Gah. Who designed this fucking mess of a bowl game arrangement?
The gentle reader is invited to take a gander at the latest BCS rankings released yesteday.
Last week my beloved Iowa Hawkeyes were ranked #4 in the BCS. This week, USC has leapfrogged over Iowa to the number 4 spot…pushing Iowa down to #5.
As a result…it is quite possible that the Big 10 co-champs, with a legitimate Heisman candidate, a legitimate coach of the year, a team that beat Michigan and Penn State on the road will not play in a BCS bowl game.While Notre Dame, a team that finishes with 2 losses including a major ass kicking by USC could end up playing in a BCS bowl game even though they are ranked #10 in the BCS (and 13th in the coaches poll).
If you look at the computer ranking of Iowa and USC…you will especially note the NY Times ranking. While the other 6 computer rankings put USC somewhere between 3rd & 5th and Iowa between 4th & 6th…the NYT genius computer puts USC at #1!! Thats right folks…according to the bit heads in NYC, USC is better than Miami and Ohio State. I don’t know how much each computer poll weighs in the final tally…but the margin between USC and Iowa is quite slim…slim enough to suspect that that one poll could make the difference. (Yes I’m also aware of the strength of schedule difference…but that difference should not overwhelm the other stats).
Long story short…if UCLA beats Wash State, the Hawks will be in Pasadena playing USC. If Wash State wins…then Wash State gets the automatic bid…and several other teams duke ot out for at large consideration to any remaining BCS spots…ergo Notre Dame…a team that had trended downward as the season went on, could bump the Hawks out.
Damn. Where was I?
Oh yeah…Go Bruins and fuck you Roy Kramer and the BCS.
Don’t you think Iowa is in the Rose Bowl anyway? Tradition, if nothing else, should take care of that.
I don’t think you can blame the BCS if Iowa does get left out. After all, the individual bowl selection committees will select the teams for their bowl, within the BCS framework. If they should pick Notre Dame over Iowa, it would be their call, as they will have an option to choose either. This would be the case if there was a BCS or not.
The main puropse of the BCS was to increase the chances of a National Championship Game. If Miami wins Saturday, this will clearly happen. Without the BCS, OSU would be playing in the Rose Bowl against the Pac-10 champ, and Miami would be who knows where. To the extent of having a championship game, the BCS has worked better than not having it over the past few years.
Not really. The BCS determines the “pecking order” of when a Bowl gets to pick. For example, this year the Orange Bowl gets to pick next…
and…further
The rules of the BCS control who gets the AT LARGE positions.
Well…that is the stated goal of the BCS…but of course they control more than just the title game…they control ALL 4 BCS bowl games. I’m not suggesting that Iowa should play in the Fiesta Bowl. I am suggesting that Iowa should play in the Rose Bowl…and they definately should NOT be out of the BCS picture with a team like Notre Dame replacing them.
Miami will NOT win on Saturday. You have my word on it as a rabid Hokie fan.
Seriously, Virginia Tech has a good chance of keeping the Miami offense off the field for prolonged periods of time by ramming The Untouchables at them three plays a down. Their special teams has finally begun to show its prior superlative ability, and even the defense has shown a glimmer of talent. The Big East has been nothing but upsets this year, usually at the expense of VPI. But the Hokies have a score to settle with Miami, and the stars are aligned, I tell you.
And, since my ass is hanging so far out in the breeze that I could fart a vapor trail, I’ll give you one further prediction, beagledave. Feel the sulfurous mists of prophecy swirl about you…
Virginia Tech will defeat Miami, and Arkansas will upset Georgia, leaving only two contenders for the national championship:
Notre Dame and Penn State, of course. That’s what all the fucking sportswriters want, anyway.
I’ve been in the US for just over two years, and while i watch college football i don’t really have a favorite team. My own university is better known for its lacrosse team, and for actually getting some academic work done .
I remember the first time someone tried to explain the BCS system to me. It sounded like tea leaf-reading or crystal ball-gazing back then, and it still sounds like that.
One thing that struck me as soon as i started watching college football was the media’s apparent obsession with Notre Dame, despite the fact that they had been performing poorly. I know they’ve done better this year, but that still doesn’t mean i want them on my TV every damn Saturday. What’s the deal with this? Why is it that this school seems to be the darling of just about every media commentator in college football circles? As far as i can see, the only special feature this college has as a football team is its willingness to move beyond the blatant shunning of black head coaches in college football. But that only happened this season, so it can’t be an explanation for ND’s “favorite son” status.
Thanks for the links, beagledave. I hadn’t known that the top four teams, thus So. Cal, were guaranteed a BCS spot. If the Orange Bowl takes Notre Dame, and nothing else changes, everything is in a mess.
But yet: Just a few weeks ago, there was a great howling about eight unbeaten teams, and how the BCS wasn’t working. Given time, it worked out. I suspect all the BCS people are going to be big UCLA fans this weekend too. If UCLA wins, all is solved, and the worst the BCS can be accused of is giving Iowa folks some unnecessary heartburn. Also, the Orange may take So. Cal anyway, leaving the Rose free to pick Iowa. The Orange Bowl’s long stated policy has been to “get the two best teams available”. Clearly, Notre Dame doesn’t fill that bill.
I think I can actually give you an answer for that. Back in the day, college football was far, far more popular than professional football, and Notre Dame was impressively, consistently good under the long leadership of coaches Knute Rockne and later Asa Parseghian. They were famous for the Four Horsemen, for winning the Game of the Century and tieing another, and of course the legend of winning one for the Gipper.
Dame was great, there’s no question. And generation after generation of sportswriters began to buy into the magic of Dame as some sort of America’s team. They consistently rise higher and faster in the national rankings than virtually any other team, and are regularly penalized less for their failings, even to this day.
Whether or not they’re great right now is another question. I watched 'em play a couple of weeks ago and was surprised at how good they looked. But they still piss me off for the free ride they get every season.
Sofa King, thanks for the explanation. As a history grad student, i can often be heard lamenting that history has too little influence on current thinking. It appears that this might be one case when it has too much!
Okay, I’m not much of a sports person. I don’t pay attention to team standings or anything else related to any sport. It really doesn’t matter much to me who plays where and when, although, being from Iowa I will admit to a bit of bias. I’d like to see the Hawkeyes get the Rose Bowl. If they don’t I won’t be crushed.
The thing is, I always thought the bowls were simply arranged according to standings in the various conferences, and the Rose was played between the Big Ten and Pac Ten champions. Simple, right? Suddenly I started hearing about this “BCS” thing and it all sounds like it’s being set up by a group playing Dungeons and Dragons somewhere. When did this all start, and who’s idea was it?
The BCS was set up in the 90s by Roy Kramer as a method to determine a “national champion”. The four major bowls rotate who hosts that “championship” game…which in turn impacts who they select to be in their bowls. In the case of the Rose Bowl…they traditionally pick Big 10 and Pac 10 teams (when not hosting the championship) but they are no longer obliged to since joining the BCS. To ensure that independent teams like Notre Dame participate…they made it fairly easy (IMHO) for them to qualify for a BCS bowl game.
In theory, the BCS makes for an interesting concept. The problem is in the details.
This, I have to disagree with. The BCS is giving us a championship game (assuming unbeaten Miami vs. OSU) that any system worth it’s salt would give us. This is not validation of the BCS (especially after the screw-ups and shenanigans of previous years). Rather, it tells us that when there is a result that is completely obvious to even a casual fan, the BCS gets it right.
Where the BCS screws up this year will be in the second tier of bowls. FSU with 4 losses? A potential of being locked into a 4 loss Arkansas team? The likelihood that of Iowa and Notre Dame, Notre Dame may make it? These are the results that show the BCS has issues.
Granted, the playoff I hope for wouldn’t be perfect. Consider an 8 team playoff. Picking the top 8 teams to have a shot at the title would capture more of the deserving teams than the current BCS formula does.
The BCS sucks. It has sucked every year. It sucks quite especially this year.
A college playoff system is too impractical to ever be implemented. Even a simple 8-team playoff would take three weeks to complete, plus you can imagine the outcry from the teams on the bubble that get left out–and there would be quite a few bubble teams getting left out. Plus, a playoff system threatens the bowl games, which are big money and big tradition.
Proposed solution: Chuck the BCS. Let the bowls select their teams the same way that they used to–conference champions, cash bribes, etc. Then on Jan. 2 (the day after the last bowl game), somebody (preferably the coaches, just like the ESPN/USA Today poll) selects the top 2 teams to play a single, separate game for the national championship one week later. Switch the location around, like the basketball Final Four and the Super Bowl. Big game, big money, big ratings, and a minimum of fuss.
The BCS was set up to try to produce a clear national champion while still retaining the bowls. Apparently the conference commishoners like the bowls, and are loath to give them up (persumably because they bring a lot of money to the conferences). It was clear something needed to be done after what happened in the early to mid 90s. In '90 and '91 there were split national champions (Colorado and Georgia Tech the first year, and Miami and Washington the second), and in (I think) '94 Penn State went undefeated and ended up number two to Nebraska, after they played in different bowls. Under the old bowl system a matching up of the number one and number two teams in a bowl game didn’t happen very often, and when it did happen it was more accidental than anything. The BCS is an improvement on that, but it’s debatable if it is good enough.
I think you’re slightly wrong, beagledave, and that the Rose Bowl is obligated to take the Big Ten and Pack Ten champions, in the years when it’s not hosting the national championship game, unless one (or both) of those teams happens to be in the top two in the BCS rankings, in which case that team goes to the national championship bowl, and the Rose picks an at-large team that can be from any conference. I could be wrong, but I think that’s the compromise that was eventually reached to get the Rose into the BCS, as it was the hardest of the big bowls to bring into the agreement, and the BCS originally started up without the Rose (and so there was a split national championship in '97, after the BSC had begun, because Michigan was still tied into the Rose).
I have a question, and this seems like a good place for it. If I understand the rules correctly, if Miami and Washington State win on Saturday, and USC remains in the top 4, USC will be a lock for a BSC bowl, and the Orange Bowl gets to pick first. Does that mean that the Orange can pick whatever eligible team it wants, but if that team isn’t USC then the Rose will have to pick USC with it’s at-large position? That would make the Rose Bowl matchup USC vs Washington State, which would be very, very odd. I can’t think of a case where two teams of the same conference met in a bowl game. Or would one of the champions from the ACC or SEC (who I think would otherwise meet in the Sugar Bowl) get shifted over to the Rose to avoid that, and USC would go to the Sugar Bowl?
You’re correct… In this case, Ohio State is the official “big 10 champ” by virtue of a no loss season (they tied with Iowa for the actual Big 10 title). Since Ohio State is in the Fiesta Bowl, the Rose Bowl is not obligated to take Iowa.
Maybe someone will correct me, but I don’t think the Rose Bowl would have to take USC in that scenario…they could take Notre Dame…Kansas State etc…Since the positions are “at large” thery are not automatic, but I would assume there would be discussions to avoid a Wash State-USC Bowl game.
Ah, but there’s apparently a clause in the rules that any team that finishes in the top three is guaranteed a BCS bowl, or in the top four if the top three teams are all automatic qualifiers because they won their conferences. As long as USC holds onto that number 4 slot, and Miami and Georgia win, USC is guaranteed a BCS slot. From an article on espn.com:
Much as I hate to disagree with you, minty, I have to do so here.
A simple 8-team playoff would take only 2 extra weeks to complete, if the four major bowls were the first tier of the playoff. Given the way they keep adding games to the season (which has gone from 10 games to 13 while I’ve been watching, not counting bowls and conference championship games), it hardly seems like a big deal anymore to keep four teams on the road an extra week, and two teams for an extra two weeks. Nobody seems to bitch when successful college hoops teams spend their entire March at tournaments, so the schoolwork argument (which you didn’t make, but just in case someone does) is BS.
This system would incorporate the bowl games, so that should minimize the fuss there. And the sites of the semifinal and championship games could rotate around the four major bowl sites, which would sweeten the pot more than enough to satisfy them, I’m sure.
And the ‘bubble’ teams that didn’t make it - sure, they’d bitch, but the point is, who should play for the national championship? Having an 8-team playoff ensures that all reasonable contenders have a shot. Maybe the #9 team should have been ranked #7, but if they wanted to play for the national championship, all they had to do was play well enough during the season to make the top 8 without argument. The reason they’re not in the top 8 was that they failed to do so.
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Speaking of ‘bubble’ teams, which of course originated with the NCAA basketball tournament, the hoops tourney has an even simpler solution available to them: make it an open tournament to all Division I teams with a .500 or better record. They could invite the top 32 teams (as they saw them), and let any of the other 100 or so eligible teams who had the urge, play in a 2-round pre-tournament for the other 32 spots. Bubble, schmubble.
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