Bracket Buster

Since 2003, ESPN has organized a college basketball "bracket buster challenge", which paired high-quality teams from schools in conferences with little prestige or notoriety in games all across the country. The idea was that the small conference schools would benefit by having the opportunity to prove themselves against quality opposition (ie, each other) and the ESPN would benefit by getting a lot more fans in unlikely places to watch their channel. The problem I always had with it was that it only helped one team - the winner. The losing team gets the loss, and no credit, because the loss has just come against a team that by definition was previously underrated. And I found the benefit to the winner to be dubious as well, since their victory will have come against a team that, again, by definition is underrated. In short, I didn't see the point.

Last night's college football matchup between Kansas and South Florida changed my mind. Both teams are actually from major conferences, Kansas of the Big XII and South Florida of the Big East, but both have also been considered somewhat counterfeit by mainstream college football fans. South Florida rose as high as #2 in the rankings last year on the strength of upsets of teams like Auburn and West Virginia, but lost three straight games after reaching that lofty status, thus calling into question whether they ever really deserved it. Kansas on the other hand started out 10-0 last year, but did it without playing a single opponent of legitimate quality, thus causing fans nationally to view their achievements skeptically.

Last night's game really showed that both are for real. Kansas travelled across the country to west Florida for this "bracket-buster"-like matchup. The Jayhawks leapt out to a 20-3 lead late in the 2nd quarter on the strength of Todd Reesing's pinpoint passing, and cruised to a 20-10 halftime lead. The Bulls of USF came out fighting in the 2nd half behind an aggressive offense and intense quarterback pressure from defensive end George Selvie, and stormed to a 34-20 lead. Reesing & KU fought back to 34-34, before USF's freshman kicker, Maikon Bonani, iced the Bull's 37-34 victory w/ a 43-yd FG as time expired. I came away impressed with both teams' abilities, and, at this point, wouldn't be surprised if either makes a lot of noise on the national scene (busting up some brackets) down the stretch this season.