Yes, because VA Tech would be undefeated if it hadnt been for a handful of plays. VA Tech has upset Miami before. And have you seen how vapid Miami’s run defense is? They just need their heads removed from their asses.
Didn’t you forget about Ohio State?
And besides, I thought the sports writers wanted USC and Miami for the national championship.
Miami’s defense has risen to the occasion every single time it has needed to, both last year and this season.
Tech isn’t going to get anywhere close to their average of 223 yards per game
<Laments for his beloved Crimson Tide>
Goddamn boosters.
Posted by Mullinator: “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.” <snip>
Therefore, the BCS is a step in the right direction. Before the BCS, there was no system. Without the BCS, we wouldn’t have the Miami-OSU game this year. All there would be is a bunch of people bitchin’ because Miami and OSU weren’t playing each other.
The BCS ain’t perfect, but it’s a big step forward from nothing, which is what we had without it.
If the link posted by Amok proves accurate, then Iowa and So. Cal are both in a BCS bowl, Notre Dame is out, God (except for the Catholic one) is in his/her heaven smiling, and all the naysayers will once again have to wait until next year to demonstrate that the BCS has failed. 
Ogre: War Eagle! 
Yeah, yeah, John. You guys beat us fair and square. Honest. I was there, lamenting every blown coverage and utter incapacity to convert a drive. Your defense played like SEC defenses ought to play.
I don’t want to divert this thread toward an anti-sanctions bitchfest, but I think UA’s getting screwed. As far as I can tell, there’s no evidence that any of the players or staff of the UA football team had anything to do with the Albert Means affair. It seems to have been between Logan (that rich fucking bastard) and Means’s high school coach.
Were I the paranoid sort, I would think that somebody at the NCAA level took a stab at neutralizing Alabama as a national contender for the foreseeable future by imposing sanctions for something they nor the present coaching staff had anything to do with, and since it didn’t seem to run off Alabama’s all-star players like Croyle, Odom, etc. this time, they’re re-opening the Means investigation.
Doesn’t it seem like an awfully convenient time for the high school coach to start singing again, right during this season’s end-game, when Coach Franchione (the best goddamn thing to happen to the UA coaching staff since Gene Stallings) was debating whether to sign an extended contract? This time, I’ll bet they’ll at least trot out the spectre of the Death Penalty, and then we’ll see who’ll stick around.
I ain’t saying Alabama’s innocent, but no school is, I’ll guarantee. And it appears, further, to be violations no one was around for, and that may not, in fact, have directly involved the program anyway.
I’d smell a huge fucking rat…you know, were I the paranoid sort.
12 national titles. The home of the Bear. One of the proudest programs in all college football. And now they’re going to talk Death Penalty. Goddamn boosters. Goddamn NCAA.
Wow. Sorry for the bitterness, John. Totally not directed at you or Auburn. I actually attended Auburn, and when they’re not on the same field as Bama, I root for them without fail. I’m an in-state boy. I’d love to see two undefeated teams face each other in the Iron Bowl.
And I want to see the national picture like it was when I was growing up…you know, those Midwestern passing teams getting all nervous cause they have to go to a bowl and face a nasty, physical-as-hell, blood-on-the-jersey SEC team. 
Speaking of which, did you see the Hawaii game? The Alabama secondary punished those poor Hawaii receivers so badly at times, they had to be nervous about catching the ball. And still, I know, Chang hooked up on some really spectacular plays. Fabulous QB.
Ogre:
The Logan Young affair is something that is hard to get a grip on: Was the Alabama coaching staff involved or not? Was Albert Means the only player that Young “bought”?
If $200,000 can be paid for an offensive lineman, what the hell is an all-star Quarterback worth on the open market? Are other school’s boosters doing the same things? What about the money Tee Martin got at Tennessee? Is that deal simply over, with no fallout or punishments?
Auburn’s last probation was for a total of $800 given to a player (Eric Ramsey) by a booster. Is inflation that rampant, going from $800 to $200,000 in ten years?
I had hoped that the Federal Court hearings in Memphis would provide some answers, but if they did, the knowledge wasn’t made public.
And yes, once the NCAA gets on a school’s case, they drag things out, timing events so that they do the most damage. At least that’s the way it looks to me.
beagledave gives a w00t and does the cabbage patch… 
**
The word is Fight, Fight,
Fight for IOWA
Let every loyal Iowan sing;
The word is Fight, Fight
Fight for IOWA
Until the walls and
rafters ring
(Go Hawks!)
Come on and cheer,
cheer, cheer
for IOWA
Come on and cheer until you hear
the final gun.
The word is Fight, Fight, Fight for IOWA
Until the game is won
**
Well fuckedty fuck fuck fuck.
That beep beep beep you hear is the BCS asswipes slowly backing away from the above news.
See here
Buncha idiots. Heaven forbid they tell Notre Dame to fuck off with their 10-2 record.
The old system sucked worse.
It’s putting the only 2 unbeaten teams in the title game. Anyone else’s argument that they, with their loss(es), should be there instead of Miami or OSU rings a little hollow. How does that suck?
The BCS system sucked the last 2 years, when the 2 obviously-best teams weren’t matched, but it sucks much less this year.
Why? There’s a 16-game playoff every year in the lower divisions of football, and it apparently works quite well. There’s a 66-team tournament in basketball, with even less lead time involved.
The big bowls are about tradition, sure, but they’re even more about money. Integrate them into the playoff system, guarantee them air time not competing with each other, and they’ll go along. Anyway, only 1 bowl game matters right now, and the others are all exhibitions. Make more of them matter and their ratings will improve.
Honorable minty-san, you know I love you like a brother, but yer fulla crap here, sorry.
Chill out, beagle. I think the deal is done as outlined yesterday. They’re just having a pissing contest because the BCS guys wanted to be the ones to make the announcements, on their TV show Sunday.
Penn State’s offer to and acceptance of the Capital One bowl confirms yesterday’s news reports, IMHO.
GO HUSKERS!!!
whoops…er, never mind…
Carry on.
grumble, grumble
No, it just sucked in different ways. The old system was great at putting together bowl games. It just sucked at putting together a national championship game. The BCS does a pretty decent job of putting together a national championship game (though this year’s NC will expose OSU as the pathetic little pretender that it is), but a shitty job of putting together bowl matchups. Florida Fucking State in one of the top 4 bowl games? Give me a fucking break.
But they don’t have the bowl games, do they? They just start with the playoff games in November, and four or five weeks later, you’ve got a winner. Try telling all the bowl games that they’re gonna have to give it all up to go to a playoff system that stretches out over the better part of a month, and that most of them aren’t going to get anything better than a first-round game. Better yet, explain to them how they’re gonna have to sell all their $200 tickets to fans who either don’t want to blow ticket and travel money on a first round game or who already blew their travel and ticket money on a first round game. Ane be sure to explain how cutting out a dozen or so teams, each with their own rabid fan base, is going to result in more money for the bowls. I dare ya.
Bullshit. Stand in front of the Sports Column in Iowa City and tell people that the Rose Bowl doesn’t matter and that it’s only an exhibition. You will quickly be corrected of that misconception, and you will find that you have your choice of two nearby emergency rooms.
Either the system sucks or it doesn’t. Given your description, one must assume it sucks, because even a shitty system can get it right once in a while. The fact that, according to you, it has sucked for two years out of the last three, means that, as a system, it’s not doing very well.
And therein lies the explanation. The whole BCS is designed:
a) to make money
b) to give a bunch of undeserving second-raters the chance to play in a “big” game in a “bowl” in front of a national audience.
If they were serious about doing it properly, they would either:
a) revert to a system where bowl games were simply spectacles played between the winners of certain conferences, with no official national championship game, or
b) have a true national championship, which might work along the lines of British soccer. You could have the country’s top 16 (or whatever) teams play in Division 1, the next 16 play in Division 2, and so on. Each year, the bottom three from each division would drop down a level, and the top three would be promoted. And the winner of Division 1 would be declared the national champion. But of course, such a system would mean the end of all those home-state or backyard rivalries that college football fans love so much.
This all almost brings a tear to the historian’s eye - the American people once again fighting over the benefits of local versus national.
mhendo, a couple of points:
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Your idea about a British soccer system is interesting but impractical. It works fine at a professional level where team roster turnover isn’t so great, but at a American college level, where a quarter of the roster graduates - er, runs out of eligibility - each year it wouldn’t work.
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As for Notre Dame, Sofa King got history right, however, you should know that Notre Dame football remains very popular even today. Its popularity led to NBC signing on to cover all of its home football games and continuing to do so up through the present. ND’s popularity begat the NBC contract, not the other way around. Further, when ND plays on the road other networks (ABC, CBS, ESPN, etc) always broadcast the game, frequently in prime time, because they know that ND is popular. Others who don’t like ND so much, such as perhaps Sofa King, may tune in just to root against the Irish.
Hey, PatrickM, thanks for the info on ND.
I must take issue with you, however, regarding the practicality of a divisional system for deciding the college football national champion.
First of all, while i have no statistics on hand, it wouldn’t surprise me if some college teams actually have lower turnover rates than some professional teams. At least in college, the tendency is to stay with a single team for the duration of one’s college career, i.e. four years. With the salary cap in the NFL, a team that has a successful season is likely to lose many of its players due to salary cap restrictions and enticement from other clubs. Look at Baltimore - they have hardly anyone left in their starting lineup who was on the Superbowl team less than two years ago.
And even if turnover is higher in college ball, why does that negate the practicality of the system that i described? You haven’t said why this should be the case - i can only assume that you are suggesting that, due to high turnover, college teams’ strength changes quite dramatically from year to year and that this would mean inconsistent levels of play in each division. Again, if i am interpreting you correctly, i really don’t see the trouble. Even more than in the NFL, the good college teams tend to attract the good high school players, so there is a certain amount of consistency. Most of the teams currently in the top 15 of the BCS rankings were also in the top 15 last year and the year before. College teams are certainly no more inconsistent (whether for reasons of roster changes or anything else) than NFL teams. Witness the Chicago Bears: 13-3 last year, 3-9 so far this year. Or the St. Louis Rams: Superbowl last year, lost their first five games this season, and are currently 5-7. Or San Diego: 5-11 last year, and 8-4 so far this year.
There may be some practical issue i’ve failed to consider, but until you let me know more clearly why you think my system is impractical, i’ll have to stick with it.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
I agree with you. I was rebutting minty’s assertion that it sucks more this year. It doesn’t. It sucks less. But it still sucks more than a simple conference call among the conference presidents to decide who plays for the title - which would have prevented the last 2 travesties.
But I’d still be right, even if it were dead right. It doesn’t matter who wins the Rose Bowl this year. Nobody will remember or care.
If Iowa were that good, they’d have beaten Iowa State. But they didn’t. So they aren’t. So they’re not going to the bowl that matters. Get over it.
mhendo, we’re obviously discussing something far afield from the flaws of the BCS, but what the hell. I consider the English football division system impractical for the reasons you inferred from my prior post, and also because implementing it would require admissions from the powers that be - ie, college presidents, athletic directors and coaches - that their squad doesn’t have a chance to contend for the national championship this year and therefore should settle for a spot in the second division. Such persons are loathe to make such an admission - which would perhaps dishearten their fans/customers from spending oodles of money - under any circumstances, even when it is painfully obvious that their squad doesn’t have a chance to contend. College sports big wigs are out to make a buck - who isn’t? - and they are not ever going to allow a second class label to be affixed to their product, even when and if deserve it.