I’ll be upfront: I don’t give a shit about college football, so I don’t really have an opinion. But after listening to my dad whine about how stupid all of the bowl match-ups are for the last three days, it occurred to me that I have never heard anyone say anything complimentary about the BCS.
Is there anyone, ever, in the WORLD that likes the BCS?
Poll coming.
I love pro football and I’d like to at least watch the important games of college football, but I just can’t get into it. It seems so arbitrary and random to me. The dicksweat bowl featuring the #22 ranked team vs a girl’s school - what the hell is that? No idea.
If there was some sort of playoffs, I’d watch the games because I like to watch sports played at their pinnacle, but hell if I know what that even is in college ball. Seems like random non-tiered bowls with random teams.
You’re missing a huge, key option in your poll. The BCS is bad, but in my opinion is better than the way that things were. Being a fan of Pitt and Penn State both, there are several teams from those schools over the years that should have been national champs, or at least were good enough to be. The system of selecting the national champ back then was so subjective that it often left a lot of room for doubt.
Penn State went undefeated through 1968 and 1969, but wasn’t given consideration for the national championship. Pitt had one of the best teams ever in 1980, but with one loss, they weren’t in the national title picture. In 1994, Penn State kicked the pants off of every team they played, but were not selected as national champs.
I think a playoff system is ultimately the way to go, but the politics of college football and the bowl games make it exceptionally difficult to make changes. At least with the BCS, there’s some way for a select couple of teams to compete for the title.
I don’t know your dad, but I think a lot of people pick up the BCS is evil from sports talk radio.
Bowl games aren’t designed to determine a national champion, they’re designed to sell tickets and fill hotels in the host city. They’re also designed for tv ratings.
College football is popular because of the long standing regional rivalry games. It also used to be a nice way to spend New Year’s Day watching teams play in nice weather when you’re sitting at home in the snow taking down the Christmas decorations.
I don’t hate it, though I don’t like it.
It isn’t like we don’t already have a play off system in place for the national championship - we just call it the SEC championship game.
It’s better than what came before. There’s no poll option corresponding to this, so I abstain from voting.
I would prefer a “plus-one” system, though.
villa: I’m searching desperately for a comeback, but can’t really find one. The SEC is 6-0 in BCS championship games and has won half the titles! Impressive.
I’d like to see at least a 4-team playoff. Have the top 4 teams play it out; it’s only 1 more game.
Ideas for some sort of play-off format have been suggested, but how do they really get implemented? Doing a 4-team playoff seems like it could work since there’s usually only 3-4 teams in discussion, it adds a couple more interesting games, and only adds one more game to the schedules of the top two teams, since, but I’m not sure that really makes the problem any better. What happens if there’s 5 or 6 teams that are in discussion, 2 of them will be left out, and all kinds of rage about it will happen if the 1 or 2 seed loses to a 3 or 4 seed.
You could do an 8-team playoff, but at that point you’re almost certainly including teams that don’t belong in the discussion, and now you have 7 games, several of which probably aren’t of much interest to most people, particularly if only 2 or 3 teams seem to have a chance that year.
So, yeah, the BCS system kind of sucks, but it’s better than it used to be, and most alternatives I’ve seen introduce as many problems as they fix.
I would even dispense with the palyoff if thay were fair at giving EVERY conference a chance to participate e.g. top 8 conference champions by ranking and the top 2 ranked non-champions.
I have said this many times, and I guess it is time to say it again, the Current BCS System is a PLAYOFF, a two team playoff.
The system from 25 years ago, was much much worse. That is when the best of the Big 10 played the best of the Pac 10, while the SEC Champ went to Sugar Bowl and the Big 8 Champ went to the Orange, and the SWC went to the Cotton Bowl.
IMO, whatever system that is in place is going to create controversy (more times than not) and this system is a good as any system that I have seen.
I voted Option 2.
The good old “repeat it until everybody gets too bored to shoot it down” tactic.
You’re as wrong as the first time you said it.
But under the current system, if there were 5 or 6 teams in the discussion you would be leaving 4 of them out. How is only leaving 2 out not an improvement?
And if the NCAA basketball tournament is any indication, I doubt there would be “rage” if a 1 seed lost to a 4 seed. People like upsets, and it’s not like you’re being patently unfair to the 1 seed by making them play against the fourth best team in the country. This year’s matchups would have been Auburn against Stanford, and Oregon against TCU. Sure, Stanford would have been the only 1-loss team involved, chosen over the three 1-loss Big 10 teams and Boise State, but I think their showing in the Orange Bowl shows they were more than worthy of such a spot.
The problem as I see it is that you can’t tailor your playoff every year for the number of “worthy” teams. The worst crime, from my perspective, is the #3 team which loses a tiebreaker for the BCS NCG. Going to a “plus-one” system would rectify that, without introducing some of the weaker teams that an 8-team playoff would.
And just what is wrong with it? Do you not think it is a playoff? Because it most certainly is. Just because it is not the playoff that YOU want does not mean it is not a playoff
Do you think the system 25 yrs ago was better? Ok…whatever.
The rest of what I said was prefaced with IMO. Again IMO, any system put in place is going to generate controversy, more time than not.
My Dad warned me as a kid, “Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.”
Just to reiterate, under that system (and assuming the old conferences), none of TCU, Oregon, or Auburn would have played each other.
Personally, I prefer the old system because all of the good football games were actually on New Year’s Day, whereas as things are going now they’ll be playing the last bowl game in June some time, after all of the other college football teams with more than 2 wins have gotten to compete in their very own bowl game; and I don’t give a crap if there’s a “definite” number one.
Yep we would have seen (teams bolded are guesses):
Rose: Oregon v Wisconsin
Orange: Oklahoma v Va tech
Sugar: Auburn v Ohio St
Cotton: TCU v Stanford
And if Auburn, Oregon and TCU won, there would probably been a split National Champs between Oregon and Auburn.
A playoff system that involves Conference Champs will result in teams like the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC playoffs. Oh this isn’t the NFL? Well how about Uconn that couldn’t beat Michigan.
As a Penn State fan/alum, I am still very much aware that if (to take this year as an example), if PSU had finished undefeated along with Oregon and Auburn, Penn State would still be left at home. Why? Well, because the Big Ten was considered down this year. Why would the Big Ten be considered down this year? Because teams in the Big Ten other than Penn State would have sucked (I’ll agree that this year PSU wasn’t hot stuff either), and because other Big Ten teams historically hadn’t done well in previous BCS bowls.
I’m not exactly sure how this is an improvement on the old system.
IMO:
A. The current system is ‘‘perfect’’ as long as there are two “deserving” schools that are undefeated.
B. A 4 team playoff system is ‘‘perfect’’ as long there are four “deserving” schools that are undefeated.
IMO: Option A has a better chance of happening than Option B does and that is why I chose the second option in the poll.
Is option A true if there are three undefeated teams that are deserving? Do you mean “exactly two” or “at least two”?
IMO it is a bigger tragedy for the third undefeated team to be excluded from the playoff than for an “undeserving” one-loss team making it.
The trouble is there is not going to be that one “undeserving” one-loss team making up the numbers for the three unbeatens. There will be 4 or 5 “underserving” one-loss teams, and the argument will simply be which of them gets the crack at the title. So we move to 8 teams, and then there will be one spot left over to fill with an “underserving” two-loss team; but which of the 7 two loss teams do we pick? I know - all of them, and lets have 16 teams in the playoff…
The problem comes largely, I think, because of the voters obsessions with win-loss numbers in determining rankings. Three loss Alabama was better than anyone in the Big 10, for example.
“Exactly”, in both Option A and Option B
But what “undeserving” one loss team would you have put into the 4 team playoff this year?
A. Stanford? when the PAC-10 already has a representative?
B. Wisconsin? after a 1 loss Michigan State beat them?
C. Ohio St? after a 1 loss Wisconsin beat them?
so that leaves Option D
D. Sparty?
But look what happened to them on New Years Day
People are fooling themselves if they think that expanding the current two team playoff system is going to eliminate the controversy.
edit: and what Villa said