Badger Bits: 'College Football Playoff' and the Sound of Fun Being Crushed

I'm either a very nice person, or I have driven away anyone with tact from my life so that all that remains are like-minded sloths within an unpleasant sphere of my own creation. I hope it's the former, truth be told. The people I smile at on a daily basis tend to smile back, though in the dichotomy I've described smiles can't be proof of my niceness. The thoughts I have towards things tend to be positive more often than not. This gives me some inkling that I'm a relatively good person.

Now bear with me.

I don't like hating things. I've noticed that the cumulative weight of the things people hate correlates strongly with my ability to hang out with them. People who hate things wear frowns, and right off the bat, frowny faces aren't much fun to look at. Out of those ugly faces come ugly words and conversations that end in "I hate that thing, too" followed by some foot scuffing while someone tries to think of another mean thought. Before that next thought comes, I will have hopefully found a plausible excuse to recuse myself from the situation.

I recognize all of this, and I hope you won't begrudge me as I make this confession to you: I hate the cumbersome-ass term College Football Playoff.

No seriously, writing out the phrase "CAPITAL-C-ollege CAPITAL-F-ootball CAPITAL-P-layoff" kills some part of me every time I have to hit the shift key.

As many have noted, the term is dripping with boardroom whitewash. A bunch of suits took an innocuous phrase and made it phony, though in fairness, anything they would have come up with would have sounded insincere to the people who charge themselves with criticizing college football higher-ups on a daily basis (and bless them all).

Worse is the complete lack of mouthfeel. You want to throw an 's' on the end. So do I, because every other team in every other sport that qualifies is vying to make the playoffs. Saying "playoff" is equivalent to Mitt Romney talking about how much he enjoys "sport." Romney got raked because he sounded pretentious and clueless at the same time, but whatever, he was just a guy who wanted to sound like he knew something about sports when he didn't. The people who came up with College Football Playoff deal with sports for a living. They are just awful.

And the capital letters. The problem with such a simple phrase is that there is no stand-in for it. If the committee had come up with something like, I don't know, the "College Football Ultimate Showdown," we could go about our way talking about the upcoming "college football playoff" if we wanted to avoid using the official title. Now you won't be able to talk about the college football playoff without talking about the College Football Playoff, making articles about College Football look like bad Victorian Texts, where important words of emphasis are given All Due Importance by capitalization because this is how Haughty People talk, Then and Now. See how annoying that is? Why are you making us talk like jerks, stupid college football committee?

Every time I see College Football Playoff I will be reminded that this sport is run by tactless, lifeless money men who have stumbled into jobs that they can bungle through and still make millions. I hate you College Football Playoff. You are the worst.

Gawd.

LINKS:

Dave Heller rounds up where various prognosticators see Badgers going in the 2013 NFL Draft. Don't look if you have an irrational love for Montee Ball. (I am one of those people).

As a reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, Crazylegs will have a carry-in policy for participants and spectators.

Anonymous AP editorial writer does work on the College Football Playoff.

Bill Hancock just makes things up and makes so much money.

LOGO CONTEST HACKED. Unfortunately, "hacked" means stuffing the ballot for the captain's wheel-looking thing and not replacing the options with something remotely interesting. Here's probably the best solution. At least the Rose Bowl is still fancy.

Extensive preview of the Gophers' spring offense? Why yes, there is one of those laying about.

Tim Frazier cannot be killed.

Meanwhile, Penn State football lost a potential starter and one of three scholarship quarterbacks.

Iowa's spring game sounds like ... fun.

The Illinois-Northwestern spat is wildly entertaining.

The best of OTE hate.

Something serious: Brian Archie, a 22-year-old track-and-field star at the University at Buffalo was found dead in his campus apartment Monday morning. The SB Nation blog Bull Run wrote a touching tribute. Archie escaped a rough upbringing in Niagara Falls to go to Buffalo and was on his way to graduating on the all-conference academic team. Unfortunately, he leaves behind a son, Jayden.

Archie's teammates have created a fund to provide support for his son, as well as raise awareness about depression. If you feel like donating, you can click here.