Geeking Out, Football Style

I’ve never tried to hide my geekiness. That would be tilting at windmills, and I have other things on which to expend my energy (writing about football, for instance). Sometimes, I am able to keep it under control, but last night was not one of those times.

I was excited out of my head to discover last night’s Big Bang Theory’s A-plot revolved around football. My two favorite things on television combining into a half hour of pure awesomeness? That’s….well, awesome. Especially since my t.v. boyfriend Sheldon was the lone male expert and was forced to explain the details of the game to his best friend. It’s like Chuck Lorre had the writers create this one especially for me.

If you think that’s the geeky part, you don’t know me very well.

During the scene in which Leonard, who is only watching the game in a half-hearted attempt to impress his girlfriend, finally has to watch an actual game he makes the common sitcom mistake of defining exotic terms, such as “intentional grounding” to demonstrate just how out of his element he is. Suddenly he asks, “What was that?”

“Sweetie,” his Nebraska girlfriend replies, “those are highlights from the 1998 championship game.”

For a fraction of a second, I was about to keel over. Tennessee won that game! The ultimate shout out! But I quickly remembered we played Florida State, not Nebraska. But perhaps the writer’s were referring to 1998 as the calendar year, not the seasonal year. Nebraska did play in January of ’98, in the Orange Bowl. Against Tennessee! Shout out still stands!

However, that was not the site of the national championship. Since that season preceded the implementation of the BCS, there was no championship game (I realize there still isn’t a recognized “championship game,” but that’s a can of worms for another post). The ultimate title was split that year between Michigan (awarded by the AP) and Nebraska (USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll).

Question to fans who remember the seasons prior to the BCS: do fans of teams who were crowned champions those seasons refer to their bowl game as “the championship,” or were the writers just being lazy/ignorant? I’m leaning towards the latter considering we’re stuck in the BCS mess because of complaints regarding the lack of a consensus champion, which would indicate the absence of a “championship game” and similar colloquialisms, but I don’t want to be overly presumptuous.