In his convincing argument for scrapping the BCS system, Dan Wetzel left out the most compelling reason for doing so: nearly half of the teams playing at the highest level of college football have absolutely no chance of ever playing for the league’s title no matter how good they are or how many games they win.
Everyone knows about Utah and Boise State. Both have completed unbeaten seasons at the highest level of college football recently and had no chance to win the title. Nowhere else in sport can this happen. The Detroit Lions, if they surprise everyone and go undefeated, certainly make the NFL playoffs, and no one would ever say that they didn’t deserve to be there. If the Pirates decided finally to keep a few good players, and they won enough games, they would make the playoffs. No one would say, oh, well, they’re not really good enough to compete for the World Series title; we’ll just give them a consolation game against the Nationals, throw it on national TV, and call it good. Leave the World Series to big-name teams like the Yankees. This sounds absurd and stupid, yes, but it’s the system in college football.
The standard response to this argument is always something like, "You don’t actually believe that on a neutral field, Boise State or Utah would have any shot against Florida or USC, do you?" This question is the whole problem. It’s asking people to speculate on hype, silly rankings, and imaginary match-ups rather than determining a champion based on actual on-the-field performance. And for the record, yes, I do think that Boise State or Utah would have a chance in a game like that. Aren’t both programs undefeated in BCS games? Weren’t Boise State and Utah big underdogs to Oklahoma and Alabama, respectively? Despite that, both teams won. That’s why they play the games. They don’t just say, well, Lee Corso doesn’t think Boise State has a chance against Oklahoma, so we’ll just chalk up the win to the Sooners and not bother to play the game.
The bottom line is that not one of the arguments for the current system makes any sense. Like Wetzel says, the BCS is the clever scheme of a series of money-grubbing assholes who are depriving us fans, and nearly half of all college football teams, of a legit system so that they can line their pockets.
Brian, your last sentence says it all – it’s all about the bottom line. Or, better said by some famous rapper, “It’s all about the Benjamins” (or more humorously said by The Lonely Island in “Lazy Sunday,” “It’s all about the Hamiltons”).
ReplyDeleteI don’t disagree that the system is stupid. I think everyone would love to see an 8 game playoff, including the President. That is, everyone except the university administrators, conference chairman, and NCAA personnel. And I don’t think the corporations that sponsor the 40-some bowl games (or at least that’s how many it feels like there are) – including the New York Yankees who will be hosting a game in the new Yankee Stadium - would appreciate it either. Money talks and college football teams that aren’t in a major conference walk.
Oh, and you may need a follow-up to your earlier post about Blount being suspended for the year. It looks like he might be reinstated before the end of the season.
Yeah; I saw something about how they were thinking of re-instating Blount at Oregon. And I was so pleased with the way they'd already dealt with it...now, it's like all is forgiven because the guy's been good for a few weeks.
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