Want to see the difference between college football and college basketball? Look no further than this week, where opposites play out.

CARRINGTON HARRISON

This is the best week in sports. You can keep your Super Bowl week, your opening weekend of the NCAA tournament or college football Bowl Week.

Give me Thanksgiving week: Feast week with meaningful college football games and rivalries. This is why we watch sports for this type of intrigue, drama, and competition. This weekend also shows us how different the two main sports in college athletics are. College football and the current BCS system gives teams minimal margin for error.

If you are Auburn and you lose this week, your national championship dreams are dashed. Boise State, you have been a nice story but lose to Nevada and you are off to the Poinsettia Bowl. What incentive is there in college football to play a tough non-conference schedule and risk a loss before conference play? It almost forces teams to load up on cupcakes and hope to avoid a loss in conference play in order to rise to the top of the rankings.

You want to know why Boise St – Virginia Tech was such a big deal? Games like that rarely happen in college football early in the season anymore. Season defining moments don’t happen in September. College basketball allows and rewards excellent non-conference matchups. Need a gauge for how good your team is? Go play in the Maui Invitational or the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. Want to see how the conferences stack up? Watch the ACC v Big 10 challenge.

Feast Week gives teams resume building wins and prepares teams for the rigors of conference play. It gives you a feel of the incoming freshman, allows teams to set a rotation, and creates pressure situations teams will face come March. College basketball does it right. It allows early season play to build up to a culmination of its season and not the other way around.

Do yourself a favor, in between time with the family, food and football sit down and watch some of the great college basketball this time of the year. It might come in handy when you are filling out your brackets in March.

Photo: AP

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