Number 4 baby!

ASU is ranked 4-Th in the nation. Awesome, considering that they didn't even play last week and still jumped up 4 spots. Thats how crazy this season has been. We have never had such parity in college football ever! For all the glitter and glamour of college football, parity was never one of it's strengths. Thats what set NFL and NCAA basketball apart from college football. But this year has been completely different. Week after week, undefeated and highly touted teams have been falling by the wayside and I love it. More on the reasons for all the parity in the game later, but just check out the standings below in week 1 and the BCS ranking in week 9. It's crazy beyond explanation.

Week 1
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1. USC
2. LSU
3. West Virginia
4. Texas
5. Michigan
6. Florida
7. Wisconsin
8. Oklahoma
9. Virginia Tech
10. Louisville

Week 9
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1. Ohio State
2. Boston College
3. LSU
4. Arizona State
5. Oregon
6. Oklahoma
7. West Virginia
8. Virginia Tech
9. Kansas
10. South Florida

All the teams in the week 1's top 10 have lost one game, some of them more than one. There are only 4 teams from week 1's top 10 thats even in the top 10 now and some of them like Va-Tech actually dropped out of the top 10 and are now back in it because other teams keep losing and the rankings are getting jumbled up weekly. College football has never been so much fun. I can't wait for Saturdays this season. I hope the Ohio State Suck-eyes lose this week and continue the trend. Entirely likely since they are at Penn state. But of course I don't want ASU to lose rest of the way though. This is the highest ranking they have had since the Jake-the-Snake year in 1996. But in reality, they'll probably lose sometime soon because they have really not played anybody until now and their schedule is brutal the rest of the way. They play Cal this week and then @ Oregon and home to USC. They also play UCLA and U-OF-A. Lets see what happens, but until then, I'll enjoy this ranking along with the BCs and Kansases of the World.

Why so much parity in college suddenly? Apart from some recent scholarship restrictions, there are 2 major reasons, both of which are kind of related. 1) Money in sports and 2) Technology. Of course some of the technology is what brings in the new money. But the point is, there is so much money in Sports, especially the NFL right now, that they cover every inch to gain competitive advantage. So if you are a QB for a local junior college in Alaska and you have any kind of NFL ability, the scouts will find you. They have the money, the resources to come chase you. Multi-million dollar jobs could be won and lost based on your pick. It's that important and thats how high the stakes are. So they will assign 10 scouts just for a town in Alaska each making 100K a year if they have to. That was not the case 30 years back. This helps parity in college because the college recruits don't have to stay in the top schools to get noticed. A good athlete will rather start for Montana state than be the 3-Rd string RB for Florida State. They'll criticize the quality of competition at Montana state etc., but if you are good, they have the resources and systems in place to scout you, dissect you, draft you and train you for the NFL.

Secondly, technology. We now live in a global village. Internet, cell phones, youtube videos, satellite TVs etc. etc. etc. If you are good, you can't hide anywhere. Even 15 years back, people in California probably didn't know if Duke and Wake Forest even had a football program. Today, if you try hard enough, you can probably watch this game live in your living room in one of the 1800 channels that seem to carry college football these days. So there is no reason for any decent player to sit on the bench of big programs. Go start for Duke and make a mark for yourself. And this is exactly why parity is increasing day by day in college though some programs like USC are still loaded with depth. These situations are becoming an exception and is not the norm anymore. For the average fan, it's all fun.