I’ve decided to change my blog. I like writing about sports more than I do myself because it is debatable, it is my number one hobby, and it is my profession. I am going to keep talking about a lot of different sports, fantasy football, and the sports business. To really feel like I changed my blog, I switched from to this new layout.
The first thing I want to talk about is the BCS. The Daily Quickie on espn.com today talked about how BCS haters have only a few more days to complain before the controversy ends with an Alabama loss. He’s right. I predicted the end of the controversy last week by correctly picking Miami over Va Tech and I think Alabama will lose this weekend. USC and Texas won’t lose another game because USC is almost an NFL team and Texas is in the NFC North of the NCAA. But the BCS still has been controversial every year except for 2002. The people in favor of the system argue it makes regular season games more important and teams can’t afford to make a mistake. Let’s review a little history:
In 1998, Tennessee (1) and Tulane (10) were undefeated. There were six teams with one loss including Florida State (2) and Kansas St (3).
In 1999, Florida State (1), Virginia Tech (2), and Marshall (12) all went undefeated. This isn’t as controversial, but who’s to say Marshall couldn’t have pulled an upset? They didn’t lose a single game, so shouldn’t they have had a shot?
In 2000, Oklahoma (1) was undefeated. There were six teams with one loss including Florida State (2) and Miami (3).
In 2001, Miami (1) went undefeated. Four teams, including Nebraska (2) and Oregon (4) Illinois (8) and Maryland (11), had one loss. Colorado (3) had two losses but was still ranked higher than two teams with one loss.
In 2002, only two teams were undefeated; Miami (1) and Ohio State (2). This is the only year that the BCS worked properly with no controversy.
In 2003, six teams had one loss including Oklahoma (1), LSU (2), USC (3), Miami (OH) (11), Boise St (17), and TCU (18).
In 2004, five teams went undefeated including USC (1), Oklahoma (2), Auburn (3), Utah (6), and Boise State (9).
Florida State and Oklahoma have benefited the most when there’s controversy. I know that Kevin would say that the controversy is good because it makes the games more exciting. But the system leans in favor of the major teams in the major conferences. If Michigan State, Oklahoma, and Miami were all undefeated, who do you think will be left out? If they opened it up to an 8 team playoff system, it would be less controversial because it would include more teams. The system has encouraged teams outside of the six BCS conferences to put better teams on their non conference schedule to get national respect. If they had more of a chance, they would have even more of a reason to play better teams. Then we would be able to tell how good an undefeated Utah or Boise St really is.
So what they really need to do is eliminate conference championship games and have the first round of the tournament in its place. The six conference champions get automatic bids and then there are two at large spots. The semi finals would take place around December 30 and the final bowl game is still around January 7. Is that too much football for them to be playing? Perhaps. Then just make it a 4 team tournament. Will it make less money than the current system? I don’t see how more games would make less money. Will it be more exciting? Definitely.
3 comments:
But a playoff system is not necessarily without controversy.
Let's say that you have a four team playoff system, and three teams go undefeated.
Which of the one-loss teams gets in?
As far as money goes:
You're right in that more games = more money, but that extra money would be more spread out.
Lets say you have Team A making 10 million from a BCS bowl game.
Now switch to a playoff system.
Team A gets 6 million, and Team B gets 6 million.
As far as Team A is concerned, they are losing 4 million on the switch, even though Team A and Team B combined to make more than Team A could alone.
Which one loss team is selected doesn't matter as much because they had an option. There were three teams that had a better record then that team. There were five years where the number two team and the number three team had the same record. How many years since 1998 have the top five teams all had the same record? None. My point is it makes it less controversial.
Post a Comment