Some Good Questions
The Farce that is the BCS system
In what system does an undefeated team that beat six bowl teams, including the No. 1 team for the last half of the season, have no shot at the title? In what system does a former No. 1 team that only played one bad half in September and would be favored to win the national championship by every sports book have no chance to win the championship? And in what system does another former No. 1 team that loses one game on one freaky play get passed over for a title shot in favor of a team it beat on a neutral field by 10 points? It’s a system so absurd and illogical that only Paris Hilton might be able to understand it.
8 game playoff system. Let’s go.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 
January 6, 2009 6:33 am
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And in what sportswriter’s mind is the Cotton Bowl in Dallas a neutral field for Texas? Sorry, he left that one out. Once again, they’ll try to tweak a system that needs to be scrapped.
The bowls need to go back to what they used to be and to what 33 of the 34 are now, a nice reward to the teams for a good season and an economic shot in the arm for the host city.
Anything is better than this, where I think at least 4 teams will lay claim to the championship. My vote goes to Utah. Very impressive.
Yeah, I think they’d have to get my nod as well, Rob.
I don’t think a playoff will ever come about but if they got rid of the stupid BCS rankings we could return to the old way; mutiple number 1s leading to parochial arguments “we’re number 1”, “no, we’re number 1”! It is more fun that way. And I agree, Utah should be number 1, they won all their games.
I have to disagree. I think BCS has been a disaster. I know that people feel like there just HAS to be a champion, but why is that so? The old system worked great for more than half a century, what was really so bad about it?
When given a choice between centralization and noncentralization, I almost always go against centralization. Things simply work better that way. Every sports organization, AP, ESPN, etc, could name their own champion and that was just fine. The Big Ten was the Big Ten and who cared about anyone else?
Now what’s happened is we’ve lost the tradition and charm of conferences and we still have endless arguments about who is number one. Playoffs won’t change that, people will still argue that some team had a bad seed in the playoffs, or was excluded completely.
But mankind is driven to centralization for some strange reason. It almost is never better when that happens but it doesn’t stop the seemingly innate drive to centralize.
Bad seed/good seed, who cares? Especially in an 8 team tourney. Win your games or shut up; if you have your toughest test early on then better for you.
The tradition and charm went out the window when the dollars came in, Skyler, as is so often the case with…well, everything.
Every sport at every level has a tournament to determine a champion … except NCAA Division 1 football. If we’re going to have a mythical national champion, we may as well have mythical games. Fewer injuries and scandals.
And most of the conferences still have charm out the wazoo, Skyler. There is NOTHING like Saturday night in Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. People at Ohio State, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, etc would tell you the same.
Yeah, I honestly think they should just drop the pretense and start paying these players. These young men make the money for these schools and they don’t get one dime of it, except that they also have to do even more work by going to school. I’m all for everyone being educated, but I think a lot of these guys would be better off getting paid now and then going back to college, if they so desire, after their athletic careers have waned. As it is, the NCAA has created a great way to get free talent and make billions of dollars.
Well, on one hand they are paying them, Skyler: a full ride at lots of these Div. 1 schools cost $35-50 thousand a year and then some, soup to nuts. It’s certainly nothing approaching what one makes in the Pros, but then since very few of them ever will approach the Pros it’s not such a bad deal, provided they actually attend a class occasionally.
Dream on. Can you say “TV revenue?”
I’d like to see the two worst teams matched up in the “Ti-D Bowl” – loser takes the cup…
Bing, I’ve nothing against the students that want to be students who also play football, but the money made by USC, Notre Dame, or any of the big name teams, is gargantuan compared to the scholarship outlays. Those young men generate a LOT of dough, even in smaller schools. The actual cost of just a few more students sitting in a classroom paid for by nonathletes anyway is nearly zero anyway.
These athletes are being taken advantage of, no matter how you look at it.