It had been less than one day that the University of Phoenix Stadium hosted a professional football game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers.

As the final fans were filing out of the stadium, workers began assembling to transform the venue from the NFL to college football. Since the University of Phoenix Stadium opened in 2006 it has been the home not only to the Cardinals but also to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Because vendors and sponsors are different between the two events, workers would spend the night taking down signage from the NFL and replacing it with signage for a college football bowl game.

It would start with the banners around the field and would continue to the concourses of the stadium. The turf would have the Cardinals logos removed with the end zones and midfield repainted to feature college football names and teams.

The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl is one of the Bowl Championship Series bowls meaning there will be a national audience that will tune into the telecast or experience the game in person. Besides the stadium, the parking facilities also go through a transformation.

In the adjacent park area a fan experience area has been erected with inflatables, stages, and other activities. These will be open and available all day and during the game allowing fans who do not have tickets to still enjoy the game’s festivities.

For the first time in Tostitos Fiesta Bowl history, the game consisted of two non-BCS football teams with the undefeated Boise State Broncos facing the undefeated Texas Christian University Horned Frogs.

This is a game that leaves me struggling on who to root for. On the one hand I’m originally from Idaho and would love to see Boise State win. On the other hand TCU plays in the Mountain West Conference and a win by the Horned Frogs would benefit BYU’s season ending ranking. In the end I’ll just root for whoever has the ball.

When the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl ends, the fans will file out the door leaving stadium workers to begin the process once again to get ready for the National Football League playoff game that will be held here on Sunday. The work never seems to end which is a good thing for Arizona sports fans.

I should probably preface this by saying I am not a huge follower of college football; at least not to the extent that I follow baseball. That being said, I do keep tabs on how the season is progressing and of course I follow my alma mater and the local teams.

Given my foot injury this past weekend and the fact that I have already watched all of the baseball games I have on the TiVo at least a million times I turned my attention to the college football games on the television.

I watched as Alabama dissected the Florida Gators and came away believing the Crimson Tide have to be considered the favorite to achieve a national championship. Shortly after that game ended I flipped over to see how the other side of the equation would play out in the game between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the University of Texas Longhorns.

Like many other sports fans I have taken my share of shots at the Bowl Championship Series and lamented that there is no playoffs for college football. Each year as the season ends it seems like we are left with more questions than answers as to who the national champion should be.

This year the table was set for a nightmare. With number one Florida losing to number two Alabama some of the complaints would be satisfied since it meant there was one less undefeated team in the country.

TCU of the Mountain West conference has finished their undefeated season and going into the weekend they were ranked number four. Boise State likewise ends the season undefeated and they too have an argument to be included in a BCS bowl despite not playing in a BCS conference.

When the Cincinnati Bearcats came from behind to beat Pittsburgh they finished the regular season undefeated and staked their claim for a chance to play for the national championship.

The stage was set for what could be a disaster for the BCS when Texas took the field against Nebraska. For most of that game the Huskers walked all over Texas. While the score was close, the play really wasn’t.

With time running out on the Longhorns, Heisman candidate Colt McCoy made a critical mistake lobbing the ball to the sideline with time running out. The game clock went to zero and Nebraska players rushed the field in celebration.

Not so fast, the officiating crew huddled together and decided one second should be put back onto the clock allowing Texas a chance at one last play. In a scene reminiscent of the 1972 Olympic basketball game in Munich where the USSR is allowed a second chance to win, the Longhorns kicked the field goal leaving Nebraska players, coaches, and fans wondering what had happened.

With Texas winning, that meant there were five undefeated teams. Obviously all of these teams could not play for the national championship and with two teams coming from non-BCS conferences it was even more unlikely that the bowl system could produce an undisputed national champion.

Almost as soon as the clock expired (a second time) in the Texas game people were already clamoring for the abolishment of the BCS in favor of a better system for crowning a champion.

I am usually one of those opponents but as I thought about it I realized that abolishing the BCS and the bowl structure that is currently in place would be the worst thing that college football could do for their sport.

If you stop to think about it, the faults of the BCS each year means that sports fans throughout the country continue to talk about college football for weeks or perhaps months. The discussions usually swirl around the lack of fairness but regardless of the discussion content people are still talking about the product.

If the BCS was abolished and a playoff format was implemented, the drama that comes from a team being slighted disappears. College football would get sports coverage during the playoff itself but once that is over, discussion pretty much stops until next season.

With the current format they can almost guarantee that somewhere someone is talking about college football and the BCS almost every day of the year. There really is something to be said about creating a flawed system.

Everyone wants to fix the problem but by doing so the NCAA has assured them of interest that they would never get if they really solved the issues of the BCS.

So the one thing you can about guarantee yourself is that with the final whistle on January 7 the discussions will continue for weeks about what the NCAA can do to fix the national championship problem. As the old advertising adage says, you can’t buy that kind of publicity.

Our middle daughter Tiffany begins college this coming January. She has just finished High School graduation and is now trying to earn money to afford to go to school this coming winter. Recently she was accepted into Brigham Young University – Idaho which is the campus in Rexburg Idaho as opposed to Provo Utah. There are pros and cons to going to BYU-Idaho. On the con side BYU-Idaho does not have the collegiate sports programs that the BYU-Utah campus has. This means that she will not be able to compete in NCAA track like she hoped. On the pro side the campus is slightly smaller than BYU-Utah and therefore has a closer student body. She will also be able to share an apartment with her sister Mallorie who will be a Senior during Tiffany’s Freshman year. This of course could be a pro and a con in itself depending on how much sister stuff they can deal with. When the kids graduate from high school my gift to each of them has been a laptop computer. It is nearly impossible for a kid to survive in college without their own computer and many colleges are now requiring a laptop for several classes.

When Ashley and Mallorie graduated the choice of a laptop was relatively simple. I went out and bought the fastest and lightest Windows laptop I could find. My reasoning for this was that this computer would be packed around in a backpack for 4 years (if I am lucky, with Mallorie it actually will be 5 years). Technology changes at such a rapid pace that what was a fast and light computer when they entered college becomes a behemoth dog-slow computer by the time graduation day arrives. That is just the price you pay in the realm of technology advancement.
With Tiffany I have a completely different issue. After having lived through the Windows XP to Windows Vista fiasco that has been occurring in the marketplace my conviction to the Windows platform is shaky at best especially from a laptop perspective. I am seriously questioning whether Windows Vista is appropriate for Tiffany’s needs and whether it will remain viable through the life of her college career. The more I consider this the more I am leaning towards a Macintosh laptop as the preferred computer for her.
Moving to a Macintosh is not without its own dilemmas. For example, I would need to not only support the Windows applications that are installed on the family computers but I would also be on the hook to support the Macintosh apps as well. This could become a problem since I myself do not have a Macintosh (yet). I would be flying a little blind. It is not that I have not had experience with a Mac before so it would not be completely inappropriate but it could be a challenge. Another concern I have is that the MacBook and the MacBook Pro are relatively old technology. They have both had a recent refresh but that was basically just an upgrade to more current processors. The architecture of the machines themselves are still aging. There are rumors that there may be new models released in the fall but it is questionable whether this refresh will line up with the timing of getting Tiffany’s computer. Apple is also compounding the problem with the introduction of the Back to School Special.
Basically Apple is offering a free iPod Touch or iPod Nano when you purchase a new Mac for college. They are further enticing you to buy by having the school offer $200 off from the retail price. BYU-Idaho has recently come out with a new computer policy where they will be requiring all incoming freshman to have a laptop and preferably a Macintosh. They have further stipulated that all laptops should have a minimum of 3 years warranty period to assist students in keeping their computers in working order. Since Apple like other vendors have standardized on a warranty period shorter than that; it will necessitate the purchase of an extended warranty. An extended warranty can be expensive and care will need to be taken in order to make sure that everything is covered.
Tiffany and Mallorie both think this is perfect. Not only does Tiffany get a shiny new laptop but they also have an iPod. It doesn’t seem to matter that they already have an iPod Nano each, they both want the iPod Touch. I can already see where this is going. Mallorie has been telling me for months that her computer is old and slow and she would really love to get a new one. And if she can get a MacBook with a free iPod that would be perfect and she could help Tiffany. That sounds great on paper but I can already tell you that it would be me who would be expected to troubleshoot problems on both computers so basically Mallorie just wants the new technology and the free iPod Touch. The sad part is that she’ll probably get it. Sometimes I just can’t say no but don’t tell her that. The one question remaining in my mind is would I be better to jump on this deal or would it be better to wait until after September 15 to see if there is a new MacBook announced that would be more future proof. It’s a tough decision and I have no idea which way I’ll go.