BCS BS
30 Rock, Law & Order, Scrubs. Three solid shows. Also three things I'll be watching off my DVR Thursday night instead of the Fedex BCS National Championship Game. BTW, to the powers that be, "BCS National Championship" is redundant, since you have Championship twice. Those of you who know the real BMT probably know of my hatred of the Bowl Championship Series. The rest of you now get the details. This has been something that has been brewing in my mind long before we started the DC Sports Page, but I have motivation to write it this BCS season.
Michael Wilbon wrote a column that inspired me to write this even more. Like I really needed more impetus to do it. While I am not a sports journalist, and have never been a huge fan of college football, I agree with his stance 100%. Why watch any bowl game except one, when it has already been decided, down to two teams, who the champion will be? And they can't even get that right.
This is how much I care. I didn't know who was in this game until I looked it up again. Yeah, I was sure it had Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida in the mix, but I wasn't sure who. How Texas got kicked out, Utah not included, and USC dismissed for an early loss qualifies as a proper way to decide a championship?
I get that the bowl system is important on many factors. I find it ridiculous that anyone says it is tradition. The old bowl system is tradition. The BCS is not. The BCS celebrates the bowl system. They celebrate it so much, they created the BCS National Championship game and still says no playoff is needed. My alma mater, the University of Maryland, loves the money the BCS provides. Who says a playoff system including bowl games?
Here are the reasons I've heard that the BCS should stay in place.
- The BCS keeps the bowl system tradition. Wrong! The BCS is designed to ignore the bowl system and pre-decide the potential champion.
- The BCS games are the only way to allow schools a chance to make big money. Wrong! The BCS only allows BCS schools a chance to make the big money. The rest are relegated to lower bowls, which still generate revenue, but not nearly as much as the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, and Rose Bowls, in addition to the BCS National Championship Series. And since you have to be in a BCS conference to get to a BCS game, it's very limited.
- A playoff would take too long. Wrong! Last I checked, the championship game has yet to be played. Way back when, like pre-BCS, all the pertinent bowls were played on New Years Day. January 2nd, we would have decided on a champion. Now we are talking about a week later. Why not have 4 teams play New Years Day and the winners play the week later for the championship?
Of course there are positive reasons to go to a playoff.
- The bowl system can be maintained. Somewhere around 2001 or 2002, ESPN took every bowl game and put it into a playoff system. And it worked! Why can't it be the Rose & Sugar semi-final bowls, Orange, Fiesta, Cotton, and Gator quarter-final bowls? This was not ESPN's exact system, but you get the idea.
- Every professional and all other major college sports have a version of playoffs where the teams hit the field or court and winners eventually play winners. See Division II football. They can do it.
- Computer decision. Because of some funny computer calculation, Texas gets left out.
In the coming years, ESPN is going to broadcast many of the BCS games. Some think this might get the universities to finally accept a playoff. I'm not so sure. I get the feeling the suits in Bristol, CT might cave to them and their precious bowl games.
Comments
We talked about the BCS this past weekend. Something we both agree on. Wilbon's article hit the nail on the head. My family tradition on New Year's was being able to enjoy watching all of the bowl games on TV with my dad. It was being able to watch some of the best college athletes and see who'll be in the pros. Even when we couldn't watch the games together we'd talk about them.
We both agreed that four was the right number for a playoff. To let others share our thoughts, we concluded that four was a good number. Eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and sixty-four wouldn't be necessary for a tournament. Two games could be played around Christmas with a championship on New Years Day - night.
The most overlooked aspect of all of this is the fact that the power conferences in the BCS already are having a tournaments like basketball. So if the conferences have a championship game why not the NCAA? From a fan's perspective I was happy just watching lots of games on New Years Day, but it's all about money. The BCS just spreads out the games and takes away what ultimately made the bowl games so much fun to watch.
Posted by: The Sports Freak | January 7, 2009 11:55 PM
While I agree with the overall concept, my only hesitation to a playoff is that I truly believe it will not solve all of the complaining. How many teams are you going to include in the playoffs? Four? If only four teams were included then everyone would be up in arms about the number 5, 6, or 7 teams not being included in the playoff. If there were eight teams, the media would still cry "how could they leave out so and so?" If you think that wouldn't happen then just look at NCAA Basketball: people get all riled up over the 66th best team in the country being denied a spot in the tourney.
Posted by: Bob | January 8, 2009 8:08 PM
Agreed that 4 may not be enough. However, that is a slight improvement over the BCS system which is essentially a two team playoff.
True that March Madness always makes the 66-70 teams upset that they didn't make it. So steal from themselves. Take the winner of each conference, by title game if there is one. If not, regular season champion. Round it out with a few at-large teams. Reduce the regular season by a game or two so you can start in November. You then can have 6 rounds of playoffs. The biggest obstacle at this point is finals for the Fall. So instead forget most at large bids and start with 32 teams. If you start Thanksgiving weekend, take 2 weeks off in December for finals and play 2 weeks in January, you have 5 rounds of playoffs.
OK, this is wishful thinking, but you gotta start somewhere. 16 teams, 8, it does not matter. As long as it is decided on the field, it's better than the BCS.
Posted by: Big Money Tony
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January 8, 2009 8:28 PM
I'll give you one more idea. How many teams are there in NCAA Division 1A football? About 120. Add a few more teams to get it to 128 teams. Then you could have one huge 7 round, single-elimination tournament for the title. Wouldn't that be awesome? Aside from teams potentially playing less games (meaning less money) it isn't as logistically difficult as I first would have thought. You could still have 5 or 6 games for teams to schedule among themselves. Schedule your rivalries such as Michagan vs. Ohio St., Florida vs. Florida St., USC vs. Notre Dame, and some cupcake games during September and October. Then seed the top teams and start the 128 team single elimination tournament.
Posted by: Bob | January 14, 2009 9:37 PM