Spring Break
What's Best for the BCS
Ralph MacDonald
Issue date: 11/19/08 Section: Sports
On its best days, it seems that the BCS system is just a necessary evil for college football. Here are four ways we can make the BCS as perfect as possible.
1. Everybody has to play a conference title game. As of right now, only the SEC, Big 12, and ACC play a title game. Does it seem unfair to anybody else that three of the least-competitive conferences (the Big 10, Pac-10, and Big East) all miss an opportunity to incur an extra loss? The Big 10 needs one extra team to give it the twelve it needs to implement the conference championship, and I would like to see how Notre Dame manages a conference schedule. The Pac-10 needs two extra teams, stealing Boise State and either BYU or Utah should help add depth to a conference that is on the verge of being won by a mediocre Oregon State team. The only tricky conference is the Big East, which need four extra teams. The best possibilities would appear to be East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Troy, and the University of Central Florida.
2. Forget about an eight team play-off. The question is how much would you really want to cheapen an undefeated season? An undefeated season in college sports is a difficult and significant feat and should be treated as such. To treat an undefeated team almost as equally as a one-loss or two-loss team by putting them in the same play-off bracket seems wrong. No team is dominant enough to cruise through three top-10 opponents-it requires a little bit of luck. It would be a shame to have a two-loss team (Ohio State anyone?) get lucky in a play-off and overcome a hypothetically undefeated Texas Tech team when they had not earned the opportunity. Likewise, you do not want to go the other way and do something awful such as leaving an undefeated Auburn Tigers team to watch Oklahoma get clobbered by USC in the 2004 National Championship.
3. So go with the "plus-1" format. The plus-1-an additional game after all the bowls are played-would essentially be a four-team playoff. The No. 1 team should play the No. 4 team in a bowl, while the No. 2 team plays No. 3. We have never seen more than three teams with a legitimate claim to the National Championship game after an undefeated season, and more than four seems extremely far-fetched. Naturally, there would be one-loss teams competing for a chance to play for the championship. But if you lose a game in college football then you forfeit your right to any certainty. As a bonus, the whiny Pac 10 and Big 10 commissioners can keep their Rose Bowl "tradition" of funneling money back to their conferences intact since the game would take place after all the bowls.
4. What about the kids?! They'll miss too many classes! I have thought about the kids and all the classes they will miss for the additional games in my format and have made the decision to cancel the college basketball season. Those kids travel way more than the football players, and I think we should not let the season go on until we do something about it. If you are truly concerned with the welfare of the college athlete, then we can cut the non-conference schedule from four games to three games and just have to deal with not getting our classic Alabama vs. Western Carolina game.
1. Everybody has to play a conference title game. As of right now, only the SEC, Big 12, and ACC play a title game. Does it seem unfair to anybody else that three of the least-competitive conferences (the Big 10, Pac-10, and Big East) all miss an opportunity to incur an extra loss? The Big 10 needs one extra team to give it the twelve it needs to implement the conference championship, and I would like to see how Notre Dame manages a conference schedule. The Pac-10 needs two extra teams, stealing Boise State and either BYU or Utah should help add depth to a conference that is on the verge of being won by a mediocre Oregon State team. The only tricky conference is the Big East, which need four extra teams. The best possibilities would appear to be East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Troy, and the University of Central Florida.
2. Forget about an eight team play-off. The question is how much would you really want to cheapen an undefeated season? An undefeated season in college sports is a difficult and significant feat and should be treated as such. To treat an undefeated team almost as equally as a one-loss or two-loss team by putting them in the same play-off bracket seems wrong. No team is dominant enough to cruise through three top-10 opponents-it requires a little bit of luck. It would be a shame to have a two-loss team (Ohio State anyone?) get lucky in a play-off and overcome a hypothetically undefeated Texas Tech team when they had not earned the opportunity. Likewise, you do not want to go the other way and do something awful such as leaving an undefeated Auburn Tigers team to watch Oklahoma get clobbered by USC in the 2004 National Championship.
3. So go with the "plus-1" format. The plus-1-an additional game after all the bowls are played-would essentially be a four-team playoff. The No. 1 team should play the No. 4 team in a bowl, while the No. 2 team plays No. 3. We have never seen more than three teams with a legitimate claim to the National Championship game after an undefeated season, and more than four seems extremely far-fetched. Naturally, there would be one-loss teams competing for a chance to play for the championship. But if you lose a game in college football then you forfeit your right to any certainty. As a bonus, the whiny Pac 10 and Big 10 commissioners can keep their Rose Bowl "tradition" of funneling money back to their conferences intact since the game would take place after all the bowls.
4. What about the kids?! They'll miss too many classes! I have thought about the kids and all the classes they will miss for the additional games in my format and have made the decision to cancel the college basketball season. Those kids travel way more than the football players, and I think we should not let the season go on until we do something about it. If you are truly concerned with the welfare of the college athlete, then we can cut the non-conference schedule from four games to three games and just have to deal with not getting our classic Alabama vs. Western Carolina game.
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