BCS Mess

Even though I know every sportswriter in the country will kick this dead horse of an issue over the next month, I have to comment about the BCS Armageddon season. First, I want to take a look back at how we got to this situation. The first sign this season was going to be a disaster was when App State beat Michigan, who many predicted would be in the National Championship game. Since then, 11 teams that were ranked #1 or 2 have lost (including S. Florida, who was number 2 after week 7.) At this point, I see legitimate arguments for nine teams to fill 2 spots in the National Championship game: Ohio State, Georgia, West Virginia, LSU, Virginia Tech, Kansas, USC, Oklahoma, and Hawaii. If we had a (I won't say the dirty word, but it rhymes with shmayoff), then we would be arguing over which 8 of those 9 would have a shot rather than which 2. I think we can all agree that is a preferable situation.

At this point, it seems OSU is a lock to make the championship and make me sick for another month. So how will the voters and computers decide their opponent? For starters, the BCS voters aren't ready for a non-BCS team to make the championship game, so Hawaii is out. (The way the top 6 conference chairpeople formed the BCS, thereby deciding only their teams are worthy of competing for the Division 1 Championship is the worst example of a sports monopoly today). The second criteria they're gonna use is winning your own conference. That takes the team many believe to be playing the best right now (Georgia) and the other one-loss team (Kansas) out of the picture. The next factor that they are going to use is how they finished - it doesn't seem fair to put a team that lost their last game in the championship, so bye bye West Virginia. Finally, you have to look at head-to-head matchups. In week 2, LSU destroyed Va Tech 48-7. In the end, strength of schedule will decide among USC, LSU, and Oklahoma. Tonight, LSU will jump three teams that were ranked ahead of them (none of which lost yesterday) to become the #2 team in the country. What a great day for Tiger fans - they keep their coach and make their way back into the national championship game.

Who, you may wonder, do I think should make the National Championship game? Hawaii. They did everything they were asked to do - beat all 12 teams on their schedule.

This year has made the need for a shmayoff even more apparent. Let's revisit the arguments against one.
1. The regular season is a playoff - every game matters! Partially true - U-M was knocked out when the last second ticked off the clock against App State. However, as I said before, Hawaii went undefeated and they won't be playing for the National Championship. Kansas only lost 1 game, but a 2 loss team will be playing instead of them. Out of the 3 teams with similar credentials, only one will make it.
2. The playoff will interfere with academics. We have to worry about finals! I can sympathize with this argument, but the NCAA isn't truely worried about this. Team tutors administer exams to athletes on the road all the time. Plus, not every school follows the same academic calendar. Ohio University students take their finals before Thanksgiving and have a month and a half of Winter break. However, the largest hole in this argument is the fact that the other Divisions have had successful football playoffs for years.
3. It will ruin the bowl season. We must keep the tradition! Bowl season tradition was killed when we were introduced to the Papajohns.com Bowl and on January 3rd, 2002 when neither a Big 10 team or a Pac 10 team played in the Rose Bowl. An 8 team football playoff could begin next week with the second round on the following weekend. The bowl season would begin the weekend after and would conclude with the National Championship game as always. Or, you could enhance the bowl season by having the semi-finals on New Year's Day with the Championship taking place one week later.

The current BCS system is bringing a lot of attention to the sport and causing a lot of discussion, but for negative reasons. There really is a lot at stake over who makes the national championship game. Besides the obvious excitement for players and fans, there is a lot of money at stake. The payout to each conference is expected to be $17 million. On top of that, there is the increased amount of donations a school receives because of excited alumni who want to be a contributing part of the action by signing a check. If you don't think this is a big deal, read this article about the University of Florida's success. In the end, I will watch the bowl games like I normally do and be hopeful that MSU is never the team on the outside looking in like USC and Oklahoma will be on January 7.

Addendum
After seeing the BCS Results show (which was painful to watch) the biggest winner other than LSU was Illinois. I am excited that we will see a Big 10/Pac 10 matchup. The lowest scoring game will be the Alamo Bowl - Penn State vs. Texas A&M. Most interesting: Brut Sun Bowl - Oregon vs. S. Florida. Upset: Motor City Bowl - CMU vs. Purdue. Biggest Blowout: International Bowl - Rutgers vs. Ball State. I really like MSU's opportunity; BC is a tough opponent and it will be fun to watch.

In my research, I discovered 7 Big 10 teams have made a BCS Bowl - MSU, Minnesota, Indiana, and Northwestern are the only ones who haven't. Florida State, Notre Dame, and Michigan are a combined 2-11 in BCS games. LSU and OSU are 7-1.