Monday, December 03, 2007
Postseason Follow-up
While we're on the topic of college football, here are a few more things I have to say now that the regular season is over. For a guy like me who really likes upsets, you couldn't have asked for a much better season, from the first week (I actually remember saying before the season began, "Hey look -- Appalachian State is playing Michigan. I hear App State is a really good I-AA team; wouldn't it be crazy if they beat Michigan in the Big House? Naw, never going to happen) to the last (my father-in-law and I watched with amazement as Pitt got bad call after bad call and still managed to beat WVU). All the commentary out there is about how crazy and unpredictable this season has been.
Except for BYU (who doesn't get commented on because, thanks to the Mountain West's suicidal TV deal, no one knows they're fielding a team anymore). BYU's season was exactly like last season's: two early losses to good-but-not-great nonconference opponents, and then an undefeated tear through the conference to land in the Las Vegas Bowl for the third year in a row. BYU owns the Mountain West. If only the conference could get a deal to pit the champion against someone better than the 5th place Pac-10 team.*
***
I'm happy for Hawaii and will be rooting hard for them in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia. I spoke with a friend yesterday who didn't want them in a BCS game because he thinks their soft schedule proves they're no good. I say it proves we have no idea how good they are. Thirteen (13!) Top-5 teams lost to unranked teams this year. Hawaii also played a bunch of unranked teams and didn't lose to any of them. The point is to win games. My high school calculus teacher, when we complained of the difficulty of his exams, said, "If someone gets 100% on a test, I haven't measured how much they know." We still haven't measured how much the Warriors know. I say put them up against Georgia. If they win, it will turn out they actually are one of the best teams in the country (though we still won't know if they're THE best). If not, well then, we know how much they know. If they were to have met, say, Bowling Green, in a bowl game and beaten them soundly, we'd still be clueless.
Of course, the Hawaii situation brings up all sorts of questions for other non-BCS teams, like my own. Hawaii got to a big-time bowl by playing what even I admit is one of the weakest schedules in memory. Even Bronco Mendenhall, BYU's coach, wondered whether it might be a good strategy to "schedule down" and go undefeated against a bunch of cupcakes if you want to make a name for yourself. That might be the motivation behind Nevada's decision this week to breach their contract to play at BYU next year and instead play Grambling State at home.
But I think the MWC, WAC, C-USA, MAC, and Sun Belt teams that want national respect should still schedule up. Look at Boise State. They had a great year last year, but it wasn't until they beat Oklahoma that they really got respect. They've been treated a lot more deferentially in the polls this year than they otherwise would have. If someone scheduled an Oklahoma in the regular season (as, say, Tulsa did this year) and beat them then, it would do wonders for the whole non-BCS world.
***
Further, as I sit on my pro-playoff, anti-BCS soapbox, I am beginning to think more and more that as bad as this season turned out to be for the BCS (the point of the BCS is to pit the two best teams against each other, but this year no one has any idea who those two teams are), the only way the whole thing will implode is if somehow a team from the MWC or WAC gets into the national championship game and wins it. That would be the ultimate worst-case scenario because it would show The Powers That Be that they are wrong when they declare that six certain conferences are inherently better than the other five. Sure, the Powers are OK with throwing Hawaii a Sugar Bowl bone this year, but the Warriors were never considered at all for the championship, and no similarly situated team ever will be.
In order to save college football, a non-BCS team (BYU, I hope) needs to do the following. It's my 10-step plan.
1. Have a really good season one year (say, go 10-2).
2. Beat a BCS-conference team in a bowl game.
3. End the season ranked, somewhere.
4. Keep a majority of key players, and therefore start the next season (Season 2) ranked low, around #20-25.
5. Have an even better record in Season 2 (say, 11-1 or 12-0).
6. Get to a BCS game in Season 2 and win.
7. Again, keep a majority of key players and therefore start Season 3 ranked a bit higher, say in the #10-15 range.
8. Go undefeated in Season 3 against a slate of at least two or three respectable BCS-conference foes and no I-AA foes (preferably including a ranked team or two, so it would help if other in-conference teams were also having extraordinarily good years).
9. Have all the traditional powers get knocked off by unranked teams.
10. Go to the national championship game and win.
Fortunately for BYU, step 1 is done, and steps 2 and 3 should be taken care of three weeks from now. The team is very young, so the part about keeping important players in order to remain ranked at the beginning of the following season is on track (the QB is a sophomore and the star running back is a freshman!).
This is why I like being a BYU fan -- where's the fun in cheering for, say, Ohio State? Anything less than a national championship to them is a disappointment. We Cougar fans get to rail against the system, decry the injustice, see our team prove it's one of the very best of the have-nots, and we can realistically dream about improbable scenarios like the 10-step plan.
***
In closing, I present my design for a playoff, which I clearly don't expect would ever happen, but I want to describe it anyway. We should have a 16-team playoff which would begin the week following the conference championship games. Every (EVERY) conference champion gets an automatic bid, and the five at-large spots are filled by the five highest non-conference-champions in a BCS-like ranking system (except that no conference can place more than two teams). Teams are seeded, regardless of conference affiliation, on those same rankings. We have two rounds of playoffs the first two weeks, played on the home field of the higher-seeded team, to narrow it to a field of 4. The 12 losing teams are then free to go to a bowl game according to their conference contracts or whatever. The four semifinalists play in a true Championship Series after the other bowls are over, and the championship game is a week later.
Using this year's results and calendar (though it might be better to start a week earlier), you'd have the following matchups this coming Saturday, December 8:
#16 Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt Champion) at #1 Ohio State (Big Ten Champion)
#15 Central Michigan (MAC Champion) at #2 LSU (SEC Champion)
#14 Central Florida (C-USA Champion) at #3 Virginia Tech (ACC Champion)
#13 BYU (MWC Champion) at #4 Oklahoma (Big XII Champion)
#12 Boston College (ACC at-large) at #5 Georgia (SEC at-large)
#11 Illinois (Big Ten at-large) at #6 Missouri (Big XII at-large)
#10 Arizona State (Pac-10 at-large) at #7 USC (Pac-10 champion)
#9 Hawaii (WAC champion) at #8 West Virginia (Big East champion)
The winners play the next round Dec. 15, and everyone gets bowl invitations except the winning four and they live through the holidays normally. If there are no upsets, then on, say, Jan. 3 #4 Oklahoma plays #1 Ohio State in one neutral-site semifinal bowl game, and #2 LSU plays #3 Virginia Tech the next day. Then, on Jan. 11, the winners of those two games meet to determine the national championship.
Suppose Ohio State lives up to its #1 billing and wins it all. Will anyone dispute that it deserves it, having had to knock off four conference champions (Sun Belt, Big XII, Pac-10, and SEC) in the process? I don't think so.
Sure, it's not perfect, but as we've seen repeatedly, neither is the system we have now.
***
One final word: Sometimes I don't want the BCS to be fixed. Sometimes I hope the whole wreckage of a mess will stay the way it is, because it's so much fun to rail against it. If the system worked, we'd be reduced to only being able to complain about how our favorite team made a stupid fumble that cost them an important game, rather than being able to blame our misfortunes on a faceless "system." And where's the fun in that?
* Not that I'm knocking UCLA - they are, after all, one of the aforesaid good-but-not-great teams who beat BYU early this year. But bowl game rematches of regular season games (not to mention previews of games next season) are less interesting. If BYU loses, they're toast, and if they win, everyone will say that's what they were supposed to do.
Except for BYU (who doesn't get commented on because, thanks to the Mountain West's suicidal TV deal, no one knows they're fielding a team anymore). BYU's season was exactly like last season's: two early losses to good-but-not-great nonconference opponents, and then an undefeated tear through the conference to land in the Las Vegas Bowl for the third year in a row. BYU owns the Mountain West. If only the conference could get a deal to pit the champion against someone better than the 5th place Pac-10 team.*
***
I'm happy for Hawaii and will be rooting hard for them in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia. I spoke with a friend yesterday who didn't want them in a BCS game because he thinks their soft schedule proves they're no good. I say it proves we have no idea how good they are. Thirteen (13!) Top-5 teams lost to unranked teams this year. Hawaii also played a bunch of unranked teams and didn't lose to any of them. The point is to win games. My high school calculus teacher, when we complained of the difficulty of his exams, said, "If someone gets 100% on a test, I haven't measured how much they know." We still haven't measured how much the Warriors know. I say put them up against Georgia. If they win, it will turn out they actually are one of the best teams in the country (though we still won't know if they're THE best). If not, well then, we know how much they know. If they were to have met, say, Bowling Green, in a bowl game and beaten them soundly, we'd still be clueless.
Of course, the Hawaii situation brings up all sorts of questions for other non-BCS teams, like my own. Hawaii got to a big-time bowl by playing what even I admit is one of the weakest schedules in memory. Even Bronco Mendenhall, BYU's coach, wondered whether it might be a good strategy to "schedule down" and go undefeated against a bunch of cupcakes if you want to make a name for yourself. That might be the motivation behind Nevada's decision this week to breach their contract to play at BYU next year and instead play Grambling State at home.
But I think the MWC, WAC, C-USA, MAC, and Sun Belt teams that want national respect should still schedule up. Look at Boise State. They had a great year last year, but it wasn't until they beat Oklahoma that they really got respect. They've been treated a lot more deferentially in the polls this year than they otherwise would have. If someone scheduled an Oklahoma in the regular season (as, say, Tulsa did this year) and beat them then, it would do wonders for the whole non-BCS world.
***
Further, as I sit on my pro-playoff, anti-BCS soapbox, I am beginning to think more and more that as bad as this season turned out to be for the BCS (the point of the BCS is to pit the two best teams against each other, but this year no one has any idea who those two teams are), the only way the whole thing will implode is if somehow a team from the MWC or WAC gets into the national championship game and wins it. That would be the ultimate worst-case scenario because it would show The Powers That Be that they are wrong when they declare that six certain conferences are inherently better than the other five. Sure, the Powers are OK with throwing Hawaii a Sugar Bowl bone this year, but the Warriors were never considered at all for the championship, and no similarly situated team ever will be.
In order to save college football, a non-BCS team (BYU, I hope) needs to do the following. It's my 10-step plan.
1. Have a really good season one year (say, go 10-2).
2. Beat a BCS-conference team in a bowl game.
3. End the season ranked, somewhere.
4. Keep a majority of key players, and therefore start the next season (Season 2) ranked low, around #20-25.
5. Have an even better record in Season 2 (say, 11-1 or 12-0).
6. Get to a BCS game in Season 2 and win.
7. Again, keep a majority of key players and therefore start Season 3 ranked a bit higher, say in the #10-15 range.
8. Go undefeated in Season 3 against a slate of at least two or three respectable BCS-conference foes and no I-AA foes (preferably including a ranked team or two, so it would help if other in-conference teams were also having extraordinarily good years).
9. Have all the traditional powers get knocked off by unranked teams.
10. Go to the national championship game and win.
Fortunately for BYU, step 1 is done, and steps 2 and 3 should be taken care of three weeks from now. The team is very young, so the part about keeping important players in order to remain ranked at the beginning of the following season is on track (the QB is a sophomore and the star running back is a freshman!).
This is why I like being a BYU fan -- where's the fun in cheering for, say, Ohio State? Anything less than a national championship to them is a disappointment. We Cougar fans get to rail against the system, decry the injustice, see our team prove it's one of the very best of the have-nots, and we can realistically dream about improbable scenarios like the 10-step plan.
***
In closing, I present my design for a playoff, which I clearly don't expect would ever happen, but I want to describe it anyway. We should have a 16-team playoff which would begin the week following the conference championship games. Every (EVERY) conference champion gets an automatic bid, and the five at-large spots are filled by the five highest non-conference-champions in a BCS-like ranking system (except that no conference can place more than two teams). Teams are seeded, regardless of conference affiliation, on those same rankings. We have two rounds of playoffs the first two weeks, played on the home field of the higher-seeded team, to narrow it to a field of 4. The 12 losing teams are then free to go to a bowl game according to their conference contracts or whatever. The four semifinalists play in a true Championship Series after the other bowls are over, and the championship game is a week later.
Using this year's results and calendar (though it might be better to start a week earlier), you'd have the following matchups this coming Saturday, December 8:
#16 Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt Champion) at #1 Ohio State (Big Ten Champion)
#15 Central Michigan (MAC Champion) at #2 LSU (SEC Champion)
#14 Central Florida (C-USA Champion) at #3 Virginia Tech (ACC Champion)
#13 BYU (MWC Champion) at #4 Oklahoma (Big XII Champion)
#12 Boston College (ACC at-large) at #5 Georgia (SEC at-large)
#11 Illinois (Big Ten at-large) at #6 Missouri (Big XII at-large)
#10 Arizona State (Pac-10 at-large) at #7 USC (Pac-10 champion)
#9 Hawaii (WAC champion) at #8 West Virginia (Big East champion)
The winners play the next round Dec. 15, and everyone gets bowl invitations except the winning four and they live through the holidays normally. If there are no upsets, then on, say, Jan. 3 #4 Oklahoma plays #1 Ohio State in one neutral-site semifinal bowl game, and #2 LSU plays #3 Virginia Tech the next day. Then, on Jan. 11, the winners of those two games meet to determine the national championship.
Suppose Ohio State lives up to its #1 billing and wins it all. Will anyone dispute that it deserves it, having had to knock off four conference champions (Sun Belt, Big XII, Pac-10, and SEC) in the process? I don't think so.
Sure, it's not perfect, but as we've seen repeatedly, neither is the system we have now.
***
One final word: Sometimes I don't want the BCS to be fixed. Sometimes I hope the whole wreckage of a mess will stay the way it is, because it's so much fun to rail against it. If the system worked, we'd be reduced to only being able to complain about how our favorite team made a stupid fumble that cost them an important game, rather than being able to blame our misfortunes on a faceless "system." And where's the fun in that?
* Not that I'm knocking UCLA - they are, after all, one of the aforesaid good-but-not-great teams who beat BYU early this year. But bowl game rematches of regular season games (not to mention previews of games next season) are less interesting. If BYU loses, they're toast, and if they win, everyone will say that's what they were supposed to do.
Comments: Post a Comment
