Thursday, August 28, 2008
My New Position On College Football (Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The BCS)
Tonight the first college football games of the season get underway, and my heart is lifted up with joy that the long dark winter of summer (the season with good weather, but without good sports) is finally over. It's like a ray of light.
But the dark gloomy cloud of the BCS still hovers over the college football landscape. Indeed, one of the reasons I love college football so much is because I hate the BCS so much. If the system were perfect, I couldn't fill up with nearly as much righteous indignation, and many games would lose the "it's personal" nature they've taken on for me. In the past I've regularly expressed publicly my specific grievances against the BCS (search "BCS" on this blog and you'll find many entries), so I thought it would be appropriate to present my current stance toward my nemesis as this season begins.
Only, now that I think about it, I've totally changed my mind.
Well, maybe not totally. But today I am announcing that I am taking a new position with respect to the BCS. I'm still opposed to it, but I'm narrowing my reasons and shifting my focus. Most specifically, I am (temporarily) abandoning my previous position that the BCS should be replaced by a playoff.
The Problem
This offseason, I've spent some time every now and then considering what it is about the BCS that chaps my hide.
Is it the fact that it disrupted the old, traditional bowl system, and now you get things like Texas appearing in the Rose Bowl? No.
Is it that it's not a sensible or legitimate way to crown a national champion? That's a problem, but it doesn't bother me very much. There has been some controversy along the way (might Auburn or Utah have been the best team in the country in 2004?), but all in all, the BCS does a decent job of finding the best two teams in the country and letting them duke it out against each other. It's not as pure as a playoff, but it's certainly better than the old bowl system.
No, the thing I hate about the BCS is its artificial creation of a second-class tier of football teams. If you are a member of one of the five "non-BCS" conferences, you are automatically disqualified from the national championship discussion before a single down is played. It's a cartel. It's apartheid. And it's wrong.
That is why I am not going to waste my time this year pining away for a playoff. Besides the fact that it's just never going to happen, that still won't solve the problem. If we were to institute a playoff, it would probably give automatic bids to the six cartel conferences and leave the five second-class conferences at the back of the bus.
The Solution
So even though I realize that my personal opinions are even less likely to be heeded than the nationwide call for a playoff, I now set out my plan for how to fix the problem and bring the whole of Division 1A football onto the same playing field.
We're going to work within the BCS system as it currently exists: participating bowls are the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls, as well as the poorly named BCS National Championship Game. That's ten teams that need to be selected. The problem with the selection process isn't so much the computer polls or the strength-of-schedule component; it's the automatic bid requirements that differ from conference to conference.
Therefore, the solution is simple: make one little tweak to the automatic bid rules. Instead of giving automatic bids to the champions of the PAC-10, Big XII, Big Ten (Eleven), ACC, Big East, and SEC, regardless of ranking in the BCS standings, I propose that we give automatic bids to the six conference champions who are ranked highest in the BCS standings. Most of the time, those will be the same teams.
Notre Dame (and Navy and Army - the other independents get the same treatment as Notre Dame), and teams that finish second in their conference will have to meet the same requirements that they do now. The seventh-highest-ranked conference champion will have to meet the same requirements that a second-place team does in order to be eligible. Then the bowls choose from among the eligible teams to fill out the four at-large spots.
That's it. Just that one change. That's all I'm asking for. It will do wonders for the sport.
But the dark gloomy cloud of the BCS still hovers over the college football landscape. Indeed, one of the reasons I love college football so much is because I hate the BCS so much. If the system were perfect, I couldn't fill up with nearly as much righteous indignation, and many games would lose the "it's personal" nature they've taken on for me. In the past I've regularly expressed publicly my specific grievances against the BCS (search "BCS" on this blog and you'll find many entries), so I thought it would be appropriate to present my current stance toward my nemesis as this season begins.
Only, now that I think about it, I've totally changed my mind.
Well, maybe not totally. But today I am announcing that I am taking a new position with respect to the BCS. I'm still opposed to it, but I'm narrowing my reasons and shifting my focus. Most specifically, I am (temporarily) abandoning my previous position that the BCS should be replaced by a playoff.
The Problem
This offseason, I've spent some time every now and then considering what it is about the BCS that chaps my hide.
Is it the fact that it disrupted the old, traditional bowl system, and now you get things like Texas appearing in the Rose Bowl? No.
Is it that it's not a sensible or legitimate way to crown a national champion? That's a problem, but it doesn't bother me very much. There has been some controversy along the way (might Auburn or Utah have been the best team in the country in 2004?), but all in all, the BCS does a decent job of finding the best two teams in the country and letting them duke it out against each other. It's not as pure as a playoff, but it's certainly better than the old bowl system.
No, the thing I hate about the BCS is its artificial creation of a second-class tier of football teams. If you are a member of one of the five "non-BCS" conferences, you are automatically disqualified from the national championship discussion before a single down is played. It's a cartel. It's apartheid. And it's wrong.
That is why I am not going to waste my time this year pining away for a playoff. Besides the fact that it's just never going to happen, that still won't solve the problem. If we were to institute a playoff, it would probably give automatic bids to the six cartel conferences and leave the five second-class conferences at the back of the bus.
The Solution
So even though I realize that my personal opinions are even less likely to be heeded than the nationwide call for a playoff, I now set out my plan for how to fix the problem and bring the whole of Division 1A football onto the same playing field.
We're going to work within the BCS system as it currently exists: participating bowls are the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls, as well as the poorly named BCS National Championship Game. That's ten teams that need to be selected. The problem with the selection process isn't so much the computer polls or the strength-of-schedule component; it's the automatic bid requirements that differ from conference to conference.
Therefore, the solution is simple: make one little tweak to the automatic bid rules. Instead of giving automatic bids to the champions of the PAC-10, Big XII, Big Ten (Eleven), ACC, Big East, and SEC, regardless of ranking in the BCS standings, I propose that we give automatic bids to the six conference champions who are ranked highest in the BCS standings. Most of the time, those will be the same teams.
Notre Dame (and Navy and Army - the other independents get the same treatment as Notre Dame), and teams that finish second in their conference will have to meet the same requirements that they do now. The seventh-highest-ranked conference champion will have to meet the same requirements that a second-place team does in order to be eligible. Then the bowls choose from among the eligible teams to fill out the four at-large spots.
That's it. Just that one change. That's all I'm asking for. It will do wonders for the sport.
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