that would fix everything. In order for it to work, you would have to completely scrap the bowl system. Let in 24 teams. Set up a 24 team bracket, giving the major conferences and a couple of highly ranked at large teams a first round bye. If the first round was played at the beginning of December, the whole thing could be finished up by the middle of January.

I guess my point is this: the only way that a playoff system would work is if we make it big and completely replace the current bowl system. This isn't going to happen...there's too much at stake. Until that time, there's not much point in trying to have a conversation about a college football playoff.

Things I Can't Help But Like

I can't help it. I've had Toby Keith's new song in my head all day.

Darwin Anniversaries

September 12th, 2009 will mark the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of his famous and monumental book "On the Origin of Species". The year will obviously be marked by anniversary celebrations, including on this blog and in my classroom.

Scientific American magazine has started the year off by dedicating an entire issue to the subject of evolution. Topics include the evolution of the mind, the evolutionary history of humans, the video game "Spore", the creationism/evolution controversy, and the future of the human species. This should be good reading and provide a lot of material for discussion.

Agony and Ecstasy

The December 18th issue of The Economist features an interesting article written by Craig Ward. In it, he describes a movement to alter the legal ban of the drug ecstasy (MDMA). There is, apparently, a significant amount of anecdotal and experiential evidence showing that MDMA can be used by psychotherapists to help treat their patients who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Ward:

...in the 1980s MDMA, which at the time was still unregulated, escaped its semi-underground psychotherapeutic milieu and began to be taken by young people for the sheer fun of it. In a panic, America’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), unaware of the therapeutic MDMA network, made an emergency classification in 1985 that placed MDMA in Schedule I—the most restrictive category for drugs with “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use”...Although 500,000 doses of MDMA had by this point been used in therapeutic settings, the compound was thereafter banned worldwide.

Rescheduling MDMA as schedule II would allow psychotherapist (under close DEA supervision) to resume legally using the drug for treating their patients. This article is a great follow-up to the Newsweek article that was assigned for reading in anatomy class.

Neckties

Today I talked to my classes about the necktie I was wearing, which I received as a Christmas gift. The small purple designs on it were actually drawings of Giardia lambia, which is an intestinal parasite. If anyone out there is experiencing tie jealousy and would like to order their own infectious disease tie, you can do so from the Infectious Awareables website.