Red meat Monday: Important vs. Interesting

Every web site, preseason magazine and talk show host is breaking out the war drums. But just what are they beating? Well, our heads in with outrageous and sensationalist predictions and analyses. I'm not going to spend the next 3,000 words trying to pick out every shallow pitch thrown by the college football punditry the past few weeks. You can bet there will be more of that to come, much more. So, to start off this week right, I picked out this one example of pure, shameless hit generation:

"Both the Big Ten and Big East figure to be in a season-long tussle for least relevant conference from a national title perspective." - NBC Sports' lead sentence on Penn State vs. Ohio State, part of the 'Top 20 important games' list for 2009.

I told you it was shallow and shameless. Oh yeah, and also outrageous and sensationalist.

If the two leagues have no place at the BCS Title table, then why is this game on the "most important list?" If the game doesn't matter, then it's not important.

I'm not so sure NBC followed its own story pitch. This is the next portion of the game analysis, after the lead I quoted above:

"Still, this matchup, always highly anticipated, gains extra heft as Terrelle Pryor’s Keystone State homecoming. The Buckeye sophomore grew up in Jeannette, Pa., a two-hour drive southwest from Happy Valley."

That's where NBC lost me. (turning to the invisible, unnamed NBC writers) Fellas, when a game has -- as you yourselves put it -- no relevance to the BCS Title Game, but an interesting storyline, that means the game belongs on the "most intriguing," or "most interesting," or even "the best" games of the season lists. Pick any one of those, but not "most important."

And how about this, for sh*ts and giggles... Ohio State vs. USC is No. 2 on the list. Penn State vs. Ohio State? No. 15.

Let me get that straight. A game that has no affect on either the Big Ten or Pac 10 title races is more important than what most rational people consider to be the Big Ten title game itself. Yeah, that makes sense.

Even Tennessee vs. Florida is way up on the list, and the best thing NBC could come up with was that Lane Kiffin is going to be on the sideline. Again, that's "interesting," not "important."

Logic doesn't always flow through college football writers' veins, but sometimes I wonder if it ever flows at all.

*I included the Mountain West in there because BYU has a very real chance to make the BCS Title Game