I’d love to see a 16 team playoff. The reason it won’t happen is money- the NCAA makes money by the train car off of the existing bowl system. If someone with very deep pockets came in and made the NCAA an offer it couldn’t refuse, we’d have a playoff.
I’d have to oppose these schemes to actually discover the “true” national champ. If we actually had a way to know who was “best,” there would be so little to talk about at this time of year that families night actually have to speak to each other about real life issues at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. ::: shudder :::
And we all know where it ends up if that happens. In the PIT!
I think the BCS is better than nothing. However many teams you involve, somebody is going to whine about being left out. The champions only idea has some merit to it, but remember, that’s how the basketball championship used to be, and there was plenty of whining about that. (Maryland in the early 70s, anyone?)
The more I think of this (and it’s bugged me for years) the first thing we have to do is cut some of the bullshit Bowl games.
All taken from here
Now really, let’s look at some of these and I challenge anyone to defend these as serious “bowl” games.
Wyndham New Orleans Bowl
Champs Sports Bowl
GMAC Bowl
Plains Capital Fort Worth Bowl
Pioneer PureVision Bowl
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
MPC Computers Bowl
I’ll give a pass to the Motor City Bowl(cuz I don’t want to get shot) and the Independence Bowl cuz I got laid there right good.)
Insight Bowl
EV1.net Houston Bowl (leet fuckers are everywhere!)
Mastercard Alamo Bowl. You have to be fucking kidding me here.
Continental Tire Bowl. See above.
Emerald Bowl. Again, see above.
Pacific Life Holiday Bowl. Anyone see a pattern?
Silicon Valley Bowl. This is getting too easy.
Gaylords Hotels Music City Bowl. Well, TWO Music City Bowls. Maybe they’re extra special? :rolleyes:
Vitalis Sun Bowl. Wish I had tickets. Imagine the money I could make scalping these babies?
AutoZone Liberty Bowl, getting into respectable games so I’ll end it here. (Go Badgers in the bullshit Outback Bowl!)
Now check out the networks carrying the games. 1 game goes to NBC. One game goes to FOX. One game goes to CBS.
All the others go to ABC/ESPN. 5 to ABC. 20 to ESPN.
The four-letter network is pimping these fucking games for ratings. The other five are shown on…
Well, now I’m getting into Reeder territory. Maybe I should let him really go off of these fuckers. Reeder, pretend Bush just kicked your dog then made up the Bowl schedule. You’ll be able to rant about this better than I as you may even get a rant on corporate sports coverage.
I beg you to hit the four-letter network. You distract them with the verbage, I’ll sneak up from behind. 
Unless Maryland dealt with a system where only 2 Division1 teams played for the title, it’s a different beast. Or did they have to play other teams in a playoff format? I was born in '73 and not a rabid BB fan so I could be wrong.
Only one team per conference was allowed into the NCAA playoffs. A couple of years there, Maryland was the second best (at worst, third best) team in the country, but did not get in the tournament because they lost the ACC playoffs. (At the time, the ACC was the only major conference with a tournament.)
That’s why I’m treading lightly here. I’m not a big BB fan unless it’s the Badgers or Warriors. (There are no Golden Eagles!)
The SEC is the most overrated conference in sports. It’s good, but it’s not so clearly heads-and-shoulders over everyone else that it’s such a travesty that Auburn isn’t getting in.
Look at Auburn’s non-conference schedule - Louisiana Tech, Citadel, Louisiana Tech. The Citadel’s not even Division I-A for Pete’s sake! And it only won 3 games in the second tier division! Look at some of their conference wins - mighty Mississippi, Miss. St., Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama. Georgia, Tennessee and LSU were the only good teams they played all year.
At least USC took on and beat the ACC champion Virginia Tech, beat the #4 or 5 team in the nation in Cal. And beat Notre Dame, which Tennessee couldn’t manage to do.
I’m not saying Auburn isn’t a great team. They are. Heck, I’m not even saying that they don’t deserve to be in the Orange Bowl, I think they very well might be better than either Oklahoma or USC. But let’s not kid ourselves that Auburn’s schedule was so much tougher than everyone else’s just because they came out of the SEC.
The mere fact that you started this thread is proof that the BCS has accomplished everything it intended to accomplish.
Let’s see here: they cut out well over half of all teams from ever even having a chance at the national championship, they ensure that the conference champs play in a big money bowl game whether they deserve it or not, they skew the data towards the big conference teams, and they put weight on opinion polls which have the same teams in perpetuity.
The fix is in. That a team like Utah can even get a shake is because they gave the BCS people no choice. And the BCS likes it that way. Wanna know why? Because you’re compaining about it. It may disgust you, but it keeps your interest piqued.
In other words, you’re being used. How does it feel to be taken for a ride like this? I hate it, which is why I don’t have any particular interest in college football. The pros are much better for having a playoff, if you ask me. But the BCS people never will, of course.
Any bowl that has a decent-sized parade and so forth must be kept because it’s more than a football game. I like the Rose and Orange Bowl parades better than I like the football games associated with them. I think New Orleans oughtta have a parade, too, and let their strippers loose for that one.
How about we drop those stupid pre-conference games and have the conference champions play each other at the end of the season before the bowls?
Please tell me you’re hoping for female strippers! Otherwise, well, I’ll accuse you of being on the BCS board of voters. :dubious: 
expanding the season for a 4 or 8 game playoff wouldn’t expand it by that much. The players wouldn’t miss that much school, they only play on saturdays. In the 65 team bball playoffs they’re playing thursday(probably travelling at least on wednesday unless you’re Bobby Knight), friday and all weekend, then doing it the next week too. I bball they miss way more school than football players do, and football playoffs are over break. We have a playoff in high school, in the pros, why not college.
every year something is screwed up with this bcs, every year they tweak it and it never works. Let’s get out of the dark ages now.
I’d like to see Utah play Auburn…i think.
Thank you Neurotik, this is so on the money. The entire SEC conference had two wins against other BCS teams and one of those, LSU over Oregon State was decided byt the OSU kicker missing three extra points. The SEC argument is always circular…Tennessee, Georgia, Auburn, Florida are all so good because they play each other…huh? It is a god conference of course, but I am so sick of the continual fawning over this conference. The BCS system sucks, but the right two teams will be playing.
This sounds more like a problem with how the ACC chooses its champion than it does with letting only conference champions into the NCAA tournament. (I hate conference tournaments.)
I like the idea that only champions get a chance to play for the national title. If you can’t win you conference, why should you be allowed to play in the NCAA playoffs?
Actually, they had three wins. Georgia beat a mediocre Georgia Tech team, LSU beat a decent Oregon State, and Kentucky beat an absolutely terrible Indiana team. Call me less than impressed.
Compare to the Pac-10, ASU took down the second place Big 10 team Iowa and a mediocre Northwestern, UCLA took down a pretty bad Illinois, and OSU missed taking down LSU by one point. And, as I said, USC beat the ACC champion and Notre Dame.
Or the Big 12, which had Oklahoma beat a mediocre Oregon, Texas beat mediocre Arkansas, Texas A&M to beat a mediocre Clemson, Oklahoma St. beat a mediocre UCLA, Colorado beat a bad Washington State and Nebraska beat Big East champ Pitt.
My guess is, you’d see a quick re-evaluation of the quality of the SEC if their football teams actually played non-Conference BCS teams with any regularity.
How about every year? You know, in the bowls.
2003 bowl records:
SEC: 5-2, including a national championship
Pac 10: 4-2
Big 12: 3-4
Y’all got something else that ain’t complete and utter bullshit?
I’d prefer a playoff but I don’t see it happening. The bowls are too well entrenched and having the bowls are incompatible with a playoff system. Multiple neutral-site bowl games cannot be used for first or second round playoff games in a 16 team playoff because they will not attract the sufficiently sizeable and big-spending crowds the bowl sponsors are after. Bowl games aren’t designed as playoff games. All they are are tourist attractions. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with a tourist attraction, but bowl cities want big spenders to come to town early, spend money, go to the game, spend money, and then leave. In a 16-team playoff system using neutral sight bowl games, the first two rounds will not be able to attract sufficiently large out-of-town crowds to satisfy the bowls so the bowls are opposing the change. Fans aren’t made of money and fans need some time to make travel plans. Having the season end at the end of November or first week in December and then saying, OK, your first round game is next Saturday in Nashville, San Antonio, El Paso, San Diego or Boise simply isn’t going to lead a lot of fans to automatically open their wallets on such short notice and make travel plans. People need time to make plans, and to decide if they want to go to the first round game, the second round game or all of them. If there is a playoff system, the initial rounds are going to have to occur on the home stadiums of half the teams and by necessity cut the smaller bowls out of it entirely.
College administrators oppose the change too. Why, because at the moment when their school goes to a bowl game, even a small bowl game, they get a free vacation to the game and they like that a lot. They don’t have the headaches that come with hosting a home game and they get a free road trip, which everybody always likes.
2003 has no bearing on 2004. Since we’re talking about this season’s national championship, let’s stick to this year, shall we? In 2004, did the SEC distinguish itself with its non-conference schedule and record? No, it didn’t.
By the way, you forgot to mention that the Pac-10 includes a national championship, too.
Kinda’ forgot about Florida beating Florida State, didn’t ya’?