3 Reason Why We Can't Live Without the BCS

by Arnaldo

1. There's No Going Back.


The BCS was specifically designed to pit the No.1 and No.2 teams together in a national championship game so there would be no uncertainty about which teams is truly the nation's best.  You may think this is obvious but it really didn't start happening until the BCS was formed in 1998.  Its predecessor, the Bowl Alliance, and its predecessor, the Bowl Coalition, set out to do just that but couldn't get the Pac 10 or the Big 10 involved, which left the Rose Bowl to screw things up for everyone.  The result was the opposite of the goal.

...AM I RIGHT?!

The game of the century...

Loyal Gator fans may remember that in 1996, No.3 Florida played in the Sugar Bowl against No.1 Florida State because No.2 Arizona State was locked into the Rose Bowl with No.4 Ohio State.  Because of the Rose Bowl's refusal to lose one of its big money-making tie-ins, the national champion would have to be somehow sifted out of that mess.  Luckily, Arizona State fell to the Buckeyes while the Gators exacted revenge over Florida State for its embarassing loss just a month before, leaving no ambiguity as to whom should be crowned national champions.

College football wasn't always so lucky however.  Just the following year, No.1 Michigan was locked into the Rose Bowl against No.8 Washington State while the Bowl Alliance dubbed their "national championship match" No.2 Nebraska versus No.3 Tennessee.  No matter how decisively Michigan beat Washington State, they would still have to share the national championship with Nebraska.  Six years after setting out to match up No.1 and No.2, these systems only accomplished such match-ups three times.  Naturally, this left way for the BCS to form, kick the Rose Bowl in the ass and tell them to cut it out, and introduce computer formulas as part of their ranking system.

I bet Power T misses those days.

2. Coaches Can't Be Trusted, but Computers Can.


If you don't know the following names, you probably should: Jeff Sagarin, Jeff Anderson and Chris Heston, Richard Billingsley, Wes Colley, Kenneth Massey, and Peter Wolfe.  They're the seven most important men in college football, I don't care what ESPN says.  If the BCS were a medieval secret society, these men would be the council of elders.

Like this, but nerdier... ok, less nerdy.

They are the creators of the six computer formulas that make up a third of the BCS rankings and when compared to the other thirds, the Harris Interactive Poll, which is made up of a randomized 115 voters, or the USA Today Coaches' Poll, which is comprised up of only 59 of the 120 FBS head coaches, they clearly hold the most power.  Of course, however, they don't actually pick which teams they think are best.  Instead, these men create the six (two are a duo; adorbs, I know) formulas and algorithms that determine which teams are.  Needless to say, they are incredibly smart; two of them hold Ph.D.s (one in astrophysical sciences from Princeton).

But don't worry, they're not actually hell-bent on dominating college football with lairs of super computers and lab equipment (a disappointment, I'll admit).  Most of them haven't even met each other.  The egos alone would be too much to handle, claims Billingsley, and all of their formulas have fundamental disagreements, such as home field advantages, particular effects from strength of schedule, and how exactly to calculate early season versus late season game significance.  The point is that these formulas level one another out.  Also, keep in mind that the highest and lowest score for each team is thrown out.  What they do best is keep those cynical coaches in line.

Why are they cynical you ask?  Go to Les Miles' office and candidly ask him who he thinks is the best team in the nation.  No doubt he'll say his own team, and he clearly has the right to do so.  Now go ask Nick Saban.  He'll probably also say his own team, and he, too, has all the right to do so.  Now go ask Houston Nutt.  Hopefully he wouldn't say his 2-8 Rebels but to be honest, if I were in his position, I'd sure as hell would.  It's only natural to be a bit biased, and the same goes to all those former players and coaches voting in the Harris Poll.

Univesity of Oklahoma = OU?

To throw some proof into my argument (some people still use "proof"), go back to the 2008 college football season.  The No.2 Gators were pitted against No.1 Oklahoma Sooners, the team that despite being in a 3-way tie with Texas and Texas Tech for the Big 12 South, had one of college football's most successful offenses scoring a whopping 52.9 points per game.  Florida held them to only two touchdowns winning 24-14, beating two top ranked teams back-to-back.  No one questioned that the Florida Gators were the best team in the nation... except for one prick.

You mean this powerhouse?

Kyle Whittingham, Utah head coach, finished his season undefeated with a Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama and annoucned publicly he would vote his team No.1 and to hell with the consequences.  The catch is that the American Football Coaches' Association requires all coaches to vote the winner of the BCS National Championship Game No.1 in the final Coaches' Poll.  I'm not sure if he was fined, but I assume there was a reprimand of some sort (no one cared enough to write anything about it).

The point is that the computers serve as a check and balance for the human voters, much like the American Constitution does for our government, and you support America don't you?



3. To Play-off or Not to Play-off . . . The Answer's "Not". 


The simplest way to settle any multiplayer competition is with a tournament, there's no disagreement there.  The problem is that college football isn't at all simple, and the road to simplicity is paved with millions and millions of dollars that aren't yours and aren't going anywhere.

Like this, but green and not as happy.

In theory, with 120 FBS teams, you could have a seven game play-off with a few first round byes and then EVERYONE has a shot for the naitonal championship (I'd like to see President Obama's bracket then).  But doing so means teams would have to travel across the country every other week, fans would have to follow them, and rivalries would diminish.  After all, you can't sustain a rivalry if you don't play that team often.  Of course, some rivalries have been established for over a century, so diminishing said rivalries could result in a hot steaming mess of hostility.

Obviuosly this is an extreme case and a likely play-off system wouldn't exceed eight teams.  This would call for 3 extra games between the conference championship games and the national championship.  the problem here is that there is already an extensive system in place that also isn't going anywhere: bowl games.  One possible solution is the use bowl games as play-offs.  This couldn't be more disastrous in my mind.  I already mentioned how reluctant (and stupid) the Rose Bowl has been to loosen its conference tie-ins for the good of college football.  This idea would require almost all bowl games to lose their tie-ins and diminish in value altogether.  Bowl games make money from television deals and butts in seats at stadiums.  These butts sit down because it's there team's last game.  Say you're an LSU alumnus right now, but in this proposed play-off system, and say you had a good living with a moderate income.  Your team has to play in Atlanta, and then three other places before it can get to New Orleans for the national championship.  How many of these expensive trips would you be willing to make?  Maybe one if it's close, but the realistic answer is that you're gonna hold up for the big 'Ship.  Who wouldn't?  The good people who run these tgames and the not-so-good people who televise them know this.  The coaches and teams don't want to play more games, and the institutions will never let this radical new idea cut into their regular season revenue.

You mad, bro?

Also consider this, what happens to the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and all the other classic bowl games we've been watching for over a century?  They become stepping stones for the national championship.  The winner of the national championship would also be the winner of the Sugar Bowl, and the Rose Bowl, or whatever game was used as a play-off.  Where do you think that Sugar Bowl trophy goes in the trophy room?  Probably somewhere behind the Coaches' Trophy they won a week later.  And the prize money?  Are we gonna let one team clean house on all the $17 million payouts these games award?

You mean the Franklin American
Mortgage Company Music City Bowl
will keep its prestige? Thank God!

I once devised a system that in my opinion is the closes thing to a feasible play-off.  It's a play-off plus bowl game.  The top eight teams go into a home/away seeded play-off (more money for the schools instead of the BCS), where the losers of each level get selected to a major bowl game to be played the same week as the following play-off, with a bye before the national championship game.  All other bowl games are selected as usual.  This makes a win-win situation (at least financially) for everyone.  There are more games to be televised, the universities make more money hosting games, and the major bowl games are only slightly diminished.  They would, after all, be a loser's bracket in this scenario.



The reason I don't agree with (even my own) play-off system is mostly because of the potential for a loss of pageantry.  Any team should be excited to be in a major bowl game.  It should be hard to get there.  The idea of making them a loser's game changes the entire perception for hungry teams.  If you don't believe me see 2008 Alabama.  They lost to Florida in the SEC Championship and entered the usually prestigious Sugar Bowl with nothing to play for and lost to a non-automatic qualifier, Utah (as I mentioned before).  Sure Florida went into the same scenario the next year and won by quite a margin, but not all teams are coached the same, and not all teams play just for the sake of playing the game.  Also, there's the clinch problem.  Now, because there isn't a guaranteed clinch in this system, this shouldn't be a big or frequent problem, but it could still happen.  This year's LSU team could sit their starters, lose to Georgia, and they wouldn't drop below No.8.  Experts are saying they have such a bump over everyone else, they could lose and still go to the national championship at No.2.  Not only is the pageantry of college football being diminished, the conference championship would become completely insignificant in this scenario.

The moral of the story, kids, is that the BCS isn't evil; it's not even a bad idea.  Quite frankly, it's still the best idea we've had in the entire history of college football for crowning a national champion.  Any changes would just bring us closer to the No Fun League (good closing joke, huh?).