While this may not be “Great,” it certainly is a debate with cogent points to be made on either side.
A brief word on the BCS:
The Bowl Championship Series is a partially human, partially computer driven ranking system for Division IA NCAA college football too complex for mere mortals to understand. Briefly, a bunch of computer polls, an AP sportswriter poll and a Coaches Poll are factored together with a strength-of-schedule rating, number of losses, and a “quality win” component to arrive at a score. The lower the score, the better. Rankings are determined by this. The #1 and #2 play for a national championship at the end of the year. There are 8 BCS bowl berths, including the two for the national championship. These berths go to the winners of several major conferences around the country. Any empty spots go to “at-large” selections, probably made in a smoky back room somewhere with untidy bundles of large bills changing hands.
ANYWAY.
I like this system. It gives Joe Sportsfan tons of stuff to debate about during the months of October, November, and December. It is complicated enough that there is some skill to analyzing and predicting it, yet bizarre enough that one can blindly proclaim bias if things don’t go your way (and have some type of validation on the claim). Astrophysicists have written some of the computer ranking algorithms. The strength of schedule component is a recursive calculation on the rankings of your team’s opponents and their strength of schedule. I imagine this is arrived at by something akin to the calculations needed to determine the path of a particle using Quantum Mechanics.
Sure it isn’t as pretty as a playoff, but for reasons expounded upon at length, it may not be viable. This thread should be open to how to work a playoff without extending the football season.
Sure, it favors big schools in big conferences. Undefeated BYU doesn’t have a hope of playing for a national championship this year. Sure there are flaws – my team, the Fighting Texas Longhorns, plays for the Big 12 Championship against Colorado Saturday night. This was terribly unlikely and took next to an Act of God on Friday and Saturday for this to happen. Anyway, we whooped Colorado earlier this year, and since they are BCS ranked, we get a Quality Win subtraction for that. Now we play Colorado again, and if we beat them 1) we don’t get another Quality Win component (only usable once) and 2) their ranking will fall so that the Quality Win we do have will decrease. Anyway, I am not complaining cause the Longhorns are ranked #3 and all we need is either Miami to lose big or Florida to lose at all to play for a national championship. Considering the unlikely events of last Friday and Saturday, maybe God is wearing burnt orange and yelling “Hook 'Em!”
Back to the subject:
Do you like the BCS? I don’t object, as I have mentioned above.
How would you improve it? I for one would take a long hard look at the computer rankings. One of them has Texas at #7, another has Texas at #2. Last week, we were ranked at #10 by 2 of them. Also, I would do away with the quality win or make it static dependent on the ranking of the team you beat at the time you beat them.
How would you work a playoff? I would shorten the regular season to 8 or 9 games, then I would make conference championships the first game of a playoff with random other games thrown in between the 4 highest ranked teams not in the championships. Selected bowls would make the rest of the playoffs with seeding determined by poll ranking. The BCS bowls would be the semifinals and a national championship 1-2 game and a runner up 3-4 game. This would of course have to be worked in around finals.
Who do you think should be playing in the Rose Bowl? Do you think teams are getting unfairly excluded? What can be done about that?
No major objections although I would prefer a playoff system. Although I think there was a case earlier this year where one team beat another ranked a few spots ahead of them (Oklahoma/Nebraska?) and after the rankings came out the losing team was still ahead. In a tangentially related case, last year in college basketball, the Gonzaga Bulldogs beat Williams and Mary (I think) by 50 POINTS and their streingth of schedule went down. Haven’t heard a college football equivelient but this needs to be avoided
Agreed.
Yeah but imagine what this season would be like had this last week not occured. Nebraska AND Oklahoma were both knocked off. This all would have not occured had we had a 9 game season.
Tough work. I would personally do away with the conference championships, but leave it to a Pac-10 kid to do away with tradition. My issue with it is you will see MANY good teams being knocked out by other equally good teams, lowering their BCS rating with no chance of regaining it before the playoff selection.
I would then take the top 8 BCS teams, alternate them #1 vs. #8 etc, and let them go at it.
How long would the season be? 14-15 games for the two in the championship. Are they whining? Probably, but they shouldn’t be. Our highs school state football championships make 14 games. NFL champions play a MINIMUM of 19 games. Great revenue for the team also.
Problems with this approach: Kind of marginalizes the regular season. Who cares if Nebraska was upset by Colorado? Huskers are still in. And the Buffalo are still out. And you ruin the historical aspects of the championship games.
1.) As of now…Miami vs. Flordia. (With Miami rolling over FL.)
2.) Nope. BYU needs to play harder competition if they want to go to the dance. My school, Washington State University, played a PANSY non-conference schedule this year (Idaho, Boise State, and Montana). While are arch rival University of Washington, played Michigan, and Miami (THAT WAS BRUTAL!:D). Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The BCS system is the best way Division I-A has ever done it. Do we really want to let the champion be decided by competing polls after bowl games where the best didn’t play each other?
That said, it still needs work. The BCS system still manages to put the “right” teams together in the championship most of the time, but each year there are arguably more than 2 teams that should have a shot. I’d like to see 4 committee-selected teams go into a playoff, with the championship game perhaps 2 weeks after the New Year’s bowls or even the week before the Super Bowl. I do think the championship can be fairly picked from the top 4 teams, not 8.
Objections and dismissals:
“Too many games; will detract from the educational experience”. Poppycock. The lower divisions have up to 3 playoff games, not 2, and their players mostly are there for an education, not to get ready for the NFL. Don’t be hypocritical.
“Final four chosen by committee? Arbitrary, nonobjective, can’t be done in time …” Poppycock. The NCAA committee picks a field of 64 for the basketball tournament, including regional seedings, in a few hours.
“Bowls won’t command as much advertising money if they can’t be for the title.” Now we’re getting somewhere. But only 1 bowl is for the title each year anyway, and the rest still manage. The championship game would be for big, big money, and could be spread around a little.
Oh yeah, who should be in the Big Game this year? Too early to tell; check again after next weekend, or better yet, the week after. Miami could still lose; Florida and Texas certainly could; Tennessee could still win …
Bonus points: Name at least half the bowls without looking them up.
How about a side rant about how there are too damn many bowls, and anyone with 6-5 record (as close to average as possible) can get rewarded for it? Football ain’t the Special Olympics. But hell, if a team would rather spend the holidays in Boise or Shreveport than the beach or at home, maybe that’s an appropriate reward for mediocrity
You know, I USED to hate the Bowl system and the silly BCS system set up to keep the Bowl system in place… but now I see the error of my ways. Why should championships be determined on the field by real athletes, when it’s so much more efficient to let computers, coaches and sportswriters decide the champions!
I now see that, of all sports, ONLY division 1 college football is doing things the right way. All other sports should follow suit.
Instead of having playoffs, major league baseball should just play a regular season, then let sportswriters pick the team they think is the best. THAT’S the only fair way to determine the best team in baseball! Or, barring that, we can just set up a computer program to figure out the two best teams in baseball, and let those two teams play in the World Series. The heck with the Yankees and Arizona- the computer would determine that Seattle and Houston were the two best teams, so THEY’D have been in the World Series.
Aw heck, why bother playing any games at ALL in the NFL, come to think of it? Who needs a Super Bowl? Surely Jeff Sagarin’s software could do a better job determining the champion than a bunch of lousy PLAYERS could!
Okay, it’s obvious how I really feel. I think the bowl system is idiotic as a way of determining championships (on the other hand, it’s VERY good for local tourism, which is the ONLY thing bowl promoters really care about anyway). And it’s a VERY good way of saving coaches’ jobs, which is why so few coaches want a playoff.
After all, if a playoff existed, only one team could end the season on a high note. Under the current system, a coach who’s on the verge of getting fired can win the Peach Bowl or the Vegas Bowl, and maybe buy himself another year of employment.
I like the BCS. It is considerably imperfect, but it is the best compromise I can think of between the bowl system and a playoff. The bowl system is important to keep, I believe, in that it gives teams without a shot at the national championship something to play for. The Auburn Tigers (my team) don’t have a slurpee’s chance in Hades to get to the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2, but we’re still pretty good (hell, we beat Florida). Assuming we beat LSU on Saturday, we will be playing either Tennesee or Florida for the SEC title on Dec. 7 and a BCS bowl berth. It ain’t the national championship, but it is still pretty exciting.
**I don’t like the concept of an 8 game regular season. The SEC has 12 teams (as does the big 12, um, obviously). Each conference division has 6 teams. Teams must play each team in their division at least once - that’s five games. Also, teams should play at least half of the teams in the other division in order to maintain parity within the conference. That’s three more games, totaling eight. This leaves no room for non-conference games. How could you compare conferences if the conferences never play each other except in the post season? In my opinion, a playoff system would isolate the conferences even more than they already are. The only way to make a playoff system truly workable is to get rid of conferences all together. Who wants that?
Take the “C” out of “BCS” and you have an idea of my opinion of it.
Notwithstanding the paper tiger arguments put out by proponents of the bowl system, my main issues with it are:
–Two of the polls are determined by coaches and sportswriters. Coaches work 80 hours a week focusing on their opponent Saturday and they’re expected to know who is good and bad among the other 115 Division 1-A football teams who also played on that given Saturday? R-i-i-i-g-h-t. Sportswriters are barely better; their own prejudices and standards factor into their poll.
–It rewards teams from top-heavy conferences. Miami is the dominant power in the Big East. Florida is the dominant team in the SEC, although occasionally a Tennessee might give them trouble. Florida State has lost two ACC games in ten years. For years, Nebraska and Oklahoma had the Big Eight to themselves. Now that it’s the Big Twelve, Texas and Colorado may occasionally step up and knock them off. Otherwise, these teams have to get up to play maybe two or three games a year, and can coast against the Vanderbilts and Dukes and Rutgers most years. Meanwhile, the Pac 10 and to a lesser extent the Big 10 feature teams that beat up on each other, and it’s next to impossible to make it through a conference schedule undefeated. Lose once, and you’re out of the national championship picture. Stanford is 10th in the BCS–indicating a very good team–and just third in its conference.
I say pick the top eight teams and seed ‘em. Let four minor bowls take the first four games, to be played sometime before New Years’ Day. Let the four winners play in two of the current BCS bowls on a rotating basis, and the two winners after that in the Championship game. If they can swing it so it takes place the week before the Super Bowl, so be it.
I think the Big 10 champ should play the Pac 10 champ in the Rose Bowl. Unless there is going to be a real playoff system, there’s no point in trying to have an “undisputed” national champion. Also, the big thing bowls have going for them is tradition (and money). The tradition is a big selling point, anyway. Why sacrifice that?
I really dislike the BCS. I would happily go back to the old system, and would not greatly oppose a playoff. But to me the current system is silly. There is really nothing objective about the BCS, and I couldn’t care less what rankings some computer program spits out.
And for me, there is no Rose Bowl this year. Last year they had it, next year they’ll have it, but this year is just some fraud held in the same stadium on the same day (actaully, it’ll probably be on the fourth, right? Even worse.)
I really feel for Illinois. A few years ago they were winless, this year they earn a trip to the grandaddy of them all, except, sorry Illini, no Rose Bowl this year.
The Big Ten-Pac Ten matchup in the Rose Bowl meant something. This year the game means nothing, in spite of the desires of the Roy Kramers of the world.
Speaking as someone who lives four miles away from the Rose Bowl, I’m appalled to think that
the game won’t be played on January 1, but on January 3. (It does move to January 2 if January 1 is a Sunday)
And instead of a game pitting the Pac 10 and Big 10 champs, my hometown is going to be set upon by a bunch of yahoos who root for Florida and Miami. Blecchh!!
Personally I would like the old bowl system to remain in place and then choose the best two teams after that to play a championship game.
I have no idea if this is workable, but I know that January 1 is not going to be the same.
The more I think about it, the less I like a playoff system. It means fewer games for more teams, with a few good teams having to play many more. As it is the college football season starts in late August and goes through the first week of January with only a break for finals. Academics somewhere along the line is important, and the only way to accomodate both is to seriously reduce the amount of games played to 8 or 9.
Also, you would make fans travel to first round playoff games at places like the Independence Bowl and then the winners’ fans go the next week to the Peach Bowl, etc. The turnout would probably drop significantly. If fans can barely afford to travel to one bowl to follow their team, who will go to four? Especially with week or more spacing between games. Nobody disputes that a playoff is the best way to go in terms of the sport. But in terms of logistics, academics, and reality, it may not work.
Nonconference games, while always interesting, are in my book largely disposable if one decides to go to a playoff system. While some may cry foul, I believe that first the conferences should be restructured so that all major rivalries take place in-conference (which is what the Big XII allowed Texas to do with OU and A&M – OU was old Big 8 and Texas and A&M were old Southwest). This means restructuring some of those wacky Conference USA/WAC type conferences to deliver some quality rivalry games and future rivalry potential. This means geographic organization for the most part, apart from Notre Dame/USC and a few key others. It is probably also time to gasp get rid of non-aligned schools and make 'em suck it up. I know, Notre Dame, tradition, yadayada. You know what? I hate Notre Dame.
Why are other nonconference games disposable? Apart from the Michigans and Penn States of the world, most big schools (Texas, Nebraska, Miami, etc. etc.) schedule pansy nonconference teams by-and-large. I mean McNeese State? Troy State? (sorry Miss. St, I know) ULaLa? Tulsa? LaTech? IAA schools? While I understand the dollar figure here, for the health of the sport I think we must scale back IA, move some of these teams to IAA, and make all season matches in IA quality conference games.
The BCS is miles better than any of the old bowl systems. That system did not guarantee marquee matchups in the first week of January. #1 versus #2 at least will give a closer idea of who is gonna take all of the marbles. Granted for those disputing the BCS, the national champ will not be “undisputed,” but at the teams who many consider the two best will play in early January. Tradition is fine, but if it strangulates the sport than it should be chopped.
And all in all, at least the BCS gives people something to yell about. And that is what sport should do.
The trouble with incorporating the bowls, major and minor, into a playoff system is that nobody has that much time or money to travel to them. Its one thing to take one big football trip to a bowl game in a warm weather site; its quite another and a quite more expensive proposition for even a diehard fan to take two or three long trips in 3 consecutive weekends.
Bowl games were designed simply as tourist attactions. Come to New Orleans (or Miami or Dallas or Pasadena or El Paso or Jacksonville), spend a couple of days and a lot of money, and see your team play a big game. With the regular season taking longer and longer, the bowls have less and less time to sell travel packages and so attendence has been declining at all but the Rose Bowl and whoever hosts the title game.
If a playoff system is implemented, which is what I prefer, then the first round or two will have to be on on-campus sites.
Oh, come on. Division 1-AA has a playoff. The teams in that system play a lot of games. A few of the VERY BEST Div 1-A programs might play 14 or 15 games in a season. The other 113 or so teams would still play the same 11- or 12-game season. And BYU, a Div 1-A school, a couple of years ago actually did play a 15 game season, with exhibitions and bowl games. (I’m looking for a cite.)
Got news for you. There already is a glut of bowl games. A few of the minor ones have been in danger of not being able to find participants. So fans get treated to the Seattle Bowl (new this year), featuring Stanford (1000 miles away) and Georgia Tech (3500 miles away). Minor bowls like this one would instead jump at the chance to host Miami-Oregon as part of the first round of playoffs. Major bowls like the Rose and Fiesta never have to worry about selling out; they’re part game, part “event”.
College fans are FANATICS. The University of Tennessee easily outsells the NFL team in that state. Besides, like I said, hosting the first round of the playoff would be a godsend for the minor bowls. And there is also this thing called “television”. The windfall this would create would help the member schools subsidize dozens of other sports for both men and women.
True, it gives unemployed yahoos such as myself an excuse to rant about completely trivial items on anonymous websites during the weekday. Time to go play with the cat for a half-hour. Again.
The BCS is the way to go. Quite honestly I view it as the only way that the two best teams in the nation can play each other. Playoffs allow for too many teams to have a shot at winning a championship when they don’t deserve it. The best team does not always win a game. I think that if we can semi-accurately calculate ways (that all teams go by) to declare the two best teams in college football then we should do so. Upsets happen, it’s part of the fun, but I don’t think the Natn’l Champs should be decided on a run of luck. And if you are absolutely convinced that the best teams would emerge I give you this years two predicted contenders. Miami (undefeated) and Florida (one pesky loss). I’m from Alabama, I’m a HUGE Auburn fan. Should Auburn have beat Florida? No. Is Florida a better team than Auburn. You better damn well believe it. Should a fluke loss like Florida’s to Auburn ruin a team like Florida’s chances to win a national championship if it were a playoff situation? Of course not. Regular season games are the best way to judge a team’s ability (and they still can lose a game or so)…and I, for one, want the best team to be Champs.
WAR EAGLE!
AirBlairxxx
“Florida is the dominant team in the SEC, although occasionally a Tennessee might give them trouble.”
Obviously you don’t keep up with SEC football much. You claim that it’s hard to make it through the Big 10 without a loss…I promise you the SEC is no easier. Also, Tennessee is never the team that UF needs to worry about. UF absolutely owns UT. The dominant Gators lost to Auburn this year, Miss State last year, Alabama (twice) in 99, LSU AND Georgia in '97. '98 has been the only time that Tennessee has beaten the Gators recently. '96 was the last time that Florida (or any SEC team for that matter) went undefeated in conference play and guess what…natn’l champs. The SEC is one of the most competitive conferences around. Florida can stay on top only so long.
You got me there, I’m SEC-illiterate. I’m a Pac-10 dude myself. I cited Florida because they have won an NC, they’re right up there this year, and they seem to have had a fairly dominant last several years. Also, they have an obvious ‘in’ with the deepest talent pool of the US.
BYU is going to play 14 games this year. They played a pre-season game, which doesn’t count against your total and finish with a game in Hawai’i, which doesn’t count either. Then BYU will likely finish up in the Liberty Bowl.
But the BYU guys are all a lot older than most other college players anyway.
And in some years, all teams will get to play 12 games in the regular season (it depends upon how the Saturdays in September add up.)
While the BCS idea is not perfect, it has paired what were arguably the two best teams each year that it has been in place. This seldom happened prior to the BCS. Since the upsets that have become more frequent in recent years(see Oklahoma/Oklahoma State and Auburn/Alabama ) tend to reduce the validity of a playoff anyway, an informed poll and well programed 'puters can come as close to pairing the two best teams as any other system might, IMO.
Dropping the regular season to eight or nine games for all but the top 16 teams would be a financial disaster for college football, so that won’t happen.
** Airblairxxx ** : This has already been touched on, but I believe any matchups between the bottom half of the teams from the SEC and bottom half teams from other major conferences would be dominated by the SEC teams. Several years ago, Bobby Bowden had the choice of having FSU join the ACC or SEC. Not being a fool, Bowden selected the ACC for his team, since there are only two or three tough ACC games in any given year, while an SEC team takes a pounding every week.
** philsGT500 ** and ** Beeblebrox ** : WAR EAGLE !
This year’s model of the BCS will feature Miami. Their opponent is unknown. If Tennessee wins the SEC championship game, Miami will face Tennessee for the national title.
BUT . . .
If Tennessee loses, all hell breaks loose. The way it looks now, Nebraska would play for the national title. Nebraska didn’t win its conference. Didn’t win its division of its conference. Lost its last game, actually got snot beaten out of it. But they could win the national title.
Meanwhile, other teams with one loss are on the outside looking in, for no real reason. Oregon probably has the biggest gripe; they haven’t lost in a long time and should (IMHO) play for the national championship. But The Powers that Be have decreed that Oregon is to not play for the title.
I’m hoping that this fiasco will move the NCAA to a playoff system in Division 1-A football.
Oh, and John Carter of Mars? I’d love to take you up on that, I’ll put the Pac 10 against the SEC. But you’re right about Bobby Bowden, he manages to weasel his team into the national title picture every year because they play in a joke conference.
