# Ncaa fbs q: Sec bcs? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 21, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594 "2011-11-21T00:07:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/21 "2011-11-21T20:18:16Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Can the OP explain why a team that didn’t even win its own conference should have a shot at the national championship? I would say it’s for the same reason the NCAA started letting teams that didn’t win their conferences into the Division I men’s basketball tournament in the 1970s. The “national champion” in pretty much every sport is not so much the best team over the entire season, but the best one at the end of it. (Look at NASCAR’s “Chase” system for an example.) > [@Oakminster](#): > > Arkansas v LSU is going to be the deciding factor, if everyone else holds serve. If LSU wins, and wins the SEC Championship, then I think we may see LSU v Bama II (Electric Boogaloo) in the BCS game. If Arkansas beats LSU then we’ve got a mess. Whoever wins the SEC gets a spot, and then who knows…OK v OK State winner and Stanford draw straws for the other spot I guess. I agree - if LSU and Alabama both win out, I don’t see how you leave either one out of the BCS championship game. If LSU finds a way to lose to Arkansas, Alabama goes to the SEC title game on the tiebreaker even if Arkansas has a higher BCS rating (assuming Alabama is ahead of LSU and within five BCS places of Arkansas in the “last regular season rankings”), although I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being Alabama-Arkansas in the BCS title game. > [@HubZilla](#): > > If Bama beats LSU in the rematch, will there be a split title, assuming they cannot do best two out of three? No - if two NFL teams that met in the regular season meet again in the Super Bowl, does the regular season winner get a rematch if it loses the SB? > [@markdash](#): > > There is no such thing as a split title anymore. The team that wins the BCS championship game is the national champion. Since all the BCS conferences (and I believe all the other FBS conferences, but I could be wrong) have signed onto the BCS system, it is the official championship game. The AP poll currently holds no more weight than a poll I could do with a bunch of my buddies. …except that any player who accepts a national championship ring for being “Markdash and a bunch of his buddies’ national champions” loses all eligibility immediately, while there is no such penalty for rings for being the AP national champion. In fact, by a strict reading of the NCAA bylaws, “BCS National Champion rings” are also illegal. Well, sort of; a school can give out rings for being the American Football Coaches Association’s national champion, and the AFCA has a deal with the BCS where the BCS Championship Game winner must be voted #1 by all of the coaches in the AFCA (aka USA Today) poll. (Also, there is nothing against carving “BCS National Champions” on any other rings the school is allowed to give out - for example, rings for participating in that game. I remember Auburn put “National Champions” on its SEC championship rings the year it went undefeated but got left out of the BCS title game (the justification was, one of the BCS computers had them ranked #1).) Also, while the schools may not “officially” recognize any other teams as “national champions,” that doesn’t stop the fans - especially those who think there are problems with BCS. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/22 "2011-11-21T20:24:23Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > If the system for selecting the two best teams determines that they are two teams that have already played each other, they should still play in the championship game. The regular season (and conference championship games) are just to provide information as to who those two best teams are, not to eliminate possible match ups. This doesn’t make sense, because the “system” is a bunch of coaching assistants writing the name of the school they think is probably pretty good but haven’t watched. The point being: there are too many teams and far, far too little information to make a valid decision on the top 2. Given the lack of information, under almost any conditions it would be ridiculous to have a rematch, repeating one of the few pieces of information we already had. That is why if Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, I will be disappointed if we get a rematch. I also disagree that the anti-rematch bias makes it foolish to schedule a top team. That would only be true under the current climate for SEC teams who are guaranteed to be at the top of each loss-level anyway. But look at teams like Stanford, Virginia Tech, and even Boise State: they needed a big win to be higher up in the 1-loss bracket. Also, the voters can make it worthwhile to schedule top teams simply by their voting. If I was a voter, I would keep LSU #1 regardless of whether they lose to Arkansas, due to their vastly superior schedule. So even for an SEC team, it would still be a good idea to schedule top teams. ---
**Author:** ![markdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/23 "2011-11-21T20:37:45Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > …except that any player who accepts a national championship ring for being “Markdash and a bunch of his buddies’ national champions” loses all eligibility immediately, while there is no such penalty for rings for being the AP national champion. Do you have a cite that teams have given championship rings for being AP champions since the advent of the BCS era? The last time the AP champion differed from the BCS champion was 2003 USC. A brief search revealed that there were Orange Bowl rings given out, but nothing about a national championship ring. > [@](#): > > Also, while the schools may not “officially” recognize any other teams as “national champions,” that doesn’t stop the fans - especially those who think there are problems with BCS. No, and that’s fine, it just irks me when people mention the AP like it carries any legitimacy these days. You can say that the Phillies were the best team in baseball last year and you might be right, and you can even say you consider them the “true” champions since they won the most regular-season games, but ultimately their own league considers another team to be the champion. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/24 "2011-11-21T20:41:43Z")
> [@markdash](#): > > but ultimately their own league considers another team to be the champion. To be fair, there is no NCAA champion in college football. The NCAA declines to crown a champion, probably because they don’t want to open themselves up to any lawsuits. There is only a “BCS champion”. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/25 "2011-11-21T21:38:42Z")
> [@markdash](#): > > No, and that’s fine, it just irks me when people mention the AP like it carries any legitimacy these days. You can say that the Phillies were the best team in baseball last year and you might be right, and you can even say you consider them the “true” champions since they won the most regular-season games, but ultimately their own league considers another team to be the champion. The AP poll has just as much legitimacy as the BCS - which is not much. You seem to forget that the BCS is a system that decides which 2 teams get to play in the final game by VOTING. If MLB chose the world series participants by having people vote and also having some computers crunch some numbers, then your example would be valid. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/26 "2011-11-21T21:52:39Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Agreed. Also, if we were to go to a playoff system rematches would happen all the time like they do in the NFL. Green Bay lost to Atlanta in the regular season, but beat the Falcons in the playoffs before going on to win the championship. Nobody in their right mind was advocating that the Packers shouldn’t play in the divisional round playoff because Atlanta had already beat them. While there is some logic to that I also think it misses a crucial point in that the NFL is a much smaller contained eco-system, meaning the degrees of separation between teams is much smaller, and the rules for getting into a playoff that determines a playoff are completely objective, best records. In college teams can play schedules that are very very different (in pros that can be different but again it is still much closer) and then the decision is left up to polls. I don’t have a problem with the BCS per se, as much as I think it tends to cover up the need for a playoff, where teams can play one on one and really earn a trip to the championship. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/27 "2011-11-22T00:15:39Z")
I think I would be neutral on the idea of a rematch if (a) it didn’t involve the SEC, which is already insufferable; and (b) the first round wasn’t so fucking boring. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/28 "2011-11-22T17:52:43Z")
> [@markdash](#): > > Do you have a cite that teams have given championship rings for being AP champions since the advent of the BCS era? No, but even if USC didn’t give them out, “giving out rings” and “being considered legimitate enough champions by the NCAA to be allowed to give out rings” are two different things. > [@markdash](#): > > It just irks me when people mention the AP like it carries any legitimacy these days. Somebody forgot to tell the NCAA, or the FBS schools (that could very easily change the bylaws to say that only the BCS Championship Game winner is entitled to give out FBS “National Championship” rings, but, for some reason, don’t bother), that it doesn’t. > [@markdash](#): > > You can say that the Phillies were the best team in baseball last year and you might be right, and you can even say you consider them the “true” champions since they won the most regular-season games, but ultimately their own league considers another team to be the champion. True, but then again, when was the last time somebody said that the method Major League Baseball uses to determine who plays in the World Series was questionable to say the least? > [@Carmady](#): > > To be fair, there is no NCAA champion in college football. In fact, there is an “NCAA Division I Football Champion” - the defending champion is Eastern Washington. Yes, it is only limited to teams willing to play under the FCS restrictions, but, for some strange reason, the NCAA calls it the “Division I Football Championship” instead of the “FCS Football Championship”. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/29 "2011-11-22T18:15:12Z")
Okay, why doesn’t this forum have the ability to edit your own posts? Anyway, there is one “problem” with the AP poll; it can name a bowl-ineligible team as its national champion. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/30 "2011-11-22T21:57:46Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > Okay, why doesn’t this forum have the ability to edit your own posts? > > Anyway, there is one “problem” with the AP poll; it can name a bowl-ineligible team as its national champion. Why is that a problem? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594/31 "2011-11-22T23:00:37Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Why is that a problem? There would no longer be much of a punishment for cheating. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ncaa-fbs-q-sec-bcs/603594.md?page=1)