I’d like to start off by saying, “whoa.” Has the whole world suddenly gone stupid?

For starters, the O.J. Simpson sentencing ended recently with the Juice serving anywhere from 9 to 33 years in the pen, which means Simpson will get out of jail between the ages of 70 and 94. Way to go Juice, you should have kept a low profile after you decided to write your book “If I Did It.”

Now it looks like you will have to write a new story. Give it a catchy title like “I Fought the Law and the Law Won,” and maybe Plaxico Burress will write the foreword for you since he now has a lot more free time. Speaking of Plaxico Burress, I wish he’d go away. It’s bad enough that he shot himself with an unregistered firearm in a club, in a city known for tough laws against carrying an unregistered handgun, but does it have to be on every show on ESPN from now until his sentencing? Don’t they have any warm, feel-good stories to put on the air? The worst thing is that the NFL has an IQ test that all potential players must pass. I guess he must’ve cheated off Michael Vick’s test.

Moving on from crime and punishment, the BCS is turning into one big hangover. Seriously, a chimp with a crayon could draw up a more efficient plan for determining this country’s national champion. Now, I hear all the whiners in the back saying, “Hey fat boy, it’s called a playoff system. Duh.” Let me answer with this­ – I know. The only problem with the playoff system is that the BCS makes boatloads of revenue, which is used to pay the participating schools’ athletic departments. If we take away that revenue, many of the smaller schools would lose out on precious funding to support not just football, but all varsity sports, so playoffs might not be the best thing.

Speaking of playoffs, MIAA conference member Northwest Missouri will make its consecutive trip to Braly Municipal Stadium in Florence, Alabama for the NCAA Division II National Championship. The Bearcats have lost the last three, and the fourth time could also be a maybe when they play next Saturday against Minnesota-Duluth. This year also marks the tenth anniversary of the first championship for the Bearcats.

Finally, we come to the final word, naturally. It’s finals week: the last push of the semester where you study like crazy, lose all the sleep you can, carefully balance your ephedrine with unhealthy amounts of caffeine, pay off your bar tab, and cry when you realize that the money you sold your books back for will not cover said bar tab. Good luck.