Mike Greenberg, in this month's ESPN The Magazine:

I may be the lone holdout who likes the current system.  A college professor once told me the only interesting questions are the ones with no answers.  Every other sport wraps things up, but debates about which team was best continue long after a college football season is over.

Auburn went undefeated in 2004 -- can you say they weren't the best team in the country [they weren't - Ed.]?  We'll be discussing it for years to come. 

It's Championship Weekend and the SEC Championship Game is no longer compelling so it's not too much of a surprise to see GameDay headed to San Antonio for the Big 12's title match between Oklahoma and Missouri.

The boys from Bristol will be in Kansas City to referee the heated Kansas - Missouri battle.  Great choice.

The boys from Bristol will make their way to Ann Arbor for the suddenly punchless (but still Rose Bowl determinant) rivalry game between Michigan and Ohio State.

Bo's heart gave out a few hours before that one last year, hopefully everyone notable involved in this can make it through this one. 

At least, I think it's week nine?  Anyway ...

ESPN College GameDay will be in State College, PA for the Penn State - Ohio State game.

Penn State won 17-10 the last time these two met in Happy Valley, thanks to a Troy Smith fumble.

With the annual USC/Notre Dame battle looking subpar this year, I like GameDay's pick here in going to Lexington for the Florida/Kentucky game.

Florida's slim national title hopes die if they lose here, and Kentucky has to prove they're the team that beat LSU and not the one that flopped against South Carolina. 

The Sooners were rightly passed up last weekend in favor of a trip to Baton Rouge.  It's GameDay redemption this weekend, however, as the Saturday morning three-headed monster takes in Missouri's trip to Oklahoma.

It's been a while since we've had real anticipation for a Big 12 North/South battle so be sure to savor this until Nebraska, Kansas State and Colorado get their acts together.

Although the Gators lost last weekend, ESPN is making the right choice in heading down to Baton Rouge to see Florida play LSU this Saturday.

ESPN College GameDay will make a rare trip out west to Eugene, Oregon on Saturday ahead of the Cal/Oregon game.

Yes, Virginia, there's football played west of the Mississippi, west of the Rockies, and north of Los Angeles.

College Football Live, moments ago:

Sideline reporter Todd Harris talking about the USC/Washington State game, said be sure to tune in as they'll have a very special guest introducing the lineups for both teams.  That's a dead giveaway that the great Keith Jackson will do the honors.

Whoaaaah, Nellie! 

This is funny, but it's also pouring it on a little:

That's ESPN's representation of UCLA's logo in this week's "Bottom 10".  They're the only team to get a remade logo.

GameDay will be in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for the Alabama/Georgia game this weekend.

As expected, they'll be in Lincoln for the USC/Nebraska game.

USC needs to put on a show, that No. 1 ranking has all but eroded. 

Virginia Tech ... again.  But this time they're in Baton Rouge playing LSU.  GameDay meant well but they royally screwed up by not making it out to Berkeley for the Cal/Tennessee game last weekend.

As for the featured game: Sean Glennon playing four quarters against the LSU defense won't be a pretty sight.

So I was reading this, and it got me thinking about brackets.  Brackets have been the absolute death of ESPN this year.  Between "What's Now" and the SportsNation nonsense polls, there's an ongoing weird obsession at ESPN with brackets.  I'm glad ESPN's around and don't care to pile on, but its accepted knowledge that ESPN hatred went from a barely contained fire on the internet to something more broad-based and universal this year.

The same bracket phenomena helped ruin the college basketball regular season as fans over the years got more into their postseason brackets than the actual season.  And, really, when you think about it the basketball postseason itself.  Empty arenas.  Everything corporate.  Casual fans overpowering the die-hards in both numbers in number and influence.  That game has no heart and no soul now.

Whatever you think about a college football playoff (and you know where I stand on this) - I dont know how anyone can feel encouraged by the fact that even with a four-team setup we're entering Bracket Land with people being more interested in their picks and who made it/who didn't than the actual game itself.  The regular season could be transformed from people talking about the top 25 or so teams (and the 15 or so within range) to just the top 4-8 teams who have any chance of making a hypothetical playoff.

Confirmed bracket victims named in this entry alone:

1. ESPN
2. college basketball

Do we really want college football next on that list?

Get . A . Grip .

Somebody's mad at Herbie.  Wants him canned.  In favor of Craig James (snicker).  Riiiiight.  All because he ranked Auburn 18th in his final AP ballot.  And didn't acknowledge the Auburn crowd at the GameDay set (???).

Amazingly enough, Auburn beat the nation's No. 3 (7-3 win over LSU, worst game ever) and No. 1 (27-17 over Florida) teams.  But they also did it in weeks three and seven.  Since then, both of those teams went on amazing tears and shredded bigtime bowl opponents while the Tigers narrowly escaped mighty Nebraska in a non-BCS bowl game.

Since then, Auburn got crushed not once but twice at home to Arkansas and Georgia.  Big difference.

The Arkansas loss was excuseable (and was the primary motivation for Auburn's emotionally charged home victory over Florida, a game they'd have lost under any other condition), the Georgia loss wasn't.  Or do we need to start talking about the last-minute home victory over sad sack Mississippi?  How about that escape against lowly Alabama?

Auburn is a good but flawed team which is why a lot of intelligent people have them outside of their top 10 rankings.

Big deal.  There's no reason to go nuts over Herbstreit's No. 18 designation if one gives it more than a moment's thought.

The college football public wishes to extend its apologies for not taking to the stirring career regressions of both Brandon Cox and offensive coordinator Al Borges, as well as the good but not great play of Auburn's tailbacks and so-so receivers.  The Auburn defense was superb at times but as Arkansas proved, speedy one dimensional teams could attack the Tigers at will and find suitable results.  South Carolina found similar success against the Tigers' overaggressive attack.

Like I said, good, not great.  Say hello to being ranked anywhere from 11th to 21st by people who care and in the top ten by those not paying attention.

Back to Herbstreit (and GameDay) for a moment:

What did he ever do to Auburn?

Did I miss something or have you all completely forgotten about that arduous five-week SEC tongueing by Herbstreit and Co.?  Wasn't it Herbstreit that said there's no excuse not to play a 1-loss SEC team over an undefeated team anywhere else in the title game well before the season was over?  Mind you, he embarrassingly backtracked from that once he felt Michigan got jobbed (they weren't, Florida should have been there), but it's not like he hasn't been in the SEC's corner plenty of times before.

I take everything GameDay does with a grain of salt.  The notion that they have some kind of great power or influence is overplayed.  Of course they have their clone-like followers, but all programs do.  But the opinions are entirely too diverse and of late, their destinations equally diverse (once they remembered that America existed west of the Mississippi ca. 2004) to suggest some monolithic agenda.  GameDAy is equal parts entertaining and annoying, and I think that's the point of the show.  To wake us all up, show some highlights, hit on some issues, let crazy Lee do his thing, let Kirk disagree and make the ladies swoon and then have playoff jockey Fowler swoop in to mediate.  It's great television.

It works, and I like it.  I disagree with the hosts all the time, but at the same time I don't find the show, its hosts, or the concept evil or dangerous.  They make mistakes just like the rest of us and sometimes they even correct for them (some west coast visits since 2004, Le Tour De SEC this year after complaints they were ignoring southern locales because CBS had broadcast rights, etc.).

Herbstreit has not been on his best behavior at times this year, but he's said and done some good things and as fans its our job to take a measure of the man and not swing so wildly in support one week and wildly in disagreement the next.  That makes us manic and an embarrassment.  No thanks.  Enjoy the show, come up with something more constructive to say about Herbstreit than a drooling "He Hates SEC, Me Caveman, UG" rant and maybe something might be done about the parts of the show that are the most flawed.