Bryan Burwell

It’s Halloween time, and these are my greatest sports horrors:

I am afraid that defrocked Olympic queen Marion Jones actually believes the lies that are coming out of her mouth. As I sat there watching her sniffle and grin on Oprah’s couch, it dawned on me that she was following the same tired script that Bonds, McGwire and Clemens used, only with more lipstick and tears. From Olympic queen to queen of denial; how sad.

I am worried that Greg Oden will be a part of that troublesome medical legacy of Portland Trail Blazer centers (see: Bill Walton, Sam Bowie) whose NBA careers will be known more for injury reports than stat sheets.

I am scared that Eddy Curry and Stephon Marbury probably think it’s the coach’s fault.

I have no reason to fear this, but just the same, I’m scared to death that winning will change Texas Tech’s Mike Leach. The Red Raiders’ football coach is a wildly entertaining iconoclast of the highest order and a YouTube dream. I want him in the national spotlight so that others may learn that football doesn’t have to be life and death. Sometimes, it can just be a Southern fried, irreverent hoot.

But all of those fears pale in comparison to The Really Big Fear:

It’s the blood-curdling sight of an undefeated Penn State ending up in the BCS championship game.

Arrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhh!

It’s going to happen, folks, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Another Big Ten football fraud is going to find its way into the BCS title game and put itself in the awkward position of being gangster-slapped all over national television by a decidedly superior team from the SEC, Big 12 or Pac-10.

So now I’m sitting here watching the 2008 college football season play out, and I feel like I’m watching a horror flick in one of those dingy old Times Square movie theatres, circa 1978, and everybody’s shouting at the movie screen — “Hey fool, DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!!! — because we know something evil is about to happen, but the crazy idiots in the movie have no clue.

The season is playing out to a troublesome conclusion that will probably have two or three unbeaten or once-beaten teams at the end of the regular season, and unfortunately one of them is going to be the Big Ten champion, a.k.a. “America’s Punching Bag.”

Why would we want this to happen again? Why do we want to bring another Big Ten champ into the conversation of who belongs in the BCS national championship game when we know exactly how this thing will turn out — ugly and embarrassing?

It used to be Ohio State that played this role to perfection. The past two BCS championship games have provided the Buckeyes with the opportunity to be humiliated in prime time (’06 season: Florida 41, OSU 14; ’07 season: LSU 38, OSU 24). But now that the Buckeyes are out of the national championship picture (thankfully), OSU has carefully paved the way for Penn State to take its place. The Nittany Lions are undefeated, but don’t be fooled. They barely beat the same Ohio State team that got destroyed by USC 35-3 earlier this season, in an unsightly 13-6 victory last week that surely set back offensive football by 10 years.

But thanks to a Big Ten conference schedule that scares no one, Penn State is almost a virtual lock to end up 11-0. Meanwhile, the best teams from the best conferences like the SEC and the Big 12 will likely beat each other up and eliminate four or five teams that are probably superior to Penn State, or anyone else from the Big Ten.

So even though I can think of no fewer than 10 teams from the SEC, Big 12 or Pac-10 that would be more deserving (Texas Tech, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, LSU, Georgia and even Missouri), they will be penalized for being in a far superior conference. And leave the door open for Penn State, and there’s nothing we can do about it, because the stupid BCS computer does not hear us shouting at the movie screen.

“Hey fool, DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!

But this is how it’s going to play out, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Another Big Ten team will have its name spit out of the computer, and it will be invited to the BCS Championship Game. And barring some hacker’s ability to create a anti-Big Ten virus for the BCS computer, Penn State will go to that national championship game with all sorts of highfalutin’ dreams, but stagger away looking like a carcass that was dipped in beef gravy and tossed into a pit bull’s den.

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