(Emphasis added)
And if Florida beats Oklahoma, then they will have won the championship fair and square.
There is no perfect way to determine a champion. The more games that are played, the clearer the picture becomes. It would take an infinite number of games to know, without a doubt, who is the best team. If every team played every other team 3 times, then you would reduce the uncertainty to an insignificant amount. But that’s not feasible. Neither is playing every other team 1 time.
So there will always be an argument from somebody. The goal, I believe, should be to reduce the uncertainty as much as possible with a reasonable number of games.
Since I don’t think that it’s realistic to think that the Bowl System will ever be scrapped and replaced with a playoff, my current favorite plan (that I can’t find online now) basically has the traditional bowls, the 4-6 biggest played on Dec 31 and Jan 1, then a vote on who plays in the NCG around Jan 8-10.
Under that system, I think that Utah would get picked to play Southern Cal, Florida, or Oklahoma.
So why not have the best team from each conference play each other? It can be seeded and then the final two teams would be in some sort of championship or bowl game?
This is pretty much exactly why I don’t follow college football at all, even though if I did, it would give me a whole second day of wonderful, wonderful football to watch every week. Plus, I live a mile from the Utes stadium, so I could just take a walk up there when they play home games and have a really great time. Except, it seems like none of the games matter. Who cares if the Utes work their assess off and have a perfect season, including a major upset, when everybody can just snort and say “Yeah, but we all know who the real champion would be in a completely hypothetical game…”
I KNOW there won’t be a playoff any time soon, and probably not in my lifetime.
But I know the current system sucks. NOT because I disagree with most of the teams chosen as hypothetical “national champions.” NOT because I think the coaches and/or writers are stupid or biased. I think most of the writers and coaches are smart guys who know WAAAY more about football than I do, and who are TRYING to cast informed, honest votes.
The problem is, no matter HOW smart they are, they’re offering nothing more than opinions. And opinions are an idiotic way of determining champions.
Writers think Florida and Oklahoma are a lot better than Utah. I think so, too. But so what? Why not let the teams play each other and THEN decide?
Screw Bobby Bowden’s opinion. Screw Mike Lupica’s opinion. Screw MY opinion!!! Guesswork is no way to crown a champion.
IF traditionalists are determined never to have a playoff, fine. But in that case, writers and coaches should admit tha there’s no good way to determine a champion, that VOTING for a champion is farcical, and that they won’t take part in these ballots any more.
You like the bowl system? Fine- we can have a bunch of meaningless exhibition games. Enjoy them.
But quit pretending you’re a champion just because Bob Ryan and Bill Plaschke SAY you are. You can call yourself a champion AFTER you’ve beaten all other contenders for that title. NOT before.
No shit genius. I don’t know what crawled up your ass and made you a dick today, but of course it is “just opinion.” Just like all the coaches polls, the sportswriters polls, and the algorithms they develop for the computer polls are all “just opinions”. Ease up champ.
Fair enough. If the hangup is over not using the word “national champion”, knock yourself out. You all can argue amongst yourselves over the language you want to use. When you reach a consensus, let me know.
They deserve a “shot”. Fuck, I’d be ecstatic if they they had a “shot”. There is nothing I’d love more than watching dreams of the posters here when the Utes don’t win an “and one”, or two in a row with a 4 team or 3 with an 8. There is no way they could win 3 in a row against the best 7 other teams in the nation. NOTE FOR DSYOUNG: Those previous statements are OPINIONS. If that gets your panties in a bunch, I apologize.
Just curious, if we had such a system, do you think we’d see the top NFL draft prospects playing? I think under such a system, we’d get a lot of so-called injuries which half of the NFL comes down with to avoid playing in the Pro Bowl.
How many times have we seen a lousy bowl game performance by a high NFL draft pick? Quite often. If there were even more games, I’m sure we’d see even more players opting out of playing games in late December/January as we get closer to the NFL draft. Would you risk your million dollar NFL contract to win a football playoff for old State U.? Or, would you come down with streptodollarosis and avoid getting injured playing 2 or 3 games against talented teams who would key on you?
You mean the Arizona Cardinals who are winning? Yes, I’m watching it. I’d say Leinart, Boldin, and Fitz were all excellent college players. So far, Matt Ryan looks like Ryan Leaf.
It’s not about the name. Whatever term you use, the implication of the whole BCS is that the selected team is the best in the nation for that particular season. But, in the absence of actual games between actual teams, rather than guesswork by journalists and coaches, there’s no way to make such a determination.
As RickJay suggested, there’s a large and important difference between arguing that the Phillies were not the best MLB team of 2008, on the one hand, and accepting that the Phillies did what it took to beat all comers and win the trophy, on the other. Best team or not, the Phillies are the legitimate champions; you can never say the same about the BCS “champions,” no matter how unanimous the decision, because the system itself is ridiculously and fundamentally flawed.
As a Gator fan/alum, it wouldn’t bother me in the least if Utah ends up the number 1 team in one of the post-season polls, if it meant to eventual, meaningful change in the way this is done. Maybe let the Mountain West or WAC or whatever conference into the BCS and kick out the Little 10?
So, how many teams have to be in a playoff for the winner to be considered a “champion”? Would 4 or 8 be enough for you guys? Or does it have to be at least 16, 32, or 64? I’d like a number, because the difference between the BCS and other sports/divisions is one of degree.
8 teams. There are 6 BCS conferences. Take the winner of each conference, and then two wild card teams who have the highest remaining records, be they in an official BCS conference or not.
This year, the playoff teams would have been:
Cincinnati (Big East winner)
Penn State (Big 10 winner)
USC (PAC 10 winner)
Florida (SEC winner)
Oklahoma (Big 12 winner)
Virginia Tech (ACC winner)
Wild card teams:
Boise State
Utah
Sure, teams like Texas and Alabama could still complain, but the argument to them would be simple: if you want to be in the tournament, win your conference. You didn’t, so shut up.
It seems pretty simple to me just to keep the BCS rankings and have a 16 team tournament. The top 15 teams get an automatic in, and 16 and 17 fight it out for the wildcard.
All conferences are like this. I know that in the big 10 you don’t have all the teams play each other. It’s possible for two teams in the same conference to go undefeated.
It depends how you organize the league. As has been pointed out, you could in theory have a sports league with no playoffs at all, simply awarding the championship to the team with the best regular season record. The English Premier League of soccer works this way, as did the National League of baseball for decades before the American League and World Series were invented.
In Division 1 bowl football you have the inconvenient circumstance that there are 11 conferences, an ugly number if you just wanted to play off conference champions to reach a championship game, plus “independent” teams like Army and Navy. And, already pointed out, in some conferences you don’t have teams play as many games as their are teams, and so you’d end up with the possibility of two undefeated teams in a conference and either have to have a playoff game or use a lame-ass tiebreaking system.
In theory - I stress IN THEORY - you could reorganize into 16 conferences, which enables every conference to play a full-opponent schedule, and then just have a 16-team elinination tournament to decide the champion. For reasons involving billions of dollars in football money this can’t happen, but at least you’d end up with a real champion.